We are now 11 days into 2026 and I have been going through the manuscript for Castle of Three Kings. It has nearly 70k words and was never completed because I realized I had broken something in the world building that made no sense. This stalled the ending because the things I needed to fix were extremely important and, quite frankly, I got frustrated by how much needed to change.
It is important to note that I began this story because of my son. He was playing Minecraft with his friends and they were building a ‘castle of three kings’ and the title wormed its way into my creative brain. Obviously the castle they were building was a joint effort between two other friends, so they were the kings meant to inhabit the fortress.
Here we are several years later, and several books later, and I finally feel prepared to dig into this book and fix it. It is hitting somewhere between MG and YA insofar as language and tropes feel to me, and I’ve decided to keep it that way. This was always a book meant for my son and when I began it, he was very young.
That said, I may release it under a different penname so that Readers aren’t wholly shocked by the change of tone.
We’ll see.
Pennames are brands and brands take time and effort. If I intend to do more books inside YA or MG in the future, it would make sense to pursue a whole new brand, but aside from Last Child of Winter, I can’t say I’m terribly inspired to write in that age group.
At any rate, that is where I am at and what I am doing.
As I am writing this, it is December 27th. Outside my window, the world is smothered in snow, but I am warm inside with a brand new candle burning lavender scents into the room. The fact that I am able to write this post, with working internet, a computer that functions, and family puttering around outside my room, is a blessing that I refuse to ignore.
I am so grateful to be here. To be alive, with stories to write, and a means to write them.
It has been a whirlwind of a year. In the writing and publishing side of things, we saw the release of Nora and the Siren Song in April and, because it left off on a cliffhanger, I pushed myself to release the conclusion of Nora’s first storyline. Nora and the Vampire Court was released in November.
There were a couple of hiccups between Siren Song and Vampire Court that has me convinced not to do that again. Suffice to say, I was pulling some serious late nights and it just wasn’t super healthy, for me or for the story, which I feel needed a little more time to incubate before I released it.
I am likely to nit-pick between now and the first year anniversary, so that when I begin offering the full series package I will feel better about it.
Also this year we saw the release of my FIRST EVER audiobook!
Nora and the Werewolf Wedding can be found on Audible now, which I absolutely love. The narrator was a delight to work with and I am deeply pleased with it.
There are more stories to be told inside Nora’s world-scape and I promise I am not done with it yet. That said, I need to take a step back and work on something else for a little while. In particular, I have a book I promised my son I would finish – Castle of Three Kings – and since he graduates this year, it feels appropriate to conclude this story about responsibility and humanity and what it means to have integrity.
With any luck, this will be the book I put out for the year of 2026. I’m not sure exactly when and I refuse to put a date on it until I have at least the second draft completed and have edits to implement. (See? Vampire Court taught me a lot about my process and what I need as a creative to get from start to finish.)
In June of 2025, I released Blood of the Witch Heir, which was a heavily revised and altered book that I had already published under the Double Dragon imprint. It was only after a long, hard debate that I chose to part ways with the publisher and I have not decided what to do with the others books that were under its imprint. When I know, I’ll be sure to post about it. For now, Blood of the Witch Heir is currently being made into an audiobook and I am excited for everyone to get a chance at listening to it. The narrator is fantastic!
About that Reading Challenge…
I set out to read 50 books in 2025, but I’m afraid I am going to miss that goal. As there are only 4 days left, I will go ahead and throw in the towel and say that, while I did not read 50, I did manage to read 42.
43 is currently being read and I believe I can get it done in time, but just in case, I’ll let the official tally be 42.
42 isn’t bad! I’m going to celebrate that number, rather than let it pester me.
Instead of making a list of what I plan to do for next year, I’m going to close out 2025 with gratitude.
I am alive, safe, and warm. There are books on my shelf that I cannot wait to read, and stories inside me that I have yet to tell.
Stay safe, everyone. Happy writing and happy reading.
From the turkey and stuffing to the golden-brown hue outside my window, I can’t help but love this time of year. That’s why I scheduled Nora’s final book to release on the 28th.
Well, technically it should have been released for Halloween but life had other plans.
At any rate, the Nora Grayson Adventures have concluded, Advanced Readers have the novel, and pretty soon everyone else who wants it will be able to snag it from Amazon.
