After the disappointment over the delayed print release it is good to be able to report that I have a updated release date now for 1st March. Really looking forward to having both CANE and CONFLICT in print on my shelves 
Stevie
February 9, 2010
Print version of CANE out 1st March!
January 30, 2010
Top Pick from Night Owl Reviews for CANE!
I received notification today that Night Owl Reviews has chosen my historical novel, CANE, as a Top Pick!
http://www.nightowlreviews.com/nightowlromance/reviews/Review.aspx?daoid=5657
“I found Cane to be a great read. I found the characters of Pieter, Sebastian, Joss, and other secondary characters to be quite believable and shown as the different products – and viewpoints – of their times. The story also shows that not everything is black or white, but different shades of grey. This is a wonderful book that I would recommend to others.”
Not surprisingly I am feeling really happy at the moment – that is two great Reviews in as many weeks – yay!
Stevie
http://bookworld.editme.com/StevieWoods
My Publishers:
January 12, 2010
Wonderful review for CANE!
I was delighted to discover that Rainbow Reviews had awarded CANE 5 stars:
Ms. Woods has outdone herself with this book and I would recommend this book for anyone who loves historical fiction and gay historical fiction.
Read the full Review:
http://www.rainbow-reviews.com/?p=4100
Stevie
December 30, 2009
CANE is for sale at ARe Books!
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Cane By: Stevie Woods | Other books by Stevie Woods Word Count: 72000
Heat Index  Available in: N/A
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About the book
Privileged young Pieter may have grown up on a sugar cane plantation, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with the way his father runs things. He falls in love with Joss, one of his father’s slaves, and their affair sets off a chain of events that is destined to tear them apart.
An excerpt from the book
June, 1855
Warm hands slid over his chest and down his flanks. Pieter sighed at the wonderful sensations flooding him. He reached up, pulling Joss’ handsome head down so he could take those luscious lips in a passionate kiss, running his hands through that tight springy hair.
Pieter needed to breathe, and they parted. Pieter stared at his pale white hands framing the black skinned face of his lover. It didn’t matter to him that the man he loved had a different color skin. To Pieter, this man was simply Joss.
The love he felt for the man in his arms never ceased to amaze him. It was incredible that the playmate he had teased and laughed with growing up had become this beautiful man, the most important person in Pieter’s life.
Pieter knew they didn’t have long; it was always a risk for them to meet like this, but their choices were limited. He dreaded what his father would say if they were ever discovered together but Pieter couldn’t give up what he had found. Joss meant far too much to him.
Life at the Van Leydens’ Spinnaker plantation on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten was timeless, or so it seemed to Pieter. His family had owned the plantation for over one hundred and fifty years; his relationship with one of its slaves would change nothing.
The island wasn’t very large, only thirty-seven square miles in total, divided between the French who controlled the northern half, and the Dutch who controlled the south. It was a remarkably peaceful co-existence. The climate was perfect, warm most of the year but with the trade winds to keep any oppressive heat at bay. It did rain during the summer months, but luckily hurricanes were few and far between.
The Van Leyden money had been made during the infamous Tulipmania of the late 1630s, when huge sums of money were literally made and lost over the sale of one tulip bulb. In 1689, Gerrit Van Leyden had invested his profits in the new horizons of the Antilles, and, to honor where the money originally came from, Gerrit named the sugar plantation he created after the tulip that had brought wealth to his family.
After a slow start, the plantation had taken off during the eighteenth century, by the introduction of slave labor brought from Africa as part of the triangular trade route of the Dutch West India Company. Ships sailed from Amsterdam to collect captured Negroes from the West coast of Africa, taking those poor unfortunates to the Americas from where the company brought back sugar cane from the islands of the Dutch Antilles and from Surinam, their territory on the South American mainland.
Many years later, the plantation was still thriving, though not without difficulty. Much had changed. The market in the Caribbean for cane sugar had changed over the last twenty to thirty years, as other European countries had abolished slavery in their territories, which meant those still growing the crop with the use of slaves could garner a higher profit. Now, in 1855, only the Dutch and the plantation owners in the southern states of America still used slave labor.
The world might have changed around them, but for the Van Leyden family life went on, and it was expected that Pieter would take over running the plantation when the time came. He had never embraced the sugar trade the way his father had, let alone its ramifications, but it had always been an expectation he didn’t know how to escape.
His father, Nicolaas, was the type of man to keep the reins of his business tightly in his own hand, which had meant he had had little time for his young son. Pieter’s mother had been fragile, and she died when he was only four years old. He had been brought up mostly by Effie, his father’s Negro housekeeper, and spent the vast majority of his time with her children as she kept the two-story plantation house in good order. The smell of baking and squares of golden sunshine falling through the tall windows, Effie’s brisk voice drifting across the wide veranda surrounding the lower floor as she chivvied the housemaids about their duties formed the backdrop of so many of his childhood memories.
