New interior design for Picture Imperfect!

Thought I’d share shots of the new interior formatting for Picture Imperfect, my steamy mystery romance, AKA “A Sassy Suspense,” and a stand-alone set in the Pacific Northwest.

I wanted to update some language from the first publication that might cause some folks harm. Ie. words like crazy, insane, and overweight (which was only used in the book once, but if it caused harm, I apologize). Now that I know better, it felt like the right thing to do was correct some language.

While at it, I redesigned the interior with some snazzy new formatting that I love! The cover hasn’t changed, but I’m including a shot of Picture Imperfect next to Head Over Heels, as PI is twice as long!

PI is my longest book, with multiple points of view, a love story, a mystery to solve, family and friendship complications, and – ta-da, of course a happy ending!

What I found doing this update is there was one typo!! Fixed it.

I also got to update a bit of technology.

And I discovered I still love this book!

The new formatting applies to the print and digital editions, so if you pick up a copy, you’ll get it as it is now, February 2024 moving forward.

Same cover, “Not for Resale” because it’s a proof copy
Title page is the same
Sample of new interior formatting (this is the first scene with Gabe’s mom’s point of view – she gets a love story in the book too!)
Another sample of the new interior formatting. I love the script! (PS, don’t zoom in and read the page if you don’t want a spoiler)
New author pic, taken, you know the drill, in my bathroom with my shower curtain backdrop behind me.
Comparing spine width to Head Over Heels

Wanna check out PI? HERE

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Take me Home

Before Brady reviews!

I’m 6 weeks out from my surgery and still have a long way to go on my journey, but I’m keeping my toes in the writing world when I can.

I’m busy updating DMARC records (gobbledegook for email deliverability rules that are coming into place on February 1st.)

I’ve done a light edit on PICTURE IMPERFECT to update some word choices and tech. Happy to report that I only found one typo!

I’m about to upload the new editions of the book and will let you know when it’s ready. Same cover, no big changes. Just minor edits.

And…

My books can always use more reviews, and because I had a medical challenge in 2023 that will be continuing into this year, I didn’t do a great job getting ARCs out for BEFORE BRADY. But some fab reviews have come in from readers around the world!

5 Stars! “Every girl wants to meet Mr. Right, but sometimes it takes a long time to figure out that Mr. Right might not check all the boxes.” CA Cindy on Amazon (not me, I promise)

5 Stars! “I loved Alicia and Brady’s story . . .great characters, sparky interaction and a little steam . . . plus terrific humor.” Laura on Amazon Canada

5 Stars! “Alicia is missing her chance with Brady. This was a really good story where Alicia needed to figure out how to “multi-task”. This was a fun and enjoyable story with some great steam.” Deb on Amazon Canada

Thank you, readers!

Apple Books

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo (FREE to read in Kobo Plus!)

Google Play Books

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Home

I did it?

Oh, my ever-lovin’ knocked noggin, I think I actually updated my website!

It took forever because my FTP software no longer links to the server, and I have to dig around behind the scenes and I, well, make mistakes. I upload things to the wrong folders, have to start again.

But!

It’s not perfect, but I think it’s done. I still need to check some links.

These are the pages I’ve updated, and, please, note, if you’re a frequent visitor (hahaha), you might have to hit Refresh to make the new pages load.

Home

Books

Bio

Deceiving Derek

Catching Claire

Before Brady (now on preorder!)

Just Janie (currently exclusively on preorder at Apple Books)

Trusting Trey – TBA

That only took, like a week.

My next website is going to be a heckuva lot easier to maintain, I hope.

A New Year – A New Word(s) of Intention

I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions. The surest way for me not to attain a resolution is to set it in stone. I don’t know, the rebel in me just balks. So for the past couple of years, I have chosen a Word of Intention for the year. 2016 was Gratitude. Each day, I strove (strived? stroved? egad) to feel grateful for some aspect of my life, no matter how small. My mood is affected by not only the ups and downs of daily life, the losses that naturally increase as we and our loved ones age, but also by the weather. And in my part of the world, in the winters we get our fair share of white-shrouded skies, in the spring comes the gray clouds and sometimes torrential rains (our region suffered severe flooding in 2017), and the summers, while usually nice, lately we are experiencing drought and forest fires up the whazoo, which makes for more clouds–with smoke–obscuring the skies. Something about a blue sky just lifts my spirits. The weight of clouds weighs me down. So my annual Word of Intention helps me get through those rainy or fire-smoky days,

For 2017, I chose Positivity as my Word of Intention. In retrospect, this was a fantastic choice. My dear doggie left this world in November, and I spent most of last year as her caregiver. Reminding myself to find the positive in a day–no matter how small–helped me focus on the positivity animals, and especially dogs, radiate. Once Allie died, I got very ill with a host of viruses that seemed to swoop in and take advantage of my total lack of defenses. Only wrapping myself in the feeling of positivity Allie gave me helped me through some of those days.

So along came the time to choose my word for 2018. I chose Joy, as an extension of Gratitude and Positivity. Here we are less than 10 days into the new year, though, and Joy alone isn’t quite working. As I gazed at the white sky while on a solo walk without my beloved pooch, I wondered why. And I decided Joy wasn’t…verby enough. It’s a fine plan to try and embrace a spark of joy in daily life as we proceed through the year, but I needed something more active to spur me along. Joy is my goal, but being Proactive every day, in my writing and in my life, I believe will help set me on the path to Joy.

And you know what? It’s working. The days I can’t find joy, I remind myself to just be proactive, to take a step toward a writing or personal goal. And once I’m in the midst of doing that, well, there comes my joy.

Some days, joy is elusive. And you know what? That’s okay. It’s hard to find joy when someone passes away or another sort of tragedy befalls a loved one. But by being proactive, I am confident that step by step, I will find my way back to joy every time.

What about you? Do you set Resolutions? Or do you have a Word of Intention for the year? The season? This month? That’s sort of the approach I’m taking with 2018. If February requires a word other than Proactive to pave the path to Joy, so be it. Don’t fence me in! My year is wide open.

Q and A at Publishing Spark!

I have a Q and A at Publishing Spark today. Hop on over and check it out.

What is Publishing Spark, you ask? It’s an email/newsletter list provider. If you’re an author, it’s a super easy version of MailChimp. Right now I have email lists on MailChimp, Mailer Lite and Publishing Spark, and I’m testing each out for various lists. I started over on MailChimp, and I really like them, but as my subscriber base grows I’m just in a place right now where I really want the automation features but my writing income, um, still needs work and MC is a tad on the high end for my needs. Enter Mailer Lite and Publishing Spark, both of which offer automation on their lowest tier or free trials. I’m trying out both over the next twelve months.

At the Publishing Spark blog today, I’m talking about my new book, PICTURE IMPERFECT, how I use my mailing lists, and basically offering some writerly advice. I hope to see you there!

Travel Bug

It’s been a week since my husband and I returned from a month-long trip to Australia. We had a marvelous time! Caught up with family members in Melbourne, met family we haven’t met before, stayed with friends in Perth who we met on our trip to the Galapagos two years ago, and did tons of exploring on our own. Even met up with an author pal from California who just happened to be in Sydney during the same time.

I am exhausted.

Traveling is a blast, but work piles up while you’re gone. So I’ve been slowly tackling the paper pile on my desk while trying my best to combat spring fever (it’s sunny out – I want outside!). The jet lag this year is killing us, possibly because, on top of losing a day on the trip there and then gaining a day on the trip back, we switched time zones within Australia itself four times. So that was six time/day changes in total in four weeks. Almost immediately upon our return, we needed to go out of town overnight, this time to somewhere fairly local, just as beautiful and intoxicating as Australia but different. Lakes instead of oceans. Trees instead of red rock and desert.

I fully intend to blog about this trip. I intended to blog about our trip to China last year to see our son, however, time and family events got away on me. So I might blog about Australia and then blog about China. We’ll see. First, I need to upload my pictures and sort through them. Well, before that, must continue clearing off my desk and then return to the writing project I last looked at in late February/early March. It’s been a long time since I had a new release. A new book is coming, the release date of which is dependant on editing schedules, and then I’ll return to writing the Love & Other Calamities short story series. Before all that, indeed very, very soon, is a little treat. If you haven’t yet read my books, stay tuned!