Colleen Cowley's newsletter for awesome people by Colleen Cowley

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When your rival knows you too well

His lips curve in that "oho, I’ve bested you" smirk that has driven you spare for years.

Imagine: You're far from home and the one person who knows precisely how that feels is your childhood rival/nemesis who's in the same far-from-home place.


That would be rather aggravating, wouldn't it.


Especially if you've been secretly enjoying the arguments you have.


And if he's (rather aggravatingly) appealing to look at.


And most of all, if you're certain that he just tried to sabotage your equal-rights rally with a magically induced downpour.


There's something primal about the first place we remember as home, for good or ill, and all primal things have power. Perhaps none of us really can go home again (as activist Ella Winter told novelist Thomas Wolfe, who asked her permission to use it for a title), but that doesn't mean we won't long for it anyway.


That's why I wrote a story about that.


This enraging wizard is, at the moment, the closest thing to home you have left.


That wasn't what I started out trying to write, but stories have a tendency to spark to life when they veer off from the initial idea. I was just trying to write a fun choose-your-own-adventure-style fantasy romance.


I hope it still is that, but it turned out to be about home, too. (And a rather aggravating/appealing wizard.)


Now, I need your help: Early readers improve a story by flagging what they like and what's not working yet. Raise your hand for the beta-reading team here:


I want to help!


Thank you! ❤️


📚🌟📚🌟📚


More cool & bookish things

imageHey, did you know there's an all-you-can-read-and-listen book subscription?


It's at Kobo, and a bunch of fantasy romance authors with books there have pulled together this spooky-season collection so you can find your next fav ... whether you're reading with your eyes or your ears.


Among your options there: my Clandestine Magic audiobooks and one of my ebooks.



Gimme those books



You made it to the end! You're awesome. (Of course.) And oh hey, here are my latest books and here are all my book gifts to you.


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