I Return To Age

Well, passed the big 4-0 this week; I can hardly wait to see what the next forty years will be like, because the first forty has been a bit of an adrenaline rush.

Cape Cod was ludicrously awesome and the family is doing well. I'll try for a more substantial blog next week. 'Til then, ciao for now, babies!

I Flee to Massachusetts

Well, the annual family vacation loometh. It ought to be interesting...the last time I hung out with my in-laws, the Borders in Fairfield, CT, essentially ran me out of town (it's possible I'm exaggerating for humorous effect...but not by much).

This time we're all flocking to Cape Cod, which is always a good time (I'm deeply, deeply addicted to scallop rolls from Cap'n Frosty's...not to mention the tuna rolls at Inaho's). So I'll be back in MN on or about my fortieth birthday at the end of the month. Birthdays, vacations, in-laws, airlines...it's a perfect storm of stress! I mean happiness.

I Get (a) Copy

So! My editor, the always awesome Cindy Hwang, forwarded me the flap copy to the next Undead book, UNDEAD AND UNFINISHED. Though you guys might like a peek! (Flap copy is book industry-eze for the blurb on the back of a book (or the inside dust jacket if it's a hard cover.)

Here goes:

There’s only one thing Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor hates more than the threat of hosting a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (after all, how traditional is her family?), and that’s trying to get through the Book of the Dead without going insane. Every time she’s tried reading it she just gets blindsided—until the devil strikes a bargain. She offers Betsy a chance to get through the cursed (literally!) thing cover to cover, and finally discover all its mysteries. There’s just one teensy little catch...

Betsy and her half-sister Laura have to go to Hell. Just long enough for Laura to finally embrace her dark heritage (after a rebellious youth of charity work and teaching Sunday School) and finally make nice with her mother, aka Satan, by picking up such skills as slicing through time and the universe with a hellfire sword. While such things might sound fun, time travel is proving to be an alarming journey for Betsy and Laura. Not only are they interacting firsthand with their own family’s past but in doing so, they’re dangerously impacting the future in ways they never anticipated.

Of course that’s what mother wanted all along. Damn her.

* * *

Okay, Berkley does dynamite copy, that's the first thing. (I can't do it. I can't sum up a 350 page manuscript in two paragraphs that, once they're read, compel a reader to cough up a credit card.) I mean, I'm writing the darn thing...and I'm reading this copy and thinking, "Wow! I wonder how it's gonna end. I should get that book when it comes out."

Time-traveling shoe addicts and the Anti-Christ tumbling through time via portals in Hell. In other words, just another Wednesday afternoon. :-)