Jen and I have been busy and we have 3 books between the two of us coming out in the next 12 months. They are being published by Renaissance Press and will be available at any place you buy books.
I hope you’re excited, because we sure are!
Éric
Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers
Release: September 15th, 2022
Authors: Jen and Éric Desmarais
When Kennedy Fairfield, a recent graduate (Class of 2002) trying to find her purpose in life, or at least a job in her field, saves Jason Johnson, the leader of a secret Community of supernatural people called Aetherborn, from an attempted assassination, they embark on a whirlwind epic romance and adventure.
For Kennedy to help Jason discover why people are disappearing in time to save her friends, they”ll have to navigate teleporting assassins, grumpy wizards, gossiping hags, mafia robots, and secret military groups, all in the city of Westmeath, Ontario, which has more secrets than residents.
Pre-orders for this books are available at all bookstores and ebook vendors.
Crushing It
Release: Spring 2023
Author: Jen Desmarais
When Tommy Fairfield, an ordinary science geek, meets Carter Batudev at the Door Tech March Break camp, chemistry isn’t only in the classroom.
After an epic grounding for some bad decisions with even worse friends, Tommy is lucky to even go to the camp. Thankfully, his mother still drops him off in Westmeath, leaving his sister Kennedy and her fiancé Jason in charge. With love and a renewed interest in STEM, Tommy returns home to Parry Sound.
Despite his parents’ worries, Tommy makes better friends and joins the STEM club, which goes to the province-wide competition in Toronto. Carter’s team is there, too. Romance, STEM, singing, and hijinks ensue.
Includes a novelette from Carter’s POV at the dinner theatre show Knights of Everdome.
The Mystery of the Dancing Lights (A Baker City Mystery Elizabeth Investigates Book 4)
Release: Spring 2023
Author: Éric Desmarais
Mysteries are Elizabeth Coderre’s life, and after wizards, hags, artificers, vampires, kobolds, genies, and killer kittens, she thinks she’s seen everything. She’s wrong!
And when she goes to Riding Thorpe summer camp, which is build on an old government experimental facility, she discovers that there’s a lot she doesn’t know.
Can she solve the mystery of the dancing lights, save her friends, and escape a time loop? Or is she cursed to relive her friends’ deaths forever?
Includes a brand-new murder mystery novella by Jen Desmarais starring Kennedy Fairfield (from Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers) about her 1995 summer vacation in Baker.
Samantha’s Sandwich Stand by Sonia Saikaley and illustrated by Nathan Caro Frechette (children’s picture book)
Samantha is bored. It is summer and her friends are on vacation. When she sees a lemonade stand, she wants to open one but her father convinces her to sell something different: her mother’s homemade Lebanese cream cheese and cucumber pita sandwiches. But can she convince others that her sandwich treat is just as refreshing and delicious as lemonade? When her friends return from their holidays and offer to help her, along with a very hungry eagle, will customers finally come and buy her sandwiches? Samantha’s Sandwich Stand is an inspiring story about believing in yourself, accepting help from others when something doesn’t succeed at first, and celebrating each other’s differences.
Coffee Shop Between The ‘Verses by Éric Desmarais (YA)
Jackie sometimes likes to have conversations with the characters, and as he reads five novellas in the small Ontario town of Baker…
In The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicitous, the grumpy Felix is thrown into an adventure through time, despite his protestations.
In Only Human, Rachel has accidentally signed up for the University of Monsters.
In Wargrave Island, Inspector Riko Dulac has to find out who’s killing all her former high school classmates before there’s no one left.
In Database of the Ageless Kings, Sophia rebuilds an alien ship, only to find the galactic prince still inside.
In Devices of Desire, follow Artemis, Diana, and Ezekiel as they navigate secret identities, demons, and love in the kingdom of Cillian.
Are the characters Jackie is talking with real? Is he just talking to himself? Or is something else going on?
Beyond the Stone by Jamieson Wolf (queer paranormal romance)
After a schism renders the world unrecognizable, Magic comes out into the open.
Bane is a Supernatural who works for the Clocktower, the organization that is supposed to protect mortals from themselves. Jackson is able to teleport long distances and is also a clairvoyant, something that no mortal should be able to do. That’s the least of their troubles, however. Sparks fly when they meet, even if relationships between mortals and Supernaturals are frowned upon.
When they learn that the Clocktower is keeping mortals and Supernaturals prisoner, Bane knows that they will have to go against the Clocktower in order to break them free… but will they break themselves in the process?
