Matt Buchman, who writes very popular action adventure thrillers, is launching Thrill Ride the Magazine, via Kickstarter from Feb. 7 to 21.
As the title indicates, the magazine will focus on action adventure. He’s already filled the first four issues, a year’s worth, with short stories by excellent writers. My own story, “Sins of the Past,” will appear in the Betrayal issue.
If the Kickstarter funds.
If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a site where creative people (like writers) can set up campaigns to share their visions. Then interested communities come together to fund these projects. There are all kinds of perks that come with funding a Kickstarter campaign—for instance, free short stories (I donated “Cold Wave,” my award-winning short story) and novels to sweeten the pot. But only if the Kickstarter funds.
After her 20-year marriage collapses from inertia, Beatrice Talsma sets off on a year-long, cross-Canada journey to discover where she truly belongs. When she reaches the Yukon, however, her short pause turns into a decision to settle down in this strange new place.
In a complete break with the past, she rents out a cabin in the Yukon wilderness. It’s a wonderful spot, except that her closest neighbor, Henry Pekarik, also her landlord, seems determined to help Beatrice out, whether she wants it or not.
Deputy Chief Rob McKell doesn’t trust Christmas. Bad guys don’t take time off during the holidays so why should he? Then the lovely Jillian, a gemologist with an independent streak, invites him to dinner on Christmas Eve for the all-important meeting of her friends. Soon, he starts to revise his feelings about the holiday—and his fear of long-term commitment. But before the evening ends, Jillian’s dangerous past will rear up to prove that Christmas is no time to let his guard down.
When Faith decides to escape Christmas and her friends’ matchmaking efforts by spending the holiday alone in the big city, she never expects to find Christmas waiting there for her.
DECEMBER 17, 2022 UPDATE: I have taken down “Training Run,” as my contract allowed me to keep up for one week only.
December 10, 2022: Today, my short story “Training Run” is the feature story in the WMG Holiday Spectacular. I will post the story here for one week–on December 17, it comes down. The Holiday Spectacular is a calendar of short stories, one a day, from American Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, delivered directly to your inbox. One a day for 39 days! It’s not too late to subscribe and get all the stories emailed to you. Just visit https://wmgpublishinginc.com/project/spectacular/.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, who edits the Holiday Spectacular, says of my story:
“Marcelle Dubé writes great atmospheric mysteries, sometimes venturing into Gothic territory. Her work has finally caught the attention of the Crime Writers of her native Canada. They gave her short story, “Cold Wave,” the award of excellence in the short fiction category in 2021, and shortlisted her novella, “Identity Withheld,” for the novella category of the same award just this year.
“Her stories appear everywhere, including Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crime Wave, and many other publications. She has also written a number of novels. Her most recent, The Wronged Woman, just came out in January. Find out more about her work at marcellemdube.com.
“So now that I’ve told you all about her mysteries, I’m going to tell you that “Training Run” isn’t mystery at all. It’s a time travel story, but it does have crime and a haunting sense of wrong at its heart.
“It’s a powerful tale about truth and lies, history and family. And it’s set in Quebec on one very snowy Christmas Eve.”
In the spirit of the season, I’ve made my romantic Christmas short story, A Yukon Christmas, free for the month of December. You can find it here: https://books2read.com/u/bPdDrb
After her 20-year marriage ends, Beatrice finds herself in a cabin in the Yukon. For the first time in a long time, she’s happy. Or she would be, if her attractive neighbor and landlord, Henry Pekarik, didn’t try to help her quite so much.
And if you’re really in the Christmas mood, I have other short stories:
Deputy Chief Rob McKell doesn’t trust Christmas. Bad guys don’t take time off during the holidays so why should he? Then the lovely Jillian, a gemologist with an independent streak, invites him to dinner on Christmas Eve for the all-important meeting of her friends. Soon, he starts to revise his feelings about the holiday—and his fear of long-term commitment. But before the evening ends, Jillian’s dangerous past will rear up to prove that Christmas is no time to let his guard down.
It’s Christmas eve day and Constable Marco Trepalli of the Mendenhall Police Department can’t wait to be off shift. He’s planning a big surprise for his girlfriend, Amanda. Something special. Something romantic.
Then a kid doesn’t return home after sledding and Trepalli forgets all about his plans in the mad scramble to mobilize search parties and interview the kid’s friends. And as hour after hour slips by with no sign of the boy, Trepalli braces himself for what could turn into the worst Christmas ever… for him and the kid’s family.
When Faith decides to escape Christmas and her friends’ matchmaking efforts by spending the holiday alone in the big city, she never expects to find Christmas waiting there for her.
In Christmas Magic, Marcelle Dubé sweeps the reader into cozy worlds of Christmas snow, wood stoves, and new romance… with a little mayhem thrown in. A collection of three romantic Christmas short stories (McKell’s Christmas, A Yukon Christmas and Running Away from Christmas) by the author of The Shoeless Kid and Ghosts of Morocco.
I have a short story, “The Mittens,” coming out in the Jan/Feb 2023 Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (on the newsstands in December). Ahead of that, I have a post on Trace Evidence, the AHMM blog. “Yes, but why?” addresses the reasons people do the things they do… especially in stories. You can read it here: https://trace-evidence.net/2022/11/04/yes-but-why-by-marcelle-dube/