I am deeply grateful to those Readers who have followed Nora’s journey from the beginning and whose comments and encouragements helped push me to the finish line. For the record, I know some questions have been left unanswered – not the MAJOR questions, mind you, but some of the littler things – and that is by design because I intend to return to this world.
It just won’t be Nora Grayson leading the fray.
I want to do a separate standalone with Derrick and Vessa that deals with Derrick’s mother and those known as the Lost.
I also have plans for Eucilla. She’s a dracken and can outlive everyone else, so I imagine that novel taking place a century or so later.
Also (mild spoiler alert), the romantic in me can’t help wondering what the Atlas Court will be like for Nora when she finally steps into that role, but insofar as the storyline of Nora’s family is concerned, we have an ending.
For now, I have several novels that have been sitting on the back burner while I finished up Nora’s books, and it’s time I gave them the attention they deserve. (More on that in a later post.)
So what am I thankful for this year?
I have a home. Food in my pantry. Pets who adore me. My book is complete and I have a group of amazing readers who are ready to get their hands on it.
I have a son who is also a creative and I know he is working on his own writing and worlds. He’ll be 18 in January, which hurts my heart in weird ways and terrifies me at the same time because he’s about to get his license.
I have a loving husband who believes in me and works hard so that I can continue to live my dream.
And I have family and friends who remind me every day that I am loved and appreciated.
Thank you. All of you. Whether you’re friend, family, or reader, I hope your day is amazing and that you are equally blessed.
Or at least, it has a way of kicking ME in the pants, but I’m old enough to know this is the norm for a lot of people.
I was hard at work, prepping marketing things for Blood of the Witch Heir’s release – which is in FOUR DAYS – and drafting up Nora’s final book when suddenly…
My computer stopped working.
As in, the thing would not power on.
This was frustrating since the warranty ran out the month prior and I’m afraid extending warranties/insuring items like this has never been in the finances for me.
Budgets be budgets, you know?
Anyway, there I was, stuck with no computer for a couple of days. We did try to unearth an older laptop lingering in the house but the thing was from the days of antiquity, too slow to load anything and running an outdated operating system.
What did I do with no computer for days on end?
Well, I read a lot. (I rated them on Goodreads as I went because I will not be trying to type out an entire review on my tiny iPhone Mini.) This means I not only caught up to y 50 books in 2025 goal, I went a little over and am now a book ahead of schedule.
I also received some happy packages! I got my author copies of Blood of the Witch Heir and new copies of the Nora books whose covers have been upgraded.
Nora and the Siren Song still has to be updated, but we are in the works for that! As soon as I have them all in hand, I’ll do a happy little post to display them all because they are GORGEOUS and I love them to pieces.
And finally, I enjoyed time with my husband and watched my animals be crazy. Which means I took a lot of pictures, which I am going to share here because why not?
Brief note: the goats are not mine. We stumbled on them at the Old Sturbirdge Village and that boy goat went and posed for me on the rock. It was too cute not to include.
Anyway, the OTHER thing I did was make a schedule with altered deadlines and now I probably should get back to it.
Recently I had the publishing rights to several of my novels returned to me. This was a strategic decision made due to the original publisher selling itself to another site, which I felt wasn’t a great fit for my work.
Before I did this, I reached out to Amazon to make sure there wouldn’t be any copywrite issues once the reversions were done and exactly what I was allowed to do with the work once it was mine to publish again. Things like if I wanted to change the title (which I did) and if I should put a notice in the front of the novel letting readers know that this is a Re-Release.
The answer to both those questions was yes, I could change the title but it would be like releasing a whole new book so the reviews I have on the original won’t be transferable. And yes, I can put a notice in the beginning pages letting people know so they aren’t shouting at me that I stole someone else’s work. (Difficult to do there, it’s still the same author name.)
Due to contracts and all that, the things that I COULD NOT use from my original publication was the cover art and the editing. The Publishing House paid for the editor to this work originally, and thus owned the rights to that version.
This was fine. I have grown enough in my craft that I felt confident I could take the book to the next level.
That said…
Revisiting old work is hard.
Mega hard.
Tooth pulling hard.
It hurts to see what I put out into the world. Not only have I grown as a writer, I have grown as a person too. Things that I didn’t blink twice at before have been unpacked and rewritten. The themes at the core of the book revolving around trust and independence and how the two have to learn in live in harmony are being highlighted better.
On the line-by-line level, the narrative has been given a major overhaul.
