Coming from Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, etc, on April 5, 2024!

Lobo is socially awkward lone wolf who never expected his wolf to choose a mate. Gen is woman who thought she was the only survivor of a plane crash that threw her fifty years into a post-apocalyptic future where women are rare and obliged to marry.

When a local rancher gets pushy about marriage, Gen looks desperately for an escape. Lobo offers to take her to his cousin’s Pack, where other women from the crash lives. That sounds good to her. He might stumble over his words when talking to her, but he has no trouble scaring off her would-be suitors. But what does he want in exchange for his protection?

Is that a crazy title for a blog post or what? LOL More on that down below.

I have been hard at work getting my books back up. So far Sleeping With the Wolf, Wolf’s Glory, Wolf Tracker, Wolf’s Oath, Sherry’s Wolf, and Eddie’s Prize have been reviewed and put up at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and other places. Tonight I loaded Ellie’s Wolf and Wolf’s Vengeance up and they should be available soon. And!! I commissioned professional cover art for Lobo’s Mate and I got the mock up. It is sooo nice! I will share when it is final.

You know, as I was reviewing the manuscripts I was struck by how good I thought every single one was. I don’t want to sound big-headed, but they are good! Not great, like some of my favorite authors are, but very enjoyable. Thank you to everyone who read them!

So. The Emotional Support Chicken. There is a pattern on Ravelry that you can knit and stuff, and it is a chicken. The first time I saw it I thought it was stupid and not anything I would want. But the more I saw it the more I liked it. I saw one that another writer friend had made and I decided it was about the cutest thing ever. And the brouhaha with my old church has left me feeling a bit bruised, so maybe an emotional support chicken would be good for me? I am about 10% done since my knitting time has been a bit scanty due to the day job and then working on the backlist to re-publish.

Here in North Dakota we’ve barely had winter. This has been the warmest winter on record. But of course this is still March in North Dakota so we are expecting a storm starting tomorrow night and running through Monday night. Snow fall of 6″-12″ (15-30 cm) is expected, and of course there will be wind. I may need to stay home from church on Sunday. You know what that means? Yes, READING time!

The Dakotas and Minnesota aren’t the only places expecting a winter storm. I hope wherever you are, you will have a lovely weekend with lots of fun and some good books to read.

Love,

Maddy

For the last six weeks I have been swamped by anger and bitterness and hurt while I tried to come to grips with my church situation. It has been difficult, but I have come out the other side with my faith intact and in some ways even stronger. I have found an Evangelical Free church in the neighboring city that I like a lot. The music is good, and the pastors are preaching through the gospel of Mark, and the people are friendly.

I still occasionally feel some hurt and anger toward my old church, but less and less often. I think they are wrong, but I don’t believe they meant to hurt me by telling me my books are sinful and I am leading readers to sin and hell. Sin is sin, and in their minds, writing porn is as wrong as committing murder. I agree sin is wrong and should be confronted and stopped. I don’t agree that my books are sinful. I don’t think they handled it well, but they are doing what they believe is right.

I have been going through my books to fix any typos and I am struck anew by something that is similar in nearly all the books: the heroes are tender, respectful, and loving with their mates. The love scenes are not for titillation; they help the reader see the love between the hero and heroine. The stories are not pornography.

As I said, I am going through my books in preparation for them to go back up at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other online retailers. I used to have my books in Amazon Kindle Unlimited, but I am going to take the opportunity to have them everywhere. We’ll see how they do. If they sell well, I will keep them at all retailers. If they don’t sell as well as I’d like I may put them back in Kindle Unlimited, which means they are available only through Amazon. We see how things look by Labor Day.

So far, Sleeping With the Wolf and Wolf’s Glory are available now at most retailers. I plan to have Wolf Tracker, Wolf’s Oath and Sherry’s Wolf published by Sunday. If things continue to go on schedule Eddie’s Prize will be up by March 17.

It’s kinda big-headed for me to say it, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed re-reading these stories. It’s been quite a while since I wrote them and I’d forgotten so much. Taye is such a good man. And Tracker! Boy, I just LOVE Tracker! I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

That’s the update for now. I just finished reading A Wolf So Grim and Mangy by Caroline Noe. If you, like me, have some gray hair and aches and pains that come with age, and you enjoy a little humor with your romance, you might really enjoy that book too. Here is a link if you want to check it out: https://amzn.to/3PdN898

Until next time, HAPPY READING!!

Some people have asked what is going on with my books being taken down. Here is a (not so) brief explanation. On the morning of Saturday 1/27/24 I received an email from my pastor and the elder of my church. It was lengthy and detailed.

One line was: “When I (pastor) looked into what you were writing it grieved me. Your books glorify all kinds of sexual sin and describe sexual acts in explicitly pornographic detail.” And another was: “We urge you to no longer engage in the writing, reading, or spread of sexual content causing others to also stumble and fall into the sins of lust and sexual impurity. You have profited off of the sale of this material and have willingly put it in front of people, tempting them to sin and to lust as you have. It is a serious thing to lead others into sin and away from Christ.”

