The Robber

I've got a lot of explaining to do.

Not in a bad way. I just want to tell you a little about the new short story I have on the market.  It's called The Robber and, leading up to the release of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Inner Strength (which includes an intense little story from my life), The Robber is available as a FREE download at Amazon.

So where does the explaining come in? Well, here's the thing: I wouldn't exactly classify The Robber as Young Adult fiction, like the rest of my books.  Although the protagonist is ten years old (it's her birthday in the story), I feel the story is better classified as literary fiction for adults.  It's not that there's anything specifically "adult" or offensive in terms of the content (aside from harsh language and distressing situations), but I still wanted to put a bit of a content warning out into the world.

Why the tie-in with this new Chicken Soup for the Soul book? (which you can pre-order here, by the way: http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Soup-Soul-Empowering-Resilience-ebook/dp/B00IWTWFYK/ref=foxglovelee-20 )

Because while The Robber is a fictionalized version of events from my young life, my story It Takes A Village in CSS Find Your Inner Strength is a true story from roughly the same era. They both deal with substance abuse and family violence.

The Robber will be free at all Amazon sites starting today and ending on the release day of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Inner Strength, which is October 28th.

You can find The Robber at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ODBV4AM
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ODBV4AM
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00ODBV4AM

Literary short fiction from the author of Tiffany and Tiger's Eye:

Samantha’s celebrating her tenth birthday, but turning “double digits” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Her special day is dampened not only by her mom burning the chicken fingers and making her go to Girl Guides, but also by the fact that she knows "the robber" will be coming later that night. After all, birthday cards mean birthday money, and birthday money is sure to attract him.

Sam and her younger sister Tory have tried for years to find the perfect hiding spot, but the robber always finds any bits of cash tucked away in their underwear drawers, or in the pyjama doll, or the hollow base of the ugly ceramic unicorn from Grandma Macintyre. It's only a matter of time before the robber arrives at Samantha’s bedroom door.

Not every horror story is supernatural…

You can find The Robber at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ODBV4AM
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ODBV4AM
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00ODBV4AM

Happy Birthday, Evernight! Get Truth and Other Lies at 30% Off!

Have you read my book Truth and Other Lies? No? Well this is the time to grab yourself a copy. In celebration of the publisher's birthday, my book is 30% off at All Romance Ebooks and OmniLit!

Until October 20th, you can snag Truth and Other Lies for only $2.79!

Have you ever wanted to get noticed? Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you worked or how hard you tried, nobody in the entire world cared what you did? Well, what if someone famous—and we’re talking Oprah-famous, here—noticed you for the one thing you wish you could hide? For your one big secret…

That’s exactly what happens to 18-year-old Kenneth McIntyre when television guru Prahna Mehta hails his self-published novel as the next bestseller. Little do his new fans know Truth and Other Lies wasn’t written by Kenny at all… and it isn’t fiction. Kenny’s been keeping secrets for years. Sometimes he feels like he’s lying to everybody he loves.

When Kenny gets swept into stardom, how will he hide the secrets he’s kept for years? And, if his lies are exposed, will anyone stay by his side?

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-truthandotherlies-1562486-145.html

https://www.omnilit.com/product-truthandotherlies-1562486-145.html

Look what just came in the mail!

My contributors' copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Inner Strength, introduced by Fran Drescher:

My story "It Takes A Village" appears in the chapter called Learning to Reach Out:

Here's my "this is really happening" face:

The book doesn't officially release until October 28th 2014, but it's available for pre-order now: http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Soup-Soul-Empowering-Resilience/dp/1611599393

And I'm in it!

Rainbow Crush and so much more...

I almost feel bad for trying to cram so much news into one post. I'll try to keep it brief.

Big News #1:

My first single-author short story collection is OUT! Rainbow Crush: Light-Hearted LGBT Fiction for Teens is available as an ebook and in print!

Five fun fictions from the author of Tiffany and Tiger’s Eye & Truth and Other Lies! In Rainbow Crush, revisit five favourite short stories featuring gay and lesbian characters:

In “I Hate Love,” Mila melts Laura-the-Ice-Queen’s heart as Jaden learns that dating an older man could have repercussions he hadn’t anticipated. Mila and Laura are back with impossibly high expectations in the side-splittingly funny housesitting comedy “Happy Birthday, Klutzface.” In “I Know What Gay Is,” Jay the teenaged manny and his young charge Sarah, who insists on being called Frank, find an unexpected ally on the soccer field.

School is back in session and tempers flare when Mila, Laura and Jaden stumble into a protest where classmates insist a gender-nonconforming new student “Dress Like A Dude.” In our final story, aspiring teen chef Noah comes out of the closet in a most surprising way during his first television appearance in “The Secret to a Perfect Latke.”

The ebook's available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NPOJA7C
and Amazon UK: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NPOJA7C
Get the paperback from CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/5002133
or Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Crush-Light-Hearted-Fiction-Teens/dp/1502393891

Big News #2:

Hope you kept reading, because I don't want you buying Rainbow Crush just yet! Well, you can if you want to, but Amazon's allowing me to give it away FREE for 5 days. That'll happen from September 21-25th, just in time for Word on the Street and ending on the day I'll be...

Big News #3:

...taking over Twitter!  Okay, not all of twitter.  I'll be taking over Torquere Press's @torquere twitter feed from 2-4 p.m. EST on Thursday September 25th. If you don't know Torquere, they are the "parent" publisher of the Prizm Books imprint that brought you my debut novel Tiffany and Tiger's Eye! Be there or be square.

Big News #4:

Thanks to Brad @JazzFM91 for the shout-out on the radio today! Sometimes it's nice to be shouted at... or out...

Big News #5:

I realized that visitors arriving at my blog for the first time might have trouble figuring out that I'm a professional writer and that I've got books on the market and all that. To that end, I created a store you can visit just by clicking on "Foxglove's Fiction" at the top of the page. Here's the direct link: http://foxglovelee.blogspot.com/p/foxgloves-fiction.html Okay, full disclosure: I saw other authors doing this and I thought it was a good idea. I'm a big copycat!

I think that's all the news you can use for now. Remember to grab a copy of Rainbow Crush on Sunday September 21st. The ebook will be free from then until Thursday of next week!

If you're playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and you're trying to get from Fran Drescher to Foxglove Lee...

...then you're obviously living in a make-believe world where I have more than 300 twitter followers and my books fly off the shelves of every bookstore in town, but let's pretend for a moment that this is really happening.  You're playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and you need to find some random connection between myself and the resilient Fran Drescher.

I know, I know, but bear with me. This is going somewhere, I promise.

In October, Fran Drescher and Foxglove Lee (haaa... talking about myself in the third person. George likes spicy food) will share the pages of a new edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul:

I saw Fran Drescher on a talk show a couple years ago (which is weird because I never watch talk shows) and I was astounded by some of the horrific stuff she's lived through. That woman has gone to hell and back, and I can't wait to read the foreword she's written for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Inner Strength.

As for me, when I first sat down to write something for this collection I really thought I had nothing to share. I couldn't think of an instance where I felt I'd been particularly strong, inside or out. But an event from my life came to mind and I typed it out, not thinking much of it.  It wasn't until I read the anecdote that I came to fully appreciate the harrowing nature of my life story. 

Sometimes you don't see how serious your situation is/was until you take a step back and examine it as though it were somebody else's experience.

I'll have more to say closer to the book's release date, but I wanted to tell you all how excited I am to have my story included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Inner Strength.

Who'd have thought I'd end up between the covers with the likes of Fran Drescher?

"I Know What Gay Is" is back and it's FREE until Friday!

I kind of said it all in the subject line, so... hmm... what's left to tell you?  

Not much! 

Here's the blurb for my queer YA short "I Know What Gay Is":

Isn't babysitting a job for twelve-year-old girls?

When the couple next door asks Jay to babysit, he can't help wondering… why him? Did they hire Jay as some kind of queer role model because they suspect little Sarah is gay?

At the park, when Sarah and Jay run across the guy he's been pseudo-stalking, Sarah insists she’s a boy. Darien’s sheer sexiness makes Jay pretty brain-dead, and he can't think what to talk about except how Sarah wants everyone to call her Frank. The funny kid reminds Darien of his transgender cousin. Could Sarah be trans, too? Should Jay talk to her parents? What if they say it's none of his business? What if they fire him?

Well, then he'll just have to spend his summer watching Darien work in the park, sweaty and shirtless...

Second Edition. First published by Prizm Books. 4,500 words.

It's free at Amazon now through Friday (that would be the 15th of August, I do believe) so pick up a copy today!

In America: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MN13PYW
In the UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MN13PYW?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
In Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00MN13PYW?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
In Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00MN13PYW

If you're somewhere else I'm pretty sure you can just replace the "com" with your country's Amazon suffix and you'll get to the book page? Maybe? I could be totally wrong about that. Try it and see if your computer explodes.

July 14-21st Your Evernight Teen Purchase Funds Girls' Education

My new publisher Evernight Teen is currently donating the purchase price from all books bought at their site to World Vision's Education for Girls Fund. That means if you buy Truth and Other Lies there right now, you're getting a great book and giving the gift of education to girls around the globe.

From the Evernight Teen blog:

Evernight Teen Teams Up with World Vision to 

Support the Education for Girls Fund.

During the week of July 14 – 21, the full amount of every book purchased on the Evernight and Evernight Teen websites will be donated to World Vision’s Education for Girls Fund.

57 million primary-school-age children are not enrolled in school; 53 percent of these are girls. These children are at greater risk for exploitation, early marriage, and lower income-earning potential. World Vision addresses barriers to education and works with communities and local governments to improve the quality of education children receive.

Help support World Vision’s Education for Girls Fund by purchasing a book or two (or more!) from Evernight Publishing and Evernight Teen’s websites. The full price of each book purchased from July 14th to July 21st will be donated to this important cause.

Look for authors' blog posts about what education means to them during the special fundraising week. Don’t miss their inspiring stories.