Hey Everybody,


Sorry it's been so long. I just wanted to go ahead and give you an update on the progress of the Spine Chillers series and to tell you some changes that have occurred recently.

First of all, I have a new artist for the series. Samrae Duke. Madalyn McLeod couldn't finish the series because she's become very busy lately. Understandably so. Samrae has worked with Madalyn before and I'm pleased to say that her style is similar, very detail oriented, and is just as beautiful. Even though I'm sad that Madalyn couldn't complete the series, she created beautiful artwork for the cover of Spine Chillers: The Scarecrow, and helped me find a great replacement artist. I'm very grateful for that. If you'd like to see more of Samrae's art, please follow this link.

Samrae Duke's Art

I know you'll love her work, especially if you are a fan of fantasy art. Please visit her page!

The fist book, Spine Chillers: The Scarecrow, is coming out on August 31st. If you love horror and are nostalgic about middle grade horror, please pick up a copy. I strive not to disappoint. The second book, Spine Chillers: Big Bad Wolf, will be coming out in the middle of September. Spine Chillers: The Beast of Black Pond comes out in early October, and Spine Chillers: Empty Eyes will appear in the middle of October. I've finished the last book, (for the time being) The Firefly. This story is about the legend of the Adze. It should be coming out in November.

I have plenty of ideas for others in this series, but for now I'm focusing on the first five. If all goes well with the blog tour and I have decent sales, I might produce one for December about the Krampus. Wish me luck. I would love to write that story.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the blog tour. Thank you so much for all of your support. Keep reading!

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that the "Fireflies in Autumn" story is coming along nicely. (As I said, working title, I need something a little scarier...) Anyway, I'm working on that and also talking with my artist about the cover of the "Scarecrow" story. It's looking very good already and we're only in the thumbnail stage. I'm really excited about seeing the finished product.

I thought I would also mention that I'm planning to release the first book, "Scarecrow" around the beginning of September, and the second book, "Bad Wolf" around the end of September. Sometime in the first week or two of October I'll publish "The Beast of Black Pond," then, around Halloween, I'll publish "Empty Eyes." Finally, the fifth book will be available in the beginning of November, the one currently called "Fireflies in Autumn." After that, I'll be taking a break from releasing books in the "Spine Chillers" series to see if I can establish a large enough fan base to justify more.  I'll need your help for that.

If anyone has children, or knows any children, in middle school or late elementary school that like reading and horror, please let them know about this series as soon as it is released. I'm planning to do some consignment in local stores, but word of mouth helps more than you know. Also, I'll be blogging more often and trying my best to get the word out.

For those of you who check my website, I'm aware it needs to be updated. I'm planning on adding a link to Blood God and doing another banner on the top with all three books. Also, I'll update all the relevant information about the completed Young Adult fantasy series, Blood Rain, Blood Moon, and Blood God, and my upcoming novels. Just bear with me, a lot has happened so recently and Blood God might've slipped under the radar which was not my intention. It is the final book of the Blood Rain series, and I think it measures up to the others, but it came out during an inopportune time.

Anyway, that's my news for now. I'll probably have more to say later in the week. Take care. Keep reading and writing. I'll keep you posted. ​

Hey Everyone.

Just wanted to let you know that I'm making good progress on the fifth book of my young reader horror series. This one is loosely titled "Fireflies in Autumn." (It will more than likely be titled differently in the near future, but that's the working title right now.) I'm nearly halfway done and that will be the last one for a little while until I see if I have enough interest in this project.

Also, I've come up with a title for the series. The final title will be "Spine Chillers." At first, I was going to have the title be the name of the club the children form, but I think this one gives a better feeling for what the stories are like. (I know that seems a little like "Goosebumps," but I think my title is still original enough. "Spine Chillers" seems a little darker and some of my stories are pretty dark.)

Currently, the four finished stories have been sent off to my test readers. I want to make sure they aren't too dark for their target audience but scary enough to be worthy of the title.. It's a tough balance, but I think they achieve it. I'll find out when my readers get back to me.

