Coral Alejandra Moore's Blog

Hello! Just a brief update for the end of the year.

The biggest news I have to share is that there will be a temporary absence of my eBooks on Barnes & Noble and Kobo stores as I change the way I'm distributing to those platforms. Hopefully it won't take very long and they'll be up there again soon. Until then, the buttons for those stores on my book pages probably won't work right. So just something to keep in mind if you shop those stores.

I guess I should use this as a reminder that you can always get books from my shop at a slightly cheaper price than they are available anywhere else. eBooks are delivered via Bookfunnel and can be sent to any sort of eReader you own.

I've been doing a lot of writing the last few weeks, and things are going swimmingly. I've started the research and brainstorming work on something new and very exciting that I've been marinating on for around a month now. I'll start sharing details about that once I get the two books I'm working on at the moment done—Broods book 3 and Sin City book 3 .

I've signed on to two different anthology projects for next year that I'm really excited about. They are both monster romance oriented so they will be novellas in the Sin City world featuring different side characters that you may (or may not) have met yet. The Sin City world was always meant to be a kind of expanding wonderland where you'd meet fun new characters and get to spend some time with them. So I'm pleased to be able to start that process a little earlier than I intended with the help of these projects. There'll be more news about this in the coming months!

That's about all I've got for now! I hope the end of your year is peaceful and you get everything you want for whatever winter holiday you celebrate.

-Coral❤️

Whew. I've got so much to share with you. And I realized it had been a hot minute since I posted anything on my blog. So here we are!

Well, first off, Book 2 of the Scorching in Sin City series is almost done! It's called Hers to Claim and it will be available for sale at all the usual places on October 30th. Hmm, I should probably get to work on the blurb for that one soon.

I also have the announcement for the title of Book 3: Hers to Keep. It will be a spicy continuation of the story arcs of Mariana and her coterie. That one will be out probably the early part of next year.

In other Sin City news that I'm not sure if I've shared, I'll be having an audiobook done in December for the first book. It probably won't be available until January, but it is coming soon!

As far as other releases go, Book 3 of the Broods of Fenrir series is coming up at probably the end of December. That one is called Kissed by Loki and I'll have the cover reveal as soon as I have it in my hot little hands.

I've been out and about doing events in my local area all summer. This weekend I've got one coming up in Seattle, the Emerald City Romance Author and Reader event. I've loved meeting those of you who have made it out. I hope to spread out a little next year and do some in other west coast locations. Stay tuned to hear more about that.

I think that's all I've got right now. Thanks for coming along on this ride with me. This year has been such a big change for me and I hope that the last half just keeps going the same way.

-C❤️

This is the first scene of Inundation that I ever wrote. This is how the people who Camila and Marcos became first occurred to me and I knew from that moment that their relationship would be the heart of this story.

It's a little racy at one point, because that's just how Camila rolls. I hope you enjoy this peek into the book. If you're craving more, you can read the first chapter here.

Camila knelt on the hard wooden plank of the dim confessional and inhaled a deep breath. Confession was always difficult for her, but not for the same reasons as most people. She folded her hands together and willed herself to calm.

When the partition slid open, she crossed herself and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…” She trailed off, trying to calculate how long it had been.

“Six months and a few days,” Marcos provided from the other side of the booth.

She glared through the textured divider at his perfect profile on the other side, the long bridge of his nose and his jaw like a ledge of immovable rock. Her memory helpfully added the fall of his too-long black lashes against his high cheekbones even though she didn’t ask for more detail. Damn him. She hadn’t seen him in months, and now, when her guilt was at its absolute worst, here was the reason for it, made flesh.

Camila huffed as she tore the mantilla from her head and crushed the white lace in one fist. “Isn’t it against the point of hiding behind this screen if you recognize my voice?”

“The barrier is more for you to feel comfortable than for me.”

A flush rose in her cheeks, and she shifted on her knees before catching herself fidgeting. “This is a mistake. I should wait until Father Barnes is taking confession.”

