Defeating Dragons...in the Guise of Scammers

Don’t tempt me, AI...

 There's a monster that authors, especially of the self published/ indie published variety, have to deal with...the scammer. It can be anything from wanting to publish my novel for the low, low price of hundreds of dollars, promote my book on Amazon to get me more readers (again for hundreds of dollars), or the one I got recently: to feature me and my work in an online book club. 

Sounds great, huh? How could that last one be a scam? Follow along, my dears, and I will show you...this is a conversation/cold email from this week. 

Dear Nancy E. Dunne,

My name is [redacted], and I organize [redacted]. Our readers are drawn to immersive fantasy that blends emotional truth with rich world-building, and Storm: An Arcstone Novel does this with rare sensitivity and imagination.

Your exploration of destiny, courage, and the inner storms that shape identity resonates deeply with our group. We admire how you weave themes of hope and self-discovery through a universe that feels both magical and deeply human.

We would be honored to have you join us virtually on October 23, 2025, to discuss your creative journey and the heart behind Storm.

If you have a magic wand, what will you change in your present result ???

Warm regards,

[Redacted]

[I ignored this one. Sometimes they just go away, but this one was very persistent.]

Hello  Nancy E. Dunne,

[Too many spaces between hello and my name. Really? Rookie giveaway.]

I truly value your work on Storm: An Arcstone Novel and would love to see you at our upcoming event. Wednesday is the final day to confirm your participation, but you can also confirm today to secure your spot early. Your story deserves this spotlight.

If you have a magic wand, what will you change in your business outcome or present result???

Warm regards,

[Redacted]

[So this time i decided to answer…]

I'm curious why you chose the second book in a series for your focus. What did you think of the first?

Cheers!

Nancy

["She" wrote back. Usually, when I call them out for wanting to highlight the second book in a series, they disappear. But not this one. Persistent.]

Dear Nancy,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! That’s a wonderful question, and one that truly reflects the depth of your storytelling across the Orana Chronicles and Arcstone worlds.

We were first introduced to your work through Wanderer and Tempest, and what stood out most to our readers was the way your universe evolves with each installment, the emotional stakes rise, but so does the spiritual and psychological depth. Storm felt like a natural continuation for our group because it captures that moment where your characters begin to fully confront destiny rather than simply move through it.

That growth, both internal and cosmic, is exactly what makes your series resonate so powerfully with our readers. It’s not just fantasy, it’s a reflection of the courage it takes to face change and self-realization.

We’d be honored to spotlight Storm during our October 23 virtual session while also touching on the roots of your world in The Nature Walker Trilogy. The goal is to celebrate how the threads connect, showing your evolution as both a storyteller and world-builder.

Would you like me to share the event details and the short registration process so we can confirm your feature?

Warm regards,

[I'm thinking AI]

[At this point "she'd" shown "her" hand. Register for an appearance in a book club feature? That sounds like I have to pay you for the privilege and Nancy doesn't pay to play, friend.]

Actually no, I don't think so, but I appreciate the invitation.

There isn't a way to tie Storm's plot in with the Nature Walker Trilogy because they are from different series. I hope that your members enjoyed Wanderer and Tempest and will enjoy the first book in the World of Arcstone series if they have a chance to read it. Have a great evening!

Cheers!

Nancy

[No answer so far this morning…I must have blown up the algorithm.]

Next? 

Music Monday: I know, I know, he's dead...right?

So I discovered this song via a friend on FB and while I know the words and the song...this version is so Taeben it's ridiculous. I swear he's been on my mind so much lately that I think a backstory for him may be in the works. I mean, it isn't like he is going to show up in another Orana novel, right? (insert malicious giggle here)

But for now, enjoy the latest addition to my writing playlist. Here's hoping this doesn't bleed into my current NaNoWriMo...

You Are My Sunshine

by The Dead South

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I bowed my head and I cried

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

I'll always love you and make you happy
If you will only say the same
But if you leave me and love another
You'll regret it all some day

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

You told me once, dear, you really loved me
And no one else could come between
But now you've left me to love another
You have shattered all of my dreams

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away
Please don't take my sunshine away

Music Monday: Taeben and Gin

[Spoilers ahead for the Nature Walker Trilogy]

New month, back to Orana and specifically to Taeben and Gin in Tempest. I know, the first thing a lot of my readers think when they see Taeben's name is that hashtag #benisadick that goes around. I mean, he's the bad guy, so he is supposed to be, right? Today, though, I want to present you with another view of him. This is a view that I got called out for pushing by one of my beta readers. I have a tendency to see the best in people, even when they don't deserve it, and the feedback was that I was giving Taeben so much grace that he wasn't even a bad guy anymore.