Madayln McLeod is about to start work on the covers for the stories. As I said, I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

I'll keep you posted and will let  you know when the first book of the "Spine Chillers" series will come out. I'm looking to publish the first story around the end of September but I don't have a final date yet. These are fairly episodic, so they can be read in any order, but the first one I'm publishing will probably be "The Scarecrow." Looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I've been keeping busy with writing, watching my children, and the occasional video game and role-playing game. I'm about to run a PDQ game of "How to Train Your Dragon" for my friends. It should be pretty fun. I plan to start reading another book soon as well. I actually am planning to read "A Wrinkle in Time." I never read it as a child, and I've been told by my friends that I really missed out. So, many thanks to my friend Lizz for giving it to me on my birthday, I'll be picking it up soon.

Virtual reality Skyrim has also arrived. I've been dreaming about this sort of thing since I as a kid, but at the same time I have to get used to it. I have to admit, I get more motion sick now than I did as a child, and also I have to get used to the controls. I get the feeling it will be super addictive after that, though. Either way, I won't be neglecting my children or my writing work for that, but it'll be another fun activity to occasionally do in the evenings.

Well, I'd better go. There's a lot to do today and more words to write. Take care! Keep reading! ​

Sorry it took me so long to write this post. I actually did make my deadline and Blood God was published by Christmas Eve. I just wanted to let you know. This has been a very busy and good holiday for me, but that isn't a good excuse for not mentioning that the final book was already out. Anyway, click on the picture for the link if you're interested.

It's available in e-book form and print on demand, but we haven't been able to get a test print yet because Amazon's printing division was closed for the holidays. According to the preview the margins should be correct and the test copy should be fine, but I wanted you to know we haven't been able to confirm that yet. We should have a copy today, and I'll let you know if there are any problems with the hard copies when we get it.

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas. It was nice spending time with family, but I have to admit, I'm ready to put up my decorations and get a good start for the new year. In terms of New Year resolutions, I've decided to start my diet again. I'm not fat, but I need to eat healthier and it couldn't hurt for me to lose about ten pounds and firm up my muscles just a little. That's a very attainable goal. Also, at the very least want to finish one book, but I'd prefer another series (I'll tell more about that in a bit.) I still am enjoying a little time off, though, so I might be quiet for about a week or two.

I've decided to focus on my Junior Investigator's Club series, mostly because I might actually have an illustrator for the front covers of the first five books. (Again, I plan to come up with a better title for the series soon. "Junior" sounds kind of condescending to me...) Either way, I want to finish the last two so that I can have concrete ideas for her to work with. I really hope this works out. I'll let you know who I'm working with when I sign the contract. I'm very excited about this series. I still have plenty of good ideas to work with, but I'm going to start with the first five books to see if I get a decent number of readers to pursue more. I hope I'll have a little better luck since this market is a niche market and I have a passion for writing in the genre.

Anyway, that's what's going on right now in terms of writing. In other news, I saw the new Star Wars movie and really enjoyed it. There were a few things I felt could've been better, but overall I was impressed. I think it deserves another viewing so I can think more about it from the perspective of someone who knows the plot. I'm glad I went into it with a neutral attitude. I tried purposefully not to look at any opinions or reviews and if you haven't seen it, I think you should do the same. You'll probably enjoy it more for it. I will say this, it didn't follow the formula of Empire, which I think is why I liked it so much. There were quite a few things that surprised me.

Well, I'd better go. Lots of un-decorating and cleaning await...yay. Wish me luck on finishing my chores today. It's going to be another busy one, but at least if I finish the cleaning my house so desperately needs I should be able to rest and write for the remainder of the week. That is my current goal. Take care, and have a great holiday! ​

Today we're kicking off the blog tour for the second book: Blood Moon.  The first stop is at I Heart Reading, and you can see the rest of the schedule below.  Please stop by all the tour stops and have a look.







May 1st: Starter Day Party @ I Heart Reading

May 4th:Book Excerpt @ The Single Librarian

May 5th: Book Excerpt @ Books, Dreams, Life

May 6th: Book Review @ Read Day and Night

May 7th: Character Interview @ Pop’s Blog

May 10th: Book Review and Giveaway @ I Heart Reading

May 11th: Book Excerpt and Giveaway @ Just Books

May 12th: Book Excerpt @ The Resistance

May 12th: Book Review @ Reads and Reels

May 13th: Author Interview @ Bedazzled Reading

May 15th: Book Excerpt and Giveaway @ Books, Authors and Publishing

Well a lot has happened in the last few weeks.  I've turned thirty-five, one of my daughters turned four, and I've managed to reach fifty thousand words in Blood God.  That's over halfway finished.  Even though I really wanted to be done by now, I think that the book is already going better because I decided to focus on it at a slow and steady pace.

The Blood Rain book tour is over now.  I enjoyed the experience.  I really enjoyed answering all of the questions provided for me.  It made me really think about my inspiration and what I was experiencing at the time I wrote the first novel.  It's interesting to think back about where your ideas come from.  Sometimes it even teaches you a little bit about yourself.

Currently, while I'm working on Blood God, I'm also getting ready for the blog tour of the second book of the series Blood Moon.  Hopefully, by the end of the second blog tour I should be almost finished with Blood God and can start the marketing campaign and begin the tour for it as well.  One thing at a time, though.  I'm hoping at the latest that Blood God will be done by the end of summer. 

One of the reasons I want to finish Blood God before fall is both because I want to finish it as soon as possible for those waiting on it.  The second reason, though, is that I've made a very important decision.  I've decided to self publish my mid-grade horror series.  I haven't had much luck finding an agent, and now that I know that I can sell the e-books and sell print copies, I think I might be more successful doing it on my own.  (That, and the fact that my target audience all have ipods for school and might enjoy having an e-book copy.) I think it would be nice to publish the first one around Halloween, and barring a cover design, it's ready.

I also know now that the more novels I get out there, the more exposure I will get and eventually something will catch on.  For those of you who are fans of my series, or of my writing in general, and want to help I would really appreciate it if you would write a review on amazon after you read the book.  The more reviews I have, the better.  Even one sentence and a star count is enough.

Well, I guess that's about it for now.  I'll keep you posted on the Blood Moon blog tour progress and my current word count in Blood God.  Well, back to the writing.  Wish me luck.

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to drop in real quick and let you know that my upcoming blog tour now has a schedule.  I'm very excited about the blog tour and can hardly wait to see what people think of Blood Rain.  Here are the tour stops.

March 15th: Starter Day Party @ I Heart Reading

March 16th: Book Excerpt @ Literary Musings

March 17th: Book Excerpt @ Two Heart Beats

March 19th: Author Interview @ The Single Librarian

March 20th: Promo Post @ Book Journal

March 22nd: Book Review @ Reading for the Stars and Moon

March 22nd: Book Excerpt @ The Bookworm Lodge

March 23rd: Book Excerpt @ Just Books

March 25th: Book Review @ I Heart Reading

March 27th: Author Interview @ Books, Dreams, Life

March 30th: Book Review @ The Resistance

April 1st: Book Excerpt @ I’m an Eclectic Reader

April 3rd: Promo Post @ 50 Book Challenge

April 6th: Book Review and Book Excerpt @ Adventures Thru Wonderland

April 7th: Book Excerpt @ Bookworm for Kids

April 9th: Character Interview @ The Book Daily

April 10th: Book Excerpt @ Bookish Madness

April 12th: Book Excerpt @ Indy Book Fairy

April 15th: Author Interview @ Majanka’s Blog

Hey Everyone,

Well, the Author Meet and Greet went pretty well.  It was my very first author signing.  While the turnout wasn't very high, it was a great opportunity to meet other authors and get better acquainted with those that write specifically in SC. I did manage to sell a few copies of Blood Rain and Blood Moon, and I have ideas for the copies that are left.  I'm planning to donate one copy of each to the Lexington County library, assuming they accept them.  Many thanks to the Lexington County Library for giving me the opportunity.  I appreciate it and it was a good experience.

Now that the Meet and Greet is over, I'm turning my focus to the blog tour. I have the questions I need to answer, so I'll be spending most of this week answering them to the best of my ability.  I'll keep you posted on my progress.  I might even do a little more writing on Blood God if time allows. As I said, I'm not going to rush myself so that it is the best book it can be. Rest assured, however, that I'm not putting it off either. I'll finish it as soon as I can. 

Well, that's all for now.  I'll keep you posted on anything new. Keep reading and writing!