We escaped sultry St. Louis over a decade ago to move to sunny and seventies Southern California. We love it here. But this year, apparently, SoCal decided to remind us of what we escaped—a month of heat and humidity. Except now, we’re suffering through it without air conditioning, because sunny and seventies shouldn’t require a/c … Read more
I formatted one of my books as a pdf this morning and Adobe told me it was a large document and would I like it summarized? I almost spit at the screen. An entire year of squeezing out the perfect words, making them pull together in the best manner to generate emotion and stimulate thought—reduced … Read more
My July 21st release of THE KILLER’S DASTARDLY INTRIGUE is my 100th published book!!!!! It’s been a long strange trip since the days back in the early 80s when I sat with my 99c Walmart notebook and 19c Bic pen and scribbled stories to amuse myself while the kids played in the backyard. Those were … Read more
I think I write small town books where everyone helps one another because I can’t control the world outside my doors, but I get to give good people happy lives and send the bad ones to jail.
Admittedly, I am not entirely certain when spring arrives in Southern California. We had a glorious January with sun and seventies, after a rainy December. I barely had time to trim back my roses before they started blooming again. When we lived elsewhere, I always planted daffodils so I could watch their green shoots pop … Read more
I know most of you are sitting in front of fires trying to stay warm. Been there, done that, ran away. But even in the cold days I decorated the pines with suet so the cardinals made bright flowers against the green. I need flowers! Here in SoCal, we have live poinsettias splashing color against … Read more
We took a marvelously relaxing cruise of Puget sound, meeting up with Mary Jo Putney and her husband to discuss writerly subjects and enjoy the scenery and a wine tasting or two
After twelve books in the same setting, my Muse has wanderlust, and I’m wondering where to travel next. I’ve been thinking about My Favorite Things, like houses and mysterious actions and characters who don’t quite fit into normal… and then I started wondering what everyone else enjoys in a good book. What are Your Favorite … Read more
I am doing my very best to feed you, my beautiful readers, a new book every three-four months, but the number of things on my To Do list keep growing! I think we’ve re-covered and updated the Dark Lords and Dangerous Ladies series, the Rogues and Desperadoes, and the Too Hard to Handle series. To … Read more
I want to write. I have characters running around in my head, doing ridiculous things, and they need room to romp. I don’t think I can project my brain images into a TikTok video or an Instagram photo. So instead of promoting my new books, I
am scribbling as fast as I can.