What happens when love is not enough? In every romance, the reader meets the protagonists and roots for them to overcome their obstacles and come together. Finding a way to tell that story when there may not be a happily-ever-after requires creating strong characters whose motivations compel the reader’s affinity however the tale ends.
What’s the theme behind your story?
Sometimes, love isn’t enough.
What’s the logline? Baker City: Where love is real, and the ghosts are too!
What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you? I knew that at some point in the series, the heroine would return to the small town of Baker City and meet up with the hero she left behind when she pursued her dreams. While he loves her, he has too many other commitments to chase after her.
How did the original idea change as you went along? I built up her motivation so readers would understand her decisions. She didn’t want to be put on a shelf and wait obediently for him to return from his quest to find his brother who went missing on a covert Army mission — a quest she saw as futile.
How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change? I’ve been working on this story for years, so it evolved into a contemporary one where she is a combat veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. When the hero left the Marines, he became a contract soldier. He needed to come to terms with his dysfunctional family and learn what love is so he could appreciate what the heroine has to offer.
Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story? Why or whynot?
This has always been a favorite story of mine. I love Heather, the heroine, and the hero, Durango. Although I deliberately left some questions unanswered in this book, I’ll continue to build Baker City and its characters, resolving ongoing problems or concerns.
Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal? I think Amy Adams would make a terrific Heather McElroy. Alexander Skarsgard would be perfect as Durango Hawke.
What else do you want readers to know?
Ghost of the Past is Book 4 in the Baker City Hearts and Haunts series. Characters from the previous books appear in this one, but it is Heather’s and Durango’s story.
Bio Josie Malone lives and works at her family business, a riding stable in Washington State. Over the years of teaching kids to ride and know about horses, she’s taught three generations of families in many cases. Her life adventures span from dealing cards in a casino, attending graduate school to get her master’s in teaching degree, substitute teaching, and serving in the Army Reserve — all leading to her second career as a published author. She writes two paranormal romance series, Baker City Hearts, and Haunts (“where love is real and so are the ghosts!”) and Liberty Valley Love (“where no matter what, soulmates find each other!”). Visit her at her website, www.josiemalone.com to learn about her books.
You’d think a memoir based on donuts would be a sweet story, full of sugar and contentment. This mother-and-daughter story ultimately is the icing on top, but it starts during the horrors of the Khmer Rouge’s brutal reign in Cambodia following the 1975 disengagement of the United States in Southeast Asia. Fleeing genocide and labor enslavement during the barbaric restructuring of the country, Chuong Lee arrived in Southern California homeless and penniless, then married into the family of another Cambodian refugee, Ted Ngoy, who opened hundreds of donut shops in the Los Angeles area for other refugees. Mayly’s story celebrates her mother’s journey and her own unique upbringing as a donut “princess” who used modern social media to make the family business one of the most successful donut shops in the world. Every bit as harrowing as any thriller, every bit as American as a glazed donut, Mayly turned her life into a book that shows that while all American stories start with the same ingredients, her family’s approach is as different as yours was.
What’s the theme behind your story?
The theme behind my story is honor. Through An American Dream, with Sprinkles: The Legacy Story of the Donut Queen and Donut Princess, I honor my mother and her journey that she faced when she came to the United States from Cambodia. The theme of honor persists throughout the book—in my mother’s relationship with her parents, in her relationship with her mother-in-law, and the way that she ran her business so fiercely for forty years. The theme of honor continues with me as I carry on the family business and fight to create our family’s donut shop to be globally recognized.
What’s the logline?
How did one immigrant survive her war-torn country and enslavement camps to run one of the most popular donut shops in the world?
What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea of this book occurred to you?
I’ve had this idea ever since I was a little girl. My mom told me many of her stories of her trauma during the war and what she went through. I remember crying and feeling an instant sense of compassion when she told me. As I grew older and was encouraged to stray away from writing, the idea to tell her story was placed on the back burner. It was only after we sold our donut shop that I finally had time to sit down and go through stories about the years of trauma to create this story.
How did the original idea change as you went along?
The original idea changed as I went along because the premise of the story was extremely sad. I decided to add my version of the story to assist with the resolution of my mother’s idea of the American Dream as it lives through me.
How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?
