In Search Of Paradise

Yes yes yes!
We have a book title.
 By common consensus with my survey cohort, that's the name that seems most comfortable, familiar and interesting. So now that we have a name, all we need is a book cover and of course, the actual, completed manuscript. Have you ever felt like everything is under control when it really isn't? Like I have 40 k words to write by Thursday and I am just feeling like, yeah, it will be done. I also have to finish the In search of Paradise manuscript this week and I am all over it. I mean I'm not complaining about being all Can Do! but at one point does confidence become delusion? I don't know. I guess we'll see on Thursday. Do you think this is how +Rihanna felt before she released Fenty Beauty, FentyxPuma and had the diamond ball all in the same week? Well, my work motto has always been WWRD (what would Rihanna do?) so I'm gonna assume that she had the same can-do attitude going for her.

How are you? How was your week? The Emmys were just on and a lot of bittersweet firsts happened. Bittersweet because its 2017 for crying out loud and yet we're still having the first black director getting an Emmy for Atlanta. Do you think he's the first to deserve it? I don't. First black (gay) female for comedy writing...Do you think she's the first to deserve that award? I don't. I think probably there were many who went before who were overlooked because they weren't the right gender/color. And Sean Spicer...already on his redemption tour. People laughing with him? It's nauseating. I recently followed a Nigerian writer on Twitter, Nnedi Okafor whose book was optioned for a movie (because of course, those are goals) by George R. R. Martin. Articles have been written about it in Variety, EW and what not, and the funny thing is they don't even mention her. They say 'a new Afrocentric offering from George R. R Martin. So the erasure continues. Till when guys? Till when?

Back to In Search of Paradise. It should be available for pre-order from 3rd of October. During book launch month, we're gonna do something a little bit different. We're going to raise money for charity.
Are you with me?
So the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission have agreed to partner with me in this endeavor. We're going to learn a few things about the challenges faced by the LGBTQIA community in Kenya, fundraise directly through their fundraising portal as well as all pre-order purchases going towards the fundraising. That will be our fun activity for October. Are you excited? I am soo excited. Y'all gonna help me make a difference right? Tell your friends. :)
Soon and very soon we'll have a little excerpt plus book cover reveal. Stay tuned!
Have a great week.

#EraseandRewindChallenge is Live!

So you've bought the book. You've read it.
I hope.

Now win an $10 Amazon gift card by posting an +Instagram video of yourself reading from the book in thee moste dramatique fashion imaginable. I'll repost your vids on my instagram (@fictionistah) and the one that gets the most likes wins the prize.
Yay!
So simple right?
Get posting!
Challenge ends 10th December.

Countdown to Book Launch

Erase and Rewind

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Announcing My Book Launch!

Surprise!

I have a present for you; an #newbook is out and will be available from November 3rd everywhere ebooks are sold. 

Even more exciting? It's only 99 cents!

This book is science fiction/fantasy which I'm told is a topic not many African authors tackle. I'm not even going to give my opinion; once the book is available on amazon I'll just post the link to the preview and y'all can judge for yourselves if it's worth buying.

I think it is.

In honor of the launch of Erase and Rewind Creativity Defined will carry out a promotion and here's what's gonna happen.

• Like my Facebook page
• Sign up for the launch party event
• Click on 'shop now' and buy the book.
• Fill in the form below
• Or leave a review on Facebook or the book site
• Get the chance to win the prize (pics in the form below).
• BONUS: All of my other books will be half price during launch party week!

Now isn't that a great way to begin November?

Here's the form; don't fill it out until AFTER you buy the book.

Cover Art for Bulitia Story

How do you like my cover for the Bulitia story? I tried some lighter hearted ones but they just didn't speak to me. 

I'll be writing one more chapter to the story or two and posting it on smashwords for free. Will you download it? Let me know in the comments.

New Release: Child of Destiny

My book goes live tomorrow; happy birthday to me.

This is a typical love story. Boy meets Girl. Boy’s girlfriend falls in magic pool, almost drowns and has to be saved by spell done by Girl. Only catch is, Girl has to have experienced passion to perform spell so naturally Boy obliges. And they live happily ever after…or do they? A couple of snags are hit along the way including the fact that Boy’s girlfriend is a borderline sociopath who happens to have all the money Boy could want. Girl on the other hand, does not; furthermore she lives on the fringes of society and practises magic. In other words, she’s weird. Boy is not weird; he is popular and handsome and the star basketball player of the school. Under ‘Most Unlikely Couple on the Planet’ in the yearbook, is a picture of these two – Leo and Mya. Yet; where did the pool come from? How strange that a piece of magic involving this unlikely pairing had to be performed. Is everything as it seems or is there more bubbling under the surface than previously imagined? At the end of the day, the question on everyone’s mind is…’does magic really exist?’ Even more pressing is the question of the potency of that most mysterious and most powerful of all magic…Love.

