I know for the first half of 2026 I have been a bit silent, but I’m back now! And I’m back to writing too! I’ve started writing the first in a three part high fantasy series. I spent a lot of time building the world of Mournia and I’m excited to share it with you all one day!
This is not the official cover, but a placeholder for my current work in progress. It’s the first in my high fantasy trilogy, and I am very excited about this one! What can you expect from this series? Extensive world building, adventure and long journeys across fantasy lands, heated romance, magic, myths, and more!
Life So Far This Year
It’s been a never ending busy year for me so far. 2026 is flying by so fast! My work with horses has kept me very busy. Things at the riding school have been ramping up with the summer season, so the students are all keeping me on my toes. My husband has made the career change from finance manager to flight instructor while he works on accomplishing his hours to fly commercially. This has shaken up my routine quite a bit. It’s been difficult to find time to care for family, home, and horses while still finding time to write. But, I think I’ve finally figured it out!
My horse, Captain, has had some troubles with his hooves this summer, so he’s on a summer vacation (much to his excitement). While his cracks grow out he is enjoying green pastures, hosing off to keep cool in this heat, and lots of love and grooming! I miss riding, and we just moved to a new home that has a beautiful apple grove we could be riding through! But Mr. Captain is the sweetest horse I’ve ever met and his time off is much deserved and needed.
The Hunt Begins
Another exciting aspect of working on this new series is that I will start the search for an agent once its completed! As much as I love being an independent author, being in charge of my own story, my own covers and layout, I am ready to take the next step in working with an agent and a publishing house for this series. I’ve had the idea for this series for a long time and I have put endless time and effort into building the world and characters. I would love the series to reach more readers, and I feel this would be accomplished best through traditional publishing and the support of a team. I’m a little nervous because my only experience working with a publisher was not a very good one, but that was fifteen years ago and I’m hoping having the expertise of an agent to help me through the process will make it a more enjoyable experience this time around.
What I’ve Been Reading
Part of the reason I didn’t have time to write is because any spare moment I had I was either catching up on my reading with some series that were impossible to put down! Call it research for writing my own un-put-downable series. And I’ve also been knitting a lot. I learned how to make my own tank tops for summer and now I am addicted to making them in every color! With the busy summer ahead of us I am finding it hard to sneak in as much reading time as I’ve had over winter and spring, but I try to at least get a half hour in every day!
Right now I am very much into female protagonist fantasy series and small town cozy witch/fantasy books. Think Practical Magic! If you have any recommendations for these genres please share them!
I’m excited to dive back into the book scene and to keep in touch with all my readers more regularly. Have a great summer!
January has been an unbearably cold month this year! And since my day job is barn manager at a horseback riding school, I was definitely bundling up in the mornings and bracing against the frigid wind. But nothing could keep me away from horses!
New Release!
Speaking of horses, my first historical fiction “When Dealing with Horses” is out on Kindle, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook now! You can even find it in some of the sales and giveaway links below.
In the 1860’s, Anastasia Ambrose returns to her family’s horse breeding farm in Northwest Indiana after her lover abandons her and her daughter. She hopes to take over her father’s horse and carriage business in town only to find that after his passing in the Civil War her mother sold everything off. In need of a way to support herself and her baby, Anastasia heads to Vanatta & Sons Horse and Carriage Dealership to ask for a job. There, she discovers her passion for horses and a desire to be a part of her father’s dream. Her goals are clear; get out of her oppressive mother’s home and help horses find their right owners…but love has a way of finding Anastasia when she least expects it.
This series is one of my favorites. It has a special place on display in my office with all my other favorite series (Outlander, Harry Potter, The Bear and the Nightingale). Everyone is so intrigued by the mystery of who King Arthur is. I loved that the author built this entire series on a real life mystery of bones discovered in a cave and then lost to time forever when the archaeologist lost them. Who was she?
The series follows the life of the sister to who many believe to be the historical figure of the wizard Merlin…
I’ve been working my way through the Outlander series for a few years now. They are very large books with very small print, and it can take me a month to two months to finish just one. Sometimes I take a break and read a quick something else just to break it up. This is the eighth book. Right now there are nine out, but ten will complete the series we’re told. This is the first time I get to read the book before watching it, so it’s fun not knowing what’s going to happen. It keeps me more interested than when I’ve seen the show and then read it. I am really liking this one. There is a lot of mystery and intrigue, and I feel us getting closer to figuring out the big mystery of time travel and the stones. I highly recommend this series, but just know it is a big commitment.
Free and On Sale eBooks from Awesome Indie Authors!
