Everdome Cover Reveal

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Hello Readers and Imaginary Friends,

I’m so excited to show you the cover for my next novel Everdome!

Isn’t it pretty? Nathan Fréchette did an amazing job!

Everdome is available for pre-order now!

Everdome!

S.M. Ardwur’s epic ten novel series and the world’s biggest MMORPG is a world fractured by a magical disaster and saved from destruction by a brave king and mad wizard. It is now formed of twelve floating continents with magical domes protecting them.

For thirteen lucky contestants, when a man dressed as a knight offers them the opportunity to visit their favourite fantasy world as an immersive reality show, there’s only one answer they can give: YES!

The level of impressiveness is beyond anything they can believe and some of them start to wonder why.

Abigail, James, Krista, Nicole, Richard, and Megan have to learn how to play the game and win; the fate of Everdome depends on it.

I’m really proud of this one and I can’t wait to hear what people think.

Thanks for reading,

Éric

Blush: Lactation pre-birth

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Any lactation that starts before the birth of the child is made up of colostrum, the nutrient-rich, high antibody early milk.

I noticed that I’ve been producing it for a while now, but I’m not sure when it started, as mine doesn’t really interfere with daily living. My nursing pads aren’t even wet.

I talked with another person who had nursed their first-born for 3 months, and he said that he had also started lactating early while pregnant with his second.

It is nice to know that it’s normal, although I was fairly certain that it was, especially given that I had nursed my toddler until Christmas (end of first trimester).

Anyways, I thought I’d take a look into the actual facts about lactating before giving birth and see what the professionals say.

I am very glad that I did.

Apparently, it is recommended that people who have gestational diabetes (GDM) express some of this early milk and freeze it in anticipation of the baby’s birth, because the baby will have a drop in blood sugar after birth (hypoglycemia) and the extra colostrum will help regulate the blood sugar levels much faster.

Umm…okay… I didn’t know that! Good thing I received some milk storage bags from Baby Box University. And I guess I know what I’m doing sooner rather than later. (I’m 37 weeks and 5 days as of the writing of this post.)

This is the pump that I have. I loved it with Dragon – hopefully I’ll still love it for Pegasus! Image from walmart.ca.

The other option, of course, is formula feeding.

But if I’m already producing a slight amount of colostrum, I’m definitely going to try to collect it!

And hey, if the only danger in doing so is inducing labour, at my stage of pregnancy, I’m REALLY not going to complain.

Please note: there are other risk factors in expressing milk early, including to people who are supposed to receive a caesarean, if there is excess weight gain, if the baby is too small, or if there is too much fluid in the womb. Expressing milk might also reduce blood flow to the womb.

If you are considering expressing milk pre-delivery, please talk to your healthcare professional before doing so.

If you’re enjoying the Blush blogs, consider learning more with Blush: The Card Game from Renaissance Press.

References

theconversation.com
nhs.uk

The Sign of Faust and Travelling TARDIS Nominated for Aurora Awards

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

If you read the list of nominees in my last post about the Aurora’s you may have recognized a few names.

Voter’s Package

The Sign of Faust along with the majority of nominated works are available in the voter’s package now. Simply make an account, pay $10, and you’ll have access to a wonderful library of Canadian Science fiction and fantasy.

The Travelling TARDIS isn’t part of the package because you can access it for free on this site.

The Sign of Faust

The Sign of Faust is available at Amazon and Renaissance Press.

Elizabeth Coderre solves mysteries. Magic, wizards, and killer kittens didn’t stop her last semester. Now someone is trying to kill her in absurdly complicated ways, she’s hearing voices, her best friends are constantly fighting despite being madly in love, and the desires of Baker City’s residents are becoming reality. Can she find out who’s trying to kill her and discover the source of everyone’s luck, while navigating dating, concerts, school, and competing in the science Olympics? She can only wish… and you know what they say about wishes!

The Travelling TARDIS

The Travelling TARDIS moves, with the power of timey-yarney crochet, through time and space visiting and taking pictures with cosplayers, landmarks, celebrities, and cute babies.

Voting

If you think The Sign of Faust and Travelling TARDIS are worthy of your vote, voting for the Auroras will be open on August 5th.

Thank you to everyone who nominated us and especially to everyone who reads and enjoys our content.

Thank you!

Éric

Seren Plentyn and the Secret of Hokulua Station – Chapter 6

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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 4.5 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 6: Escape from Hokulua Station

Annie tensed as Alpha 4 plummeted towards the station. A ship that size would destroy a large chunk of the ring. Without coms, there was no way to evacuate the area. When one of the ships shaped like stars swooped in and caught Alpha 4 in a beam of light, she let go a large sigh. Not only did the ships save the station and Alpha 4, they also proved they weren’t hostile.

“Echo 2 and 3, go get Alpha 4 from our… guests? Sir, can we stand down?”

Annie and Echo 3 got Alpha 4 with their tethers and they heard the captains voice, “This is the captain. Give me a full report, Echo leader.”

“Yes sir. Nice to hear your voice.” Echo leader told the captain about the ships shaped like stars and the mysterious planet in Voidspace with its own star. How one of the ships saved one of their own and hadn’t attacked. They just sat waiting. When he was finished, he paused and said, “Wait a second. We have movement. The ships are leaving and taking orbit around the planet.”

“Come home, fighters. Looks like we have a mystery to discover on that planet.”

The fighters were exhausted. Keeping that level of focus for so long was draining, especially without the adrenalin of combat.

Annie was exhausted, stinky, and wanted nothing more than to go for a swim. Her brother met her at her docking spot. “Thank the stars, you’re okay.” He hugged her and added, “Scratch that; I think you’ve gone bad!” and comicly plugged his nose.

They walked towards the exit and passed Echo leader, they nodded at him and kept going. The captain passed by nodded and stopped to talk with Echo leader. Their voices carried.

“What do you mean, no?” Echo leader was a calm person and to hear him yell was weird.

He stormed towards them and Annie couldn’t help herself. “What happened?”

Giving her a confused look and sighing, he said, “The spineless sludge is refusing to send anyone to the planet.”

“Why?”

“Orders from the head of the techno-mages. How could they even get orders without our coms working?” He made a rude noise towards the Captain and continued on his way.

Annie activated her ear piece and asked Hoku where Seren Plentyn was. When it told her a docking bay, Annie told her brother, “I got to go. Love you.”

Her brother nodded and let her go. The docking bay wasn’t too far away and when Annie got there she saw that Seren, Jan, and Seren’s dad were talking about something.

Not wanting to bother them, she went to the control station and started procedures to launch a small shuttle. She made sure it wasn’t the same one that was patched into coms. While they were running, she took a backpack with survival equipment and food rations. On whim she grabbed three more.

Sneaking towards the ships, she put the backpacks away and started keying in her access codes and authorisation. She knew Tower was going to question her and she hoped she could get the docking doors open fast enough to get out.

As the ship was powering up, she heard footsteps. “Annie, what are you doing?” Seren smiled; somehow that girl knew exactly what Annie was thinking.

“I’m going to see what’s on that planet. Want to come?”

Jan’s eyes went wide and said, “I’m not sure-”

Seren cut them off saying, “Absolutely!” She walked over to one of the co-pilots seats and started to help. “Let me guess, the Captain refuses to go investigate?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?” Annie was amazed. Seren was great at logic and deduction but this seemed like a leap.

“Long story. Let’s get out of the station and I’ll tell you on the way.”

Annie turned away from flight prep and said, “You coming?”

With a dramatic sigh, Jan went and sat in the second co-pilot seat. The shuttle flew easier with three, but could be flown with one if necessary. Annie was glad there were three of them.

“Shuttlecraft Roddenberry. You are not cleared for launch. No one is to leave the station.”

Annie was going to say something but Seren replied instead, “This is shuttle Roddenberry. If you think I’m not going down there, you need to check the oxygen levels over there, Tower.”

“Seren. I should have known. Orders are from the head of the tecno-mages. No one goes down there. Tower has locked the doors, please power down.”

Turning off the coms, Seren said, “I think I have an idea. Get ready to punch it.” She opened a text com to Hoku, hoping the AI assistant was part of or in contact with the micro-sun. “Please,” she typed, “We want to help you. Let us get down there and find a way.”

There was no change and just as they were all about to give up, the bay doors opened. A quick move by Annie and they were rushing through space with a lot to talk about.

Read Next

While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:

Men in Black: International – spoiler free

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I saw MiB:I last night. It was so much fun; probably helped by how excited we got every time Les Twins (YouTube, Instagram) were on screen (which was often, but not often enough IMHO).

Men in Black: International poster from IMDb.

The cool thing about this movie is that we saw a lot of different locations that would make quite the fun trip.

We start off in New York City.

Take the hyperloop to London.

Travel to Marrakesh in Morocco.

Paris at night is featured several times, specifically the Eiffel Tower.

Hmm… I guess we’ll have to start working on the hyperloop and alien tech to get between places….

Jen has retired from working as a travel agent. Hope you’ve enjoyed Fandom Travel.

I can’t remember if I’ve done this

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

I’m Bisexual… I have no idea if I’ve ever officially come out. It’s not something I talk about a lot unless I see Jason Momoa…

I’ve been attracted to all genders for as long as I can remember. The few same sex relationships I saw I could never understand why people made a big deal about. It wasn’t until I got older and people started to use Gay as a slur that I realized I wasn’t the norm. I didn’t have a word for what I was until university when I met other people in the LGBTQ+ community.

It wasn’t a positive interaction. I was told I was just confused and couldn’t choose a side. That I should come back if I decided to be gay. (Yep, a gay man actually told me that.) It wasn’t until I met some really good friends in my mid twenties that I realized I wasn’t just confused. Then I saw Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and it was great to see a character like me.

All that to say, if I hadn’t told you… I’m bisexual and to me that means I can be attracted to anyone, regardless of their gender.

For pride month, the wonderful Cait Gordon wrote an awesome tweet about me:

For #PrideMonth, I want to shout out some awesome books and authors. @EricDesmarais‘ YA series is based in a town called Baker’s City with Elizabeth Coderre solving paranormal mysteries in a Sherlock-esque sort of way! Book 2, Sign of Faust is an Aurora Award nominee! #AmReading pic.twitter.com/E6fX5368Dw— Cait Gordon 👽🍰♿️ (@CaitGAuthor) June 11, 2019

Thanks Cait!

And to everyone out there still trying to understand themselves, you’ll get there and there are people like you out there. Be brave and find friends who support you.

Later Days,

Éric