Some writers can create two dimensional bad guys who are like the little girl with the little curl, but I am not capable of that. I wanted people to know all sides of him because to me, that makes the reaction to him when he is bad more visceral, more shocking. This was the idea behind Tempest, to show the relationship between Taeben and Gin, so that his later behavior is even more awful and hard to believe. But I went too far, I think, at least for that beta reader - and, in truth, for me I suppose. Y'all, if I had kept on the way I was headed Taeben would have been completely unbelievable as a villain. 

So, to the point of this being a Music Monday post - I heard today's song, Silent Lucidity, in a TV show I was watching recently (ok, I will admit it was Supernatural and I'm trying to binge watch 14.5 seasons before October because I am late to that bandwagon) and I remembered that I loved that song back during the time that I was heavy into my MMORPG that inspired the Orana Chronicles. That was the time that I knew the person that inspired Taeben. It all fell into place as I was driving yesterday and heard the song again. That is what I was trying to convey in the relationship between Taeben and Gin. Maybe he was always bad. Maybe he had malicious plans for Gin well before the events of the end of Wanderer when he pulled Sath and Gin apart. 

Maybe this is Taeben and Gin in an alternate reality. Maybe this is Taeben's plan that went awry. Either way, I sat with the lyrics of this song for awhile after I got out of the car, and I couldn't get away from Taeben and Gin.

Silent Lucidity

Queensrÿche

Hush now, don't you cry

Wipe away the teardrop from your eye

You're lying safe in bed

It was all a bad dream

Spinning in your head

Your mind tricked you to feel the pain

Of someone close to you leaving the game of life

So here it is, another chance

Wide awake you face the day

Your dream is over or has it just begun?

There's a place I like to hide

A doorway that I run through in the night

Relax child, you were there

But only didn't realize and you were scared

It's a place where you will learn

To face your fears, retrace the years

And ride the whims of your mind

Commanding in another world

Suddenly you hear and see

This magic new dimension

I will be watching over you

I am gonna help you see it through

I will protect you in the night

I am smiling next to you, in silent lucidity

If you open your mind for me

You won't rely on open eyes to see

The walls you built within

Come tumbling down, and a new world will begin

Living twice at once you learn

You're safe from pain in the dream domain

A soul set free to fly

A round trip journey in your head

Master of illusion, can you realize

Your dream's alive, you can be the guide but

I will be watching over you

I am gonna help to see it through

I will protect you in the night

I am smiling next to you

Signing Event: Virtual Showcase for Beach Bound Hounds!

I have been invited to join the virtual vendor showcase that Greyhound Crossroads is hosting this year since their signature event, Beach Bound Hounds, was cancelled due to COVID-19. I invite you not only to grab a signed copy of the books in my back catalog, but to find unique and wonderful merchandise for you or other dog lovers in your life, while supporting the work that this group does to place retired racing greyhounds in homes in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. This opens to the public on September 4th - search FB for BBH Vendor Virtual Showcase. See y'all there!

Books available for signed paperback purchase:

Proud Racer: An American Greyhound in Yorkshire

Clobberpaws and Clobberpaws, Too!

The Nature Walker Trilogy: Wanderer, Tempest, and Guardian

Tales of the Forest Wars: Ignite and Scorch

Rift: An Arcstone Novel

Music Monday: Lairceach

 She's a minor character in the Nature Walker Trilogy, really, but she is so very important. Gin's younger sister who grew up without parents and learned at an early age to take care of herself so that no one else had to do. But this song is very Lairky to me when I think about her relationship with Kam. He's an Ikedrian - serious, dark, broody, methodical. Lairky is none of those things. She grew up swinging from the bridges connecting Aynamaede, playing in the dappled sun, and driving her older sister and brother mad. 

I just heard this song recently, but it jumped out at me as so very Lairky. One little wild girl that grew up to take action that would change the fate not only of her sister but all of Orana. Not so minor after all, huh?