As always, here are the links to so many eBooks from indie authors. Some links give you discounted books and some are giveaways. All they ask is you sign up for their newsletter in return. You’ll even find a bunch of my books in there if you’re missing a few and wanting to read them. A lot of these end at the end of the month, so don’t wait!
The fifth and final story in the Zooey Zombie series is out today! Don’t miss this exciting conclusion to the popular novella saga. It’s available through Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, Paperback, and Audiobook (tomorrow).
In this thrilling conclusion to the Zooey Zombie series, Zooey’s world falls apart. Her once-friend Ren forces her to take a serum that transforms her back into a zombie. But she’s not any ordinary zombie. She’s a super zombie who can think, talk, react, and is the perfect killing machine. Zooey fights her zombie urges as she’s taken back to the Undead Ward for study and arrest. While there, she discovers she’s not the only one Ren turned. Can she find a way out of the Undead Ward to stop Ren before he destroys the world with his new serum?
Writing this series has been so fun for me. I love that they are quick to read with short chapter I can just sit down for a few minutes and enjoy, but at the same time they are so packed with mystery and adventure! This whole world started with my Dead Soil series, which follows several groups of people, including Christine Moore who is a character in Zooey Zombie as well, through the hellish year of the zombie apocalypse in Chicago. It was interesting for me to travel out of my hometown area of Chicago, and place myself and Zooey in one of my favorite cities in America, Boston. It has such history and beauty to it! It was exciting to bring that to life in this series. I loved the falltime vibes the books brought, cozy mystery meets supernatural thriller!
A lot happens in this series for its timeframe to only span a few months. Zooey is found wandering the Boston Common as a zombie at the end of the apocalypse. She isn’t too far gone, and so she can be revived with the new Z-shot, a serum that turns zombies back into living beings. But these beings are a little different than regular humans, and so a new race is created. The Undead. Get it? Because they were dead and now they’re not? Anyway, Zooey spends the first book in rehab where she learns to interact with the human world again. She meets lots of Undead friends, including Ren, a mysterious British Undead with lots of big ideas about how the government is handling this new race of beings. In book two, Zooey is released back into the world and she tries to put her life back together. Her first stop is the re-enroll in her Psychology graduate program at Harvard, but she quickly learns her kind is not wanted there, nor at her former job. In fact, it seems the humans don’t trust the Undead at all. As more discord grows between the two races, the Undead are segregated more and more. They are required to wear giant U patches on all clothing at all times so everyone knows they are not human, and they even have strict curfews. Zooey adheres to the rules and goes to every Z-shot and therapy appointment she has, though she quickly realizes the shots have less effect each time she goes, and the hunger for brains is quietly playing in the background of her mind at all times.
The military develops its own branch called the Z-Division of the National Guard, and these soldiers patrol the area, keeping the streets zombie-free and the Undead under control. While strolling through the Boston Common, where Zooey was found as a zombie, she meets a Z-Division soldier who is different than the others. A bond is formed between Miles and Zooey that eventually becomes unbreakable, though she tries many times to break it in order to keep him safe. Together, Zooey and her friends fight injustice as the laws against the Undead get more and more unfair. Zooey is thrown into the Undead gated town of Mattapan without warning and has to figure out a new way of life without her human companions. The only reprise she gets is when she is approved to work at a zombie escape room in the heart of Boston. But when a group of college kids take their hatred of the Undead too far, Zooey is caught up in a mystery only she and her friends can solve, and her former friend Ren is at the heart of it as he develops his own serum to unleash the inner zombie within the Undead.
In the final conclusion, Ren has forced Zooey to take his new serum, turning her back into a monster. But she’s not a mindless, hungry zombie this time. She can think, feel, plan, and she’s a deadly killing machine. She fights her overwhelming urge for brains in order to stop Ren before he destroys her beloved city, and possibly the world, with his new serum.
The series might be over, but the world continues on. Check out the last page in the book to see the next monster we’ll be following in this supernatural alternative world!
I’ve been playing around with the cover for my upcoming release obsessively. Just when I think I’ve found a new cover I find a new image that is even better! I have it down to just a few and I could really use your help now. Vote for which one you like best for my 1866 American Historical Fiction, “When Dealing with Horses”. A young, free, and spirited single mom moves back into her childhood home with her overbearing and judgmental mother. She find out her mother sold her late father’s horse and carriage business out from under her, so she gets a job as a salesman there. It’s better to work there as an employee than to lose the beloved place altogether. Anastasia does her best to make her way in a man’s world in order to support her daughter but it’s not easy. Everyone’s against her, including her own mother, but Anastasia perseveres to come out on top, no matter who stands in her way.
VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE COVER! IN ORDER #1-5
Book Reviews
This was a good start to an exciting series. I loved the characters. At first I didn’t know what they all had to do with each other but in the middle they all came together for one epic adventure to evade danger. This book was right up my alley. I love history. I love Scotland. I love flowing red hair! I loved the main characters and their enemies were truly despicable. There was an element of magic and fantasy that I was not expecting at all so it made me like it all the more. And I really loved that the story itself was so thrilling and kept the pages turning, and that the love stories were side stories and not the main focus. I like a good love story, but I don’t like being beaten to death by it. I recommend reading this book if Scottish Historical Fiction with a touch of Fantasy is something you like.
This second book in the famous and epic trilogy was action-packed and full of adventure compared to the first one. The story is split between Frodo and Sam’s journey and the company’s since they are now no longer together. The descriptions of battles and action are so well done I can see it in my mind perfectly. My favorite part was the end in Shelob’s Lair. It was so well written that I was creeped out with goosebumps at the description of the giant spider and her movements and attacks on Frodo and Sam. I can’t wait to wrap the series up with the third and final book soon!
Currently Reading
This is the third book in the Belles of London series by Mimi Matthews. I am so excited to continue on with this Victorian Romance. Each book follows a different woman from the group of four friends as they navigate London society during the marriage market season. These four women own their own horses and love to ride the Rotten Row together. Each has their own unique story filled with horsemanship, friendship, and love. The fourth book is not out yet, but I’m anxiously awaiting its release!
I was in search of a clean story that centered around horses, or at least involved horses, and a historical fiction makes it all the better. I found this series in a three book box set. I had tried several Christian cowboy fictions with no luck. The characters were way too shallow and girl/boy obsessed for my taste. It was all they thought about! “A Trail So Lonesome” is a great story of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail in the 1800s. I am loving it so far! The characters have depth and secrets that keep the story interesting, and there’s never a lack of excitement on the trail, that’s for sure! So far, this one is an enemies to lovers trope, but the romance element is not overwhelming at all or too sappy, which I don’t like at all. This series is right up my alley and I recommend!
Links to Free and On Sale eBooks by Dozens of Fantastic Indie Authors! (Including a few of my own)
I have been waiting impatiently for this book since the announcement! I was so happy when they pushed the release date up by a month. Merida has long been my absolute favorite Disney princess. It might have something to do with the fact that we both love horses and archery, and we both struggle with a mass of curly hair. Curly girlies stick together! And the fact that it takes place in Medieval Scotland is all the sweeter. That is my favorite age, and Scotland has always held a place in my heart. It calls to me! But on with the book review.
The Story
The twist to the story was that Merida never gives her mother the cake the witch makes for her. She eats it herself! This hurtles her back in time where she meets a teenage Queen Elinor, who is then only a princess, and a young Fergus who is nothing more than a prominent clansman of DunBroch. Elinor’s parents of the MacCameron clan are King and Queen of the land, and it is only recently they stopped warring with the DunBroch clan and made an alliance. Elinor finds Merida injured in the woods instead of an injured Fergus, changing their fate that led them to fall in love and marry in the first place. The princess takes Merida to the castle where she works with the staff while she heals. Merida also helps her mother change the fate she wishes to escape. It turns out Merida and her mother are not so different after all! But there is treachery afoot in the castle, with a murderous plot, and it’s up to Merida and her parents to work together to stop it. Can she make her parents fall in love again when they seem always at odds? And can she stop the plot to destroy the MacCameron clan?
I loved the story and the twist! It kept the pages turning in my hands to find out what would happen next. I love, just like when I read “Bravely” that I felt like I was getting to see a whole new side of a character I have loved for so long.
The Writing
The author did a good job with the story. It flowed very well and there were no awkward moments for me where I didn’t know what she was getting at or that felt weird on the tongue.
My only complaint for the entire book would have to be one that is a common mistake among Historical Fiction writers, one that I am sure I’ve made myself. With the character’s dialogue there were no conjunctions. It was all very formal. No I’ve, just I have. No it’s, just it is. And in the movie that is not how the characters talk at all, especially Merida. So, I do have to say I don’t think the author captured Merida’s voice very well.
I can never have too much Scotland description and I could have done with a little more in this book, but I know that this is a young adult novel done by Disney to exhausting the physical description of the land in not in their storytelling wheel. I can forgive this, especially since the story was so good!
I highly recommend this book if you’re reading the series, or if you have a love of “Brave” like I do! You won’t want to miss it.
