Behold The Pretty. And other stuff.

A failed-actress-turned-personal-assistant and an emotionally damaged TV star return to his hometown to confront the past. In the process, they face unforgiving relatives, amoral tabloid reporters, a murderous stalker, and their own slightly kinky passions. Will they survive long enough to fall in love?

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Nice, huh? Trace Edward Zaber, cover designer to the stars. And the planets. And the barely-counting-as-asteroids, which would be me.

So this novella - DIRTY SHAME, see The Pretty? Do ya, huh? - is due to be released later this month by the Amber Heat imprint of Amber Quill Press, as part of their "Risk" AmberPax collection. Tomorrow...or maybe the next day or the day after that...I'll post an excerpt that'll singe your socks. If you're into that sort of thing.

DIRTY SHAME is slightly (but ONLY slightly) more light-hearted than my last three published works. But I promise my next three will be back to my usual "in what way can I torture my characters nearly to death without having them actually bleed out on the page and thereby destroy any possibility of a happy ending?" way of doing things. Because my soul? Is a dark and gritty place. Ask my children, who live in fear of my turning on them and chanting in a flat monotone, "Life is hard, and then you die." They've taken to parroting it back to me. In public. We get some looks, lemme tell ya. No one has actually called us The Addams Family to our faces, you understand...but it's just a matter of time, I suspect.

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In other news? Britney shaved her head.

Yeah, I know, I'm many days late on this. But here's what I think:

When she starts yanking out her teeth or carving out strips of flesh from her arms, thighs, and/or belly? Call me. Until then, she's no different from the other three chicks I knew back in college who did the same thing while going through bad break-ups.

Shaving her head? Is not a cry for help. Not wearing panties in public? Nope. Drinking herself into a stupor? Possibly, but only if someone can prove to me she's got an actual addiction and is not just acting out in rebellion against the people who traded her entire adolescence away for fame and money.

See, I think marrying her hometown sweetheart in Vegas was the original cry for help. And see how that ended? In a hot, K-Feddy mess of craptastic proportions, because nobody listened. They're listening now, though. Because she made herself UNPRETTY. Oh, the HUMANITY. Pbbbbbbbfffffffffffftt.

Hair grows, people. Which Brit-Brit knew when she picked up the razor, which is WHY SHE DID IT. Like I said, call me when she's missing some teeth by her own hand.

Life is hard, and then you die. Ask Anna Nicole.

SelahMarch.com - Romance of Dubious Virtue