But more than that, the characters are being given the chance to breathe more. Elsie Varene Delgora is as sharp as ever, and Dorian Feverrette remains my favorite roguish nobleman. Their story is one of tragedy and triumph, despair and love, and I sincerely hope that readers walk away from it knowing that no matter how dark the path they have traveled, joy and happiness can still be achieved if we’re willing to open ourselves to it.
In just 7 days, Nora and the Siren Song will be available to the world. Hurray! Throw confetti!
Which means I’ve officially been alerted that I have 48 hours to make certain all those files are the right files and that I don’t have any further changes I want to make to the book. Which, honestly, induces a mild panic attack and forces me to re-read everything.
Even though I have literally read this book over a dozen times from first draft to finished product.
Nora has come a long way since her inception.
I first got the idea for her books from a conversation on social media where myself and another author were fangirling over the show Lucifer. We both found it deeply amusing that Lucifer had a therapist in the show, and the conversation stretched to… What if all these paranormal romances we read about with vampires and werewolves and other said shifters/magic user suddenly had to go to couples therapy?
What would that therapists life look like?
Enter Nora Grayson, an empathic wizard living in Boston whose private home study sees couples from the typical vampires and elves, to the more exotic creatures hiding in plain sight of humanity.
I made her an empath for two reasons.
First, I love Deanna Troi from Star Trek the Next Generation. You can say what you want about me being a Trekkie or whatever, I really don’t mind. Star Trek was my mother’s favorite show when I was growing up, so I come by my geekery honestly.
Second, because I am an empathetic person myself and I feel like this trait isn’t given center stage a lot. The ability to listen and identify the emotional state of the people around you, and then genuinely understand, feels like a skill that is undervalued in the world today.
We’re too busy.
We have our own problems.
Or worse, we’re scared of people.
I mean, who wouldn’t be given what we see plastered over the news?
I digress.
Nora’s first book, Nora and the Werewolf Wedding has a simple design. It’s basically Clue, but with magic and werewolves. And yes, I learned to embrace my Pantser in that book.
Or, well, this whole series.
Don’t know what a Pantser is?
A Pantser is someone who writes without an outline. There is a vague idea – in this case, empathic wizard stuck negotiating a socialite wedding where at least one of the guests is murdered – and you build from there.
Which means literally everything that happened in that first book came as a surprise.
True story, I honestly thought Derrick’s grandfather would be the big bad guy on the page. Spoilers! He isn’t.
There are pros and cons to embracing the Pantser side of my muse.
First, I’ve had a blast writing. That’s a huge PRO. I sit at the computer, stare out the window for a little as the scene starts to show itself, and then the narrative tends to flow. (Assuming I’m not interrupted. Interruptions are a part of life. I do have pets, a teenage son, a husband, and general biological needs like eating.)
However, that PRO is often checked by the CON where I literally had to build Fairy from the ground up whilst on the go. I have a handwritten notebook with all of my world building notes, many of which required that I flesh out the rules during the editing process of the book.
I mention this as a CON because I know the world is bigger than what has been displayed on the pages and I feel like I can do better.
Another PRO is that I am genuinely surprised by the endings when I get there. Or… things like the surprise wedding in Book 2, which is still one of my favorite moments.
Writing this way has made it feel like this is Nora’s story and she is telling it, first to me, and then to the rest of the world. All my other books, where outlines have been heavily utilized, I was directing things more than the characters on the page.
Sure, Jorry and Trenna both had a huge say in what happened in their stories, but it was still ME telling those stories.
Maybe one day I’ll go back and revise their books from this new, Pantser-loving lens, but don’t hold your breath for it. Nora’s final book is still in the works. It will be out in October of this year. And I have several others novels in various stages of complete or near-to-complete that will get to see publication first.
In the meantime, here is me, embracing my Pantser. It’s difficult, but apparently well worth the editing time I have to spend after that first draft is done.
There is romance in all of my books, even the ones that don’t have the label attached to them, but they would not be considered Romance Novels. They are Fantasy Romances, not Romantasy or Romantic Fantasy.
The general distinction here is that the Fantasy comes before the Romance, at least in my novels. The romance is not the driving force of the plot, the characters can take or leave one another in the end and still win the day, and I don’ t really write spicey scenes.
I’ve tried, I’m just no good at it.
And I know – have met, have heard, have politely just nodded along – to those who cringe at the idea of a book having romance in it. As though any sort of romance will ruin the plot. As though having a romantic interest waters things down and makes the work somehow LESS than it could have been without it.