Dissatisfied Me: A Love Story by Bruce D. Gordon (humour)
Rick “Dickie” Duncan is turning fifty. Meh.
On the eve of this mid-century milestone, he finds himself alone in his mother’s Ottawa basement, surrounded by gaudy decor and a carpet that hasn’t been raked in years. Grabbing some brews and frozen hotdogs, Rick rummages through the clutter that’s made up his dissatisfied life.
From the death of Santa to the last days of Scottish Rot, Rick meanders through the decades, mapping his existence amid the pop culture of the ’70s to the present day.
Marking key moments of his unsated misadventures and real-life dating disasters, Rick reminds himself that his journey is a love story. Sort of.
Artificial Divide, edited by Robert Kingett and Randy Lacey
Step into a world of rogue screen readers, Braille in fantasy worlds, a friend meeting an acquaintance after several years, and more.
This #OwnVoices anthology features fiction by Blind and visually impaired authors showing readers how they thrive, hurt, get revenge, outsmart bullies, or go on epic adventures. Artificial Divide is an own-voices story collection that captures the many layers of Blindness and, for once, puts visually impaired protagonists in the driver’s seat, letting us glimpse their lives.
When we think about it, we’re not really divided.
With stories by: Eunice Cooper-Matchett – Anita Haas – Rebecca Blaevoet – Tessa Soderberg – Laurie Alice Eakes – Melissa Yuan-Innes – Jamieson Wolf – Ben Fulton – Felix Imonti – Niki White – M. Leona Godin – Ann Chiappetta – Lawrence Gunther – Heather Meares – Fabiyas M V – Jameyanne Fuller
Shifting Trust by Madona Skaff-Koren
Tyler Demir left the RCMP after an undercover operation he was in charge of turned deadly. Refusing to make life and death decisions anymore, he now works as assistant head of security for a military funded Canadian nano-tech company. But when one of their scientists is kidnapped, the military send Tyler to England to retrieve him.
Not sure who to trust, Tyler uses contacts from his undercover days to get the scientist to safety. At every step, he sees the rescue crumble around him and again he has blood on his hands.
How the hell did he manage to go from a stress-free job, where lives didn’t depend on his split-second decisions, to this?
The Mystery of the Dancing Lights is done. Now comes my least favourite part of writing, editing. Yuck.
Thankfully my awesome Weditor has been through the book and I’ll hopefully be able to apply her edits by the end of the week.
That means if all goes well by end of the week, I’ll be able to submit my book to my publisher.
I made a promise at last years Renaissance Con to shave my beard when I finished this book. It’s gotten a little unwieldy, so I’m looking forward to that. Expect some before and after pictures soon.
When I returned to work after Dragon was born, I tried to finish a novel and gave myself until December 2017 to finish it. I failed and put that novel away for future writing.
In January 2018, I started writing The Mystery of the Dancing Lights, my fourth Elizabeth novel. I worked hard on it and it changed from a simple summer camp story to a time loop novel. I’ve re-written my outline for this book a dozen times.
I decided I needed to dig deep and finish it after Jen and I finished Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. Somehow I managed to get this far.
I’m now writing the last chapter and hope to be done the writing of the novel by the end of the weekend or next week.
I’m hoping to submit it to my publisher by the end of the month and get it in for 2023 with my publisher.
Yesterday was the 11 year anniversary of me finishing my first ever novel. Viridian Skies was poorly plotted, filled with contradictions, and the only thing more cringy than the sex scene are the fight scenes. Its very much written like a D&D game and not like a proper novel.
I’d like to revisit the core concept of the story someday, but for now it’s locked in my writing folder.
I have to give the novel credit though, it taught me a lot about how to write and helped me start to develop my style. It also taught me to avoid three-chapter fight scenes.
Since 2010, I’ve finished another 6 novels on my own and co-wrote two.
One Wednesday, I reached a milestone of 2/3rd done in my current writing project. I started it in 2018 and I’m so close I can taste it. I’m hoping to have it done by mid-September to submit to my publisher for a spot in their 2023 catalogue.
So if all goes well, I should have another 2 novels completed by the end of the year. (Jen and I are writing the sequel to Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers in October and the last one took us 2 & 1/2 months.)
The world might be shit right now and I’m feeling like crap (I hate ragweed season), but I’m proud of the writing I’ve done this year.
I hope your creative endeavours go as well or better than mine have.