“You’re already here,” Marcos said much too gently.

She waited for him to provide more encouragement, but he did not. If she hadn’t known him for ten years before he went to the seminary, she might have thought his patience was some kind of priestly art, but it was just Marcos, as he’d ever been.

“I’ve lied.” She paused to collect her thoughts. Jesucristo, that was an understatement. “A lot. But always for a good reason.”

“Reasons don’t matter. You know that.”

She clenched her hands around the lace tightly enough to hurt. The unmitigated arrogance of the man. Her biggest lies had always been to protect him. Always. When she’d found out she was pregnant after he had left for the seminary, she had gone to stay with her mother for the duration and lied to everyone just to spare him the pain of that knowledge because she’d known it would tear him apart.

She struck him back where she knew it would hurt the most. She was so very good at that. “I’ve fornicated outside the sanctity of marriage,” she spat, “frequently.”

The bastard didn’t even have the decency to clear his throat. “You should seek to rise above these carnal desires.” His tone was flat and controlled. A rote response.

God, how she hated him sometimes. “You know I can’t.” She poured as much suggestiveness as she could into the words, willing him to remember the two of them engaged in the carnal desires he so disdained now.

He sighed. His pain was much less gratifying than she’d hoped. “Maybe you were right about this being a mistake.”

“I’m sorry.” She blew out a breath. “You can add being a hateful bitch to my list.”

“No hables asi, Camila.”

She smiled faintly because she knew the scolding wasn’t about the language but about how she was speaking about herself. “Perdóname.”

“I’m trying to.” He sounded strained now. “Is there more?”

Another pang of guilt. Great. “I’m sometimes cruel to people who don’t deserve it.”

Marcos chuckled. “So, it’s not just me?”

“No.” Was that another lie? She didn’t even know anymore. “I went too far and kind of beat up Wanda while we were sparring because she wouldn’t shut up about the angels and how great they were.”

This time, he did clear his throat. “It would not be a productive use of your time here to argue about that.”

She really was trying not to fight with him, as best as she was able. He was right though. Talking about the reason they were all stuck here was a waste of time, because it wouldn’t change anything. He believed in the angels and the mission of the Children as only a truly pious man could. To Camila, all of this was just a job—one she was damned good at. “We should probably add blasphemy to the list, just for good measure. But at least I’m really good at the one about false idols.”

“Camila.” Anger sharpened his voice in a way that made goosebumps prickle her skin.

“I am truly sorry for all my sins,” she said in a rush before she fucked everything up even more.

“You are one of God’s chosen warriors. You, more than most, are tested every day. That doesn’t mean that you get a free pass. If anything, your behavior should be a model to others…”

As he went on, she thought about the first time they’d had sex, up against a wall in the aftermath of a battle they shouldn’t have won, both of them drenched in the black blood of demons. She had discovered her power for the first time that day, literally and figuratively.

Marcos had pushed her against the brick so hard she’d bruised, but she’d loved every frantic second of their rough coupling. He apologized afterward, nearly in tears, as he was doing up his pants, shame making his voice small and his face ashen. She’d hated him for the shame, and even more for the apology, though never for the act itself. No one before or since had ever made her feel so alive.

It took every bit of her combat training to control her breathing as her body responded to the memory. The ache between her legs only got worse when she clenched her thighs to stop her knees from shaking.

Marcos assigned her penance—a full rosary and two acts of charity—and asked her to say the Act of Contrition. She spoke the prayer in Spanish, slowly, because she knew he liked hearing it that way. It was the easiest way to say she was sorry, and she was so shameless she would do anything to spend a few more seconds alone with him, even locked in a confessional.

When he made the sign of the cross after the Prayer of Absolution, her heart sank. She wondered how hard he would beat himself later for what she’d made him feel in this booth. He had ever been a traditionalist. This was why she hated confession. Somehow, she always left feeling worse.