Since this is a memoir, the characters stayed the same, but the references to them were more defined by recognizing them in Teochew (a Chinese dialect) and/or Khmer (the Cambodian language). This changed as I thought about my audience and I considered what would describe them the best.
Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story? Why or why not?
I am pleased with the results, and I am hoping people will learn and get a firsthand account of what it was like to live through war and to come to America in search of the American Dream.
Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?
I would hope that Gemma Chan would play my character and Michelle Yeoh would play my mother. Both actresses are beautiful, fierce, and understand the role of mother/daughter in an Asian American family.
Mother, Chuong Lee, left, and Mayly Tao, daughter, right, standing in front of their family donut shop opened for forty years, DK’s Donuts & Bakery. (Photo: Business Wire)
What else do you want readers to know?
I want readers to know how proud I am to be able to tell my mom’s story and how I hope it will inspire others to document their family’s origin stories and celebrate them. I hope it will bring more compassion to this world, regardless of global borders.
Bio
Mayly Tao is LA’s self-proclaimed Donut Princess and the owner of Donut Princess Los Angeles, a donut bouquet delivery concept. She is the host of her podcast Short N’ Sweet: A Donut Princess Podcast where she explores mindset, women’s empowerment, and small business tips. You can find her ”securing the box” at @donutprincessla. She is featured in the Donut King documentary as seen on Hulu and on domestic flights across the US. She also has her own YouTube channel, where she visits Cambodian-owned donut shops and highlights their stories. She hopes to elevate Asian-American voices and representation and vows to create a legacy for the next generation of Asian-Americans.
Mayly Tao is a Khmer, Thai, and Teochew Chinese Asian-American born to Khmer refugee parents who arrived in America to start a new life. Her uncle, Ted Ngoy, sponsored hundreds of Cambodians, enabling them to come to America, then helped them manage and own their own donut shops. She recently sold her family’s bakery after her mom decided to retire after celebrating forty years in business at DK’s Donuts & Bakery in Santa Monica, CA.
Her focus on helping people and making an impact led her to creating new businesses as a serial entrepreneur. She successfully launched her new luxury-car rental business, Donut Exotics, in summer 2021. Her plans for 2022 include becoming a life agent to help families find life insurance; a mobile home-care business; and a liquid IV business, and to publish her mom’s book on her experience after the genocide. Stay tuned with her on her instagram @maylytao.
“Thoughtful, thorough, and experienced. Highly recommended!”—Heather Hiestand, author of The Marquess of Cake
“Elizabeth did a fabulous job of proofreading and line editing for me!”—Alexis Morgan, USA Today best-selling author of the Paladins series
“Fast turnaround, accurate editing, and a final proofread. Works for me!”—Jacquie Rogers, author of Mail-Order Ruckus
“Timely, professional and accurate. Exactly what I was looking for.”—Susan Mallery, New York Times best-selling author of the Fools’ Gold series
“Eilis is a gem! She always goes the extra step to polish my manuscripts so they sparkle. Fast, professional, and precise. When other writers ask for a recommendation for an awesome copyeditor, she’s always at the top of my list.”—Crista McHugh, USA Today best-selling author of the Kelly Brothers series
“Eilis edited my historical romance and provided the right balance of edits to smooth out the rough spots and help make my writing pop!”—Mimi Sebastian, author of the Necromancer series
“Eilis’s edits made me look at each sentence and really think of the intention and purpose of each word. Totally taxing on the brain, but the work was so much stronger when finished.”—Anna Alexander, author of The Cowboy Way
“Thank you for being the copy editor of my dreams! Also really interesting collaborating since you are also a writer. Some of your editing suggestions got me thinking a little differently (in a good way) about a line of dialogue or prose, so it felt a bit like a creative collaboration too!”—Laura Navarre, author of Interstellar Angel
It’s been said that there’s a man out there for every woman. But… suppose there were three men out there for a take-charge goddess? How would you write about that? And how would you write about that in a universe where your father is worshipped as a god? That was the challenge Laura Navarre took as she moved from writing dark romances for Harlequin to her new Astral Heat Romance.
What’s the theme behind your story?
I write redemption stories about deeply damaged dark heroes who find salvation through love. I also tend to write books about characters with father issues, and this one has a doozy—a galactic sci-fi heroine whose father is worshipped by billions as a god, which makes her a goddess herself. A fate she’ll kill to escape, because goddesses like Kaia are worshipped in chains.
