Man in the Crescent Moon, a Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure, Available in paperback and ebook

Man in the Crescent Moon, a Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure, Available in paperback and ebook

26 July 2013 — Perryville, Maryland

Keibooks is pleased to announce that Man in the Crescent Moon, the latest installment in the Pirates of the Narrow Seas series by M. Kei, is now available in trade paperback and e-book. Man in the Crescent Moon opens a new story as we meet Captain Isam Tangle as a youth of nineteen, just starting the career that will ultimately make him the most notorious corsair of his age. 

The adventure begins when a Turkish corsair, the Grey Wolf, under command of the short but fierce Rajet Rais, takes refuge in Isam’s hometown. Pursued by a Spanish frigate with guns blazing, the town must defend itself from the unexpected onslaught. Much to the young corsair’s frustration, his uncle is not the aggressive kind of leader he wants to follow. He is drawn to the fiercely effective Rajet Rais and joins his crew. Rajet promises to teach him everything he needs to know to be a successful corsair—including the ways of men between the sheets.

Meanwhile, Isam’s relatives are causing him grief. One of his female cousins runs off with an unsuitable man while Isam falls in love with the man’s Spanish slave. He and two of his male cousins, the clever but untrustworthy Samir and the loyal but dimwitted Umar, must pursue the runaway bride. Unfortunately, their adversary proves to be dangerous and resourceful. He ambushes them at multiple points along the trail, then bears false witness against them so that they are arrested by the local chieftain.

Meanwhile, the furious Spaniards have laid siege to Isam’s hometown and are shelling it to destruction. Refugees stream out of the city to be preyed upon by bandits as order breaks down. The sword and musket become the rule of the day, and where a bold frontal attack fails, the Spaniards substitute guile, sabotage, and assassination. Menaced from all sides, not trusted by his own government, Isam must use his wits to triumph over his enemies and defend his home.

Man in the Crescent Moon is a complete story that can be read separately from Pirates of the Narrow Seas, or in conjunction with it. Those who already know the characters will be pleased to watch the mighty Kapitan Pasha came of age, while those who don’t will enjoy the story of a young man with burning ambition. The adventure has all the hallmarks expected from Pirates of the Narrow Seas: diverse and engaging characters, storms at sea, desperate ship fights, hand-to-hand combat, captures, rescues, and escapes, all told with authentic detail.

Praise for previous novels in the series:

“A true literary first: a gay seafaring novel that’s every bit as good with the ‘gay’ stuff as the ‘seafaring’ stuff [...] Pirates of the Narrow Seas has thrilling action sequences, complex, conflicted characters, and a healthy dose of contemporary realism.”—Steve Donoghue, Open Letter A Monthly Arts and Literature Review

“A swashbuckling tale full of colour, adventure and romance – a good read!”—Gerry Burnie, Gerry B’s Book Reviews

“an action-packed swashbuckler of the Captain Blood tradition”—Nan Hawthorne, That’s All She Read

“well rounded individual personalities which it is a joy to follow” and “Recommended Reading”—Astrodene’s Historic Naval Fiction

“Please, Mr. Kei, write us another.”—Candice E. Frook, Amazon.com

The Sallee Rovers, the first book in the series, won a Sweet Revolution Award in the category of “best full cast” and “Judge’s pick”, and also won a 4th/Honorable Mention from the Rainbow Awards in the category of “Best gay historical fiction.”

Available in trade paperback and ebooks from: 

Keibooks

P O Box 516

Perryville, Maryland, USA

http://AtlasPoetica.org

Or CreateSpace <https://www.createspace.com/4308969>, or your favorite online retailer. 

10% Discount on Keibooks During April

If you have been planning to buy a copy of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka (AtlasPoetica.org), or my new novel Pirates of the Narrow Seas (NarrowSeas.blogspot.com), or one of my previous titles, such as Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart or Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay, April is the month to do it!

Lulu.com, home to Keibooks, is offering a special coupon for a discount of 10% off the cover price of one purchase. Visit http://stores.Lulu.com/Keibooks and at check out, enter the code 'SHOWERS'. You may use it once during the month of April for a single purchase. Discount applies to book cover price, and does not include the cost of shipping and handling. The coupon can only be used for a single purchase, but you can buy as many books or journals as you wish in that purchase.

Happy reading!

~K~

Life Imitates Fiction

During 2008-2009 I wrote a trilogy of novels for my own amusement called Pirates of the Narrow Seas. The first one, now named The Sallee Rovers, is in print already: http://www.lulu.com/content/8157511. A good review caused a small e-book publisher, Bristlecone Pine Press, to pick up all three. They'll be coming available on the Kindle and other e-book sellers later this spring.

At the time I wrote the novels, I was a member of the crew of a small, fore-and-aft rigged, historic wooden sailboat. The nautical parts of the novels were partly experience and extrapolation from my fore-and-aft experience, and partly research. As I have been proofreading and editing to get them ready for the e-book publication, I have noticed instances of life imitating fiction.

First, in the last of the three books, a new important ship appears: a frigate with a watersail, sprit topmast and sprit topsail, a lateen mizzen and shebeck yard, and a whipstaff to steer her. I went through Chapman's Mercatoria Navalis and picked out a small, handsome vessel with exquisite lines -- I wanted to reward my heroes with a fast and agile sailer. Her set up was rather old-fashioned, but that she offered all the features I wanted in a ship for my heroes, coupled with better documentation than some of the other vessels in the book.

Last December I joined the crew of a fully rigged ship. She's the only ship in the Western hemisphere who has watersail, sprit topmast and sprit topsail, a lateen mizzen and shebeck yard, and a whipstaff to steer her.  What are the odds of that?

In one of the novels (Book Three : Iron Men), an accident occurs when men lay aloft in icy weather, and one falls do to uncertain footing. Not just icy, but the horses wanted mousing. That is to say, one of the supports that keeps the footrope more or less level (as opposed to hanging in a big curve), was not secure. Between the ice and the sudden sag of the footrope, the man lost his grip and fell and was badly injured.

Last week, the sprit topsail was set up on sawhorses in the sail loft so we could practice laying on, making and dousing sail. Not to mention, tying sail gaskets upside. Needless to say, in that situation, the horses weren't moused, either. Two of us lay on, fortunately only about a foot above the floor, and the footrope danced violently. It was abundantly clear how, even without ice, a man might be pitched off the footrope.

There is another incident in which the ship suffers an accident when the novice helmsman turns the wrong way in response to direction, becomes confused, and attempts to correct his mistake, making the situation worse.

I will not say our first exercise with the sails went that badly, but the opportunity for confusion is ample among novices :) We were moored to the dock and merely raising and lowering the fore course, and it was the trainees first time doing so, so errors are to be expected. A ship is an intricate piece of machinery and the crew who work her are part of that machinery. They must learn their roles so well that they can move like living gears in the whole complex organism.

Going to Sea

I haven't written here lately. I've been swamped with work, recovering from surgery, moving house, and various literary projects. However, I've made a big decision: I'm quitting my job at Wal-mart and going to be a substitute teacher while I look for permanent work. That will give me my weekends and evenings back, which I plan to use to volunteer with the tall ship, Kalmar Nyckel.

I have been accepted as a volunteer and tentatively accepted for sail training. Assuming I can afford it, I'll be taking the summer off to crew on the Kalmar Nyckel. I'm very excited and looking forward to it, I can tell you that!

Meanwhile, January will be devoted to finishing Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka (5) with the kind help of Alex von Vaupel's technical assistance. It will appear in March. I will also be finishing Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol. 2, which will appear in print in April.

I have also decided to put the Pirates of the Narrow Seas novels into print via a self-publishing POD arrangement; I need cover art, but otherwise PoNS 1 is mostly laid out.

In short, I'm going to be very busy in a good way. The downside is that I won't have much money, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices to do the things you want to do. The choice is between being poor and happy and poor and unhappy, so the decision is pretty simple. Since Wal-mart has changed its insurance to be so bad, the difference between having insurance and not having insurance isn't that great. It will only matter in the event of a catastrophe. Here's hoping for no catastrophes, eh?

I am also looking for a laptop or tablet computer that I can do serious writing on, access the Internet, do email while aboard the ship. It needs long battery life and to be rugged enough to survive conditions at sea -- saltwater humidity is notoriously bad for electronics. Preferably a Mac (looking forward to seeing what the new Mac tablet looks like). We stick to the coast so a cell phone link as opposed to a satellite link is probably sufficient, although I might look into the satellite cost for the summer only.

Looking back on my sailing career, I have only crewed on wooden boats. I have been a passenger on a few other vessels, but I'm probably one of the last people in the world that learned to sail on a wooden workboat. The Kalmar Nyckel sail training program is well-regarded, and graduates of the program work on a variety of other tall ships. With a little luck, perhaps I will be able to change my career to tall ship sailor. If so, I will be able to make a living writing poetry and sailing old wooden vessels. Wouldn't that be a dream come true?

Pirates of the Narrow Seas Wins Sweet Revolution Award

The Sweet Revolution Award is for same sex romances published on Fictionpress.com, the archive for the original draft of Pirates of the Narrow Seas. PoNS 1 was nominated and won in the category of 'best full cast' and was a special judge's pick as well.

The complete series is now hosted at NarrowSeas.blogspot.com: Pirates of the Narrow Seas, PoNS 2 : Men of Honor, and PoNS 3 : Iron Men.

Thank you, readers. I'm glad you're enjoying the novels.

~K~

Pirates of the Narrow Seas

A little over a year ago I was reading nautical fiction and became annoyed with yet another book in which any reference to a gay character was fleeting and derogatory. This annoyed me, and I decided to write a story for my own amusement featuring a gay hero. It struck me that with the formulaic structure of this most ancient of genres, a gay hero would an an interesting twist. How would a man resolve the conflict between his innermost nature, his honor and sense of duty, and the draconian law that prescribed death if he was true to himself?

I started to write with no idea where I was going. Within six weeks the rough draft was done. I then worked on revising it to clarify and polish it and posted the second draft online at http://www.fictionpress.com/~mkei. I was also working on a second novel because the events and personalities of the first begged continuation. After that was done, a third novel wrote itself.

While Fictionpress.com has certain benefits, such as a built in audience and stats counters, the software is awkward and buggy. When I completed the revision, I decided that instead of posting it to Fictionpress and risking technical problems, I would publish it in the much more stable technical platform of a blog. Thus was the NarrowSeas blog born. Its sole purpose is to be a home for the novels, and whatever ancillary material I may post relating to it.

The first volume is posted. Meanwhile I am editing the second novel and scheduling the chapters to be posted August 1. Feel free to link to it, and leave comments!

Happy reading,

~K~

Pirates of the Narrow Seas

For those of you who have been frustrated by the bug disconnecting Chapter One to Chapter Two, it finally appears fixed. Emailing the host didn't work, but re-uploading the chapter appears to have done the trick. For those of you who are reading it, comments are appreciated!

~K~