Babies and Books

Babies and Books

 

To say it was a busy year would be putting it mildly. My youngest daughter got married to her fiancé Steven, and had her second baby, Sophia Iris, at the end of January. I got to be there when she was born. Alyssa, three, is now a big sister!

 

the newlyweds.
 

Sophia & Alyssa

If that wasn’t enough, my middle daughter also had a baby! I got to see Shawn Michael make his red-face, squalling way into the world as well, on July 10. I went from one granddaughter at the beginning of the year to spoiling three grandchildren by the middle of July. Ask anyone; it’s my absolute favorite thing in the world, being a grandma.

 

Daddy Tristan, Annie, & baby Shawn

One of my other favorite things, however, is writing. I finished writing Knew You’d Come back in October. However, I edited and changed, reworked and fine-tuned, and sent it to my sister Jenny for her valuable input and editing suggestions. She can be brutal but most of the time she’s right. After I input those changes, it was sent to several beta readers for their input, then we changed even more things.

 

Knew You’d Come is an erotic romance. It’s the story of Tansy Reynolds, a paranormal investigator, who gets way more than she bargains for when she does a paranormal investigation of an old saloon under renovation. Whip Daniels has been waiting for her for a hundred years, and only has three days to show her that they belong together.

My newest baby.

Before I could get it formatted to put on Amazon, I was asked to be a contributor to the Kindle Worlds Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mysteries. I set aside Knew You’d Come in order to be a part of her Mary O’Reilly World launch. It was a challenge to write a novella in six weeks; it included editing, formatting, and finding someone to do a cover in a hurry.** It all worked, though, and Trouble Lake was born. I so enjoyed being a part of that launch, including the Facebook launch party, where I met so many new friends and readers. I enjoyed that so much.

Spooky, funny, mysterious ghost story.

Trouble Lake was great fun to write. I hate when people say “this book practically wrote itself”, but I swear, I actually had characters talk to me and tell me what was happening in their world.  It was awesome (and a little scary, because dude, I was hearing VOICES) but it went so smoothly. I decided I will be contributing more novellas to this particular Kindle World because Mary O’Reilly’s playground is a great place to play! Plus, it would be a perfect time to recount more of my character Holly Martin’s adventures. Does she continue with her faux psychic practice? Does she continue seeing ghosts? What other escapades will she drag Mary O’Reilly into? Poor Mary. I don’t know that she’s going to get any rest. No wonder Terri Reid loves to write about her!

Right now, I’m promoting Knew You’d Come and Trouble Lake. It’s fun to see some of the people who purchase these two books are also purchasing the books from our Whitfield Witch series; Baylyn,Bewitched and Cat, Charmed. I wrote another erotic romance novella last year (largely in the Meg’s Coffee Shop in Rockford, across from six elderly women who were playing some card game…if they only knew!) and will have that edited and formatted for distribution later this year. I have it tentatively titled Halloween in Handcuffs. Right now it’s a working title; however, it should give you some sort of idea what it’s about. (wiggles eyebrows) Also, there will be a companion story to Knew You’d Come called Handyman for Hire.

If that wasn’t enough, we have the third book in the Whitfield Witch series, Elise, Evermore, almost completed! So many people have asked and we so appreciate the interest. Even I want to know how it ends! I have to admit that although I love writing the saucy romances, I will really enjoy giving Elise Travers the happy ending she deserves. Elise recently learned that her husband Charles, who had been presumed dead for thirty years might be alive after all, but trapped in another century. Making things a little more difficult, someone from his past has cast a spell on him to make him forget all about Elise. We’ll document her successes—and failures—along the way. Who knows what she might get into; after all, she’s Baylyn’s mother!

Although it seems like we are going to be releasing a lot of books within the next year—and we are—keep in mind that most of these stories have been sitting idle, completed. However, due to our combined six kids, and grandchildren, and pets, and spouses, and oh, let’s not forget, both of us working full time…sometimes things get written, and sit patiently, waiting to be published.

Maybe the literary fiscal year starts in July. I’m going to go with that. It’s going to be a good year!

 **Here’s where I’d like to give a shout out to Nick Block, who did a great job on the cover for Trouble Lake. If you ever need someone to do a great cover for your ebook, please seek him out. His website is here.