Laura Navarre had to learn how to write about an erotic relationship between one woman and three men. Writing can be very difficult.
What’s the logline?
In a galactic mating contest where desire is deadly, the only guys she wants are the three she can never trust.
What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you?
Interstellar Angel was pretty much inspired by the character of Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Force Awakens—a dark, broody villain who happens to be the galaxy’s most mesmerizing telepath and sexy as fuck! He was the spark for my telepath hero Ben Nero, who originally aspires to save his dying race by submitting to his planet’s draconian breeding program.
How did the original idea change as you went along?
I’d actually never read a reverse harem romance, or even a menage romance, before I wrote this series. So I was totally bewildered by the fact that I seemed to be writing a book with three heroes. Not to mention the fact that my rebel princess seemed to want all of them…and then they all seemed to want each other… 😊 So I had to learn about male–male romance and the sexual geometry of MMMF as I went along.
How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?
This story is Star Wars meets reverse harem by way of The Hunger Games. My scourge-of-the-galaxy space pirate Zorin was originally supposed to be the villain, but he was so sexy he became one of my favorite heroes! I’d also never written an age gap romance before, and Zorin in his late but hunky 40s is a lot older than the twenty-something threesome he falls for. There’s also a student–teacher kink, because Zorin was Dex’s mentor way back when, and always off-limits for that reason. Not to mention the fact that in this galactic empire, men are literally crucified for unconventional sexual unions.
Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story? Why or why not?
I actually can’t think of anything I’d change. The Astral Heat Romance series is a total genre pivot for me from traditional historical romance, which I wrote for Harlequin for years, to indie sci-fi reverse harem. I launched Ascendant Press specifically to publish this series, and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s all turned out!
Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?
Hmmm. Kate Mara as my fiery rebel princess Kaia, Adam Driver as the galaxy’s most powerful telepath Ben Nero, Domhnall Gleeson as my icy imperial enforcer Dex Draven, and Michael Shannon (who played the noble villain General Zod in Man of Steel) is my inspiration for Zorin.
What else do you want readers to know?
Interstellar Angel is a steamy slow-burn MMMF sci-fi reverse harem action romance with plenty of M/F, M/M, and MMF action and the launch book in the quick-release Astral Heat Romance series. It’s a cliffhanger series with sizzling outer-space action, a guaranteed happily-ever-after (eventually), and the hottest thing I’ve ever written. As in, ever!
The series has won awards in the first two contests I’ve entered. Its most recent win was a second place finish in the Romance Writers of America’s Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal On the Far Side Contest (futuristic category). Renegade Angel, Book 2, releases December 1, 2021, and finished second in the Chesapeake Romance Writers’ Rudy Award (erotic romance category).
Bio
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, Laura Navarre was an award-winning dark historical romance author for Harlequin, while her diabolical twin Nikki Navarre wrote sexy spy romance. In a daring bid to escape a global pandemic, armed only with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction and a professional background in weapons of mass destruction, Laura voyaged through a wormhole to an alternate universe where she crafts turbocharged, epic, hyper-erotic science-fiction romance starring three super-sexy heroes, one seriously kickass heroine, and plenty of sleek, sizzling outer-space action.
Sometimes, a writer needs to tear a book down to the studs. Such is the case with Deborah Schneider’s Confessions of a Domestic Goddess. Her new novel was first put together many years ago, but didn’t find a publisher. However, as the market changed again, Deborah thought with a little bit of reno, she could flip her original manuscript into something perfect for today’s audience. Yes, her characters, their motivation, and their conflict needed a coat of paint and a bit of teardown, but the story’s bones — its setting, story, and the romance at its heart — provided the perfect frame for the book’s remodel. Here’s how she did it.
Years ago, more years than I’d like to remember, I wrote a contemporary romance. It was, in fact, chick-lit. Those were breezy, funny books in the tradition of Bridget Jones’ Diary. They were about young professional women trying to manage their careers, their love life, and various life problems.
I shopped the book around a bit (these were the days when you actually sent out queries through the mail) and didn’t get much interest. I put the book away and wrote other books.
That book sat in the computer files on my desktop. I thought about it once in a while, and then moved on to write historical romance, some fantasy, steampunk, and gothic romance.
