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Category: Book Series: Those Strange Women

New Book Review: The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal

Posted November 22, 2021

Reviewed by LESBIreviewed:
https://lesbireviewed.wordpress.com/2021/10/13/book-video-review-the-woman-who-tried-to-be-normal-by-anna-ferrara-ebook/

“The series always has twists and turns and in The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal there were more than ever.”

“Trying to put together the pieces of Helen and Ethel was a lot of fun…. Their connection was absolutely fascinating like how they went from just hating each other to being completely obsessed with each other.”

“Every piece of the puzzle when it was all revealed was like… surprise.”

“I recommend this for everyone who’s looking for a little something different with a sci-fi element.”

Thanks LESBIreviewed! 🙂

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Oct 2019 Sale & Giveaway

Posted October 7, 2019

Hihi, more promotions this month with the very super iheartlesfic.com.

First one:
The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal (Those Strange Women Book #3) is in its last week of sale this week. Last chance to get it at $3.99 only, together with 12 other lovely lesfics.
Please check out the sale page here.

Second one:
The Woman Who Pretended To Love Men (Those Strange Women Book #2) is part of an 19-book giveaway (meaning 1 lucky winner wins 19 books!!! Cool!!!) this month.
You can win it if you join the contest here.

Again, that’s all from me right now because I-need-to-finish-the-book-I’ve-been-taking-more-than-a-year-to-write! (I can’t believe it’s been a full year already!) Until then, I don’t think I should be writing/saying anything else… XD

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Sep 2019 Sale & Giveaway

Posted September 9, 2019

Hilo, I’ve got two exciting promotions going on this month, both in collaboration with the very super iheartlesfic.com.

First one:
The Woman Who Pretended To Love Men (Those Strange Women Book #2) goes on sale ($3.99 only!) from 9 Sep – 13 Sep, together with 24 other wonderful lesbian-themed books.
You may check out the sale page here.

Second one:
The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange (Those Strange Women Book #1) is part of an 18-book giveaway (meaning 1 lucky winner wins 18 books! Whoa!!!) this month.
You can win it if you join the contest here.

That’s all from me for now. I’m kinda swamped with trying to finish Eritis Mea (my next book) by the end of fall like I promised so I’m prioritising doing that over blogging for now. Hopefully I’ll have a new book to sell the next time I come back here. Can you believe it’s been almost a year since I last finished a book now? Time does fly, whether or not you’re having fun!

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The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal is on sale now!—and what I might buy in this lesfic mega sale

Posted May 28, 2019

The Mega Lesfic Sale by I Heart Lesfic is back, and The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal is part of it. Grab it in ebook at USD$1.99 from now till 31 May 2019 here: https://iheartlesfic.com/spring-into-a-good-book-mega-sale-part-two/

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Of all the over 200 books available in the sale, here’s what’s caught my eye:

  • The Immortal by Natasja Hellenthal
  • Rapture by Pike Martell
  • Dark Alleys by Lola Andrew
  • Vampire Tears by Jade Astor
  • This Time by S. W. Andersen
  • Artemis Gardens by Jade Astor
  • Girls Don’t Hit by Geonn Cannon
  • The Curse of Doll Island by Ocean
  • Occasions of Sin by Elena Graf
  • Lies of Omission by Elena Graf
  • Acts of Contrition by Elena Graf
  • Olympus Nights in the Square by Vanda
  • Paris, Adrift by Vanda
  • Mask of the Highway Woman by Niamh Murphy
  • In This Small Spot by Caren J. Werlinger
  • Time Undone by AJ Marchant
  • Turning Point by Lara Zielinsky
  • I Remember You by H. L. Logan
  • Separate Like Stars by Diana Kane
  • The Actress by Marian Snowe
  • Homecoming by Marian Snowe & Ruby Grandin
  • Willow by Raven J. Spencer
  • Harem by Raven J. Spencer

Writing this list has taught me I’m likely a fan of Jade Astor, Elena Graf, Vanda, Marian Snowe and Raven J. Spencer. And also that I dig Hollywood stories.

I wonder what you’d choose. Do tell!

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An Elderly Man’s Perception Of Me

Posted October 28, 2018

A couple of months back, I decided to try exercising outdoors before work to see if it would improve my productivity through the day since many self-help books said it would.
Shortly after I started, I began saying hello to a man in his 60s who had the job of keeping the plants in the neighbourhood watered and trimmed because we saw each other every single day. After a few weeks of hellos, the man initiated conversation and after that would make small talk with me about impersonal matters once in a while. This went on harmlessly for a few months, until one day, out of nowhere, he suddenly said (not in English)—
“Girl, let me tell you this, as a friend, because I care about you. You are married aren’t you?”
I said I was even though legally, I’m not. Same-sex marriage isn’t a thing where I live and I wasn’t interested in telling him—an acquaintance—about the female partner I was committed to and living with in the block just metres away from his place of work.
He then said…
“Just go see a fertility doctor.”
My eyes got big.

… read more.An Elderly Man’s Perception Of Me
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Why I Wrote The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal

Posted October 20, 2018

When I was 16 or 17, I knew with certainty there was something terribly wrong with me.