Amistad Ain't Got Nothin' on Me

For this month's East African Friday Feature, I have been challenged every Friday, to write 1,000 words of a supernatural story. It can be an ongoing story, or bits and snippets but four times for the four Fridays of October. Now in honour of the release of my baby CHILD OF DESTINY on my birthday October 9th (So Y'all know what I want for a present...buy! buy! buy!) I'm going to do an outtake story that can be read on its own. As a nod to East Africa, I'm going to give the story of the ghost slaves in the wood - how they came to be there, and their hopes and dreams for the future. As a nod to my late father, my protagonist is named Bulitia. He's the slave ghost everyone from BDAH to The Swamp to COD keeps meeting and talking to.

Bulitia looked up at the black hole that narrowed until there was just a small circle of blue at the top. This place was aptly named; Shimoni. Bulitia had never been anywhere so dank and dark and miserable. The woman lying next to him was dead. He knew she was because he'd been listening to her laboured breathing for the past three days. It was the chest illness she had; and no way to treat it down here. He didn't know if he would treat it if he could. The slavers looked out for such things. He didn't want to make himself more attractive to them. Perhaps when they were loading them into the ship, and they saw that the woman was dead, and threw her overboard...he could pretend to be dead too. His father, Mulungu bless his soul, had taught him to swim long ago. He could hold his breath under water for as long as it took. Then he could make his way back...back to his people and his new wife; his little baby that must have been birthed by now. Yes, Bulitia was motivated. If he had any leverage, he would have climbed up the hole to the sky. Perhaps enough people would die down here so he could pile up their bodies, climb over them and escape.

No such luck though; the slavers came for them before enough people were dead. They were led out, through a tunnel to the very edge of the sea. Bulitia had smelled it; but that was the first time he was seeing it. It was vast, endless and intimidating. A person could get lost just trying to find the horizon. How was he to get back if they took him away now? Bulitia rattled his chains, looking left and right frantically, trying to find a way; but he was securely tied between a woman whose baby was dead on her breast – yet she clung stubbornly to it – and a man with a potbelly so large it covered his nakedness quite effectively. Bulitia shivered; there was a cool breeze blowing in spite of the heat. The slavers were whipping their backs so they could get moving; get on the huge ship waiting on the docks. One last time Bulitia looked around, looked for a way out. But there was none.

The lady they sold him to scared Bulitia more than the slavers. There was something about her that wasn’t right. He could not say what it was but he knew in his bones she wasn’t all the way human. There were five others with him; all from his own tribe. They spoke Bukusu among themselves, speculating on what she might be, and what she would do with them. Bulitia hoped that it was something that would end in death. He was not about this slave life. It was not his destiny.

The woman took them to a plantation in the bayou where sugarcane grew high in the damp humid air. The air smelt sweet and cloying yet familiar to Bulitia. He’d been somewhere like this before, in the time of Nabongo Mumia he had travelled to his kingdom to trade. It smelled sort of like this. Only without the underlying smell of blood, excrement and death. Bulitia wondered why he wasn’t dead yet; he was starving, he had wounds from the whippings some of which were infected and he wanted to be dead. So why wasn’t he? Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps he would find a way to go home again. Bulitia didn’t share this thought with his companions; they would just laugh at him for his naiveté after all; there was no getting out of this life.

Bulitia was assigned to cattle pen; there were six cows on the plantation and one bull. He was to feed, water, and milk the cows and make sure that the bull remained virile and ready to serve. This was familiar work to him. On his own land, he had thirty cows and three bulls. He wondered who was looking after them now.

One day as he was cleaning out the cow pen in preparation for milking a shadow fell over him that made him cold to the marrow of his bones. He did not have to turn around to know who was there. He went down on one knee and tried to still his trembling.

“Mama”, he said submissively, hoping she would get whatever she wanted and go.

“I have been watching you, Bulitia”, she said in a low voice and he trembled. The slaves had been stripped of their names; they were nothing but numbers. How had she known what his was?

“Don’t be afraid”, she whispered coming closer her cold breath fanning on his naked shoulders. Bulitia wanted to shy away, to turn and run. But he could do nothing but stand there and wait to see what the creature would do to him.

“I think you were meant for greater things than this Bulitia, am I right?” she asked putting one hand on his shoulder in a light caress. Bulitia wanted to scream but he knew better. She didn’t know that they knew that she was some creature from hell. She thought her human disguise held. He could not show more fear than a slave would at being singled out by his master. But what was he to say to her? He had no words to answer. If he told the truth, then Mulungu knew what she would do. If he told a lie…she would know. He was doomed. So he kept silent.

She ran her hand slowly, speculatively down his back until she got to the crack of his ass. He tensed as her finger dug inward, sharp nails causing injury as she pressed into him. He bit his lip so as to not to make a sound but he couldn’t still the trembling.

Suddenly her hand was gone from him and she stepped away. He dare not turn to see why.

“You’ll do”, she said.

Single Motherhood Unplugged; Now Live

Pick it up if you'd like the skinny.