Matilda, whom everyone called Tillie, was three years older than Pieter, and it seemed to him that she had always been there, looking out for him. Joshua, her younger brother, had been born when Pieter wasn’t much more than a baby himself. He was known as Joss, which was about as near as Pieter had been able to get to pronouncing Joshua when he was learning to speak. The three of them became inseparable as they grew up, running wild and free and happy together.
Pieter enjoyed playing with Tillie and Joss on the veranda or in the kitchen, but his favorite place was Effie’s room at the top of the house, where the housekeeper and her children lived. It was a large room, simply furnished, but the old, well-polished wood of the two beds, chest and wardrobe and a rickety rocking chair shone in the warm light from the large window which almost filled one wall.
Pieter didn’t understand why the children’s father wasn’t around and when he asked Joss his friend just shook his head. Pieter frowned, puzzled that the boy didn’t seem to know.
Turning to the housekeeper who was sitting in the corner sewing, he boldly asked, “Effie, where is your husband?”
Effie looked startled for a moment before giving a wistful smile. “My man isn’t with us anymore.”
“I don’t understand. What does that mean?”
She gazed at him for a moment but she didn’t say anything further.
It was many years later that he discovered that Effie didn’t have a husband, as slaves weren’t allowed to marry, but that her man had been sold to another plantation before Joss was born.
Pieter cheerfully joined in when Effie gave her children chores to do for the Master. Indeed, as a child Pieter never took much note of the fact that their skin color was different to his, and certainly never understood how it made their lives so different.
When Pieter was seven, Nicolaas had arranged for him to have some schooling, which irked the boy at first, because he wanted to be out playing with his friends. Also, now he was old enough, Pieter was expected to spend the early evenings in the company of his father, who read with him and tried to teach him how to play chess.
He was seated on the veranda reading one evening when he heard his father’s angry voice.
“I have repeatedly told you I want Pieter to spend his evenings with me and waste less time with your brood,” Nicolaas said harshly. “You know how it irks me that I can’t spend more time with him.”
Pieter edged closer to the open door.
His father’s voice had calmed as he continued, “You know what he means to me. He is already showing a pleasing intelligence and I have great plans for him.”
“I know, master, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” Effie sounded nervous.
“No, it won’t,” Van Leyden snapped. “Your children will have no time to distract my son. You will keep them better occupied, remind them that they are no different from any of my other slaves.”
“Yes, master,” Effie replied quietly.
That was the first time that Pieter really understood there was more of a difference between Joss, Tillie, and himself than just the color of their skin.
Stevie
My Publishers:
December 22, 2009
Update on CANE print release
I was under the impression that CANE would be released in ebook and print simultaneously – probably my excitement running away with me! Actually the print version will not come out until about this time next month, estimated around 20th January. Not too much longer to wait, not really
Keep an eye on CANE’s page at Phaze for the announcement.
Stevie
http://steviewoods.com
December 21, 2009
Release of Revised version of CANE
It never gets old, that feeling I get when I have a new release! It was no less exciting today when Phaze Books published a revised version of my gay historical novel, CANE. It has been released today as an ebook and will be coming out in late January as a print book.
BLURB:
Pieter Van Leyden grew up on a sugar cane plantation in the Caribbean. However, being brought up alongside the housekeeper’s slave family after his mother died, Pieter never accepted his father’s outlook on slavery.
When his boyhood friendship for the slave, Joss, turned to love, a chain of events begins that tears them apart. Joss and his family are sold and Pieter is sent in disgrace to his distant relatives in Amsterdam, where he fleetingly meets the American, Sebastian Cane.
Returning to the Caribbean after his father’s death, Pieter had hoped to find evidence of what had happened to Joss but it is too late. Pieter decides to start anew and heads for America where he finds more than he bargained for.
Even as he finds a new love, danger stalks his every move, and conflict threatens the nation. Can Pieter find a balance in his new life?
You can link to an excerpt from the beginning of the book on the sale page at Phaze:
http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Cane/exact_match=exact
Stevie
http://bookworld.editme.com/StevieWoods
My Publishers:
December 19, 2009
Slabs of stone, Wax Tablets – SIN Advent post!
As I reported a few days ago I am taking part in the Speak Its Name Advent Calendar and today is my day! Below you will find my post as displayed on the SIN site, but please go and have a look at the other posts from my fellow authors, there is lots to enjoy – and lots to win! If you want to win one of my posts read my post and comment – either here or on SIN – and you will be entered into the draw. Enjoy!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM STEVIE WOODS
I’ve got an extra Christmas present this year. A revised version of my first novel, Cane, which also happened to be my first historical novel, is set to be re-released by Phaze Books in both ebook and print on 21st December, and I couldn’t be happier.