I had never crushed on a guy in all my years of life, not even a pop star guy, yet somehow I was always crushing on older women, even pop star women.

This was the early 2000s when nobody in my country was talking about homosexuality so, being young and green in life, I was a little confused. I didn’t know anything about lesbianism other than what I saw from the five lesbians I knew from school and two of them were butch and three of them liked only butches so I was pretty convinced I wasn’t a lesbian. How could I be when I wasn’t attracted to butches or wanting to be butch, right?

I didn’t know what I was but I knew I was going to have to find a man to marry and get divorced from anyway just so nobody would know how weird I really was. It was more socially acceptable to be a divorcee than it was to be a lesbian in those days, obviously.

… read more.Why I Wrote The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal
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How To Read My Those Strange Women Series?

Posted October 12, 2018

All the books in the series are standalone stories with their own storylines and conclusions but the deeper histories and genealogy of a few key characters are explained across the series. I don’t know how to explain this to you without giving too much away but for example, you will find out more about Lane’s (lead character in #1) heritage in #2 and #3.

So, ideally, for maximum enjoyment, start from #1 and work your way to #3 chronologically. The series goes back in time so you first see the characters in the future (2030), then in the past (1999 then 1975) as the books go along, so you can see why starting from the future might make the past that little bit more surprising.

If you started with #2, you can choose to read either #1 or #3 next, depending on who you care about more. The woman or the child?

If you started with #3, the stories will make more sense to you if you do #2 first then #1 after.

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What The Characters In The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal Look Like In My Head

What The Characters In The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal Look Like In My Head

Posted October 5, 2018

Helen – H.G. Wells of Warehouse 13. I think the whole character was written as homage to H.G. Wells of Warehouse 13. Obviously, I am a secret fan (of the lovely Jaime Murray too, of course).

Ethel – A real woman I know of but I’m not saying who this time because I made her way worse than she actually is and I don’t want to get sued. You can pretend she’s an older and more messed up version of Myka of Warehouse 13 if you want. And treat the whole book like Bering & Wells fanfic, which it might very well actually be, although I didn’t consciously realise so when writing, only after, when reading.

Lilly & Wanda – They’re the leads in Those Strange Women #4 so I’ll tell you when that comes out.

The Husbands – Yes, unfortunately, there are husbands in this book, since it is 1975 and it is about a woman trying to be ‘normal’. You can think James Stewart or Gary Cooper or whichever traditional American man you can envision…

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The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal Is Out For Sale Today!

Posted September 28, 2018

The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal, third book in the Those Strange Women series is a standalone story that reveals the secret past of the mysterious female doctor Fleur befriended in Those Strange Women #2.
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Can you read it without reading the earlier books in the Those Strange Women series? Yes.
Will you be thrilled about the twist of events if you have read the earlier books in the Those Strange Women series? Absolutely.
Click here to find out where you can buy The Woman Who Tried To Be Normal in ebook and paperback.

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Anna Ferrara Paperbacks Now Available At GinGin Store

Posted September 18, 2018

You can now buy my books in paperback at GinGin Store in Taipei!
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This is really cool because GinGin and Taiwan, of which Taipei is capital, are sort of heros of the LGBT community in Asia. You might already know that in May 2017, Taiwan became the first and only country in Asia to allow same-sex marriage but what you probably don’t know is that GinGin Store began almost 2 decades before that, while discriminatory incidents were still occurring against gay men in public establishments, because its founding team wanted to give LGBT individuals in Taiwan a place where they could feel welcome during daylight hours. Before it came into being, gays could only hang out in bars and parks at night and nobody talked about lesbians.

… read more.Anna Ferrara Paperbacks Now Available At GinGin Store
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Fourth Book

Posted September 7, 2018

To be published Sep 2018.
Third book in the Those Strange Women series.

In 1975, 375 miles away from Area 51, Helen, a synaesthete who sees sounds and hears images, marries an aircraft engineer, hides her dreadful past and tries to live a normal life for a change. That all crumbles when her new neighbour, Ethel, wife of her husband’s colleague, regards her with extreme hostility and, later on… love.
Click here to read more or buy.

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What Causes Depression?

Posted August 21, 2018

Chemical imbalance? Maybe. Possibly. More often than not—unlikely. You know what I think causes depression? I think racism causes depression. Homophobia causes depression. Inequality causes depression. Knowing you’ll starve and become homeless if you don’t keep going to that job you hate and suffer at causes depression. Being told you’re not popular enough causes depression. Being told you have to be popular causes depression. Being told you’re ill and require pills for the rest of your life just to be normal causes depression. Instead of trying to change someone’s brain chemistry to cure depression, why not try changing how you’ve been treating them first?

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I wonder…Those Strange Women Cover Design Series Unique

Birthday Month Sale

Posted July 7, 2018

It’s my birthday this month! To celebrate, you can get all of my books at 75% off when you buy them from Smashwords (offers EPUB/MOBI/PDF versions)! Click here to get them before the sale expires on 31 July 2018!