“Amen,” she said, sorry for the pain she had caused him and hoping he could hear her sincerity.

A long pause sat between them. Too long. The echo of that single word somehow reached through the years and all they’d done and been to each other. Friends. Partners. Lovers. Everything.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,” Marcos said finally, his voice hoarse.

She bowed her head. Fuck. She would not cry right now. “His mercy endures forever.”

“Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.”

“Thanks be to God.” She crossed herself and rose slowly, even now, at this final, fleeting moment, trying to make their time alone stretch longer.

As she turned to leave, she paused with her fingers tight around the door handle. “Nothing we did ever needed forgiveness, Marcos. None of it.” She didn’t wait to hear his response, if he made one.

I have finished the migration from Smashwords, so the all of my older books should now be available once again at all the usual places. The changeover was a little bumpy, but mostly because I was working with some older cover files that didn't want to cooperate. (I will eventually recover all of those books, but all things in their time.)

I've also extended the paperback availability to a couple of new places that I'm experimenting with (Ingramspark and Bookvault). Both of those should mean that all of my books will be more available for ordering in bookstores.

The most exciting news though is that I've set up my own shopfront on Gumroad that you can see here: https://coralm.gumroad.com/

Right now only eBooks are available there, but eventually we'll get some physical options up on there. I'm just trying to work out the particulars.

EBooks ordered through there are delivered through BookFunnel so they should be a cinch to get to your reader of choice, or even read through their app.

Why should buy from that shop? Well, because I'm not going through online retailers I get a little more of the cover price, so I can offer you a discount on the pricing you would get from them and still make out better.

I'm starting a podcast with a friend of mine who is also an author, T.J. Deschamps. The podcast is all about the paranormal genre (which we both love!) and we've got fun topics lined up for a bunch of episodes. We've also got some guests lined up who will bring more energy and more fun to the conversation.

The podcast is called Paranormal Wishes and you should be able to find it at all podcasting locations. But here's the linktr.ee just in case.

We've got one episode already available for listening, it's about Defining Paranormal as a genre. And we're getting our second episode ready for you as we speak. That one will be about Paranormal Shows and Movies.

Along with that podcast we're also launching a Discord for listeners and readers of our books, and we'd love to have you join us there to talk about paranormal business. You can find our Discord here.

This probably won't impact many people, but I wanted to make sure I had something up about it explaining what was going on. My three older books: Broods of Fenrir, Marked by Odin, and Elements of Rebellion are coming down from most vendors (not Amazon) while I switch them over from one distributor to another. Hopefully the time they are down won't be extended. I basically have to wait for them to all come down before I put them back up and I'm not sure how long that will be (some of them are already down and others aren't).

This change is essentially an ease of use one for me, putting my older books and my newer books all in one place to make one less place I have to look for and update things. I assume it'll be all done sometime this week. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes.

So, you might have noticed that things look new in these parts. I have had the old blog a long time. Like a ridiculous amount of time in internet years, I think all the way back to 2010 or so. It went through many iterations but always stayed relatively the same in format. This year I decided to entirely revamp everything.

There's a couple of reasons for that decision, but primarily it was because I decided to change the focus of my career. For the last ten years I devoted myself to trying to get a traditional publishing deal. But as those years wore on, I became more and more unhappy with the entire deal. It was a constant motivational struggle for me to write anything at all, and it only got worse with time. Late last year (2022) I spent a week sitting with myself and trying to figure out why that was. Part of the realization that I had was the last time I had been HAPPY was when I was self-publishing.

For those that don't know, I self-published three books in the 2012-2013 timeframe. It was largely done as an exercise to help me figure out how to do things. I was new to the industry and thought that was the best way for me to figure out my place in it. I sold enough to cover my expenses, get some great reviews, and make a little extra money. The experiment was a success! And more importantly: I WAS HAPPY.