It has taken me a long time to decide that these naysayers simply have no bearing over me anymore. They can cringe all they like. They are allowed their opinions and if that means my books aren’t for them then that’s alright.
There are millions and millions of books out there. There’s room for romance to exist without their approval. (Also, and with the utmost sincerity, if you are shaming anyone for what they like to read, then kindly scroll your digital devices past me. Their personal life choices have nothing to do with you. Go read the stuff you like to read and for the love of all that is good and right in this world, leave everyone else alone.)
There. I’ll step off that particular soap box now. Where were we?
Why do I love writing romance into my books?
Honestly, because I feel like the more we showcase healthy romantic relationships on the page, the more we can hope to see it in real life. Let’s normalize the man who protects AND respects his woman. Let’s normalize communication between partners. Let’s normalize a fulfilling, respectful relationship both in and out of the bedroom.
The stories that really grab me by the boo-boo and hold onto me from start to finish are the ones that showcase how complicated relationships really are, and also how WORTHWHILE it is to work through those complications. That’s what I love about romance. I can take or leave the spice, but give me a couple who are fighting to stay together amidst world-shattering events and you’ll hook me start to finish.
Better yet, give me a couple who stride hand-in-hand toward doom together, because neither will let the other face it alone.
See what my fellow authors have to say in this month’s Round Robin!
As of today, we have 66 days before Nora and the Siren Song hits the virtual shelves.
I am so very excited for everyone to get a chance to read the next step in Nora’s journey. The early reviews have been excellent. You can check them out on Goodreads if you don’t believe me. Or Bookbub, if you would rather.
I know there are several other review sites out there, but Goodreads still tends to garner the most reviews and ratings for me.
So what is this new adventure about?
Well, it’s a romance.
As in, the other books the romance tends to hide in the background, but in this next volume it takes center stage. I know this might annoy some people who prefer their romances in the light version, but Nora is growing and as such, she has reached a point of crisis where she must confront what she truly wants out of life.
Which includes knowing what she wants out of a partner.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing this book. It is a huge journey for Nora, not only because she must come to some decisions about who she is and what she wants, but because the world around her is getting far more dangerous.
I can’t say much more than that without spoiling the book for you, so I will leave you with the current Book Blurb (subject to change between now and Publication Date.)
Nora Grayson never meant to be a criminal.
Raised by the very people who murdered her parents, Nora’s memory has been shrouded by spell-work and heavy drugs. Sensing that something terrible is in the works, Nora is desperate to uncover the truth of what her caretakers forced her to do, but there are other powers at play both Earthside and in Fairy. When the Vampire Court demands Nora be shackled from her power, she and Constable Elliot Cade must flee. Her only hope rests with the last known Great Wizard, Lady Helle, but reaching the wizard’s tower proves more difficult than either of them imagined.
Boxed in on all sides, ancient rivalries rush to the surface, and the ocean powers Cade has been hiding from set out to prove that there is nothing more treacherous than the sea in a storm. With options and allies dwindling, and the wizard’s tower far out of reach, Nora faces an impossible choice: clear her own name or save the man she loves.
I am in the thick of things where it comes to completing the Nora Grayson series, and because writing is a constant learning process I thought I would share some things that are helping me get through this final book.
For those just joining us, the Nora Grayson series is my urban fantasy/paranormal/fantasy mystery series that follows Miss Nora Grayson, an empathic wizard living in Boston. It is honestly difficult to place in a single genre here, which I know will have professionals screaming at me that I just don’t know my market the way I should and that I should study it more, but if you read the books you’re going to see why I am so fickle.
Suffice, sometimes you’re on Earth and sometimes you’re in Fairy. Magic is hidden in plain sight of humanity, but I don’t have any fully human characters on the page, and the ties that bind Fairy to Earth are very, very important. Especially in this last book.
It’s weird. I know. But so far readers seem to be enjoying the books so I’m just going to keep trucking along with it.
Nora and the Siren Song will be released in April. That’s the third novel in the series. You can snag Werewolf Wedding and Duke of Autumn right now through Amazon. (Yes, I do little Kindle sales throughout the year so those of you readers who are on a tight budget, don’t fret. Follow my Facebook/X/Threads/Instagram and you’ll see when they’re on sale.)
As we speak, I am working on the 4th and final book in the Nora Grayson series, which brings me to the point of this Blog Entry.
Ending a series is far more difficult than beginning one. Or even continuing one.
All of those BIG questions that I have left hanging in the air for Nora need to come to a satisfying conclusion. And I need to do it in such a way that I don’t sacrifice the main theme of the series. AND all the characters on the page need to feel like they have come to a place of resolution somehow, not just Nora but the team/family she has managed to grow over the past three books.
So, what are some of the things I’ve learned during this process?
Tip #1 – Record your books
This is just for you. You don’t need to sell it. The sound quality doesn’t have to be amazing. You can do it on a shoddy little voice recorder you got for five bucks at a secondhand store, but record your books. The physical act of doing this will remind you what you’ve written, keeping the larger narrative alive in your head. AND, you can listen to the books while you do all the other necessary things of life like cooking dinner, washing dishes, or folding laundry.
Again, this is to keep the narrative alive in your head. It might feel funny at first. I know I felt weird, like it was a sort of vanity to listen to my own work, but at the end of the day it had practical applications. Characters I had forgotten about from the first book suddenly answered a major plot issue in the fourth.
Tip #2 – Story Bibles
Yes, I’ve mentioned these before. This is where you have written down characters and their rough descriptions in case they show back up because you don’t want a character to go from having green eyes to blue in the last few pages of the series. I use Scrivener for this, and I have pasted pictures to go along with said descriptions for these characters, because it’s fun and it makes me smile.
Tip #3 – Trust your instincts
If you aren’t satisfied with something on the page, then you can be certain that your readers won’t be either. I can tell you that I was stuck in November/December, so I went ahead and took a break. Something wasn’t working on the page, so I went back and reviewed and read the other books and poured over my plot notes. Granted, it took COVID forcing me into a hazy dream state for two weeks for me to really pinpoint what was wrong, but I’m confident I would have come to the right conclusion even without the illness.
The point is, my instincts were telling me it was off and I needed to listen to them. Sure, I kept shoving words on the page because no forward momentum = nothing ever gets done, but the struggle was important.
Which brings me to the fourth and final tip…
Tip #4 – Don’t be afraid to revise
Take this with a grain of salt. A lot of people can’t finish a book if they keep going back and revising. PLEASE USE THIS WITH CAUTION. If you know that you are one of those who will get hung up on making that first chapter perfect, then DON’T DO THIS. Just make a note of the changes you want to make on the next pass of the manuscript and move on.
For me, however, I literally cannot move on with the story if I know a major thing needs to change. In this case it WAS a major thing, it altered the course of the book in several ways, and I needed to make the words on the page match the story in my head before I could move on. I recognize the danger of constant revision for that first chapter, so please hear me when I say that I did this with my eyes open, I know that chapter is still not perfect, but now that it fits the rest of the narrative my internal Muse is happy and ready to continue the book.
That’s it. That’s what I’ve learned so far.
For those interested, we are sitting at 15k on the final novel, which isn’t where I wanted to be but I really did have COVID and was miserably tossing and turning in bed for nearly two weeks. Don’t worry, though. I’ll meet the deadline.
Last year I managed to read 36 books in total. That’s not including DNF’s that I do not talk about because… My Mom taught me that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you don’t say anything at all.
Fairly, it takes a lot to get me to DNF a book.
ANYWAY!
I want to read 50 books this year. I don’t know that I’ll manage it, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
2025 WRITING CHALLENGE
Last year I managed to write, revise, and edit Nora and the Siren Song to its completion. I also managed to edit and publish Nora and the Autumn Duke.
I am still tickled by the response I have gotten to Nora’s second book and I thank everyone who has taken the time to grab the book. You’ll be glad to know that the conclusion to her main story line is on its way. (More on that later.)
In addition to that, I managed to review/revise the outlines for two additional books that you won’t get to see until 2026. For reasons.
THIS YEAR…
I will be publishing two books.
Nora and the Siren Song will be out in April in all formats. (If you are interested in reviewing the book beforehand, I can send digital copies. Please just let me know if this interests you.)
Nora and the Vampire Court, the conclusion to this major story arc for Nora Grayson, will be out in October 2025.
Because my writing process requires downtime from a project, I will also be editing/revising other projects due out in 2026 in between the Nora books.
VARIOUS 2025 GOALS
I want to resume gardening work. Make more candles. And learn this new epoxy resin jewelry stuff I got for Christmas.
