All Under One Roof

As a handful of my dearest writing friends know, I have this thriller series. I've been working on it for ten years. It involves street fighters, prostitutes, drug dealers, psychotics, sadists, crooked cops, modern-day warlords -- basically an ensemble cast of characters among which you'd be hard-pressed to find even one "good guy" (with the exception of one of the three main characters, whose name is, appropriately enough, Angel). This series has (at least I'd like to think) themes like betrayal and salvation, honor and sacrifice, love and hate, role reversals, revenge, and violence. Lots of violence. Did I mention violence?

I've had a problem with this series. Okay, I've had several problems. Most of them have been related to getting it published. About five years into the search for a publisher, I started referring to this as the "poor doomed series" instead of the series name I'd finally settled on. Poor Doomed Series was a hundred times rejected (not an exaggeration, unfortunately) once self-published (redacted when its creator realized she needed to put in a LOT more work on craft), and four times *thisclose* to published, only to have complications arise. The last time, the editor considering it loved the story - but the publishing house switched focus to romance only.

Through its various incarnations, I've had readers. With the exception of one older lady (who, in my defense, I did warn repeatedly and stridenly that it was full of VIOLENCE), everyone has had favorable things to say about Poor Doomed Series. The nearly universal reaction to the first book has been, "Where's the next one?" I've had people create fan art for this series. People e-mailing me out of the blue, several years after they read one or more of the books, asking what's happening with it and where can they get copies. People sitting around casting my movies for me. No one has been more shocked than me at these developments.

Considering all of this, I am very pleased to announce that Lyrical Press has offered me a contract for the entire Poor Doomed Series . . . er, I mean the House Phoenix Series. I'm currently working with a great editor on the first book, BROKEN ANGEL, and finishing up the long-put-off revisions for the second book. They also tell me there's a possibility of print for the series.

So, to everyone that has waited patiently (and not so patiently) for this series to become available - and to all my characters who have waited patiently (and not so patiently) for me to finish telling their stories - thank you for hanging in there, and we have finally arrived.