And what I needed to do: “Repentance looks like the following:
1. Confess your sin to the Lord and repent of it.
2. Cease selling and profiting off of this sin and take down or destroy any of your work that is sexual in nature and instead use your gifts, talents, and abilities as a writer to produce works that honor the Lord and do not glorify sin.
3. Continue to invest in your spiritual health by attending the ministries of the church and building relationships with godly people. Seek godly counsel and accountability from your sisters in Christ and others in the church.
4. Provide the church with a new email address for you that is not related to Maddy Barone. “

Before I go any further, I want to make a confession of faith. Feel free to skip down a paragraph if you don’t want to read about my faith.

I believe in God. I believe that I and everyone else is a sinner. No one can say they have never broken a single one of the 10 commandments even once. Our screw ups separate us from God. I believe that God loves us and wants us to be UNseparated from Him, but He is holy and cannot bear sin. So He made a plan so people can be in a relationship with him. He sent Jesus, who is God himself, to die so our sins are paid for. The Jewish people made sacrifices at the temple to pay for sin. They would find the most perfect lamb to sacrifice, but that sacrifice had to be performed on a continuing basis. Jesus was THE perfect lamb, the lamb of God, and His sacrifice was the last one required for forgiveness of sin. Anyone who believes they are a sinner and is sorry for it and asks Jesus to forgive them is a Christian. I am a Christian and I believe that Christians are called to be part of a local body of fellow believers.

Okay. So I got that email and was shocked. Horrified. Angry. So angry. And scared. I love my church. I have been there for more than 20 years. They have been utterly supportive of me while I battled cancer. I am not done battling cancer. How could I do it on my own? On that first day I was willing to do ANYTHING to keep my church family. I rushed to take down my books. I made announcements on my Facebooks pages. I made a statement on my website.

But the more I did, the more I realized I wasn’t doing it to please God. I was doing it so I could stay in my church. I do not think my books are pornography. I think they are love stories featuring one man and one woman in a monogamous permanent relationship. To agree with the demands my pastor and elder are making would be like agreeing that the sun rises in the west. It would be lying.

So I have left my church. It broke my heart. I’m not angry now, only very, very sad. Still a little disbelieving, actually. (Like HOW could this have happened? I have been going to that church for half my life, and I’ve been published for 14 of those years, but this is just happening NOW? Why?) It’s like I lost my whole family in a car crash or in some expected way. I am grieving. I have spent hours in prayer and tears. This was not an easy decision. Maddy Barone is not just my pen name. My SCA friends have known me as Maddy since 1998. How could I cut them loose because of a name?

I have decided to take some time reviewing my books for typos or minor updates and then put them back up, hopefully by April 1. So that is where I am at. I apologize for my hasty de-listing of my books. I was drowning in panic and denial when I did it and it confused some of you. I am sorry.

I won’t blather on too long in this post, since you’ve probably read a ton of these types of post over the past few days. But here we go:

This is the time of the year when many of us look back over the last year and see where we are compared to where we started. Well, last night I looked back on 2023 and darned if I know where I am compared to where I was! In a way 2023 was just a holding pattern for me. Getting scans and then waiting. And Waiting. And WAITING! LOL I am not the most patient person , can you tell? I spent much of my time knitting, quilting and reading.

My writing mojo pretty much fizzled out for much of the year. However, after I finished my radiation in October I decided to make a push to finish a short story I had started a couple of years ago. It takes place in December, and ends on Christmas Eve so I thought putting it out just before Christmas would be nice. I released Lobo’s Mate for free in my newsletter in December 22. It will remain free at THIS LINK for another few days. I hope to have professional cover art done and I will release it on Amazon sometime in the next few months.

I am not sure what 2024 holds for me. I have a fantasy romance started. I’ve had it started for some time. I am just not sure if it is any good or if I should try something else. Finishing Lobo’s Mate has given me a bit of enthusiasm for writing again. We’ll see what happens!

I hope you all have a wonderful 2024!

HAPPY READING!!

Hello! For some time I’ve been playing with the idea for a story for Shadow’s cousin Lobo/Laura. Maybe you remember him? He and his faithful Beagle first made an appearance in Wolf’s Glory. We saw him again at the end of Gina’s Wolf, and there he had a mate. So how did he meet his mate? Well, tomorrow night you can learn all about it!

Lobo’s Mate After the Crash 4.5 is a 30,000 word novella that takes place between Eddie’s Prize and Ellie’s Wolf. I am sending it out in my newsletter tomorrow night. This is a freebie that I wrote as a thank you for you, my readers. If you’d like to read it and are not signed up for my newsletter there is still time to sign up (see the image at the right). The newsletter will go out tomorrow night around supper time. The holidays get so busy, but maybe you can sneak in a few hours to read.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!

So… back at the end of October I promised you an update. This is long and if you don’t want to read a description of my cancer journey, you should skip to the WHAT AM I DOING NOW? section at the end. Everyone else, buckle up. 🙂

Some of you may know that I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in July of 2020. We did infusion chemo, followed by radiation and oral chemo, and then surgery to remove the tumor, a section of my colon, and some of my lymph nodes. It appeared to be successful and I was deemed NED (No Evidence of Disease) as of March 2021. Very excited and feeling great, I started writing a fantasy romance called The Storm King. Quarterly CT and MRI scans in June, September and December looked good so the scans were extended to every 6 months instead of every 3 months.

