The Home for Mell Eight's Original Fiction
Mell Eight is an author of LGBTQIA original fiction, primarily M/M.
If that is not your thing, hit the back button, otherwise welcome and enjoy!
If that is not your thing, hit the back button, otherwise welcome and enjoy!
Out Now:Ge-Mi: Part One
New Cover! Witch's Circle
May 15, 2024 Coming Soon:
The Chef
August 27, 2023 Current Projects:
Submitted Projects:
I have been working with Nine Star Press since August 2019.
I worked with Less Than Three Press from December 2011 to July 2019.
Supernatural Consultant Volume One received this award.
Ground of Insurrection was Nominated
Hadash Aviv was Nominated
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7/19/24
I blinked, and suddenly two months had gone by. Honest truth, I never meant to vanish like this. I had plans to share all sorts of things and somehow none of it ever got posted. I apologize, and I come bearing gifts as part of my apology: The Chef, book one in my Princes of Toval series is available for pre-order at NSP and should be available for pre-order at Amazon and most other retailers imminently. The story is about Char, a chef who just wants to cook, and the adventure he gets pulled into as he travels between countries. There's action, romance, magic, and a lot of world building. At 62k words, The Chef is the second longest book I've ever written, so everyone who's been waiting for me to write a full novel, this is for you! The Chef is slated for release on August 27th, which is coming very soon. As always, if you buy with NSP, you can get it four days early. If you want a sneak peek at the cover, I've literally posted it everywhere. LoL But I'll make a formal cover reveal soon. The Prince, book two in my Princes of Toval series, is also making progress. I received the first round of edits yesterday. As always with round one, there's a lot to fix, but it's looking really, really good so far! I won't spoil The Chef by telling you more about The Prince just yet. You'll have to wait until after The Chef comes out first, although I do have a tentative blurb available on my site if you're interested. I can't talk about the first two books in the trilogy without also mentioning book three, The Spy. I'm still plucking away at writing it. Everything is set up for the big finale. Problem is, I need a good chunk of uninterrupted time to write it and real life keeps interfering. Part of that is my own making, what with the trip to Japan and then an entire week earlier this month with my brain completely turned off while I was working on my sunburn at the beach. Part of it is outside my control (I blame my sisters and they know why, LOL). And the last part is work is kicking my butt right now, so I'm returning home every afternoon too exhausted to do more than flop on the couch and watch bad anime. I am very hopeful I'll find some time soon, but it won't be this weekend as I'm editing The Prince instead. Lastly, for anyone that's been keeping an eye on my website in my absence, you would have seen that I posted a new cover in the coming soon section. One of the things I meant to write a blog post about and never did is for my Witch's Circle series. All three books in the trilogy have been combined into one book released in print! If you're like me and the feel of a real book in your hands completes the reading experience, you can buy Witch's Circle in print at most major retailers. Here's the link for Amazon. I have a couple more surprises up my sleeve, so keep an eye out because I'll be sharing those soon too! 5/5/24
Happy Cinco de Mayo, Revenge of the Fifth, or simply May 5th. I hope you did something fun on this lovely Sunday. I finally got my faulty mattress replaced today. There's been a dent right down the middle for years, and for some reason it never clicked that mattresses aren't supposed to have dents. I spoke with the company I bought it from, they measured and said a four inch dent means it's defective, and I went and picked out a new mattress. I sleep on it for the first time tonight, so I have my fingers crossed that I'll sleep well. Aside from that, my weekend has been all about spring. My sister came over and helped me plant my annual garden. She does a wonderful job with the window box every year, and I got my vegetable seeds planted, so we'll see what grows. Unfortunately, the trees and bushes are all in bloom, so I've been sniffling and fighting off a sinus headache. Pluses and minuses with spring, I guess. All of which means I haven't had the time or energy for writing. I haven't touched any of my stories. They're all clamoring in my head: "write me!" But I needed to strip my old bed this morning to get ready for the mattress delivery, then run to the grocery story so I'd have food, and then get some other chores done too. By the time I actually had a moment to write today, the energy was gone. Plus, I received the second round of edits for The Chef so what limited energy I've had all week has gone to that instead. I will say, The Chef looks amazing. The story turned out to be everything I hoped when I first thought of the idea of a chef getting angry because someone was waving a bloody sword near his pot of bubbling oatmeal. Now that the second round of edits is complete, I should get a release date and we'll start working on the cover. I should have more exciting news to share about it soon. In the meantime, I'm off to explore my new mattress while hoping the allergies go away. Happy spring, everyone! 4/27/24
I decided it was time to start knocking places off my bucket list, so I went ahead and planned a trip to Japan. While I was planning I had an epiphany: if I was going to fly fourteen hours to basically the other side of the world, was there an opportunity to see more than one country? I added South Korea to my plans. Finding a trip took some time, since I wanted to see everything (impossible) and to do everything (also impossible). I settled on a trip that was ten days in Japan with an authentic Japanese-style onsen experience, and five days in Korea that included a day at the DMZ. The entire experience was magical. I went during the peak of cherry blossom (sakura) season so I saw a ton of gorgeous flowers, got to sleep on a proper futon in a tatami mat room after soaking in a traditional hot springs bath, and in Korea I was able to explore a tunnel in the DMZ the North Koreans dug during one of their failed plots to invade the south. The picture on the right is the White Crane castle, aka Himeji Castle, in Japan. I got to climb inside all the way to the top floor. The views were spectacular, and the construction inside absolutely amazing. The picture on the left is of a weeping sakura in front of a traditional Japanese lantern. I took it with my iPhone, so it's not anything fancy, but it's one of my favorites! I also saw a ton of Japanese and Korean castles, which were very different to what my very western sensibilities have been conditioned to think of as a castle. I can definitely see the architecture featuring in a future story I write. Massive wooden columns holding up multiple floors, intricate carvings everywhere, and the beauty of the sweeping roof lines could all make an appearance. Also, some of the defensive formations were unique to this style of building, so I would like to incorporate that into a book too. I don't know in which book just yet, but you will see it at some point. Possibly in a story tentatively titled Cantrip, which I haven't yet added to my actual to-do list. I had hoped between the fourteen hour plane ride to Tokyo, or the fourteen hour plane ride out of Seoul heading home, or on one of the lengthy bus trips to get to various destinations, I would have time to write. All I was able to work on was the opening scene of Cantrip, which was inspired by some beautiful misty mountains I drove through in Japan. After I returned from my trip, I had a couple of days to do laundry and check my email at my day job before I hopped in my car to drive to my parents' for Passover. Again, I had hoped to have time to work on The Spy, which is soooo close to being completed, but instead I made a chocolate-orange sponge cake, a lemon sponge cake, apple cake, chocolate meringue cake, rainbow cake, and a lemon meringue pie while also helping to make traditional kugels and other foods for the two big dinners (Seders) my parents were hosting. I didn't get a chance to sit down until this past Thursday, and I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight, let alone try to write. Baking like this is always a lot of fun, so I'm not complaining, but I am very behind schedule of where I thought I'd be with The Spy and the rest of my writing plans. Now that my trip has sadly ended and Passover is coming to a close on Tuesday, I am back to the real world and will hopefully find some time to write. I'll let you know when I start making progress again! |