New Ashley Gardner Web Site

Looks like my new Ashley Gardner site is live!

http://gardnermysteries.com/

It will likely take a while to remove the old site from caches, so please reload the page or retype the address if you see the old, dark blue site. The new site has graphics that resemble the new book covers.

Drury Lane is progressing!

Ashley Gardner website might go down temporarily...

today or so, while we move everything over to the new website. Hope it won't disappear at all, but in case it does--I'M STILL HERE AND NOT GOING ANYWHERE. Will post when new website is live.

Ashley Gardner

Drury Lane and Regency England

Now have one hundred plus pages on Drury Lane! I'm absolutely thrilled to be making progres--it's taken me so dang long to be able to sit down and write this book.

While I'm posting, I'd like to pass on an excellent reference to all things Regency (and late eighteenth century, England and a more global context): the Jane Austen's World blog.

http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/

Well worth browsing through for both lovers of Jane Austen's novels and a look into the world of the time.

Drury Lane update

I'm very pleased with the progress I'm making on Disappearance in Drury Lane. Have about 75 pages, introduced some new players / new problems, with regular characters in full attendance. I don't want to give anything away, but we are back in London, exploring its streets and squares, from elegant Mayfair to the back streets of the East End. One of Marianne's old friends has gone missing, but what should be a simple  case of course proves to be anything but.

In other news, I have a website designer and builder busily overhauling the entire gardnermysteries.com website, and hope to hear from her soon. The preliminary designs look great. I've gotten notifications from some readers about the problems with my current website, which are noted and being addressed. The website will be on a new platform with a new look, updated for the wider laptop monitors (web address will not change).

I will keep writing along on Drury Lane, and have a pub date for you soon. (Every time I project one, life happens, so I'm trying to fool life by saying nothing until I have the full draft finished.)

I'm excited today because one of my Jennifer Ashley romances hit #16 on the New York Times list and #44 on the USA Today. Excellent news! My way of celebrating is to write more, so I'm continuing deep into Captain Lacey's world.

I'll update here again when I have more news.

March 2013

It seems as though the universe is conspiring to keep me from writing anything. I am working on Disappearance in Drury Lane, a few chapters in, and deep into another historical romance which is past due at my publisher.

I had another publisher pull a series off sale overnight at the end of January, and I spent all of February scrambling to get those books re-released (as my inbox was flooded with email from angry readers). Happily that is now resolved, and I no longer have to spend large chunks of every day revising and proofreading an entire series.

Plus I have new, contracted books that are busily coming back to me for rewrites, editing checks,  proofreading, and other things.

However, I do write every single day, 365 days a year (even on Christmas and my birthday). I'm not an author who sits back eating bon-bons waiting for inspiration to strike. I write. Even when I'm revising, editing, proofreading, having cover conferences, working on back cover copy, and making my publisher happy doing blog tours, going to appearances and book signings, I'm typing 500 to 3000 words a day depending on how much of other stuff I have to do.

A little bit at a time, and it all gets done.

I have released the second boxed set of the Captain Lacey Mysteries, which includes Sudbury School, The Necklace Affair (novella), Body in Berkeley Square, and Covent Garden Mystery. When I get a couple more books done, I will bundle those with Death in Norfolk. (Nook link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/captain-lacey-regency-mysteries-volume-2-ashley-gardner/1114812036?ean=2940016382487; Kindle link: http://www.amazon.com/Captain-Regency-Mysteries-Volume-ebook/dp/B00BR70E2E/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1363910615&sr=8-3&keywords=captain+lacey+regency+mysteries)

I am also now actively talking with a website designer so hope to have a new look for the Gardner Mysteries website soon.

It's all coming. The rise of self-publishing has given me the opportunity to revive and write more in the Lacey series (a good thing), but it has also descended my life into chaos ("May you live in interesting times").

New Year, More Capt Lacey

From the flood of email in my inbox, many people are waiting anxiously for the release of A Disappearance in Drury Lane.

I know I planned to write and publish this book in 2012, but it unfortunately got shoved to the back burner along with pretty much everything else when Berkley upped my writing schedule for my romance series, asking for a couple of new novellas and another novel to be (quickly) written in 2012. I have signed another contract with Berkley, so the workload will continue.