Deborah Schneider remodeled her manuscript to yield a contemporary romance between a local reality TV hostess on the verge of the big time and the home renovation professional working on her family’s rustic island home.
Then there was suddenly a wave of new books about young professional women trying to manage their careers, their love life, and various life problems. These were funny books and called “rom-coms” after the same type of popular films.
A lot had changed in the time that book was stored, and it needed work to update it. The characters, motivation, and conflict needed to be changed, but the setting, the story, and most important, the romance were strong enough to stand the test of time.
The theme didn’t need to change, because a career woman who has created a persona that she might not be able to live up to in real life has universal appeal. In fact, now with social media so prevalent in our society, giving friends and acquaintances a highly edited version of our life, the story seems even more relevant.
The main character, Bailey Holmes, is on the cusp of national fame. Her Pacific Northwest local TV show is going big time with a major new network deal (think something like HGTV), a lucrative sponsorship, and with the new shows centered on her hand-crafted dream wedding, the future looks bright.
That future is shattered when she catches her fiancé cheating on her with a member of her staff. To make things worse, the entire breakup is witnessed and recorded by a woman with the most popular wedding podcast in the country. It doesn’t take long for Bailey to become a nasty meme that goes viral instead of a media darling.
At this point, Bailey Holmes fits the book’s logline: What do you do if your life is a fixer-upper?
At this point our heroine is at a low point in her life, and she decides to take a break and go home for a while. She leaves the big city to visit her family in the San Juan Islands. This is the “point of no return” for her. She’ll have to decide to change her life, to move forward, or lose everything she’s worked so hard to accomplish.
The San Juan Islands, and especially Orcas Island, have always been some of my favorite places in the Northwest. Spread across the Salish Sea north of Seattle, the islands are filled with nature and wildlife that attract people to the beautiful landscape and slower pace of life. The setting is a huge part of this story, and now is the location for the “Bachelor Bay” series that will include at least three more books.
Because I already had all of the characters, the plot, and the setting, the main things I needed to change were the inciting incident and the motivation for the main characters. Bailey — if I were casting a TV movie of this book, it would star Kat Dennings of 2 Broke Girls as the heroine — has a lot of baggage to deal with, and she has to rebuild her show and her life and tear down the false image she’s created for her fans.
When her family offers her the opportunity to renovate the rustic family camp on the island, she’s eager to accept the challenge. But she has to deal with a gorgeous, opinionated, take-charge man who aggravates, frustrates, and entices her all at the same time. Max Cumberland is a perfectionist who takes pride in his restoration business. If you’d like to see my inspiration for Max, search online for Cole Monahan, who is a model.
When these two type-A personalities clash, there’s trouble in paradise. Their sexy sizzle of attraction goes from simmer to steamy, and often boils over on the set of the show. The couple is forced to compromise and work out solutions so they both can succeed.
The rewrite of Confessions of a Domestic Goddess required me to take apart an already finished book and strip it down to the basic storyline, then build it back with more details, expert help from a talented editor (take a bow, Elizabeth Flynn), and the courage to admit when something in the book just wasn’t working.
The phrase that writers use to describe the elimination of story elements they love but that just don’t work is “Killing your darlings.” It’s been suggested that the more painful the process is, the better the book. For me, being forced to consider the reader’s point of view is important. We don’t write books to keep them in the files, we write books to share the stories.
More important, we can rewrite books to make them better, more relevant, and fun. That’s the most important thing I hope readers take away from Confessions of a Domestic Goddess. This book is sexy, sassy fun!
Deborah Schneider’s Bio:
Award-winning romance author Deborah Schneider writes western historical and contemporary rom-com romance. Under her pseudonym Sibelle Stone, she writes steampunk and paranormal stories, filled with magic, strange machines, and fantastical creatures. She’s published seven books and a novella. Deborah worked for one of the busiest library systems in the country for over twenty years and was named “Librarian of the Year” by Romance Writers of America. She lives in the Pacific Northwest town known as “Twin Peaks” in the movies and television show.
Friendship and redemption. All my stories seem to have underlying “The family you make” theme, and that’s definitely part of Coming Home as well. But more, it’s about having the ability to recreate yourself, no matter the circumstances.
What’s the logline?
Unexpected Risks. Unconditional Love.
