Happy Thanksgiving!

/ Life

I hope everyone celebrating Thanksgiving today had a wonderful day filled with food and happiness. If today isn’t your Thanksgiving, then I hope you had an excellent Thursday. :)

I’m thankful for so many things this year: family, friends, health, prosperity, and so much more. I’m thankful for all of you who have read TQG or are waiting for PR to come out. I’m thankful that I get to do a job I love. I’m thankful that I have an awesome agent who always has my back. Really, I am very blessed, both personally and professionally.

I’m also fortunate to have a dear best friend who invites us to spend Thanksgiving with her and her family every year. We spent the day cooking and drinking mimosas, which, let’s be honest, is a fabulous way to spend a day. It was a small group this year, just five of us. But because we do Thanksgiving right, we had three pies—pecan, pumpkin, and apple.

I made my grandmother’s pecan pie and it turned out delicious if not beautiful (the story of my pie making).

Pecan pie

We also had enough food that everyone took home leftovers for Thanksgiving 2 tomorrow. The menu consisted of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, bread, fruit salad, ambrosia salad, amaretto green beans, and cranberry salad.

Thanksgiving food

Pretty much the entirety of my favorite Thanksgiving foods were represented here. I did miss my mom’s baked beans, but I think I’m the only person in the group who likes beans. And we already had enough food to feed an army.

Now we’re going to hunker down and hide from the Black Friday crowds. :)

How was your day?

Polaris Rising Snippet on Ilona Andrews’s Site!

/ Author News, Snippet, Writing

Ilona and Gordon were kind enough to host a new snippet of Polaris Rising! Head over to their site to check it out. You’ll also find the story of how we first met. :)

And if you came from their site, welcome! Chapter One of Polaris Rising is available on the book page. A few other snippets are also available.

If you enjoyed the snippets, you might also like my novella, The Queen’s Gambit. I wrote it as a blog serial last year, then edited and published it. TQG2 kicks off in the next month or so, also as a free serial first, so now is an excellent time to check it out. :)

Edit: And, of course, I am eternally grateful to Ilona and Gordon for sharing! 😍

Diamond Fire

/ Book Rec, Reading

Happy book birthday to Ilona Andrews! Diamond Fire is out today! It showed up on my Kindle last night just as I was planning to sleep, so I started it, because of course, and let me tell you, it was sooooo hard putting it down.

Diamond Fire

Nevada Frida Baylor and Connor Ander Rogan cordially invite you to join their wedding celebration. Summoning, weather manipulation, and other magical activities strictly forbidden.

Catalina Baylor is looking forward to wearing her maid of honor dress and watching her older sister walk down the aisle. Then the wedding planner gets escorted off the premises, the bride’s priceless tiara disappears, and Rogan’s extensive family overruns his mother’s home. Someone is cheating, someone is lying, and someone is plotting murder.

To make this wedding happen, Catalina will have to do the thing she fears most: use her magic. But she’s a Baylor and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for her sister’s happiness. Nevada will have her fairy tale wedding, even if Catalina has to tear the mansion apart brick by brick to get it done.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books | Kobo

 
And if you are in the USA, don’t forget to VOTE today! You can read Diamond Fire while you wait in line! Win win! :)

A Camping Weekend

/ Life, Travel

Today dawned cold and dreary, which makes me even happier that we spent the weekend at Enchanted Rock with sunny, 85°F weather. We almost didn’t go because the rain forecast was more than 50%, but my optimistic husband talked me into it, and I’m so glad he did. It sprinkled on us a few times, but mostly the weather was lovely.

Also, because it’s in the boonies, we didn’t have cell service, which meant a weekend away from being constantly connected. It was awesome. I am tethered to my phone as much as the next person, and there were a few times I would’ve liked to post a photo to social media, but overall, it was nice to disconnect.

Plus, look at this amazing campsite we snagged.

Campsite

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Book Two Update and Snippet

/ Author News, Snippet, Writing

Book two has been sent off to my editor! Woohoo!

I have to admit, sending in book two was far scarier than sending in book one. After all, she liked the first book enough to buy it. This one is an unknown. What if she hates it? What if the first book was just a fluke and I’ll never write anything as good/better? And so on and so forth. Thanks, brain, for making me neurotic. :/

In less crazy news, book two has a title: Aurora Blazing. It’s due out late next year, currently October (subject to change, etc, etc). Somehow, Goodreads already knows more about it than I do. I don’t know what kind of data ninjas they have over there, but nice work.

Polaris Rising is the story of Loch and Ada. Aurora Blazing picks up where PR left off, but it’s the story of Bianca and Ian. Bianca is Ada’s sister.

Here’s a little snippet from Aurora Blazing. This is from the rough draft and subject to change/be cut from the final draft. :)

My com vibrated and Ian’s info reappeared on my glasses. The five-minute block had expired. I confirmed Aurora was on course for orbit, then accepted the video link as voice-only on my side—I could see him, but he couldn’t see me.

If I’d thought I’d seen Ian at his angriest before my meeting with Evelyn, I’d been dead wrong. I’d never seen him so furious as he was right now. His face was set in lines of granite and his eyes blazed with temper. His jaw was clenched so hard I was afraid he’d break his teeth.

It seemingly took him a force of will to open his mouth. “Lady Bianca, return to the ground. Now,” he gritted out.

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