Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas 🧛💣🎄

Since I know this story is what you want most, here is the link!

If you want to know more first, here’s some info:

The story is set at the same time as the first three chapters of Blood Ex Libris, but from Sandu’s perspective—and yes, that means you get the full story of his being am’r-napped and tortured that he only glosses over at the Big Am’r Summit in the Rave Cave.

So the two main features of the story are: seeing the meeting of Noosh and Sandu’s through Sandu’s eyes, and then the rest of the story is just the kind of thrilling torture and revengeful action-y escape that you want from holiday films like Die Hard, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Red One, or Violent Night. It’s got “Christmas-specific torture” — you’ll need to read it to get it, but I think you’ll all find it a kick in the pants

Plus, for those of you who prefer less open-door spice, this story takes place before all that gets going in Blood Ex Libris, so it’s just violent vampire action, not sexy vampire action. All the other stuff you love is there, however: swearing in Romanian, historical bits, global settings — the usual BAAS recipe for am’r goodness.

I didn’t mean to write this story this year. My publisher has been demanding it for some time now, and suddenly, in late November, the story just started happening in my brain, so I had to rush to get it out on the page.

It actually fucked up quite a few of my other plans, hustling to get the story done and edited and published before Xmas. So please go grab your copy, because I really put the sweat, blood, and tears into this one!

(There was supposed to be a fancier cover — I found a great artist and we were totally on the same page about the cover art, but then there was a misunderstanding about the delivery date. So there will be a better cover in the future, but for now I just wanted to get it out to you all, and since it’s an ebook, the title page works well enough until the real cover comes along.)

(N.B.—if you are completely opposed to spending money on Amazon — which I understand and believe me I wish I could sell books without involving Amazon at all — email me and we’ll get you the story another way)

This is the final newsletter of 2025! 🕰️

I’m exhausted. It’s been an insane year! 😵

📅January — IIP republished Blood Ad Infinitum as Blood Eternal (may I never have to rename a book EVER!) and I got to give a talk with Cecilia Tan to Emerson College about being an indie author

📅February — the second year of the Villaintine’s Day vote. I love this tradition! But also my hand surgery that totally messed up my writing schedule for the whole year

📅March — Die Feen released their song about Blood Eternal “Mistakes”

📅April - May — the drama of writing Finding Bela Lugosi for the doomed Bauhaus anthology, then finding out the editor of said anthology was “not someone you’d want to work with” (I am putting this so very delicately!) and then the quest for getting the rights to use the lyrics from “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” from Bauhaus, managing to get it published for World Dracula Day; plus doing readings online and posting videos about vampires and being an indie author (And it’s still free online!)

📅June — going to the literal Sunnydale Hellmouth and getting to do a panel with the most fantastic Amber Benson

📅July — That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story makes a huge splash, and I attend Readercon for the first time, and totally fall in love with the convention

📅August — Yet another article published in Book Life by Publisher’s Weekly. And I finally get back to work on Blood Depths

📅September — I try vending at new places, like the Dark Forest Oddities Expo (not the greatest success) and the Vampfangs Vampire Market (a shockingly great success)

📅October — I have the best time ever on The Historic Lesbian Motifs podcast and of course Paulette Kennedy’s Live series, and vending at my beloved Pandemonium, as well as having my bestie over for carving punkins on Halloween

📅November — Back into Blood Depths, but get surprise-attacked by the Sandu Xmas Story that demands to be written…

📅December — trip to LA to finally record Blood Eternal with Amber Benson, publish Dracula’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas, and working on a whole bunch of other exciting stuff for 2026

I feel like it was a pretty damn important year for both the series and for me as an author and person. Writing the shorter stories proved to me as a writer that I can really get a lot out of writing things that aren’t novels (I had done it before, but once I started writing novels those really took over!) and they also brought a lot of new readers to the series.

One of my goals had been to get out there and vend more and attend more conventions. It was baby-steps, but I think I chose mostly good places and they were worth the time, energy, and money. Because of my chronic illness, committing to three-day events is terrifying, and even a one-day event can cause me to lose a week after in recovery time. My next goal is to figure out vending in a state where I’m not already set up for paying sales tax, and just doing as many conventions as my health will allow.

My biggest goal for 2026 is just to get Blood Depths written as fast and as well as I possibly can. While I think all the distractions in 2025 were worthy endeavors, there are a lot of new characters I can’t wait for you to meet, and I really just want to sink back into novel writing, and just do the thing I love most about being an author—you know, write books—with less Other Stuff getting in the way.

Thank you all for sticking with me through another year of trying to figure out how to do this indie author thing. You newsletter readers are really the rock in the storm for me, and I deeply appreciate every one of you who takes the time to read each bi-monthly email, respond to polls and other questions, and support each story as it comes your way.

I hope you have a safe and joyful holiday season, and I look forward to sharing the world of the am’r with you in 2026! 🥂 And of course, until the next newsletter, be good or be good at it!😘

💭 I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: drop me a note 📨

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