I think the situation deserves a little background information because it is linked with the whole point of this blog. The re-release happened because the sequel novel, Conflict, which had been released by a different publisher than Cane, was due to be released in print in September, but the original publisher of Cane had not released that novel in print and it seemed to me that if one came out in print, so should the other. Cane’s contract was coming to an end in August and the timing seemed auspicious to query if Conflict’s publisher would be interested in taking over Cane’s contract. Happily, they were and the ball was set rolling for a re-release as soon as it could be arranged.
So why did I feel it was so important to get the novel released in print? This is a question which came up because of a few comments on various lists and blogs I have seen over recent months about the advantages – or otherwise – of differing publication methods.
When I was offered my first contract by a publisher specializing in ebooks, I was overjoyed. I’d sold a book. Someone actually wanted to publish my book! People would actually get to read it! You get the picture. At the time, that was all that really mattered to me. I’d spent almost a year writing that novel. What with the research, the first draft, the self-edits, the re-write – well I’m sure you all know exactly what I mean. I’m not saying I didn’t have a ball writing it, but still I had wanted a result after all that effort. Of course, it wasn’t the first time I had gone through that, but it was the first time I had been offered a contract.
Later, of course, I wanted my work available in any media possible and I had learned by 
then that not everyone liked the idea of digital media – and far too many people didn’t even know what it was!
So naturally having my work published in print too became a goal. So far, counting Cane, three of my five novels are in print (Cane, Conflict and Beyond The Veil) and one novella, Death’s Desire, as part of the anthology Past Shadows, is also in print. My short stories are only available in ebook format and I think if I wanted those in print I would have to go the self-publishing route, and I’m not sure if that is something I want to do. I confess to not knowing very much about self-publishing so I am still thinking about that one. I need to do some research into the whole process and, of course, the costs involved etc.
However, another opportunity arose recently when a submission call went out by a new Audio venture who wished to release audio versions of suitable published novels or short stories. The call just happened to coincide with the complaint of a friend of mine who particularly loves audio books, but couldn’t find enough of the type of books she likes. When I mentioned the new venture to her she wanted to know what I was waiting for! Why wasn’t I already submitting? So, I did. As I write this, I am waiting to hear if they will accept any of my submissions. (Or, fingers crossed, all of them. )
It seems to me that is the best of both worlds – all worlds? – to have my stories available for anyone to read in any media they want. It shouldn’t be an either/or, and us/them attitude. In one form or another, books have been here since man first began to think, to understand he could put ideas down for others to read – whether on slabs of stone, wax tablets, papyrus, paper or modern media.
Folk love to read – I say we should give them as many choice as possible, make it easy for them!
Stevie
http://steviewoods.com
http://bookworld.editme.com/StevieWoods
http://swquill.wordpress.com/
MyPublishers:
http://www.torquerepress.com
http://www.phaze.com
http://www.mlrpress.com
Advent Calendar Giveaway!
Leave a comment here on this post and I will randomly select one name from the entrants on the last day of Advent, December 24th. The winner can chose from any of my historical works in ebook format.
December 16, 2009
Speak Its Name Advent Calendar
I do ho
Each day a different author is posting on a topic of their choice, so go read, enjoy – and have the opportunity to comment and win a prize each day! The recipient of each prize will be announced on Christmas Day, together with the winner of a grand prize!
I will be posting on Saturday, 19th December, so pop along to read my post and perhaps have a chance to win my offering.
Stevie
http://steviewoods.com
http://bookworld.editme.com/StevieWoods
My Publishers:
http://www.phaze.com
http://www.torquerepress.com
http://www.mlrpress.com
December 3, 2009
Another Great Review for Smoke Screen!
Y
et another delightful 4 Star review, this time from Fallen Angel Reviews:
“This was a different style of writing but very effective. I liked how neither of them rushed to take control of the situation but behaved in a quiet and responsible manner suitable to the time.”
To read the full review follow the link:
http://fallenangelreviews.com/2009/November/maija-smokescreen.htm
Stevie
http://bookworld.editme.com/StevieWoods
My Publishers:
December 1, 2009
Awesome Sale at Phaze Books!
From now through New Year’s Day, January 1st, 2010, when you shop directly from Phaze Books at www.Phaze.com you get to take 20% off your total order including ebook and print titles!
Enter discount code: SANTA at checkout to enjoy the savings!
So if you are thinking about buying any of my Phaze books, now is the time!
BEYOND THE VEIL, historical m/m novel, in eBook and Print
DRAWING THE VEIL, prequel to BEYOND THE VEIL
CONFLICT, historical Civil War m/m novel in eBook and Print
Visit my page at Phaze Books for the Blurbs and to read an excerpt:
http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Stevie+Woods/exact_match=exact
Stevie
http://bookworld.editme.com/StevieWoods
My Publishers:
