Welcome to my blog!

Here you’ll find progress on current books, behind-the-scenes insight and story inspiration, as well peeks at my life on rural, (usually) rainy East Hawaii Island.

The Blog Menu Dropdown highlights three categories, Hawaii Life (pretty self-explanatory), Stories I Love (also pretty self-explanatory, but includes books, movies, and TV), and Magpie Moments (bits I snatched from real life and incorporated, magpie-like, into my fiction).

Interested in something else? You can also Search for something specific—the little icon is at the end of the header—or just dive in and start scrolling.

 

 

Days of Listening: A Full Series Audiobook Giveaway for Those Who Like Some Woo-Woo in their Crime Thrillers

I’ve been stalking myself for the past couple of weeks. Well, stalking my books anyway, checking retailers and dashboards every day (maybe a few times a day). And yesterday, finally… IT’S ALIVE!! By “It,” I mean the audiobook version of Heir, Book Three of the Dead Hollow trilogy, which has taken forever (in my best annoyed kid voice) to go live on Audible. That means, as promised last blog post, we’re going to do something fun. But first, a quick intro for those of you who aren’t familiar with Dead Hollow. The crime thriller series with a dash of the supernatural is Read more…


Stories I Love: Another Year, Another Dead Body with the Inimitable Amelia Peabody

I had intended to do something fun this week to celebrate the release of the Heir audiobook—woo hoo! Except Heir isn’t actually showing up on most stores yet, so less woo and more boo. 😢 Retailers are being slow as pahoehoe. (A 5.5 Kilauea-adjacent earthquake woke us a few nights ago, so lava flows are on my mind.) That leaves me scrambling at the last minute for a blog post, which means it’s time for a Story I Love I could write in my (non-earthquake-interrupted) sleep. Another dead body. Every year it is the same. Every year, another dead body…” Read more…


The Solution for Troublesome Timelines? Driving Epiphanies and Cheap Therapy

Last blog post, I confessed that I have no future in professional landscaping. Well, I have a confession of a different sort today. I know — all writers with blogs know — that our readers don’t care how we write. Much like a gemstone or a perfect meal, you/we (because writers are also readers) don’t want to hear about the millions of years of pressure, the raw ingredients (especially if they’re eggs), or the hours of staring at the screen. We just want the dazzling results on our finger, our plate, or our #TBR (To Be Read list). And yet, Read more…


Raking is Hard, and Other Grief Confessions

Thank you to everyone for the warm wishes on the passing of poor Fritz. It’s an experience many of us have shared, so the Humans get hugs (virtual or otherwise), but we tend to forget about the effects on the rest of the pack. I’m certain animals have their own grieving processes. Ninja Kitty has been ridiculously affectionate, always wanting love, but is beginning to transition back toward his default state of obnoxiousness. Travis and Fred seem more subdued generally, especially Fred. Of course, it’s easy to project our own feelings onto our pets, so I try not to read Read more…


Checking In, After Checking Out

I missed the blog post last week—for reasons I’ll share below—and I’ve been mostly off email and social media lately, so I wanted to at least do a quick check-in today. How is everybody? Between the ridiculous cold in the United States and the ridiculous heat in Australia, I’m guessing a decent number of responses would be, “Fairly shitty, but thanks for asking.” Or at least, fairly uncomfortable. I can’t complain about comfort. Here in East Hawaii, we’ve had nothing extraordinary temperature- or precipitation-wise (although we could use some rain as our roads and catchment tanks are feeling parched). But Read more…