I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I have a really hard time not working. Maybe it’s a self-employed/working from home thing, like if I’m not filling my hours and days with as much work as possible I might slip off the edge into some abyss of laziness, or maybe it’s ingrained capitalism: If I’m not pushing pushing pushing, then what is my worth? Or maybe it’s that I love my job (most of the time), and I’m afraid if I step away for too long I’ll lose the creative thread.
Maybe it’s all of the above.
It’s been a hard 2+ years, hasn’t it? I’m so grateful my family has remained healthy and safe. And because I work from home, we’ve had the immense privilege of choosing schooling options for our kids that were often online or outdoors, to minimize risk. But now they are ZOOMED OUT (who even knew that expression back in the before times???). My husband had to move his business to a new location, leaving the space his dad opened forty-two years before. It was hard. Emotional. Scary. And I also changed agents, which you might recall I talked about the last time. I won’t rehash it here, other than to say that losing your agent is incredibly stressful and leads to a lot of self-doubt.
But … we are safe. Healthy. My husband is settled in his new business location, and I love my new agent. LOVE. I’m so grateful. And after two years, we’ve finally made it back to our home in Palm Springs. Our oasis in the sun. It needs a paint job and some TLC after this time of neglect, but then, don’t we all?
I spent the last month doing an overhaul on Changeling, the manuscript you might remember was a finalist in the ECW Press Speculative Fiction Contest. It didn’t win, but I suspect that’s maybe a good thing. If I’d won, I would have been offered a publishing contract. But my agent had some brilliant ideas for how to improve the story, and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. Once it’s polished, she’ll send it out on submission to publishing houses and the waiting waiting waiting to see if anyone wants to buy it will begin.
At the moment, I could go on to other writing/research (I’ve got two books in the tank, one that needs a big rewrite and the other in the early stages of a first draft), but instead I’ve decided to take a few moments to RELAX. Read books for pleasure (gasp!). Swim with my kids. Maybe take a few naps. And every time the guilt-monster tells me I should be WORKING, I tell her to shut up.
Speaking of reading, I think this is a perfect time to introduce a new segment for this blog/newsletter where I share some of the books I’ve recently read and loved. So here we go! :)
After Elias
When the airplane piloted by Elias Santos crashes one week before their wedding day, Coen Caraway loses the man he loves and the illusion of happiness he has worked so hard to create. The only thing Elias leaves behind is a recording of his final words, and even Coen is baffled by the cryptic message.
Numb with grief, he takes refuge on the Mexican island that was meant to host their wedding. But as fragments of the past come to the surface in the aftermath of the tragedy, Coen is forced to question everything he thought he knew about Elias and their life together. Beneath his flawed memory lies the truth about Elias — and himself.
From the damp concrete of Vancouver to the spoiled shores of Mexico, After Elias weaves the past with the present to tell a story of doubt, regret, and the fear of losing everything.
In The Deep
Real-estate mogul Martin Cresswell-Smith is the best thing that has ever happened to Ellie. After her daughter’s devastating death, a divorce, and an emotional breakdown, he’s helped her move as far as possible from the grief, the rage, and the monsters of her past. Ellie imagines her new home with Martin in an Australian coastal town will be like living a fairy tale.
But behind closed doors is another story—one that ends in Martin’s brutal murder. And Ellie seems almost relieved…
Naturally, everyone thinks Mrs. Cresswell-Smith is guilty.
Senior Constable Lozza Bianchi has reasonable doubt. She sees evidence of a twisted psychological battle and a couple who seemed to bring out the worst in each other—adultery, abuse, betrayal, and revenge. If anything Ellie says can be believed, that is. As the case takes twist after spiraling twist, Lozza can’t shake the gut instinct that she’s being manipulated. That Ellie is hiding something. That there are secrets yet to surface.
Lozza has no idea ....
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!
Most folks don’t realize how important pre-ordering a books is. It shows bookstores there’s interest in a book, which encourages them to order it from the publisher. I’d be eternally grateful if you could go to your favourite bookstore, whether online or in person, and pre-order the book.
Here are some easy links to find Blood Atonement in your favourite bookstores:
DESCRIPTION
In a riveting psychological thriller for readers of Lisa Unger and Karin Slaughter, Grace’s healing solitude is shattered when she becomes a suspect in a gruesome series of murders.
Decades before, Grace DeRoche escaped the fundamentalist Mormon compound of Brigham and worked to prosecute the leaders. But when loyalists, including her own family, committed mass suicide to avoid jail, Grace retreated into solitude. Racked with guilt and suffering from dissociative identity disorder brought on by childhood abuse, Grace’s life is fragmented and full of blind spots. Dissociative triggers are everywhere, and she never knows when an alter personality will take the reins.
When other Brigham escapees die under suspicious circumstances, Grace’s tenuous hold on reality crumbles. Notes left at each scene quote scripture and accuse the deceased of committing sins so grievous atonement can only be achieved through the spilling of blood. As evidence mounts against her and one of her alter personalities becomes the prime suspect, Grace must determine if she’s a murderer … or the next victim.