In early 2022 I started feeling tired again. I put the Storm King aside. The scans in June 2022 showed Cancer had returned and was growing in my liver. Now I was Stage 4, colorectal cancer with mets to liver. That was treated with ablation in August 2022. They shot microwaves into the tumor and ‘cooked’ it. The scan in September looked good. I started a little freebie novella about Lobo and his mate, thinking I would put it out for Christmas 2022. Scans in December 2022 still looked good. I was once again NED.

But I didn’t feel well. I was told that was normal. My body had been through a lot so it would take some time for me to get back to “normal”. For instance, the chemo from 2 years ago had given me neuropathy. My foot from the ball to the toes were numb, and so were my fingertips. It’s hard to type when you can’t feel your fingers on the keys. My deadline for Lobo’s Mate came and went so I put it away.

In March 2023 I went to have my regular quarterly scans and they found a tiny spot in my lung they thought was suspicious. Too small to biopsy, we decided to take a wait and watch approach and see what the June scans showed. In June the spot had grown, so it was deemed to be cancer and I was sent to a radiologist to set up radiation for the lung. However, he detected a second, smaller spot in the different location in the same lung. He didn’t want to do radiation and then find out that more nodules showed up later. So we decided to wait until the September scans to see if any more spots showed up.

I HATE waiting. The summer of 2023 was miserable for me. I kept imagining the worst case scenario, where the September scans would show my lungs loaded with sinister little spots with glowing red eyes and fangs ready to devour me. But the scans showed only those two spots, slightly bigger, but just those two.

In October 2023 I had the radiation. It was not painful, it didn’t take long, and it was only 5 treatments. I was EXHAUSTED. I was utterly exhausted until about November 3. It was like I turned a corner then. I cleaned, I was social, I stayed up until my usual bedtime! The next scans in January 2024 will show if radiation was effective.

I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe the cancer is still growing in my lungs. Maybe it was come back in the liver. Maybe this is it and I am truly NED. God knows and time will tell.

WHAT AM I DOING NOW?

I have picked up Lobo’s story again. I love Lobo. He’s not good with words, but he’s found his mate and in true Wolf Clan tradition, he is going to protect her and help her even if she never accepts his mate claim. And she needs his help. She’s been living mostly on her own for the past three years since the plane crash, and a local farmer is done waiting for her consent to marry him. At 17,548 words, I am 3/4 done with the rough draft. My personal deadline for the rough draft to be complete is 12/2. Then it goes off to the beta readers while I play with cover art. Then I make revisions, format it and send it out in my newsletter by 12/22/23. I do not plan to publish it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. This will be an entirely free novella just for my readers. I am not putting in a ton of history about the plane crash and what life is like in 2067 because only people who have read some of the other books will be reading it. Probably. I am writing this for you as a thank you for reading my stories.

I will be back in a few weeks for my annual Christmas Stocking Giveaway!

It has been a long, long time since I posted, and I’ve had a lot going on. I will post again soon to catch you all up with what is up with me. But meanwhile I will give you a little Halloween shortie story I wrote about Glory and Shadow about a year after Wolf’s Glory ended.

Here it is. Enjoy!

https://maddybarone.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Glory-Shadow-1-year-later.pdf.docx

Hello! I have been SOOO busy. On January 1st I started the Just Get It Done Sewing Room De-Clutter Challenge. It was supposed to wrap up on January 21, but I am still going. I am a pack rat. What can I say? I got it from my mom.

NOTE: I don’t care what Marie Condo says. Keeping no more than thirty (30!!) books is ridiculous. I love my kindle, but there are some books that I NEED to have in paper. And Audio. And Kindle. So there.

But the end of this insane de-clutter really is near. This afternoon I took the boxes and bags of yarn, fabric, patterns, books and magazines to the thrift store donation door. I can see the sewing room floor! All I have left is to find homes for a few really nice (empty) storage bins and tidy up. Today was going to be Clean Everything Day. Vacuum, dust, sweep and mop. But I have run out of steam. Maybe tomorrow after work I will start the Cleaning Frenzy.

But enough of that. It is time for the next chapter in Lobo and Gen’s story. Here is Chapter 4 of Lobo’s Mate.

I hope you all have a fantastic week with lots of good reading material!

Here we come to the end of another weekend. 🙁 The weather here was a bit chilly, but the sun was out and the sky was blue, which for January in North Dakota means a nice weekend.

I have been busy with a De-clutter challenge. The challenge is meant for quilting and sewing stuff, but I have been de-cluttering my sewing/craft/guest room in general. Some of what I found was some author swag I’ve had for years. I expect to find some more, and when I am finished, I will hold a mini give away, so watch for for that in a newsletter at the end of January.

Click below for chapter 3 of Lobo and Gen’s story. Hope you enjoy it!