New Character name

Just a head's up to all Emily Kane fans. I've had to make a change to the name of an ongoing character, for technical reasons. In Girl Takes The Oath, Emily faces a Chinese Colonel in the Marine Mud Brawl at Quantico. Originally this character was named Jiao Long, in part because his name contains a reference to a dragon. But in Girl Goes To Wudang, it's become clear that his name should be Feng Long, both because this is more suggestive of martial arts, but also because it makes sense of an ongoing play on words, namely that he is the "swift dragon."

Part of the problem is that the name Jiao was transliterated according to an out of date rule for alphabetizing Chinese characters, and if read now by Chinese speakers, would not have the connotations I was looking for. I had considered changing it to the more current 'Pinying' spelling as Zhou, but this would be too similar to another character's name, and would suggest a different meaning. In the end, Feng seems to be the best choice.

I've gone back to make the change in the files for the earlier book so that it will be consistent with the newer one. This means, if you'd like to have the updated version of Book 5, you may need to re-download it from Amazon or B&N or Kobo or iTunes. But don't do it just yet. I will upload the adjusted version as soon as the Book 7 is released.

The cover for Book #7 is here

I'm working hard on finishing Book #7, and part of that is putting together a cool cover. And my cover artist, Torrie Cooney, has come up with a beauty.

In this one, Li Li Tang plays a bigger role than in the previous books. So Torrie thought we should have her on the cover, too, alongside Emily.

I know I said this about each previous book in the series, but I really feel that this is the best one yet. I've been doing lots of research into Daoism and the Daoist martial arts, especially Bagua Zhang. I've also put a ton of energy into thinking about character names, and have been studying up on Mandarin to get a better sense of the culture and scenery of Beijing, where much of the story is set.

It'll be finished soon, so look out for it on all the major online ebook retailers.