Hey, I hope you have a happy holiday filled with light, love, and laughter.
Despite everything, we will make certain our scribe has a happy holiday too.
(This is Ran, Sarn’s son from the Curse Breaker series, by the way.)
This week started out not so great when Melinda checked her Amazon publishers account (KDP) on Dec. 23. She finally got access to that account after 7 weeks of not being able to access it and the subject line says it all.
She found that Amazon terminated that account.
What happened?
On Dec. 15, a half hour after our newsletter went out, a KDP rep called Melinda and instructed her to create a new KDP account under a new email address. My scribe did that and then the KDP rep merged her old inaccessible account into the new one, closed the old one out, and that was it.
This took about an hour and Melinda had access to our books published on Amazon.
Then on Dec. 23, Amazon chose to terminate that account and remove ALL her books from the store.
Melinda appealed, but she received an instant email saying they were upholding their decision.
Melinda appealed again. Same result. She replied back to the original support ticket. No reply.
She emailed the Alliance of Independent Authors, even though they weren’t much help over the last 8 weeks. But it doesn’t hurt to try everything and she is a member, so why not reach out?
Maybe this time they will help?
We won’t know until they are back in office on January 5th since we got their out of office message.
What does this mean?
All Melinda’s books have been removed from Amazon. So you can no longer buy them from that store, and we can’t publish new books to Amazon.
So that is where things are right now, and it’s not good.
Thankfully, you can still buy our books on other stores and request them from your local library. Plus we have a Kickstarter coming up in January for 5 brand new books.
We won’t let Amazon stop us from bringing you new books!
Is there any good news?
Yes, actually! We got word from the printer that they are printing the proof copies of these 3 books right now:
They could start their journey across the Atlantic by the end of next week!
So that’s exciting. We want to see the sprayed edges and the gold foil so badly so we can replace our digital mockups with photos of the actual books.
In case you missed it, the reading order for the stories based on our newsletter adventures goes as follows:
Story Arc #1: TALES OF A CURSE BREAKER IN NY TRILOGY
- Catch the Scribe ← you are here in today’s preview
- Book Battles
- Rogue Characters
Story Arc #2: CURSE BREAKER’S COMPANION SERIES
- Dragon Spells
- Rogue Spells
- Storm Spells
- Void Spells
To celebrate those 5 new books, I thought it would be fun to share with you the first chapters of all 7 books in the expanded series (Tales of A Curse Breaker in NY trilogyand Curse Breaker’s Companion series).
There will be spoilers! But it’ll be a fun way to give you a peek at the story inside each book.
So to kick that off, I bring you a heartwarming bonus scene from the beginning of Catch the Scribe as our gift for the holiday. It just so happens to star me.
Catch the Scribe
by Melinda Kucsera
Bonus Chapter: The Enchantment Breaks
(The last scene from Curse Breaker Enchanted but from Ran’s perspective)
Ran hugged Papa hard because he needed it, and Papa returned the embrace until no more tears fell upon his head. Papa’s magic didn’t like water, so his tears had drowned their green glow, extinguishing it, and the sight was disturbing.
Ran slid off his lap, and his knee broke the circle of shining leaves, shutting off the projection. Oops. Although, that might have been the right move since the sight had just depressed Papa. “Why does Shade get to climb on her?” By her, Ran meant the thousand-foot-tall silver-glowing Queen Tree standing on the hill framed in the—what was the light and the scene it had shown us?
The Queen Tree had pretty silver star-shaped leaves, and they carpeted the stone floor of our cave from our last run-in with her a few hours ago. But she was gone now and so was that slice of another place and time. Anything was possible with magic, and that made Ran smile, but he flipped it into a frown because Papa was talking about serious things, and he didn’t want Papa to take his smile the wrong way. Ran wasn’t sure how to feel about Papa’s friend’s death, but he wasn’t as sad as Papa was.
“Because Shade’s gone,” Papa said, derailing that line of thought. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, drying them, and their green glow crept back into them. Knowing his odd friend Shade was with the Queen Tree must make him feel better, or it did until he yawned.
Papa gathered Ran, his blanket and bear, both of which Ran dropped when he helped him make circles on the floor with shiny silver leaves and crossed to the mattress. Then Papa just stood there staring at his teenage brother, Uncle Miren, sound asleep on it.
Ran hid a smile and stifled a giggle. Uncle Miren would be livid when he found out what he’d been up to with Papa. Score one more for team Bear. Ran hugged Bear hard. He didn’t complain. But Ran loosened his grip before Ghost Bear noticed, and he undid the catch at Papa’s throat to release his magical cloak.
Rather than locate a blanket for himself, Papa dragged his magic-infused cloak over them as he laid down still holding Ran. As if I would ever try to escape him. We’re a team, and I’ll remind him of that when I wake up. It was way past Ran’s bedtime, but there was one important issue he must clear up before he could give into the exhaustion creeping through him, and it had to do with the uncle snoozing away in ignorance beside them.
“Uncle Miren won’t unner—udder—” Ran whispered into Papa’s good ear, but the word he needed kept slipping away from him. It would have been frustrating if Ran wasn’t fighting a yawn. Adventuring was tiring work.
“Understand?” Papa suggested.
“Yes, I mean no. He won’t get it. So, it’s a secret.” Ran smiled, “our secret.”
But Papa frowned, not liking that as much as Ran did. But it was a secret, and Ran knew he’d keep it because Papa was a quiet man who didn’t like talking about himself.
Content with the world, Ran pillowed his head on his chest while still smiling because he knew a great many things Uncle Miren would dearly love to know.
While Ran gloated, Papa did something with his magic. Ran heard its timbre change and watched it flow away from Papa in waves of green light, but then they bounced back on him. Those waves tingled as they passed through Ran, but none of that magic stayed inside him. It cycled back into Papa. So not fair. Why did he get all the magic?
“Papa?” Ran lifted his head so he could see Papa’s face. He’d almost forgotten to ask his usual question, but tonight it had a special meaning.
“Mmm?” Papa stirred, but didn’t open his eyes.
“When you wake up—we’ll have an ad-ven-ture?”
“Yes, but I have to sleep for a while first.” Papa froze as those beautiful words fell out of his mouth confirming Ran would get his heart’s desire tomorrow.
“Okay.” Ran grinned and snuggled close while hugging his bear. All was right in his ever-expanding world, but Papa remained tense for a long while as sleep took Ran away, and they filled his head with strange dreams.
But Fate handed Ran another adventure before he was ready to enjoy it. That was such a mean thing to do.
***
Next week, we’ll have the actual first chapter. I hope this cozy scene warms your heart. Next week, things get exciting.
Until then, have a very happy holiday and read a good book.
Our books are available in libraries and from Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Apple and directly through our shop. You can find all the links on our website in case you have a book emergency.
Don’t forget to follow our Kickstarter so you get notified when it launches:
Melinda Kucsera - USA Today Bestselling Author of Epic Fantasy Adventures 