The world is burning, and I have been switching between fighting back against the injustice and insanity, and disappearing into Moonridge, where at least the chaos is fictional and I get to control the outcome. It’s been a while since I checked in, so here’s a proper life update.
Book three is completely edited, typeset and awaiting release. I am working on getting ARCs loaded (I’m switching up my promo partners) so stay tuned for that. I am also planning to build an ARC team with a separate email list.
As part of that process, I will be providing everyone who signs up for my ARC team with a free copy of a new Moonridge novella.
I wrote this 25,000 word story while fighting a stretch of writer’s block. Book Three was out with editors and beta readers, and I was deep into plotting Book Four, trying to lock in the direction of the story and figure out where the Concord 13 arc is ultimately heading. While going back through my notes and patching plot holes, a prequel story started to take shape.
So yes, we’re getting a prequel.
We’ll be traveling back to a few weeks before the body swap that happened in book one. This story is a little different because it’s not centered on a romantic relationship. Instead, it alternates between best friends Hazel and La’Tasha, who have been inseparable since they were kids.
Hazel is still with Evan and on the verge of stepping into her birthright as Moonridge’s next Virtus Suprema (aka head witch). Before that can happen, everything starts to unravel, and it’s up to Hazel and La’Tasha to figure out what’s going on and stop it before things spiral even further.
I had a lot of fun writing this one, and I can’t wait for you to read it.
The plan is to release the novella on Amazon and KDP over the summer. ARC team members will get it free and well before it goes public. I’m in the final editing stages now and hoping to have it ready for the ARC team within the next few weeks.
I’ll share the official synopsis and cover reveal soon. I’ll also share instructions on how to sign up for the ARC team. Stay tuned!
Happy New Year, Moonridge friends. I hope your holidays were amazing (mine definitely were) and that you are easing into 2026 with a good book and a positive outlook.
I wanted to kick off the year with a quick update and something very exciting, because if we’re starting a new year, we might as well do it with ghosts, time travel, and bad romantic decisions.
I am officially in the final proofing stage for Right Place Wrong Time, Book 3 in the Welcome to Moonridge series. The story is firmly in place (even though I did add another chapter right after Thanksgiving) and at this stage, it’s all about catching the tiny things. Once that’s done, we move into typesetting, ordering physical proofs, and making any last, minor tweaks before the book is locked and ready to go.
Which means I have a release date:
Right Place Wrong Time releases on March 10.
And today, I’m happy to share the cover.
This book has been a labor of love. It’s spooky, romantic, emotionally messy, and deeply tied into the larger Moonridge mythology. If you thought things between Calvin and Everett were done after the reveal at the end of Book 2, this is where things get complicated.
Everett and Calvin reconnect after a drunken Valentine’s Day mishap, and Calvin begins to realize Everett might not be the bad guy he thought he was. When a time travel door is discovered, Calvin decides he’s going to go back and prevent the Concord from ever making Everett one of them. But, as is to be expected, nothing is ever that simple in Moonridge.
This book digs deeper into the town’s past, the reach of the Concord, and what happens when love doesn’t follow a straight line through time. It’s still very much Moonridge, and full of found family, sharp humor, and supernatural chaos. Just be prepared for everything to be turned on its head. The Moonridge you think you know is anything but.
I’ll be sharing more details as we get closer to release, including preorder info, sneak peeks, and links to ARCs when available.
Thank you, as always, for reading, cheering, and letting me keep telling these stories. Here’s to a new year, a new book, and another trip back to Moonridge.
Now it’s time for me to get back to scoping out Book 4.
I’m happy to announce that book three in the Welcome to Moonridge series officially has a title. Say hello to Right Place Wrong Time. This one follows Calvin and Everett as they stumble through love, danger, and more time-bending chaos than I probably had any business writing.
I had a really difficult time landing on a title that felt right. It started out as The Restless Hearts Club which was fine, but didn’t quite hit what I was looking for. Then it was Hearts in Retrograde, but that felt cheesy. I finally settled on Right Place Wrong Time and after finishing the rewrites, that title feels very appropriate.
If you’ve been here a minute, you know this book has been through an absolute identity crisis. I ripped it apart, stitched it back together, and somehow came out the other side with a story I’m really proud of. I just wrapped my developmental edits (went from 122,000 words to 110,000) and the manuscript is now in the capable hands of my editors and beta readers. They’ll poke holes in it. I’ll fix it. Then we’ll shine it up and get it out the door.