Leave Her Wild

Tyler Rich

If you find a girl, hands up, hangin' halfway out on the highway

You find a girl who likes whiskey mixed in her hangover coffee

Find a girl that scares you half to death

You'd kill to be the train she wrecks

And don't tell her I never met someone like you

Then try and turn her into every girl you ever knew

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

If you're gonna love her, leave her wild

If you're gonna make her, if you're gonna make her

Make her smile, smile

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

Leave her wild

Don't tame her, try to chain her

The second you do you'll break her

Don't dull that shine that caught your eye

'Cause you're afraid somebody will take her

She ain't a dial you just turn on and off

She ain't all found, but she ain't all that lost

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

If you're gonna love her, leave her wild

If you're gonna make her, if you're gonna make her

Make her smile, smile

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

Leave her wild

Oh, leave her wild, yeah

Leave her wild, leave her wild

Leave her wild

If you're gonna kiss her, if you're gonna kiss her

Kiss her slow

If you wanna change her, if you wanna change her

Let her go

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

Leave her wild

If you're gonna make her, if you're gonna make her

Make her smile, smile

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

Leave her wild

Leave her wild, wild

Yeah, leave her wild, leave her wild

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

Leave her wild

Leave her wild

Music Mondays: Taeben

So as promised, today's Music Monday consists of music that inspired everyone's favorite villain from the Nature Walker Trilogy, Taeben. I know that there is a hashtag out there among my readers referring to Ben: #benisadick, but he is really a product of his environment more than anything. His story will come one day, but I'm not quite ready to tell it. 

Until then, though, when I sat down to think about a song that always makes me think of Ben, this one kept coming to mind. It's an older song, from when I was younger than I am now, and it is what I think of when I think of Ben's motives, specifically his feelings for and actions toward Gin. Lyrics to follow after the embedded video.

Fortress Around Your Heart

Sting

Under the ruins of a walled city

Crumbling towers in beams of yellow light.

No flags of truce, no cries of pity;

The siege guns had been pounding through the night.

It took a day to build the city.

We walked through its streets in the afternoon.

As I returned across the fields I'd known,

I recognized the walls that I once made.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

Then I went off the fight some battle that I'd invented inside my head.

Away so long for years and years,

You probably thought or even wished that I was dead.

While the armies are all sleeping beneath the tattered flag we'd made.

I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

This prison has now become your home,

A sentence you seem prepared to pay.

It took a day to build the city.

We walked through its streets in the afternoon.

As I returned across the fields I'd known,

I recognized the walls that I once made.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

Just...wow.

I waxed poetic in my last post about how long it has taken me to get to this point - years of living with this story and these characters - and how surreal it still feels. Wanna know what will kick that feeling of being just on the verge of an anxiety attack right over into full-blown WHAT HAVE I DONE?

One little post on social media, from a real-life friend who happens to be KIND OF A BIG DEAL in the Rennie world saying she can't wait to start the new trilogy in the picture she posted: The Nature Walker Trilogy. She is about to find out about Gin and Sath and Orana and all the rest. The horrible little voice in my head says that I am about to be exposed as the imposter I am. Exposed - by someone that is my friend.

Now, all of us living in the rational world know that none of the drama described in the above paragraph is realistic. She may hate the trilogy. But she may also love it. In fact, there is a good chance that she will love it. And if she doesn't, my world will not end. Right?

There is a good chance that a lot of people would love it, and if only I would GET OUT OF MY OWN WAY and let them experience it then they will love it and share it with their friends. But that's the rub - getting out of my own way. I suppose this is something that all writers (and artists and dancers and anyone of a creative ilk) have to face. The tiny voice in my head is firmly standing in the way of me returning to dance class. But on the positive side, the tiny voice in my head kept me from following a traditional publishing route, and so far I'm quite pleased with the results of indie publishing (or self-publishing). I have a great team that provides me feedback and editing and creative support - a team that the tiny voice can't touch. One dissenting voice in the face of a supportive chorus is drowned out most of the time.

I hope that my friend's post on social media will lead to more people giving Gin's story a try and falling in love with her and Orana. But most of all I hope she enjoys the story because that's why I wrote it and published it - for people to experience and enjoy. All the wow moments pale in comparison to that.

It's here! Guardian: Rise of the Nature Walker

Well, I have to say that almost two decades ago, when I first started playing an MMORPG, I never would have guessed that experience would lead to the gorgeous book cover over there. Even a decade ago, when the late nights, guild raids, and TeamSpeak chats were just a happy memory, I was sitting on a manuscript that I couldn't share - wouldn't share - but it wouldn't let me go. It took another ten years for me to finish it, polish it, rip it to bits and start again. It was a Superginormous chunk of memory in my cloud drive. It turned into a private blog, and that's where the first beta reader not only gave me feedback but encouraged me to keep writing and keep working on the story.

