Flesh and Fire Novel

I started reading a new fictitious novel today called Flesh and Fire (Book one of the Vineart War) by Laura Anne Gilman. I don't want to fill this post full of spoilers other than to say it is about the magic linked to grapes and wine.

A writer I met recommended I join Smashwords.com so I can e-publish short stories on the Internet. But my Broadband hasn't worked all day so I finally resorted to dial-up, which didn't want to work either. I'm not sure I can open a site and join it until I can get the wi-fi connection to work again. I'm not impressed with Virgin Broadband after 3 months of using it. It often goes out of service for hours on end. When I do call I always have to wait at least 15 minutes to talk to a tech and each time they tell me there is an outage in my area and they are working on the towers. Last month they told me they would compensate me, but so far, no refund or partial refund has been given. Lame. I'm looking for an alternative now. But I like pay-as-you-go and I don't want to be locked into any contracts that start out at one price and then jump to a higher price later on. So I have my book on my desk so I can read it as I wait and wait for dial-up to change from one web page to another. At least I'm getting some reading done.