I cannot stress enough how strange that was for most of my writing journey so far. Because the last ten years, I was definitely not happy. I struggled almost on a daily basis because I was trying to fit myself into a box that wasn't made to fit me. It was made to fit someone. I don't know who that person is, but it's definitely not me. Anyway, once I realized all of that, it seemed like an obvious choice for me to go back to where I was happy. Me, in control of all the decisions and my own destiny. It feels amazing. I have no idea why it took me this long.

So, here we are at the end of April and we have a whole new look to go with the whole new career path. A world of thanks to the incomparable ,Jasleni who helped drag me through this process. I'm so thrilled to be here, and I can't wait to share what comes next with you.

C

#CoralMoore #CoralAlejandraMoore #BranchingNarratives #Author #Writer #NewBook #NewWebsite #Branding #BookReleaseSchedule #Patreon #SupportWriters

Hello friends!

I'm here today to tell you about ,my brand new Patreon. I'm going to be using that space as a repository for my fiction of all sizes, from drabbles to novels. That's also where I'm going to put all my behind-the-scenes content from my worlds, like related short stories, character interviews, and more! Cover reveals and other publication announcements will probably happen there first as well.

I also plan to use that space to experiment with new and exciting things, like audio, maybe a little video, and anything else that catches my fancy. All in all, it will be a place where I do the scary things I haven't tried before, and I think some of them will be wonderful. So hop on board there to see what I'm up to.

Right now I've only got a small handful of things up there, but I'll be posting my backlist over the next few months, novels included, and there will be fun new stuff soon!

C

#CoralMoore #CoralAlejandraMoore #BranchingNarratives #Author #Writer #NewBook #NewWebsite #Branding #BookReleaseSchedule #Patreon #SupportWriters

Hey there!Allow me to introduce a new ongoing feature right here on my brand new website. It's a quick-fire interview series with creatives that enables them to share what's going on with them and things that excite them. It's five questions, just enough time to get to know these folks and a little about what they do.If you want to be featured in this space, contact me!

C

#CoralMoore #CoralAlejandraMoore #BranchingNarratives #Author #Writer #5minuteswith #interviewwithCoralMoore #interviews #creatives

Hello there!

Welcome to my new website, isn't it gorgeous? All of the thanks and love goes out to ,Jasleni who guided me through this entire transformation from start to finish.

Okay, now for the nitty-gritty. As you might imagine, all of this was done with a specific goal in mind, and that was to rededicate myself and all of my online spaces once again to self-publishing. Those who have been around for a while know that I self-published three novels in the 2010s and then fell away from that as I pursued more traditional publishing. Jump cut to ten years later (the end of 2022) when I was trying to figure out why I had been so miserable with my writing career for so long, and I realized it was because of what I like to call the traditional publishing treadmill. You run along, writing pitches and sending queries, and feeling like you're getting nowhere the entire time. I knew something had to change, because all of the joy in my work had vanished. I decided I was going to go back to where I was happiest, when I was self-publishing and had all of the control over my own work and career.

So, here we are. All of this upheaval comes with amazing news. I'm going to be publishing three books in the second half of this year!

Here's what the publishing schedule looks like for the rest of the year:

June 27, 2023 ,Summoner's Circle - Contemporary Fantasy

August 29, 2023 ,Stoneshaper - Secondary World Fantasy

October 31, 2023 ,Inundation - Dystopian Fantasy

I can already hear the concerns about the aggressive schedule, so let me head that off. Two of these books have been written for years. Summoner's Circle and Stoneshaper were the books I was shopping to agents for the last five years. I just got Summoner's Circle back from my fabulous new editor, and I already have plans to send Stoneshaper out to her next month. Covers will be done soon by an absolutely jaw-dropping artist who I can't wait to introduce you to in another post once I have the covers in my hands.

I'll have more information available very soon, like covers and excerpts, so watch this space for those!

C

#CoralMoore #CoralAlejandraMoore #BranchingNarratives #Author #Writer #NewBook #NewWebsite #Branding #BookReleaseSchedule