Because I’m a Derringer Award Finalist

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I was toiling at the end of my emergency room shift when I got an unusual message. I turned to my colleague and said, “Hey. I’m a finalist for the Derringer Award!”

“Congratulations.”

“Do you know what that is?”

“I assume it’s a writing award.”

“It is. For the best short mystery stories published in the English language.” I revelled in it for a second, and then I said, “Do you know what a Derringer is? It’s a pocket-sized knife–”

“It’s a gun, actually. A small one, easily concealed and favoured by prostitutes.”

I Googled it, and a bunch of gun pictures came up. “Well, still. Because it’s small, it’s a metaphor for the deadly power of short fiction.”

A Derringer. Not a knife. Who'd have thunk it?

A Derringer. Not a knife. Who’d have thunk it? Plus, this one looks like it’s wearing lipstick.Photo by DuBoix on MorgueFile

“Favoured by prostitutes.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

Anyway, the important part is that I’ve been shortlisted for the Derringer. So to celebrate, I’ve turned “Because” into an e-book with an essay detailing the genesis of the story at Kris Rusch and Dean Smith’s Oregon mystery workshop, plus observations on the writing life, and what it feels like to hit the Derringer short list, for $2.99.

because fuller

However, since I love you, my people, I’m giving the story away for free right here for the next seven days.

You can also download Code Blues, the first Hope Sze medical mystery, for free exclusively through the Vuze book bundle. Only until March 16th. Then it will disappear like a sociopath’s conscience. So grab it now! http://blog.vuze.com/2015/02/24/new-medical-thriller-book-bundle-melissa-yi/

While the Short Mystery Fiction Society votes on the Derringers, I do have one weapon in my back pocket. I’m the newest recruit for SleuthSayers, the world’s slickest crew of crime writers and crime fighters. Two of their members, Melodie Campbell and Rob Lopresti, have already won the Derringer (Rob won it twice)! So maybe they’ll help larn me.

In the meantime,

Because

By Melissa Yi

Because you were so fat that I could count the rolls through your T-shirt, and know that they’d build across my belly and back in the exact same way.

Because you spent the check every month, and you never gave me a penny, not even if I needed a new eraser for school. “You just ask your fancy teacher for one. Go on, ask.”

Because I had to ask, and their eyes would burn me with their pity.

Because you’d spend hours painting your nails, but never let me touch any of the bottles, just because I broke one when I was two.

Because I hated the sound of your crinkling chip bags.

Because when Daddy said he was leaving, you said, “Go, then,” and let him walk out the door, even though I screamed and cried.

Read the rest in the format of your choice here (http://melissayuaninnes.com/books/because). Thanks for stopping by. Since people do seem to like freebies, I’ll give away more stories in the future. I may try and coordinate them with my biweekly SleuthSayer posts. The next one is March 23rd. Cheers!

Calling a Code: Code Blues Free for Digital Book Day!

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It’s Digital Book Day tomorrow!

In celebration, for the very first time, Code Blues e-book will be free on July 14th, 2014. To download it in the format of your choice, go to Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/81693?ref=melissayuaninnes) and enter the code GT24E.

Or download it directly from your friendly neighbourhood Kobo (http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/code-blues).

Code blues cover 2013 EBOOK-200

Make sure you go to the Digital Book Day website to download up to 407 books, completely free, in genres like mystery, thrillers, sf and romance. You have to page down for the literature, YA and non-fiction, but it’s there.

I know I’m working on Monday, but I’m going to try and get up early or stay up late so that I can gorge myself on words.

I’m happy to see that Code Blues is quite high up on the landing page. At the top of mystery-thriller are CJ Lyons, the pediatric emergentologist turned NYT bestseller who organized the entire shebang; JF Penn, thriller author, speaker, and publishing maven; and Bob Meyer, the only bestseller I know who used to be a Green Beret. But if you go down another four books, there’s me! Sometimes, the late bird does catch the worm!

Dr. Hope Sze rolls into Montreal with three simple goals: 1) survive her family medicine residency, 2) try pain au chocolat, 3) go on a date sometime in the next two years.

Then she discovers a doctor’s body in the locker room. When she tries to uncover his killer, two men dive in to help her.

The one man with charm to burn, the one man who makes her melt, has zero alibi. Code Blues.

Because medicine can be murder.

Written by an emergency physician trained in the crumbling corridors of Montreal, Canada.

IMG_5216

 

And hey, if you’ve already paid full price for the first three Hope Sze novels, don’t be bitter. It just means that you’re helping to support an writer with two small children. Plus, if you bought them in paperback, you get 50% off the print version of Student Body, the brand new Hope novella, at our yoga-belly dancing-book launch September 20th.

The e-novella is on sale this summer for everyone, for 99 cents!

student body half price

Snoopy dance! In a dignified doctor-y sort of way, of course.

 

A few reviews of Code Blues, to whet your appetite:

 

“Terrific fun.” –Veronica Hares, R.N.

 

“I had just finished a night shift. My boys were coming come on the school bus. And I could not put the flipping book down.” –D. Poilly, M.D.

(If any of you know Dr. Poilly, these are strong words!)

 

I really enjoyed this fast-paced mystery.

Having lived in Montreal, I found the references to the city hilarious as well as relevant.

Hope is a truly likeable and very realistic character-I will certainly be reading the next books in this series, and am looking forward to her developing comfort with the hospital and the city.

A lot of fun to read, and a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

–Anne Zoeller

 

This is a wonderful first entry into what promises to be an on-going mystery series.

There’s a murder and suspects and romance and a white-knuckle finish.

But what really makes this story work and stick with you isn’t all of the above, but the carefully drawn picture of its world and characters.

The protagonist is a new medical resident in the physically deteriorating Montreal anglophone medical system. The facilities are crumbling, and the author skillfully paints a series of characters whose walls are crumbling too. This is a novel partly concerned with boundaries: professional boundaries (when does a physician give ‘too much’), romantic boundaries, relationships that are too co-dependent or too enmeshed to be truly healthy, despite how compelling and driven the characters find them. The novel is partly a meditation on compulsion and addiction–when does the goal-directed driven nature required of medical students and doctors slip over the line from adaptive and necessary to harmful?

—Gregory L. Smith

Code blues cover 2013 EBOOK-200

So c’mon. Get it while it’s free! Coupon code GT24E here, or just load up your Kobo here. If you leave a positive review, the book fairy will do a foxtrot.

You can also buy the print book from your friendly neighbourhood retailers, listed here. But I’ve got to give a special shout out to R&L’s Book Nook, which is hosting the Alexandria portion of Books & Bodies on September 20th.

Read, read, read!

 

The List: 24 hour chick lit giveaway

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“What’s your number?” If they’re not asking for your coordinates, as they say in Montreal, they’re usually asking how many people you’ve slept with.

Well, what’s your imaginary number? By that, I mean, who are the people you wish you’d slept with?

In The List, Oona makes a list of all the guys she wished she’d had. And then she has them.

I’m giving away 100 free copies on LibraryThing in exchange for honest (but ideally, not malicious) reviews, and the giveaway ends tomorrow at 2:57 p.m.

Warning: this book contains sex and swearing. If you don’t like those things, do not enter.

the list cover 2014 interracial box

This book is difficult to market because it’s not clearly erotica. The sex comes later on. It starts off with Oona’s husband asking for an open marriage, so she has to kick him to the curb before she makes her List and feels confident enough to act on it. But it’s not a classic romance because, hey, three guys. (It’s not a long list, but a yummy one: the smokin’ yoga instructor, the childhood sweetheart turned cowboy/jazz musician, the ironic Jewish doctor. And she does act on all of them.) So you could call it women’s fiction, but those tend to be more serious. Oona is not serious. Oona is drinking vodka and hitting the the dance clubs and possibly, a dungeon. Ergo, perhaps chick lit is the closest fit.

Some folks think that buyers shy away from covers with black people on ’em. Let’s prove them wrong. For the record, Oona is from Montreal, with biracial roots, black and Chinese. Yep. She rocks.

To check if Oona’s your cup of tea (or shot of vodka), you can download the first chapter here. That’s also where you could just buy it in the e-format of your choice. Just sayin’.

For people who don’t like to download, I’ve also published the opening chapters on Wattpad. The third chapter was automatically rated R, I think just because of the swearing. No clothes come off. Yet.

So, if you wanna have fun, and R ratings don’t offend you, join The List giveaway today! Just page down to find it, or search for Melissa Yin, and enter your name sometime in the next 24 hours. Good luck!

Terminally Ill + Kobo Top 50 = audio-visual extravaganza

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Terminally Ill, the latest Hope Sze medical mystery, still stakes a claim to the Kobo Top 50 eBook site today.

In celebration, I’m posting a video I made on March 25th, when it clawed its way as high as #27 later in the evening. Video evidence of bestseller-dom. (And perhaps mental suicide, since I’m posting it to YouTube, where the trolls come to play.)

For all you audiophiles/CBC listeners, snakeyukin narrates the opening scene of Terminally Ill: Elvis the escape artist gets chained, nailed in a coffin, and tossed in the St. Lawrence River, and Dr. Sze saves his life.

Sound effects courtesy of Freesfx.

terminallyill_eBook_final with bleed and curlies

Public Service Announcement: Australia and New Zealand, you’re the only ones in the entire world who get a $2.99 sale on Terminally Ill, this weekend only.

Today is the deadline (ha! Deadline. For mystery lovers. Get it?) to sign up for my newsfeed and newsletters. All subscribers will receive a secret promo code for a FREE Kobo copy of Terminally Ill. The code will arrive in a newsletter today. I won’t spam you, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Happy reading.