City of the Invaders has review copies available on BookSprout. I chose this site because it is the only one that offers a free way to provide ARCS to you while also controlling piracy and lazy non-reviewers. While I understand the need to sample my work instead of jumping into it, I should get something back in exchange for a non-sale. So I have provided 20 review copies to interested readers and if that's you, feel free to jump over and claim one! All the information you need is in the ARC link and download process for the book. The site will also remind you when you've had the book a while and when it is time to review. Current deadline is August 13, which gives you 2 months to complete the review. I think that's a very generous window of time for most people, but late-coming reviewers might need it. There is also a button on the book page in this website, so you can claim a review copy later without scrolling to find this blog post.

Here’s the link to City of the Invaders Review Copy

Be aware that you will be required to review on Amazon and to complete this review you’ll need to have purchased $50 worth from them in the last year. Purchases bought using mostly gift cards do not apply. So check to see if you’re eligible before requesting the book.

And there will be more updates.

It took me a long time to figure out that some kinds of responsiveness to my work came from a doubt of my sincerity. And I was really shocked. Some people thought my work was just something I'd presented for communication with me and not authentic fiction. After all, lots of people take up "writing" for a while in their lives, as a time-filler, or a therapy, or a distraction from something else like the approach of midlife. I wasn't different from that.

​And, moreover, they thought they knew what my little "writing" behavior was about. I was amazed to discover that people actually viewed it as not the real deal. At times, I even detected some impatience, won't you talk about something real already? We all know this is unimportant. What are you really up to?

​All of this is the most arrant nonsense I've ever heard. Writing is not a cover for me. It IS who I am. It is the most important thing about me and if you're looking for something else that's the real deal about me, you'll never find it. It's not a way to communicate with me, a means to a goal of yours. Just because you didn’t warm to a couple of moments or ideas in a book or two doesn’t mean I am not a writer. The correct question is “What are you getting at?” Not “Why are you so insincere?” And if you think some things I write are boring, that doesn’t matter at all. One weaker book does not discredit an author. Just look at all the books out there, classics included, and you’ll know that’s true.

Interest in my storytelling is your reason for being here if you have approached me online. A belief we can have a different conversation is more imaginative than anything I've ever written and I write fiction.

If you want to know "what I'm really up to," think about that.

And there will be more updates.

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It’s hard to be comfortable with yourself. But it doesn’t matter at all what other people think about you. Except, ironically, they like you a lot more when you ARE yourself. If a person is fake all the time, they are boring (because they never talk about what they’re interested in) and weak (to care so much for the opinion of others.) So I exhaustively “rewrote” each story to remove things I only included out of insecurity—in short, returned it to its original form. There was barely a story that wasn’t touched by the extraneous-material-syndrome—some just a paragraph, others an entire plot or subplot.

• City of the Invaders was first published with a Christian-market slant. The EC characters were Christians living in a world hostile to their faith. This isn’t the story. Religion is not what divides the EC from the Invaders. Rather they are part of the same culture, heading together towards big changes neither of them foresee yet.
• The Birthday Present contained a reference to growing maturation and the concept Lucy isn’t “ready yet” for her task because she is still a teenager. This has nothing to do with the story and suggests the journey is personal for her. The story is about Aure's personal growth, not Lucy's. 
• Victoria: A Tale of Spain was first published as two separate shorts set in a world of fake history countries. Part of it was viewed as a remake of Millhaven Castle, when it was a different story altogether. “Alyce” also had some (asterisked, but still visible) profanity from young female characters and “Victoria” had a young lady being murdered. These were false to the harmless quality of the stories. Both Vic and Aly were moved into one book set in a real historical era, with a light tone to the story.
• Ryan and Essie tried to develop a Space Trilogy-type C.S. Lewis sci-fi theology—the ancient people at the time of Noah had the ability to infect other planets and that is why they were cut off. This appeared in a few paragraphs in one chapter. It limits the book’s audience unnecessarily.
• Consuela was part of the “Valley Stories” fake history series. It had no relevance to either Victoria or Alyce and its being there disguised the fact the other two stories were really one book. It was moved into a sci-fi world where its stylized discussion of social class would be more appropriate.
• Bellevere House had a strong romance angle and romantic scenes involving some of the characters. Now there is only a hint the main characters will end up together, with no certainty, which is significantly more truthful. The romance in Mansfield Park isn't successful and there is no need to disguise that. While Fanny could very well end up with Edmund, a personal romantic fondness for him might not be underlying reason. 
• Facets of Fantasy had “Millhaven Castle,” as an unnecessary addition. This novella had already appeared in conjunction with "The Birthday Present" and didn’t need to be repeated. I made some slight changes to MC and wasn’t aware they could just be uploaded into a changed Birthday Present document, so I put them in the next book I published. MC took Facets of Fantasy on a tangent, distracting from the other stories.
• A Year with the Harrisons had a lot of (asterisked, but visible) profanity in the original Fb release and a comedy area containing some polygamists in the later published book. Luna was also crippled for the entire book, from an accident suffered in college. All of these brought exaggerated attention to the plot of Joe's homeschooled daughters, which is actually a small thread amid a larger story about the state of religion and pop culture.
• The Test of Devotion has changed so much it’s barely recognizable. Changes to it are complete. As I’m releasing it on preorder next month, I’ll talk about this book separately on its own.

And there will be more updates.

Every author wants to entertain. That’s why we write. What drives us is the dream of developing characters that people react to. We want our stories to be exciting, to be interactive places where people become passionate about what we’ve created.

In the early years of my publishing I became desperate to get attention. I noticed people were not highly motivated to respond to my work and I started to include material that was extraneous to the stories. It had nothing to do with the tales I was telling. But this material, I thought correctly, would interest the people I was trying to impress with my books. And it DID. They were interested by that material.

But it was at the cost of the stories and of my self-esteem. Not only did these inclusions detract from the books, they sometimes backfired and caused negative reactions from readers. I was quite hurt because, in all honesty, I’d only included these elements to interest the readers. And they WERE interested—without that negative reaction, they had little response to the book at all. “How ungrateful!” I thought. Even when reactions were less negative, I didn’t see any engagement unless I put in irrelevant material.

Trying to change something to get people’s attention is just a way of trying to fit in. If people will only notice you when you change yourself, those aren’t people you should care about. Every author deserves the kind of fans they should really care about—the fans who care about them. In the course of the last 18 months I’ve revised every one of my stories to remove this extraneous material.

These changes aren’t to alter or hide what was in the books, but instead to reveal the true story. In another post I’ll detail exactly what changes were made. In the meantime—just be yourself. You’re a lot better at it than you think.

And here will be more updates.