Wanderer came first and is the most similar to the original superginormous manuscript. Everyone hates exposition, and that's what I thought Wanderer was...but it isn't, not really. It's an introduction to Ginolwenye - Gin for short - and to the world I created for her to inhabit. Next came Tempest, arguably the most dark, personal, and difficult thing I have ever written. The majority of those two books were written years ago, and only needed some revising.

Guardian was different. Guardian was the end of the story that I couldn't quite make myself write. At the time that I wrote the first two, Guardian was somewhere I didn't want to go because I didn't want Gin's story to be over. I wasn't ready to leave Gin's world. But, as people started to get to know her and became invested in her story, I knew I had to be brave enough to see this story through. And so, Guardian came into being. And here it is, launch day for this last book in the Nature Walker Trilogy, and I still can't believe all of this is real.

Funny thing about Gin, though. She isn't done just yet. She is just coming into her own - her birthright, her inheritance, herself. Gin has a lot more to do, and I can't wait for her to point me in the direction of her next adventure. For now, though, you can get your copy of Guardian by clicking on this link. Ta very much, y'all. Very much indeed.

More from my own shameless commerce division...

Tomorrow is the day, y'all. Tempest goes live on Amazon for Kindle, and the paperback will hopefully follow soon. This was an incredibly personal piece for me to write, and I feel like I've just come out from under something very heavy with it going to release.

Pre-order has been open for a month, and I'm learning more about marketing a book as the month crawls on. Tomorrow will be a bit of a release for me because I can change gears from PLEASE BUY MY BOOK IN ADVANCE to releasing teasers and hoping that some of the folks reading Wanderer on Kindle Unlimited will hop over to Tempest when they are done.

You won't hear me compliment myself often, but I really do feel that Gin's story needs to be told. One of my muses told me recently that he was glad to see Gin coming into her own a bit more through the story told in Tempest. I hope that others will see that in her and will find her story empowering in some way.

I remember when I read the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, one of the things that struck me over and over is how I could actually see myself in the characters - no small feat for an epic fantasy that spanned more than ten novels - and I hope that people find something familiar in the characters I have created in the Orana Chronicles.

Oh, let's be honest, I just hope that people will read the books and love Gin and Sath and the others as much as I do. If you have read Wanderer and have pre-ordered Tempest, you have my thanks.

Hey, y'all...guess what?

What is it they call it on Car Talk? "The Shameless Commerce Division?" Yep, that's pretty much me today. Click below to pre-order.

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

(Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon sites pre-order coming soon!)

All that and the (Goodreads) sync...

Concept by me, final design by Brian Collins

So, today is a big day. I mean, of course it is, it's New Year's Day, January 1st, 2018, but in my little corner of life, it is also Cover Reveal Day for the second book in my trilogy, Tempest, as you can see there just to the right of here. Once again, my good friend Brian, who is so very talented, has created a masterpiece out of my mucky concept. 

In revealing the cover, I am also committing to a timeline, something that is hard AND easy for me in equal measure. I know that I work better with one, and with a hard and fast deadline, but I also know myself. I am extremely impatient and I want ALL OF THE PEOPLE TO HAVE ALL OF THE BOOKS NOW rather than do what normal people do and release them on a schedule. In fact, in order to distract myself from fretting over getting Tempest into the eReaders of ALL OF THE PEOPLE, I distracted myself by writing a prequel of sorts, a history of Orana, that in its current state is just heaps and heaps of slightly coherent ones and zeroes, waiting in my cloud drive to be edited. And by edited, I mean ripped to bits and probably rearranged a bit. I'm pleased with it, but I'm the only one that has read it so far, so there's that.

In linking my blog to Goodreads (if you're reading me from there and the cover graphic looks wonky, I'm sorry), I am revealing a part of my self to (hopefully) a large group of people that don't know me yet, either as a writer or as me. That's okay, if not a little nerve-wracking. But here I am to reveal parts of both of those sides of me, anxiety be damned. 

The cover for Wanderer is being reworked a bit so that it falls in a bit better with this concept direction we have taken with Tempest, and that will be revealed here as well when it's ready. If you are new to the Lettuce, please feel free to mosey around. There are large time gaps, I will warn you, and if you go alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way back 10 years to where it started you will see a very different me in the posts. You may also want to head over to Our Daily Bryn, a photo blog of our life with our Irish Wolfhound, Bryn - who is the star of her own series of books (so far only a series of one, but I'm working on that), Clobberpaws.

So, happy new year, welcome to Brave Lettuce, and I hope to hear from you here in the comments or over on Goodreads!