What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you?
Coming Home, which brings a music superstar back home to rediscover her roots and love, is the next novel in Carmen Cook’s Sapphire Creek series.
These characters have been lingering with me for a long time — through several other books, but remaining in the background. I’d been thinking about what would get Erin Chase to stop touring and spend some solid time in Sapphire Creek rather than any of her other homes around the world. She needed to be wounded in a way that Sapphire Creek was the only place she would want to be. And then there’s no-nonsense Zach, who has a habit of fixing everything for everyone around him. What in the world would he do with this superstar who doesn’t want to be fixed? With someone who makes their living making music, when he’s hiding the secret that his hearing has been damaged. They’re so similar in some ways, but face life in completely different ways. It’s been fun to play with that part of each of them.
How did the original idea change as you went along?
The subplot of the drugs in the small town of Sapphire Creek starting in book 1, Coming in Hot. I hadn’t really planned on focusing so much on it, but readers really want that plotline to be tied up. They want to know who the villain is, so even though I knew, I needed to start thinking of a way to incorporate that more heavily into the story (which led to a couple of short stories as well, so I could set up the needed characters).
How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?
Both Erin and Zach were introduced in earlier stories. Erin, specifically, has changed the most because her entire world was flipped on his head after the bus crash made her question everything in her life. That was pretty obvious and external. Zach has changed a little more subtly. Partly because he hasn’t been around the cast of characters as often so everyone is getting to know him again.
Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story?
Why or why not? I am pleased with the results. As I mentioned earlier, the path to this story shifted quite a bit, and toss in a global pandemic that threw off my writing schedule, I’m very pleased with how the story shaped up.
Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?
Oh gosh, that’s a hard question. I loosely modeled Erin after Carrie Underwood. For Zach…maybe a scruffed-up Justin Theroux.
What else do you want readers to know?
I do live readings on Instagram each Sunday at 10 am Pacific, featuring excerpts of different authors’ stories. I call it Revenge Garden Readings (or Readings from the Revenge Garden — I go back and forth) and have an IGTV channel featuring these readings. Early on in the pandemic, I was looking for a way to connect with readers and other authors and decided to (virtually) invite everyone to hang out in the garden with me. It’s been so much fun, and I’d love to have everyone join me. You can find me at https://www.instagram.com/carmencook_/
Bio
Carmen Cook grew up in Montana, riding horses and dreaming of life beyond the mountains. As soon as she could, she started traveling, heading across the country for college before backpacking through Europe. She then moved to the Pacific Northwest, where she promptly threw down some pretty deep roots by getting married and having kids. It wasn’t long before her imagination started running away with her and she began to write. Each Sunday she hosts Readings from the Revenge Garden on IGTV. Follow #ReadingsFromTheRevengeGarden to stay up to date on all the readings and featured authors.
Meet Heather Redmond and the story behind her story, A Christmas Carol Murder. This is the third novel in her series of cozy murder mysteries featuring Charles Dickens as the protagonist. As Heather explains, it’s just a natural to use A Christmas Carol if you’re writing about Dickens and his fictional sleuthing. Especially at Christmastime! So meet the spirit of Christmas murders to be, Heather Redmond.
What’s the theme behind your story?
Christmas is a season of renewal.
What’s the logline?
Bah. Humbug. Murder…
What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you?
I was planning the first three books of the A Dickens of a Crime series with my editor. The series stars Charles Dickens as an amateur sleuth and takes inspiration from his novels. We knew one of the books had to feature Dickens’s A Christmas Carol since it is his most famous work.
How did the original idea change as you went along?
I learned that Dickens had done some great reporting on the Hatfield fire that happened a few weeks before Christmas, so I started the book there. It gave me a great chance to include a Christmas child that I could keep a secret from his fiancée Kate. The problem became how to keep her integrated into the story when she didn’t know what was going on. My editor also wanted to be sure there was no paranormal element to the book, so I had to solve any ghostly encounters with real life explanations.
How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?
My two main characters, Charles and Kate, were real people and as much as I can, I keep them true to life. The biggest change in my characters in this book was to finish the process of moving my mudlark characters off of the Thames foreshore and into the next phases of their lives. The girl, Lucy Fair, has entered service and most of the boys went to school. Dickens himself believed that some boys were simply natural, unredeemable criminals so I did leave one or two of the boys behind.
Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story? Why or why not?
I’m quite happy with this one as it worked out. As a writer I still tend to have to re-solve the mystery for myself at the end and make sure that the reason for the murders is truly justified. As I recall, I didn’t know what had happened to the missing corpse for quite a while.
Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?
The main characters are very young so even though the series is less than three years old, I think the actors I might have envisioned have already aged out of the roles! I suspect unknowns would have to play roles, with a 23-year-old hero and a 20-year-old heroine. Maybe these roles would make stars!
What else do you want readers to know?
Dickens’s original novella A Christmas Carol is an amazing mix of comedy and horror and brilliant storytelling. I can’t account for the brilliant storytelling, but I did my best to include comedy and horror in my homage, while still being focused on telling a great mystery story.
The Heather Redmond Bio
Heather Redmond is an author of commercial fiction and also writes as Heather Hiestand. First published in mystery, she took a long detour through romance before returning. Though her last British-born ancestor departed London in the 1920s, she is a committed anglophile, Dickens devotee, and lover of all things nineteenth century.
She has lived in Illinois, California, and Texas, and now resides in a small town in Washington State with her husband and son. The author of many novels, novellas, and short stories, she has achieved best-seller status at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books. Her 2018 Heather Redmond debut, A Tale of Two Murders, reached #1 in Historical Mysteries at Amazon as well as being in the Top 100 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble (Top 20), and Apple Books (Top 40). It is also a multi-week Barnes & Noble Hardcover Mystery Bestseller and a Historical Mystery bestseller on Kobo Books.
Her two current mystery series are A Dickens of a Crime and the Journaling mysteries. She writes for Kensington and Severn House.
She is the 2020-21 President of the Columbia River Chapter of Sisters in Crime (SinC).
Bringing Japanese Ghosts and Death Rituals to Sakura-Con 2019!
When I’m not editing (as E.M.S. Flynn), I’m writing (as Eilis Flynn), and when I’m not writing, I find myself presenting. And so it is this year at Seattle’s Sakura-Con on Saturday, April 20, when I present “Japanese Ghosts and Death Rituals,” complete with a spiffy PowerPoint presentation so attendees can see what I’m talking about! (New! This year! Spiffy!)
Which ghosts have one eye in their butt? Which ghosts are a demon and a fairy? Which ghosts are a lot like one you know from Harry Potter? Come to the panel and you’ll find out! I will be also having a Q&A!
It’s based on presentations for writers that I’ve done for years (with client Jacquie Rogers) in which we discuss all sorts of things that go bump in the night. Editors have to know these things, you know — and so much more!
For instance, for one of my writers I found myself making sure that the boxes into she was putting a million pounds worth of gold were big enough. Turned out they were too big. (Gold is dense.) I had to remind another that the title Ms. wasn’t commonly used until about a half-century ago. And pegging the proper century for the existence of penny dreadfuls — which required both sufficient technology and a critical mass of literate consumers — was important for another recent client. Naturally, there’s also the spelling and the grammar, but you probably expected that.
If you can’t be there, you can check out the Ghosts Along The Silk Road book by clicking the links below. Even better, if you’re writing a book — I’d love to make it perfect. Even if it means there’s a ghost with an eye in its butt.
Authors Heather Hiestand and Eilis Flynn at Third Place Books and their book, “Wear Black.” There’s more to this story!
Last night I attended the Third Place Books author event in Lake City Way for Heather Redmond’s A Tale of Two Murders. There’s two things to everything to be said about it!
First, I’m affiliated with Heather two ways — as co-author (on Wear Black, which we’re holding here) and as editor for her independently published works.
Second, Heather writes with at least two pseudonyms — Heather Hiestand (the name on what she’s written with me) and Heather Redmond — the name she’s using for her successfully launched Charles Dickens murder mysteries.
Third, although I edit as Elizabeth M.S. Flynn, my pen name is Eilis Flynn. I’m sure you’ve found some of those books. I hope you’ve found them enjoyable. I’ve just reissued the book of my heart, Festival of Stars, a multicultural romance based on a beloved Japanese folk tale.
Fourth, (although you’ve figured this out) I’m both an editor and a published author. So I have a pretty good idea what authors go through and bring all of that experience to bear on any project I edit.
