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Published about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Hey there!
Depending on which authors you follow, you might have already heard rumblings of this—but there's a really fabulous holiday countdown promo happening right now!
I'll tell you more about it in a second, but first I have a couple of announcements.
I have three virtual opportunities for you to hang out with me this week, and I'd love to see your shining faces at any of these.
Vintage Books Live! Gets a Raygun! (TONIGHT 7pm PST.) I've joined Christy Peterson with Vintage Books Live! before, but tonight the whole crew of Now I Have a Raygun, Ho-Ho-Ho! will be coming to hang out. Join us live on Monday, December 8, at 7pm via their YouTube channel, or catch the replay on the channel anytime.
Ghostwriter panel for the book-curious. (Wednesday 9am PST.) I don't talk a lot about my day job writing in this newsletter, but for those of you who don't know, I ghostwrite business and self-help books for coaches, consultants, CEOs, and other thought leader types. This Wednesday, I'll be chatting ghostwriting on a panel of my fellow ghosts—it should be fun! You can register for the call here.
Story Rebel Holiday Mixer. (Friday 9am PST.) Story Rebel is the book/story coaching part of my business—so I also don't mention it much here. But this Friday I'm hosting a Zoom holiday mixer for people in that community. We're a group of folks with powerful stories who want to make an impact on the world by telling them. We'll be talking about storytelling, business, and how we can head into 2026 strong. If that sounds interesting to you, why not come hang out and meet some other rad folks? Register for the mixer here.
Holiday Countdown—Free Books all Month!
My fellow Sci-fi Crime author Heather Texle has organized a really fabulous December promo this month. We're counting down the days to 2026 with a free book each day.
Today's book is Double Edged, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to highlight it, and the rest of the books in the Bulari Saga.
The Bulari Saga is a completed five-book political action thriller set on a corporate-run colony where power is traded in favors, leverage, and threats. When a rival’s assassination cracks the city’s fragile peace, fixer Willem Jaantzen and his fiercely loyal crew are thrust into a high-stakes game of cartel councils, back-channel deals, and interplanetary brinkmanship.
Expect conspiracy tension and razor-clean bursts of action: covert operations, street brawls, and strategic gambits where every alliance comes with thorny complications. If you like kingmakers over caped heroes—and victories won through cunning as much as firepower—this series is your next obsession.
Quite a few of the books will be free for longer than a single day, so be sure to check out which books have already been revealed.
Double Edged
Jessie Kwak
With stakes this high, humanity doesn't need a hero. They need someone who can win. Willem Jaantzen didn't ask to be a hero. He just wants to keep his family safe in the shifting sands of Bulari's underground—and to get the city's upper crust to acknowledge just how far he's come since his days as an orphaned street kid. With his businesses thriving and his dark past swept into the annals of history, it looks like he has everything he could ever ask for. Until, that is, his oldest rival turns up murdered and the blame—and champagne—begins to flow. It turns out Thala Coeur died as she lived: sowing chaos. And when a mysterious package bearing her call sign shows up on Jaantzen’s doorstep, he and his family are quickly swallowed up in a web of lies, betrayals, and interplanetary politics. It’ll only take one stray spark to start another civil war in the underworld, and Jaantzen’s going to have to pull out every play from his notorious past if he wants to keep his city from going up in flames. Jaantzen never wanted to be a hero, but that might just be a good thing. Because a hero could never stop the trouble that's heading humanity's way. DOUBLE EDGED is the first book of the Bulari Saga, a five book series featuring gunfights, dinner parties, explosions, motorcycle chases, underworld intrigue, and a fiercely plucky found family who have each other's backs at every step. Perfect for fans of The Expanse, Firefly, and The Godfather. Download Double Edged and start the adventure today.
Trouble is dead. Long live trouble. Killing the leader of a violent cult was supposed to make the city a safer place, but instead it created a power imbalance that’s left a deadly war raging in the streets of Bulari. When Willem Jaantzen is approached for help by local casino magnate Phaera D, he has the sinking feeling the only way to end this war is to betray the people he loves the most. And he’s starting to suspect that Phaera wants more from him than just his help. Whatever decision he makes feels like the wrong one. And as his goddaughter chips away at the mystery surrounding their latest discovery, bringing peace back to the Bulari underground is quickly becoming the least of his worries.
Peace demands its price in blood. Jaantzen may have brought stability to the city of Bulari, but not everyone’s grateful. Allegiances are shifting sand, and he’s made a miscalculation that earned him a deadly new enemy — one who plays a viciously different game than the one Jaantzen is used to winning. Jaantzen and his crew fight to gain the upper hand, but secrets buried in shallow graves are coming back to haunt them. And as Starla and Toshiyo edge closer to understanding the growing mystery that’s been dropped in their laps, their search is awakening darker things than any of them can imagine. Peace comes at a price, and this Pax Bulari could cost Jaantzen everyone he loves.
An ancient secret. A ruthless enemy. A deadly choice.
With a warrant out for his arrest and a price on his head, Willem Jaantzen has gone to ground, but he and his crew aren't out of the game. If they’re going to take down an opponent as powerful as a Chief Justice they need a bulletproof plan—and that's going to take time. But as their rival’s net tightens around them, time is the one thing Jaantzen and his crew don’t have.
Jaantzen and the people he cares for most are caught in a dance with a vicious, tenacious hunter. And his goddaughter Starla is about to head out on her own on an adventure that could shake the foundations of human understanding—if it doesn’t get her killed first.
The final chapter of the Bulari Saga. Willem Jaantzen never wanted fame, he never wanted notoriety. All he’s ever wanted is to keep the people he loves safe, but now the fate of Bulari — and the rest of humanity — rests on his shoulders. And he has one final play to end this game once and for all.
STARFALL, DEVIANT FLUX, and NEGATIVE RETURN are all Prequel novellas in the Durga System, a fast-paced series of sci-fi crime stories set in a far-future world where humans may have left their home planet to populate the stars, but they haven’t managed to leave behind their vices. And that’s very good for business
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