Hello again, my lovelies. It’s been far too long since I’ve shared my writing journey with you. Nine months, to be exact. When last we spoke, I was working on a book called River of Souls (Cold Souls Book 1), but I ended up putting that aside to work on one called Mortal Heart.

It’s been a(nother) rough year. My mother, who had battled cancer for about a year, passed away on January 1st, 2022. I had just barely started Mortal Heart (Alice Worth series Book 8.5) at the end of 2021, and couldn’t write for about four months after her death. I got back in the saddle in April of 2022, but the end of the semester kicked in the last week of April and the first week of May, which meant I spent all my time grading and had no time to write. The day after I turned in my grades, my hubby and I left for our long-awaited (and twice-postponed) Alaska trip.

When I got back, I went “on deadline” and finished Mortal Heart in about 40 days. It’s about 75k words, so shorter than the average Alice book, but I like it. It’s more paranormal romance than urban fantasy, and stars two supporting characters who I think deserve their own book, Ronan and Arkady. MH takes place after Heart of the Pack (Alice Book 8) and before Alice Book 9 (title TBA), and is a fun, sexy adventure. I really, really loved writing in Arkady's and Ronan’s points of view. It’s my first book in third person, and it switches between their POVs. That was definitely a challenge for me, but one I enjoyed. I’m looking forward to writing another Arkady and/or Arkady + Ronan story soon!

I was surprised by how easily I took on Arkady’s persona. She is SO different from Alice in so many fun ways. Alice second-, third-, and fourth-guesses everything she does and deals with so much trauma that she sometimes gets paralyzed by her need to keep those around her safe. Arkady, on the other hand, sees something she doesn’t like, pulls her knives, and runs toward it without any second thoughts whatsoever, yelling “LEEEEERRROOOOOOYYYYYY JEEEEENNNNNKIIIIIIINNNNNSSS!” (If you don’t get that reference, Google it.) She’s smart, well-trained, and capable, but she has zero hesitations and goes after what she wants. Sometimes she likes to kick some asses just because she’s bored. I adore her, and I hope you will too.

So MH is off to my editor, which means I’m back to that blank canvas I’ve mentioned in previous posts. It’s time to start another adventure.

This adventure is even more adventurous than most! When Heart of the Pack became its own book (rather than being part of Heart of Lies), that pushed my series from the planned 10 books to 11. And since you can’t have 11 books in a series (or at least I can’t without twitching uncontrollably), that meant I needed to add another book to make it a nice round, even 12. Happily, I had a mystery I’d been kicking around for a while—one I didn’t think I’d be able to use for an Alice book and had reluctantly put aside to use as a plot in a different series. I’m ecstatic that I get to use it as an Alice book, because it’s really (I think) the PERFECT mystery setting and plot for Alice, Malcolm, and Arkady: a controversial supernatural circus plagued with sabotage and fatal misfortunes. In other words: Alice & company are running away to join a circus!

I’m looking forward to this book SO MUCH. I’m planning a fun and deadly dangerous fantasy adventure full of secrets, magic, and of course snark. After the MAJOR life-changing events of Heart of Lies and Heart of the Pack, I think it’s the perfect time for this kind of case—and a perfect time to put Alice, Malcolm, and Arkady in a totally new environment where they can show off their skills and solve a mystery unlike anything they’ve done so far.

What acts might Alice, Malcolm, and Arkady do in a circus? I’ll let you wonder about that…

At the moment, I have some scenes written that popped into my head during the last few weeks as I’ve been wrapping up MH, but generally I have a blank canvas for Alice 9. I have a brand new Scrivener file (Alice Book 9.scrv) and a brand-new blank bullet journal (bujo) ready for my plotting and planning notes. In my next post, I’ll show you how I’m laying out my Alice 9 bujo. At the moment, it just says ALICE BOOK 9 on the cover page and has some washi tape as decoration on the first few pages.

Alice. Malcolm. Arkady. Sean. Charles, Moses. Nora. Daniel. Nan. Carly. Ben. Ronan. Matthias. All the usual suspects are back, as well as some newbies. They’ve been waiting VERY impatiently since I finished HOTP for their stories to continue. Some of them are in Mortal Heart, but they’re itching for Alice to get them mixed up in another one of her crazy cases. As their creator, I’m happy to oblige.

Here’s to another grand magical adventure…this time, magic and murder under the big top!