SECRET BRIEFINGS
Vol. 7 No. 19 Oct. 7, 2025
OCTOBER SALE
This month I’m featuring my newest novella published in January this year—Every Day is a Test. The eBook of the novella is only 99¢, and you can add the audiobook for a low price or even free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited member.
Every Day is a Test introduces us to the back story of a relatively new character, Cybill Fleming, an Army intel analyst who’s recruited by the Directorate. (By the way, at this point, Mai Fisher is now the head of the Directorate.)
Fleming aces her intake interview, passes the background check, gets high marks at “Spy U,” and comes out close to the top during the practical testing portion of her training, but Mai Fisher wonders.
Is she really ready for full operational status?
Find out what and who tests Fleming, with her fate in the balance.
You can download your 99¢ copy and add the audiobook HERE.
LATEST ON THE SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS REBOOT
I’m perhaps a quarter of the way through the retype of SIW book 2, Dangerous Truths. It’s holding true to what most writers feel when they go back and read something they’ve published years before: Large parts of it make me go, wow, that’s really good; other parts have me saying, what was I thinking!
In the meantime, you can take a look at the fabulous rebooted cover for Dangerous Truths. Like book 1, it really captures the feel of the early 2000s in the then Yugoslavia and ties in well both with book 1’s new cover and with elements from the old BOOK 2 cover. I’m really excited to get these new covers in place soon.
Book 1, Welcome to Belgrade, is still with my editor, but I should get it back this week, which means a late October relaunch is still doable.
UPCOMING IN-PERSON EVENTS
On Nov. 5 at 6 p.m., I’ll be talking about cover design at the Rocktown Writers Guild monthly meeting. Along with cover designer Peggy Easterly of Image Grafx, we’ll discuss what makes good/bad covers. I’ll have examples of the old and new covers for Self-Inflicted Wounds. The meeting takes place at the Massanutten Regional Library on Main St. in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
I’ll have a table at the Hanover Book Festival on Nov. 8. This is a highly family friendly book festival for Virginia authors, held at VFW Post 9808, 7168 Flag Lane in Mechanicsville, Virginia. The festival takes place between 10 am and 2 pm. I’ll probably have a half dozen of my most recents works on the table.
Stop by and say hi. Oh, and buy some books.
FREE EXCERPT!!
Let’s have a brief taste of what you’ll find in Every Day is a Test, so let me set this up.
Though she’s not quite finished her full training, Cybill Fleming has shown enough promise that she’s tapped for a brief undercover role in the campaign headquarters of a U.S. presidential candidate. When she learns something significant, she follows her protocol and “comes in from the cold.”
Every Day is a Test
Chapter 6, “Motherlode”
Late Summer 2016
Boston Directorate Station
Cybill Fleming hadn’t slept well. She understood why Marcellus wanted her safe and secure in the quarters the station maintained for visiting operatives. First, she wasn’t yet officially an operative. At best, she was probationary. The Directorate probably had some bureaucratic term for it, but she didn’t know what it was. Her pay showed up in her bank account every two weeks, and for now, the Directorate’s bureaucracy could call her whatever it wanted.
She finished her shower and dressed in borrowed clothes. Everything she had was in the small efficiency in Manhattan rented for her cover identity. Marcellus had told her someone would clean that out, make an excuse to the landlord, and bring her things here in a couple of days.
In truth, though, the clothes in that apartment were what she’d worn for her mission.
The “dress code” for young women working on the Kermit Harlan campaign was short skirts or dresses, sleeveless dresses or blouses, and high (very high) heels, all in bright, primary colors, preferably red. Also in her apartment was an extensive make-up collection, which, when she applied it, made her feel like a clown. She wouldn’t need the colored contacts anymore, and she could restore her hair to close to its original color. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Casey Mardoni wouldn’t exist anymore, but Cybill had to admit she’d made a convincing white girl fawning over the aging financier Kermit Harlan.