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On Suicide

Posted June 13, 2018

When I was a really old teenager, I wanted to die. I read up all the ways to get it done, picked my favourite and made a decision to just do it within the year. I then let myself do all the crazy things I never dared to do before, just so I could ‘go out with a bang’. I dropped out of college, moved in with a woman I kinda had a crush on and did whatever I felt like whenever I felt like. Guess what happened next? By the end of the year, I decided I liked being alive after all. I had figured out how to live properly, the way my body needed me to. I never wanted to die ever again and it hadn’t taken one antidepressant for me to end up that way.

Now imagine if I had taken antidepressants instead.

… read more.On Suicide
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How I got my first three books written

Posted June 6, 2018

The first book I tried to write was actually the third book I published while the first book I published was the third book I tried to write. Why?

It all started in June 2015, after weeks, or maybe months, of deep, frantic soul-searching (I’ll tell you all about that some other time). I decided to write and self-publish lesbian fiction and had an idea for a series (I’ll explain why another time too) so I jumped right into getting the first book written. 11 months on, in early or mid-2016, when I had three vastly different rough drafts of that very first book down, I, out of nowhere, got the idea for the Lane Thompson character (the lead in The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange). I quickly realised she would be a more interesting character to start my series with so I paused all work on my first story to work on hers instead.

By late 2016, I was 80% of the way with the Lane Thompson story when, again, out of nowhere, Snow White and Her Queen materialised in my head (read how that happened here). That story was so clear to me, so straight-forward, so likely to be thought of and written by another person, I knew I had to write it—fast—before anybody else did. So once again, I dropped the Lane Thompson story to write Snow White and Her Queen.  

… read more.How I got my first three books written
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The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange at $1.99 only

Why I wrote The Woman Who Pretended To Love Men

Posted May 9, 2018

Because none of my experiences with employment have been positively positive. Because everything I wrote about in Chapter 11 really happened and, perhaps, shouldn’t be forgotten. Because telling a woman you don’t love her when you do does happen, especially when you’re a woman too.

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Third Book

Posted April 26, 2018

Published: 26 April 2018

In 1999, Hong Kong, Fleur repeatedly denies having feelings for Milla, daughter of a New York mob boss, because she has secrets—another identity and a job she can’t talk about. Trouble comes when Milla moves on, starts dating other women, and leaves Fleur all by herself, amidst feelings of loss and wanting…
Click here to read more or buy.

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My next book will be…

Posted April 18, 2018

About the lies we tell each other and ourselves / set in 1999, when Nokia ruled, Discmans rocked and Columbine happened / set in Hong Kong, home of six million people and Wong Kar Wai / a mystery-suspense-lesbian romance (but of course) / the second book in the Those Strange Women series / about jobs and employment / getting published really soon.

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Why I wrote The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange

Posted March 14, 2018

Three words: topical steroid withdrawal. If you don’t know what that is, I fully recommend you find out before you accidentally get yourself into it like I did. The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange isn’t about the medical condition per se (it’s way more fun than that!) but it embodies everything I learned about the world and life while going through it. I don’t want to say too much (because I don’t want to give the book’s ending away) but in short, five months of escalating steroid cream usage landed me in hell for an entire year. Before, I didn’t think such a thing could happen but now I know it can and has happened to many other people as well (to those who are still battling tsw: Know that it really does get better!). When I made it out of hell, got my skin back to normal all by myself, I read up pharmaceutical drugs and my entire take on modern medicine changed. After that, I wrote The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange.

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The Woman Who Made Me Feel Strange is now available in Paperback

Posted January 30, 2018

Get it from Amazon.com for US$16.99! In other news, now that my third book is on its way and the Books page of this blog is starting to look real untidy, I’ve been thinking of getting a proper website with a proper domain of my own to improve viewer experience. In typical indie fashion, I’m going to build the whole thing myself. I don’t know how long that will take so do check back in a few weeks if you want to know what a person who’s never done web design professionally can come up with.

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Behind schedule but almost done!

Posted November 4, 2017

If it were up to me, Book 2 (a really fun mind-twisting mystery! with lesbians of course) would have been done by August. But it wasn’t. The book took over. Each time I finished a draft, the book gave me ideas for new perspectives. Each time I changed the perspectives, the book gave me ideas on how to thicken the plot. And so on and so forth. Mysteries are way harder to write than straight-forward romance novels, I’ve since realised, or at least that’s how it feels for me. It’s been a long few months of eight (or nine? lost count) vastly different drafts but I’m thrilled to say, at last, that it’s almost all there and the story that’s come out of the process is leaps better than the one it was in draft five. I’m at Chapter 26 (of 31) in final revisions now and thereafter will embark on a month of pre-publishing work which means Book 2 should be out by mid-Dec or so? Phew. I have no idea how so many authors manage to get 3-5 books out a year (Harper Bliss! your productivity is amazing). I feel like I’m perpetually racing against time as it is so I suspect many other authors might secretly be superhuman.

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The Next Book

Posted May 16, 2017

will be set in the near future. In an overcrowded megacity where strangers rub bodies daily but don’t make eye contact. There will be a character who is hot, tall and blond, with amazing hair and the power to stir fantasies in all the women who meet her puppy brown eyes. Yes, she might look a little like Delphine from Orphan Black.

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