Red Wolf Blogs

   Okay, one more rant and I’ll drop the subject, I promise. But, really, don’t you just hate picking up a new book touted as first in a series , and you really, really like it, and then when you finish you find the next book has yet to be written?    I do.    I can’t stand it. Now, I’m hooked, and maybe there’s not even a clue when the next book will be available. Plus, the wait-read cycle could repeat itself over quite a few years. It takes time to write, edit and publish a book. Even the most prolific writers can’t fulfill the need I have for instant gratification once I’ve become a fan.    The series I’m most anxious about at the moment is a delightful dystopian/sci fi offering by my favorite paranormal author, Richelle Mead.    We all know Mead from her popular YA novels that sprung from Vampire Academy and its spinoff, Bloodlines. If you’re lucky, you’ve read her debut adult series featuring the reluctant succubus, Geo...

So, I’m continuing my complaint about getting hooked on a series of books that hasn’t been finished yet. Can you relate? I mean, it really sucks to read that book (and maybe there’s even a cliffhanger ending), and you’re ready to find out what happens next, but you know it’ll be at least a year until you can find out. Ugh. Life is so hard. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by growing up with TV. The longest I’ve ever had to wait to watch the next episode of a show is maybe three months over the summer, waiting for a new season to begin. It’s different with books. Very few authors crank out a whole novel in three months. It took me nine months to finish my first, almost two years for my third. Case in point… Like many others, I discovered J.K. Rowland’s Harry Potter books when only three of the eventual seven had been published. By the time the final book was out, my infant son had grown up to be reading them himself, there were movies made and planned for, and a whole pop cultu...

   I’ve been in love with books written in a series for as long as I’ve been a reader. Beginning with L. Frank Baum’s Oz books as a child, through Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan series or Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy as a “tween,” all the way through Richelle Mead’s Succubus books and Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels in my later years, I’ve relished finding multiple novels by an author that follow the same character, sets of characters, or an imagined universe, over time. I relish closing the cover on one book and opening another into that same wonderful universe right away.    But, it’s a mixed blessing finding a great book that turns out to be the first in a series, getting hooked on the characters, the premise, or the background story, and then finding out the sequel has yet to be written. That’s a huge disappointment for me as a reader.    Now, as an author of my own series, I’m getting to experience the anxiety from the other side of the co...

    The term red wolf must have been floating around in my subconscious when I conceived of Clifford Crane, the supernatural werewolf protagonist depicted in my Red Wolf Saga . Crane (you can check out the “My Books” tab), whom I imagine to be a cross between an Irish setter and an eight foot grizzly, bears little resemblance to the coyote-colored canid that once roamed the eastern North American continent in large numbers a few hundred years ago.     But, yes, there are real red wolves! And it wasn’t until I was almost ready to publish The Draculata Nest that I discovered they are living practically in my own back yard.     Like its grey wolf cousin, which already haunted the dreams of European settlers, the red wolves were regarded as everything from a threat to domestic livestock to agents of Satan. The “new Americans” went about systematically destroying the wolves’ natural habitat and hunting it to near extinction. Today, Canis rufus can be f...

I’m the kind of person who can overdo anything and everything, good or bad. I have a long list of addictions to prove it. The acceptance of this about myself has made the last quarter century of my life an almost daily struggle for balance. I’m constantly striving for just the right mix of work, play, intellectual stimulation and down time, that will keep me from tipping the scales too far in any direction. Take writing, for instance. It has proven a mixed blessing. Over the last five years, creating the first three books in the Red Wolf Saga has been an eye-opening, soul enriching, life changing experience for me. It has also become an obsession. Whereas I once filled as much of my free time as I could with writing, my free time has become writing time , and my free time has, well…disappeared. Last weekend, while rearranging some debris in my apartment (what I call cleaning ), I noticed the rusting chain and flattened tires on my bicycle. I suddenly realized it had been nearl...

A few weeks ago I found myself facing a dilemma. I’d just released Red Wolf Rising, and I was looking around for something to work on. Projects for revised editions of my first two Red Wolf novels loom on the horizon, but I’d been in editing mode for so long I felt I needed a break. Yet, I couldn’t seem to summon the Muse (usually conjured with coffee) to write anything new. What to do? Okay, it really wasn’t that hard a decision. I did what I always do when I have a number of choices I don’t want to take. I read! So, for the past several weeks I’ve indulged myself with a YA binge. At my age, it’s a little embarrassing I read so many Young Adult novels. But, I do. In fact, if you examined the plethora of titles currently stored on my Kindle, you’d conclude that YA Paranormal is my preferred genre. Although I like to tell myself my tastes in literature are more eclectic, I must admit I’m drawn to these stories where the protagonists are predominantly teenage girls. They make th...

        Just for grins, I looked through the C:\Writings directory on my laptop and checked the creation dates for some of my project folders. On September 20, 2012, at 10:16 pm, I moved some notes, a brief outline, and a copy of the last scene in Dragon of Doughton Park (it became the Prologue for the sequel) into a folder called, “Red Wolf Rising.” At the time, I remember thinking I’d knock out the final book of the Red Wolf Trilogy in about nine months, getting it into catalogs and on shelves well before Christmas, 2013.         Did I underestimate that task, or what?         For those of you who read the first two books and waited all this time the see WTF was going to happen ( Dragon ended with a bit of a cliffhanger), book three is finally here!      This past Friday, March 6, 2015, Red Wolf Rising became available in print and Kindle format on Amazon. Purchase a Printed Copy Purchase for Ki...

Hi, folks! I haven’t posted since June, 2014, but now that the third novel in the Red Wolf Saga is scheduled for publication on March 6, I’m emerging from my writing cave. Yes, the Red Wolf is back! I’m going to start blogging again with renewed vigor, and I’m kicking off the year (a little late, I know) with a series of reviews of books by some indie authors I met on Goodreads.  First up: Amanda Lyles! I met Amanda in a Goodreads group when her first novel came up as the review of the week. It was about a mermaid! I couldn’t resist. I volunteered as a reader/reviewer, and got hooked on the Nina Garnet character immediately. I read the first book and posted the review below. Then – and this is a cool thing about Goodreads – I was able to contact the author, who accepted my offer to beta read the second book.        So let’s get started with reviews of the first two Nina Garnet mermaid books, and then have a brief chat with the author… For Kindle...