I have always been a huge fan of the month of April.

Not only does it bring April showers, leading, I’ve been informed, to May flowers, (wait… rain sucks), but it is the month during which I was born, in a New York City hospital which no longer exists. (I suppose some might let loose an expressive “awww” because I can never visit the place of my birth, but this is actually all part of my plan to eradicate any evidence of my existence). And certainly, when I was a kid, birthday’s were a big deal. After all, it had been almost four full months since I’d gained any significant amounts of loot!

According to William and Harry, this is the look she always gets when she learns that I’ve called.

Also, as I share my birthday with the Queen of England, it always affords us the chance to catch up on the past 365 days of our lives: “Well, my grandson Harry’s getting married, I dedicated a battleship, and I worked on my wave extensively. You have to, you know, or you will lose the subtle nuances.” “Sounds like it’s been a great year. Let’s see. My car died, I’m getting sued by a panhandler for giving him Arby’s coupons instead of money, and my dog just threw up.” “Very similar to last year, then?” “Very.” 

This April promises to be special once again, in spite of the fact that I no longer wait frantically for my birthday to come. This April will be special because in only 9 days my new novel The Beauty of Bucharest will become available from Northern Lake Publishing!

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but you can read the first chapter of TBoB for free by clicking the “Book Excerpts” link at the top of the page, or if scrolling to the top of the page is a burden, the link right in this sentence. (As a lazy human myself, I always try to accommodate those similarly inclined or, more probably, reclined).

In fact, April promises to be a very big month for NLP, as Craig A. Hart’s latest Shelby Alexander thriller, Serenity Engulfed drops tomorrow, and the day after April takes it’s last bow the latest SpyCo novella, Assignment: London will also become available.

So it looks like you’ve got some reading to do.

Other News

The S.J. Varengo Readers group is picking up steam! As of today, we are only 30 members shy of 300, which will trigger another giveaway. This time the lucky winner will receive a signed copy of the new novel. (I’ve already gotten my hands on a few paperback copies to give away!).

If you’re already a member of the group, thanks for joining, and don’t forget that if you have friends who you think might be interested in joining the group, you can add them directly. (You might want to ask them first!)

If you’re not yet a member, click here to go to the page, then just click the “FOLLOW” button on the top of the page which will inform me of your desire to join. My pushing of the super-secret administrator’s “ACCEPT” button will follow almost immediately because I have almost no life at all, so I’ll be waiting.

Finally…

Early reviews for TBoB are up… check them out!