In theory. I’m on version #3 right now, which is somewhat frustrating. I know what has to happen, but I’m struggling with the balance of ‘show vs. tell’ (no, Nancy, you cannot just narrate all the sections you don’t feel like writing …. or can I?) and finding the final paragraphs. One of my challenges […]

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Back to blue again. I love the vibe of this one and it works for me, even if all the little details aren’t right. It’s eye-catching, which is what you want in a cover.

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A switch from blue to red… I think this book poses the biggest challenge to a cover artist. It’s not easy to convey the mix of fairy tale and period horror and to showcase the importance of the setting to the story. This one is evocative without being explicit and it looks great.

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Here’s new cover #2. It works beautifully with The Night Inside and I love the colours. Though I admit to being a sucker for anything blue…

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I just got back from a trip to Italy (to get my travel legs back and see art and eat delicious food – update to come) and discovered that pre-orders are now available for all four novels in their new Open Road Media editions. Release date is July 9, 2024. Pre-orders are important in the […]

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Here’s the best of what I read in the first three months of this year. Sadly, the ‘to read’ list gets no shorter. FICTION The Buccaneers, Edith Wharton. The Wharton-fest continues (I’m currently working on The House of Mirth). This edition just has the actual Wharton text, without the later happy ending. And yes, I […]

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Another year, another 140 books (or so) books read. Of these, 44% were non-fiction on topics from science to politics to history to biography to (of course) ‘how to write’ books. Because hope springs eternal on that front. Here’s a quick summary of some of my favourites. Climate (yes, it’s bad): Arboreality, by Rebecca Campbell. […]

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A while ago, I did a list of my favorite books featuring female vampires for Shepherd, the book discovery site. They’ve just published a new featured called “Favorite Reads in 2023”, featuring the selections of almost 900 authors. We were asked to choose our three favorite books from our reading over the last year, with […]

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I didn’t keep a close record of cottage reading, but did get through a few books between July and the end of the September. Here are some of my favourites. FICTION The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic, R.F. Kuang. I motored through the first two parts of this trilogy and finished the final book […]

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*once a business manager, always a business manager! Another period heavy on the non-fiction, so we’ll start with that. Fire Weather, John Vaillant. Valliant’s previous book, The Tiger, is one of my favorites so I jumped on this one. It’s a vivid and dramatic recounting of the Fort McMurray fire, a science lesson on the […]

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