Category Archives: Audio Books

KU & Audio News for Torn in Flames (and other stuff)

Just a couple of quick book updates for you all, followed by tales of my naughty toddler.

First, I pulled Torn in Flames off of all the retailers except Amazon last night. When I checked this morning, it appeared to have cleared from everywhere, so I could go ahead and enroll it in Kindle Unlimited. Yay, I got it done earlier than expected! I didn’t visit every single Amazon country site, but it is definitely in KU for the United States and United Kingdom. My guess is it should be good everywhere else as well. If you’ve been waiting to borrow it, you should have no problem now.

For those waiting on audio, I checked my publisher’s website and found they had listed the expected release date for Torn in Flames as May 23rd, 2023. That has always been accurate in the past, so it should be reliable this time. I know it’s not as soon as you’d probably like, but it’s a quicker turn around than the last book in the Dragon’s Breath Series. As soon as the edits were finished with this book, I sent the manuscript to them right away. They received it ten days before the ebook released.

Still, it takes time to schedule the narrator, for her to do the recording, then handle edits and sound engineering. Plus, they have to do their version of the cover during that time. I’ll let you all know when the pre-order is available.

On a personal note, my youngest son (22 months old) is becoming quite the handful as those in my Facebook Fan group are aware since I relay stories to them occasionally. Last week, I was setting up my coffee maker. While I walked away to dump the coffee grounds in the trash can (located behind a locked gate in the laundry room to keep him from pillaging it), Dean managed to grab the pot and smashed it into the counter. Glass everywhere. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it certainly wasn’t fun to clean up.

Of course, buying a new pot is nearly the same cost as a whole coffee maker. Mine had stopped letting me program it to brew in the morning, so I chose to get a new one. It arrived a few days later since Amazon’s shipping times seem to be slower these days. We also have a Keurig my husband loves to use, so I made do with that, but I prefer my coffee maker to those pods. The taste just isn’t the same no matter what brand I try.

Two days after breaking my coffee pot, Dean got a hold of his big brother’s glasses. I searched for over an hour for them and couldn’t find them anywhere. Checked again the next morning and then had no choice except to send Adam to school without them. He has an older pair with the same prescription, but they’re chewed up and scratched. Since one of his eyes has almost perfect vision, he can get by without them. It’s the other one that is nearly blind that made me frustrated that I couldn’t find them.

Thirty minutes after I dropped him off at school, I had an epiphany and decided to check the trash can (locked behind a child gate but visible from the hallway). My future baseball or basketball star had thrown his big brother’s glasses into the bin and they were buried at the bottom . I scrubbed them and my hands with anti-bacterial soap very thoroughly and then rushed them to my son at school.

No idea where my younger son got his excellent throwing arm, especially since he’s not even two years old yet. Back when I was in the U.S. Army, I hated when they made me go to the range to throw live grenades. I can aim for short distances, five feet is good, but grenades must be tossed much farther than that. All I had to do was get them over a tall reinforced wall to be safe, but every time I was terrified I’d drop it or not make it over the top. Since I survived these training exercises, you can assume I did get the grenades over the side, but they always sounded like they exploded rather close. Pretty sure it didn’t make it very far past the wall.

Thank God I never had to throw one in combat. As much as I hate to admit it, I throw like a girl in the most cliche sense. My oldest son appears to have inherited that same bad gene from me, but not the youngest one. He’s surprisingly good at a lot of things that can get him into trouble. Hopefully, I survive this toddler period with my sanity intact and most of my stuff!

Torn in Flames pre-order

I’m pleased to announce that Torn in Flames is now available for pre-order! I’ve got all the retailer links at the bottom of this post. At this time, the first five books in the series are in Kindle Unlimited and will remain there for a while. Torn in Flames will be wide everywhere until about a week after it releases, so those who don’t use Amazon have enough time to get their copy. After that, I’ll pull it from the other sites and put it in KU as well.

In case anyone missed it, the previous novel in the series (Captured in Flames) released in audio last week. You can find it at your preferred retailer as my audiobooks are not exclusive to Amazon and available in most places. As soon as I’ve finished edits for Torn in Flames, I will send the manuscript to my audio publisher, and they will get started on the recording process. It will likely be a couple of months after the ebook release before it’s available.

I’m very excited for you all to read this one as I really enjoyed writing it. Be sure to add it to your Goodreads TBR list here!

RETAILER LINKS

AMAZON US     AMAZON UK

AMAZON DE     AMAZON AU

AMAZON CA    AMAZON FR

NOOK   KOBO   ITUNES

GOOGLE PLAY


If you all have any questions or comments, feel free to post them below!

Captured in Flames audiobook is available for pre-order!

For those who have been waiting, I am pleased to let you know the audio version of book five will release next week on January 17th. You can pre-order it now or wait until it’s available. Posting links below.

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0BRYHQS7G
Amazon US- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BRYHYJS8
Amazon UK- https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BRYJQQ53
Kobo- https://www.kobo.com/au/en/audiobook/captured-in-flames-1
Barnes & Noble- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/captured-in-flames-susan-illene/1141959549

Also, progress is going great on the next installment, Torn in Flames. The wait for it won’t be too much longer. I’ll be posting more about that soon!

Christmas with Dragons in audio

Christmas with Dragons is finally live in audio.  Some of you may have noticed it was on Audible already a couple of days ago, but I wanted to hold off my announcement until it filtered out to all the other retailers. You’ll find the links below.

Hope you enjoy!

RETAILER LINKS

AUDIBLE   AMAZON   ITUNES

April update

First of all, thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy of Darkness Wanes.  I’ve appreciated all the wonderful feedback I’ve received via email and Facebook messages.  If you’d consider leaving a review on Amazon or whichever retailer you use, I’d greatly appreciate it.

The paperback should be out within two weeks for those interested.  I’m getting it formatted now.  Many people have asked about the audiobook and my publisher has set it to release on June 21st.  Sorry it can’t be sooner, but hopefully the time will pass quickly!

As for Dancing with Flames (book 2 of the Dragon’s Breath series), I have begun working hard on it.  I’d done some of the preliminary work last year after finishing the first novel, but now I’m getting deep into the writing.  One thing I’m enjoying is that with the apocalypse and basic world-building tasks are out of the way, I can focus more on the characters and plot threads with this installment.  There will be some recap of events from the first book, but mostly I’ll be pushing the story forward.

Yesterday, I spent some time on research I needed for the novel, going to visit a couple of sources for various information (don’t want to spoil anything).  It’s amazing how many people are patient with me when I ask crazy questions related to the series and that they’re willing to help.  I also walked through the location for one of the battle scenes and took a bunch of pictures I’ll refer to later.  There was a skateboard park nearby.  The guys there were giving me strange looks because I had to pass by them along my way while snapping photos (in another direction), but I ignored them.  Unfortunately, their colorful ramps couldn’t figure into my story due to their location.  This particular battle scene is already written, but my first drafts are bare bones with little description so I needed to get the proper lay of the land for when I do my revisions.

I know a lot of people want a hard date for when the novel will be out.  Believe me, I wish I could give it to you, but after all the delays with Darkness Wanes I’m a little nervous to do that just yet until I reach a certain point in the book.  Nothing bothers me more than letting you guys down when I miss a target date.  At the very least, we’re looking at two months from now.  That is doable, barring any unforeseen circumstances.  It’s spring, though, so keep your fingers crossed that Oklahoma doesn’t get another spat of tornadoes to distract me.  Speaking of which, there are storms forecast for the next couple of days so I should probably get off here and get some writing done while the weather is still calm.

Thanks again for all the support you’ve given me and for your patience.  I’ll post another update later in the month.