Season's Greetings

Christmas Eve by W.C. Bauer (19th C)

Gentle Reader,

Some of my favorite Christmas Eve images are from the 19th century. They seem to be written with the carol Silent Night in mind.

Recently and aptly, this opinion piece appeared in a local paper, reminding me why I find the images so appealing.
At another time, you might be treated to my rants—I mean, opinions—about loud conversations and loud music in shops and restaurants. For today, though, the element of peace is on my mind. We live in tumultuous times, across the globe. Peace seems impossible, yet we can hope and wish. With love and understanding, we can try to create a peaceful and positive environment around us.

I like to believe that romance novels contribute, and I try to keep mine positive, even when I’m writing about rather dark times and situations. In the end, no matter how bleak things might get, love triumphs, and we leave the story with a sense that all’s right with the world, even if it’s only for that moment, and it’s fiction. That’s one of the (many) reasons we read and write these books.

I wish you a beautiful Christmas and holiday time, filled with love, laughter, joy, warmth, and all manner of good things. And peace.

And I leave you with two musical expressions of these wishes.

Imagine - John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band (w The Flux Fiddlers) (Ultimate Mix 2018) - 4K REMASTER
And for the punk rockers in the audience,
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding

The Case of the Disappearing Audiobooks

Temple of the Muses, Finsbury Square, Ackermann's Rpository April 1809

A while back, some of my readers alerted me to a problem with my audiobooks. They were unable to re-download two of the Dressmakers books, Silk is for Seduction and Vixen in Velvet, which they’d previously bought.

Upon checking with my publisher, I learned that the audio sublicenses for these two books had ended. I will not attempt to explain sublicenses or why I can’t just push a button and get things back into print or audio or eBook. I understand it, but explaining it is beyond my powers of articulation. Also boring.

What I still don’t understand is why, once readers have bought the audiobook, they can’t have access to it forever, the same as a print book.

What I can tell you in this particular case is, a license expired and has to be renewed. Apparently, this takes rather longer than it does to renew your driver’s license, because the restart involves a lot of different contracts & technical matters. All this will take a couple of months. Amazon has the two audiobooks as becoming available on 12 November.

I’m very sorry for the aggravation. I am not sure why it happened, but I can say that my publisher immediately went to work to fix it.

Thank you to the readers who let me know, so that we could get the repair process going. And thanks to all of you for being so patient with the vagaries of publishing* as well as my writing!

*My readers in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand are all too familiar with that special circle of hell known as sublicensing.