Happiness Is A Cookie

Some days, when you're bogged down with work and you can't see the forest for the trees, happiness is a warm gooey chocolate chip cookie. It's a shoulder rub while you're sitting at the computer. It's finding that you're rose bush has started blooming.

Yesterday, my happiness was a visit from my niece and brother. My lovely niece is going to be four this summer and she is so wonderfully precocious.

My happiness was also some very positive comments from my agent regarding the short story/novella that I wrote for Mira and Valerio. I will be making some minor corrections later today and then shipping it off to my editor. My fingers are crossed that she likes it as well. The story was definitely a move outside my comfort zone when it comes to Mira and her crew. The request from readers was to tell a story about Mira and Valerio when they were seeing each other. As a result, I had to tell a story set during the Regency era, which is a couple hundred years before the Dark Days series. Not only does this story give a much closer look at Valerio, but it is also a slightly different view of Mira. She's younger, less experienced, and still has to face a number of terrible events in her life that will harden her into the creature you meet in the Dark Days series. The story manages to be very tender while retaining Mira's usual violent streak.

I don't know yet when the short story/novella will be released. It depends on edits and how long it takes to format for e-readers. Stay tuned for more updates when I am able to release them.

In other news, I recently posted a new excerpt from Burn the Night on Supernatural Underground. If you haven't had a chance to read it, please click here. We've got fewer than 50 days until the release of Burn the Night; have you pre-ordered your copy? You don't want to miss out on this wild adventure as readers will get an intense look at Rowe and the rest of the naturi, as well as find out Ryan's real motives, meet Our Liege, and finally face the Great Awakening.

Finally, I am working on the first book in the Tattoo Artist series. After working on the Dark Days series for so long, it always surprises me how foreign the Tattoo Artist world is to me. I'm still getting to know the characters and all their interesting nuances, while constantly meeting new ones. This book has had a lot of difficult scenes for me to write. Not only in the sense that I've had to carefully plan them out, but also in the idea that the topics were extremely uncomfortable and it has taken some delicacy of writing. I have a feeling that I will coming back to those scenes again and again in the revisions.

For this series, I have been contracted for two short stories and two novels. I'm already hoping that it sells well so I can sell more novels for the series. I feel like I've just scratched the surface for the world and there's so much to tell, I don't think I can squeeze it all in with just two books. So fingers are crossed that readers love the series.