Free Today!

My ebook, Magic & Memory, is available for free today on Amazon.com! Click here to go get your copy.

Happy Halloween!

It probably won't come as a surprise to you to learn that I absolutely love Halloween. Shocking for someone that writes vampire books, right?!

Ashland really shines on this holiday. They close off Siskiyou Blvd. and the whole town turns out, many in costume, for a huge parade. The top photo was taken during last year's festivities, and the bottom photo is of a pumpkin I carved last year that I'm particularly proud of. :)

I hope your Halloween is frightfully fantastic. Have fun and be safe!

Thank you!

I published my first novel this past spring, and it felt a lot like sending out a message in a bottle. My little book was set adrift in the sea of Amazon.com, just one among hundreds of thousands of other books on that enormous site.

And I held my breath and waited, hoping for the best.

I can track my sales, so I know that hundreds of copies of my book have gone out, especially during the free preview weekends. But I never got any feedback, and almost no comments good, bad or indifferent had been posted.

So I was left wondering -- was anyone actually reading my story? And most importantly, were they enjoying it?

Then just today, two things happened that made me feel so wonderful, I just had to share. First of all, I somehow followed a Pinterest link to Amazon's UK site, and decided to check on my book while I was there. And I found, to my absolute delight, that Magic & Memory has three comments posted on Amazon UK, all of them 5 star, and all of them asking for the sequel.

It meant so much to me to read those comments!

They inspired me to log on here, were I found an email sent just two days ago from another reader, also asking for the sequel to my story. I'm so grateful to these readers for taking the time to contact me or post a comment!

So I'm writing this post to say thank you to everyone that's read my book, and thank you to those that have taken the time to give me positive feedback and encouragement. It means the world to me, you have no idea.

Please keep the comments coming!

Hello Alastair!

I made a change to the cover of Magic & Memory: I added Alastair, one of my main characters, to the cover! I'd always known I wanted a picture of him on the ebook, but could never find the right guy to represent him somehow.

As a reader, you know how it is: you get a specific idea in your mind of how a character should look, and then the movie comes out and totally destroys your perception.

Well, it's also tough for an author to try to select a visual image to represent one of her characters.

Is that model really what Alastair looks like? He's not exactly what exists in my mind's eye, but he's as close as I could find, after looking at literally hundreds and hundreds of images.

Even if he's not dead-on, that model's still pretty hot though. Don't ya think? ;)

All About Ashland

Ashland, Oregon at Christmastime

Magic & Memory begins and ends in Ashland, Oregon. It's a location I know well -- in fact, it's my adopted home town.

My local friends thought it was kind of funny that I'd set a paranormal urban fantasy here, maybe because they don't quite see the magic of this place like I do. To me though, it was the perfect setting. And in fact, I think it's kind of a perfect town in general.

Maybe that's because I grew up in the cookie cutter world of Orange County, California. In the neighborhood I lived in, all the houses were one of four floor plans. So when you went over to your friend's house for the first time, you wouldn't have to ask where the bathroom was, because you already knew -- either because it was exactly like your house, or exactly like one of your other friend's houses.

Uniformity in general was a big theme back then. My friends and I all lived in the same houses, wore the same clothes, liked the same blonde surfer boys. And I suppose some people like that kind of sameness, that kind of predictability.

But I'm not one of those people.

So now I make my home here, and every day I appreciate all that's unique and off-beat about Ashland. It's the perfect antidote to uniformity, a vibrant community that I knew would serve as a wonderful real-life backdrop to a story with elements of fantasy.

An interesting aspect of this town is that if you drive even a little way up the mountain right behind it, you almost immediately end up on some truly scary narrow dirt roads with heart-stopping drop-offs along side. It takes a bold individual to choose to live up one of those roads. It was the perfect setting for my main character Lu Harper's house.

And a few hardy souls really do live up there.

If you ever have occasion to drive through southern Oregon on Highway 5, Ashland's either the first or last town you come to, depending on which direction you're headed. Even just a glance from the freeway gives a hint of its unique character. And if you look just a bit more carefully, you'll see the sprinkling of houses up in the mountains behind the town -- any one of which could be Lu's.

Though if you ever do pass through here, do more than just look from the freeway. Head on into town. Ashland has charm by the bucket load -- and maybe a few mysteries hidden behind its pretty face. I think you'll love it as much as I do.

Mother's Day Weekend

My ebook, Magic & Memory, is available for free this weekend on Amazon! Click here to check it out. It's been so exciting to see hundreds of people picking it up! If you got a copy, I hope you enjoy it!

It's (a)live!

Magic & Memory is up on Amazon as of today!

It can be purchased for your Kindle or other reading device, and it's also available free in the Kindle lending library for Amazon Prime members.

Oh happy day! :)