First, the Audiobook News!
One Degree of Separationis available for pre-order at Audible! It releases next Tuesday. The summer heat and round robin dating pool in Iowa City must be why Marian the Librarian can’t stop watching the new femme in town, Liddy Peel. Delightfully, humorously read by Quinn Riley.
Visit the book at Audible
Also in production for audiobook release are Roller Coaster, a celebrity-meets-chef romance, and Goldie winners Just Like That, my take on Pride and Prejudice, and Above Temptation, a romantic blend featuring two forensic accountants because accountants are sexy.
A Personal Update
Sometimes Life doesn’t go as planned. As you may recall, I found out I had breast cancer last August. I had a terrific medical team, rapid surgery, and a short course of radiation. Once that was over, all that remained was 5 years of medication designed to starve Darth Lumpius should it try to grow again.
As I wrote in the blog I linked to above, the estrogen suppressant ended up being the thing that kicked my butt. Endless hot flashes, drenching night sweats, hours a day in front of a fan – let’s hear it for working at home! Worth it, though, to not face any return of Darth Lumpius.
It also wrecked my sleep pattern, which has never been great.I remember lying awake as a child into the small hours, longing desperately for a book and a flashlight. I think that may be why I was a storyteller at a young age – I passed the wide-awake times telling myself stories. Mostly Star Trek inspired, and mostly saving the universe while hoping Lieutenant Uhura would teach me Swahili because we were best friends.
Anyhoo, long used to 5 hours of sleep a night, the sleep loss was still hard to handle. I was lucky to get 4 hours. Sometimes it was only 3. Recently, I also began to surface out of what – in hindsight – was a brain fog. I had been writing without making headway. My process has always been one story (whatever the length) at a time. Apparently, for a couple of months I was trying to write five or six stories all at once. It worked not even a little bit. What I did write was nowhere near my standards.
Long story short (or as the kids say “TL;DR”), instead of being in my own final self-edit phase for Frosting 3, too much work wasn’t done, or wasn’t done well.
Feeling more like myself, and after a chat with my doctor, I knuckled down and made significant progress, but it was too little and far too late. After talking it over with the peeps at Bella, we agreed that a January release made no sense for a collection that begins at Halloween and ends on New Year’s Day.
That means it won’t be released until October 2024. I am truly sorry to leave all my beloved characters in limbo for so long – and all of you!
My two future Coin of Love novellas, Wind in Her Hair and Checked Out will likely be delayed by a month each. When I know, you’ll know – that much I can promise.
In Which I Brag
Are they Lego warriors lined up for battle? No – they’re mounts bolted to a metal table and topped with mirrors. Why, you may ask? To bounce laser beams, of course.
This is a Light table. Laser beams are bounced off the mirrors and into an object that’s hanging out in a very cold box at a near vacuum. The time in femtoseconds (that’s one quadrillionth of a second) it takes for the lasers to create a change in the object is recorded.
Stuff is learned, and an eager young physics student authors a thesis. Did you know that “Picosecond volume expansion drives a later-time insulator-metal transition in a nano-textured Mott Insulator”? Now you do. Don’t ask me to explain further – I can’t.
Six years of research later, my elder son received his PhD this past weekend! After a little bit of chill time, he’s into the next phase of the journey: a research post-doc position at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg where the experts in condensed matter, light, and lasers hang out.
My reason for telling you all that? I’m bragging, of course. Yes, I am That Mom. In Simply the Best it was the title of some of Kelson’s papers that I used for science journalist Alice Cabot’s leisure-time reading.
Next Up – GCLS in Denver!
On Saturday Maria and I are heading out to Denver to revel in all things Sapphic Books at the Golden Crown Literary Conference. I always get so much energy and renewal that I can’t wait to be there and can’t wait to get home again to actually get good writing done!
Through all the ups and down of the past year, your continued support and love for the words has been a rock, and every single one of you has my gratitude.
Oh, and have you had your routine mammogram screening, hmmm?
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