Purely Relative is COMING!!

Never say never is my new motto.

I never planned on writing a sequel to my debut novel, The P.U.R.E., and I didn’t. I did, however, write a novella that’s sort of a tweener. I’m calling it The P.U.R.E. #1.5, but chronologically the story falls between the next to last and last chapters. If I were to reissue The P.U.R.E. I’d call the last chapter an epilogue but eh, no biggie.

What is a biggie is my little novella is called Purely Relative. I plan on self-publishing it on or near April 30, 2013. Yes, this year! Eek!

Why self-publish when J Taylor Publishing handled The P.U.R.E.? Well, several reasons. The biggest is I didn’t want to wait a long time to get on the production schedule. J Taylor is growing fast, adding more authors and sequels, etc. The P.U.R.E. released April 16, 2012. I wanted the sequel to release close to the one year mark–way too fast for any third party publisher to achieve.

The second reason is I wanted to try my hand at self-publishing. Really. I’ve learned a lot about the business over the past year. I’ve learned about typesetting, cover production, book trailers, book tours, HTML, ISBNs…the mind, it boggles! Call me a control freak, but I really do like having a hand in all the technical aspects of creating a book, not just the writing of it.

Step one (after I wrote the novella, of course, and after I got the professional editing started) was designing the cover. The artist at J Taylor did an excellent job with The P.U.R.E. no doubt about it. I lifted certain elements from that cover–the two people standing, the font, the white background–but made it more light-hearted. I showed the faces of the two characters. There is no murder or mystery in Purely Relative. No guns. No beating up bad guys. It’s 100% a love story. That said, I added the motif of the two fingerprints in the shape of a heart as a bit of a tribute to how Gayle and Jon got together. The humor is an integral part, always. I can’t NOT include that.

So after the lengthy preamble, behold the cover for Purely Relative:

And the back of the book blurb:

Unemployed and living far from home, Gayle Lindley is nevertheless lucky to be alive after narrowly escaping her murderous ex-employer. She’s also thankful to the boyfriend gods for having blessed her with a former co-worker. Jon Cripps is brains, brawn and bedroom-certified, all in one delectable package. Life is finally on the uptick.

…Or so Gayle thinks until Jon pops the big question—no, not marriage, but meeting the rest of his family. What he neglects to mention is his loose familial definition also includes the parents of his ex-fiancée. And too bad Gayle has already met one sibling while engaged in a vigorous mattress inspection with Jon. Everyone will think she’s a man-stealing hussy!

As Gayle tiptoes into the bosom of Jon’s extended family, she is deluged with more secrets than even her curious nature can absorb. But the drama hits hardest when Jon, mysterious as ever, drops a bombshell that threatens to unravel every single stitch of progress she has made with him and his … ‘interesting’ relations.

Stay tuned! In a couple more weeks, I’ll show you the book trailer and other artwork I made as well as share information about the tour. You’ll get a sneak peek at an excerpt from chapter one. I’ll probably have a post or two or three about the highs and lows of self-publishing.

In the meantime…if anyone wants to lend a helping hand, I could use some stops on my blog tour in the first couple of weeks of May. I would love reviews (when I get the ARCs ready). I would love some extra “ta da’s” in revealing the book trailer and the book itself. Tweets, retweets and Facebook shares and Likes always appreciated. As a matter of fact…be sure to check out (and Like) the Facebook page I made for Purely Relative here: