Who loves a free book? Who loves a free book that’s also an award nominated, historical adventure with swords, found family and a badass sisterhood saving taking on a corrupt monarchy to save their friend from execution? For the month of March, Jaguars and Other Game is available for free on Kindle. I had so much fun writing this book. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely join Maria, Isabel and Victoria on their adventure. Jaguars and Other Game is a gender-flipped Three Musketeers set in colonial Rio de Janeiro that’s perfect for fans of Pirate of the Caribbean or Princess Bride. Download it today!
It’s official! Jaguars and Other Game, my debut historical fiction, is out today! I’ve been writing and working toward the goal of being a published author for more than a decade. This is literally a dream come true.
If you have the chance to read Jaguars and Other Game, 
Mark you calendars. Hire a babysitter. Schedule your Uber. It’s time to celebrate the launch of Jaguars and Other Game! November 22 at 6pm at Buteco Bar in Grant Park!
Of course, eBooks are available from 
The first woman to rule Portugal, Maria Francisca Isabel Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joana (why’d her parents stop there?) married her uncle in order to remain in line for the throne, saw her hometown destroyed by an earthquake-tsunami-fire mega disaster, calmed political unrest in Portugal by proving infinitely more competent, less corrupt, and not as prone to mass incarceration as her father and his advisors, outlived her husband and all but one of her children, and became the only European monarch to leave the content and rule her empire from a colony. Although, by the time the court fled to Brazil, she wasn’t technically in charge anymore as she’d been declared insane and unfit to rule fifteen years earlier.
Maria was born in 1734 and became the heir presumptive when all her brothers were still born. Now Portugal had never had a Queen rule in her own right, and they had this totally just and reasonable law that said a princess could NOT marry a foreigner and remain in line for the throne. Because obviously a man would be strong enough to resist manipulation from his Spanish wife, but a woman would be a puppet to her mustache-twirling Spanish husband. (This is hilariously ironic if you know about Queen Maria’s son and daughter-in-law.) So how can a princess marry a prince but not marry foreigner?
In 1755, when Maria was just shy of 21, Lisbon was left in smoldering ruins after being hit by so many disasters in day even Hollywood producers would call it over the top. A massive earthquake hit at 9:30 in the morning on All Saint’s Day, while the churches were packed for mass. Almost every church in the city collapsed. Thousands of survivors rushed to open squares around the port, only to be swept away by the tsunami triggered by the quake. Fires then broke out and raged for five days destroying whatever parts of the city were left.
As Queen she took a much more hands on approach to governing compared to her father who had taken the “everyone listen to my advisor because I’m going hunting” approach. She rolled back a lot of her father’s more extreme measures such as mass incarceration of political opponents. She’s remembered as a good ruler in Portugal and Brazil. By all accounts Maria was kind and affectionate with her family.
When the Portuguese court fled Napoleon to Brazil, Maria thought she was being kidnapped and had to be carried aboard the ship by the fleet commander. She spent much of the three month voyage screaming. It sounds horrible for everyone involved.
One reason I love writing historical fiction is the chance to discover real people I’d swear were fabricated in someone’s imagination. King João VI of Portugal is one of these people. The man was born to be the comedic relief in someone else’s story. Sure, he was also born into royalty, but he seemed so much more suited for getting laughs than governing.
But the truly shocking and grand achievement of Dom João was surviving. When monarchs all over Europe were getting deposed at best and beheaded at worst, Dom João, the peaceful dullard, kept his crown, and he did it by being the only European monarch in history to move the capitol of his kingdom to a different continent. This man, who hated change so much his servants had to repair holes in his pants while he slept, moved the capital of Portugal from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.
It happened. I finally got the brutal agent response I will talk about twenty years from now at book signings. I’m a real writer now. Yay!
My first thought was “Portugal, a Christian country in Europe full of white people, may feel too foreign for Americans?” I’m still trying to figure out what about US demographics gives the agent this impression. If Portugal is too foreign what countries will Americans read about? Great Britain, obviously. France, yes. Germany? What about Russia? They’re white, but their culture is pretty dissimilar to the US.
The Census Bureas predicts that by 2020, the majority of kids in the United States will be members of a minority race or ethnic group.