That said, I am working on Drury Lane right now. I made the mistake last year of projecting too many pub dates, which got me into trouble when things got backed up. So, I'm currently writing the book, I will alert everyone when it is finished and to the copyeditor, by which time I'll be able to announce a definite publication date.

I am also planning an overhaul, with new graphics and design, of the gardnermysteries website (I am hiring someone to do this so it doesn't take writing time). At some point I'll have a lovely new site for Captain Lacey.

Also  I am working on putting out the second boxed set (Sudbury School through Covent Garden along with Necklace Affair). Book 7 (Death in Norfolk) through 9 or 10 will be in a third boxed set after they are all out.

Let me assure everyone that I have not given up on the Captain Lacey series. I have plenty of plans for its future. I do have to work around four other series--a lot for one person to do! but I have not abandoned it.

I am very happy that for the next couple of months I'll be revisiting Captain Lacey, Lady B., Marianne, Grenville, and Mr. Denis, report what they're up to, and pen another dark and gritty mystery.

I will keep you all updated with my progress. Thank you for your patience!

Ashley Gardner
http://www.gardnermysteries.com

Nightwalker out, Capt Lacey to come

Nightwalker, the fourth book in my Stormwalker saga (written as Allyson James) has at last been released! This means that I can now turn to Captain Lacey (and I am raring to go).

Mystery fans might enjoy Nightwalker, which is an action-adventure / mystery with a paranormal touch set in the Southwestern United States, in and around the Navajo Nation.

Blurb for this installment:

Stormwalker Janet Begay, proprietor of the Crossroads Hotel, a place where the paranormal stop for a safe night’s rest, discovers the hard way that a slayer is targeting Ansel, a Nightwalker who’s become a more-or-less permanent resident.

When Janet and her boyfriend Mick intervene to save Ansel’s un-life, they find that the attack is the beginning of an oncoming storm. Janet has her hands full already with the upcoming marriage of her father, her crazy half-sister, the return of a woman who claims to be Coyote’s wife, a couple dragons on her back, and her worry about Mick, who’s behaving strangely again.

But it seems that everyone is after Ansel, who fears he killed the woman he loves in a Nightwalker frenzy. Janet must choose between protecting Ansel, or facing the most powerful magical beings in the world, who are willing to destroy Janet, Mick, her hotel, and everyone she cares about to get to Ansel and his secrets.

This book will be available in all e-formats and in print. I will post links as they become available.

Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Nightwalker-Stormwalker-ebook/dp/B009FFGEO2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1348408441&sr=8-4&keywords=allyson+james+nightwalker

Smashwords (all formats): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/238710

On to Disappearance in Drury Lane!

High Time for a Captain Lacey update

I know you all are waiting patiently for Disappearance in Drury Lane. It will happen (just as Death in Norfolk happened). I was very certain early this year that I could write and publish like the wind, but then reality set in. The fingers can only type so fast, and the brain cells can only function so long. I am under contract to get certain books done and to Berkley, and I am trying to continue another series of my heart as well as this one.

That said, here's where things stand:

My "urban" fantasy (set in the rural southwest), Nightwalker, is almost done (I'm revising the draft)--hope to have that out soon.

For my Jennifer Ashley side, I just pubbed a short novel (part of the Shifters Unbound series)--now I owe Berkley two more novellas and a novel, one a month until November. One novella is nearly done--will turn it in next week.

After Nightwalker is published, I'll be able to focus more on Captain Lacey again (around the Berkley books, of course). My goal is to have Disappearance out in October (on the anniversary of Death in Norfolk), but failing that, by the end of the year at least

Disappearance book will be available both in e-book and print.

Captain Lacey and the series is *very* important to me, so rest assured, I have not, and never have, abandoned it. I have lots of ideas for more books, and will have a Captain Lacey blitz soon (sales on older titles, e-book boxed set of the second three books + novella, and other things).

While I have contracts to fill for my JA persona, Captain Lacey is always in my thoughts. Besides, my mother loves this series, and trust me, she badgers me every day to get the next one out ASAP!