More fun stuff is coming soon. I’ll be revealing the cover and the release date on January 2. Mark your calendars!
Now here is the official synopsis:
Welcome back to Moonridge, where the ghosts are still restless, The Concord 13 wait in the shadows, and time travel has entered the chat.
Calvin Carter is doing his best to keep it together, but that gets tricky when Everett Bradshaw—the ghost he fell for last fall—suddenly breaks free from Skipper Lake and shows up in his house. Everett is still bound to the Concord, and still heartbreakingly out of reach.
Things take a wilder turn when Calvin uncovers a history-triggered time portal in the basement of an old shop while doing renovations. Desperate to change Everett’s fate, Calvin travels to 1958 Moonridge, where Everett is very much alive and walking straight toward the death that will bind him to The Concord for the next seventy years.
Now Calvin has four days to earn Everett’s trust, outrun the Concord’s schemes, and figure out how to make it back to the present without erasing them both from existence for good.
Magic, mystery, and a time-twisted second-chance romance collide to bring Moonridge’s magic to a whole new level.
I know I’ve been pretty quiet online lately. Truth is, I just haven’t had much to say. Most of my time has gone toward taking care of my mental health. The world feels like a dumpster fire right now, and social media hasn’t exactly been helping. It’s a steady stream of misinformation, outrage, click bait and hot takes, and after a while, it started to wear me down. So I stepped back. I’ve also been busy protesting and calling my congress representatives and senators to ensure they’re doing all that they can to stop this insane administration from hurting everyone. Billionaires really suck!
All of this has negatively impacted my writing progress. When everything feels dark and heavy, it tends to seep into my work, and that’s not really the tone I want for the Moonridge series. Those books have a dark element, but they also have heart and humor. They’re about finding light in the dark. And lately, I needed a little time to find my own light again before I could get back to that space.
The good news? Yesterday, something finally clicked. I sat down to write for the first time in weeks and managed to rewrite two full chapters of book three. It felt good. And the good news is, my characters didn’t hold a grudge for my absence either. They slipped right back into my head, ready to cause chaos and fall in love.
I’m easing back into a rhythm and feeling cautiously optimistic that, if life behaves, I can still have book three out by early spring. That’s the plan, anyway. Fingers crossed the world doesn’t throw another curveball big enough to send me back into hiding.
Before I go, I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s read and reviewed Date Night With Death. The series isn’t exactly storming bestseller lists, but it’s found a little corner of readers who genuinely get it, and that means more to me than I can say. I’m so glad you love Moonridge as much as I do.
Here’s to more words, more weird magic, and better days ahead.
I’m finally getting around to answering some questions that I’ve received over the last couple of months. So sorry for the delay. Life has been lifing and I’m trying to balance work, a social life, and a writing life.
A couple of questions came in more than once or were closely related, so I combined them here. I also won’t be sharing any names, since I believe in keeping things private.
Do you use AI generation for your books or book covers?
Short answer: no, I don’t. I did a short video on Instagram that shows how my covers are created, but as far as the writing goes, the ideas, the stories, the characters, and the words are all mine.
To be honest, I don’t fully understand AI, and it creeps me out a little. From what I’ve learned, there are two kinds: assistive AI and generative AI. Generative AI is the problematic one because it was trained on artists’ work without their permission, and allows someone to copy their style. I completely understand why artists and authors are angry, and I’d never disrespect another writer by letting a computer “write” for me in their voice. I’d never want anyone to do that to me. Besides, it feels lazy. I love building my stories, writing them out, and especially love doing the “surgery” on them. Digging into character voices and POVs, cutting apart scenes, and making them shine is the part that I live for.
I enjoyed your book, but one thing really bothered me. I felt like you used La’Tasha to check a box. She is the only Black person in Moonridge, and all you had her do was run around and research things for Hazel and Blake. I’m sorry, but that feels very disrespectful. I also felt like making Calvin gay was just checking the gay box, so you can make your stories feel inclusive.
I’ll admit this question took me by surprise, but I appreciate it. From the beginning, I’ve wanted Moonridge to be an inclusive world with space for all races, gender identities, and sexual orientations. La’Tasha and Calvin weren’t added to check a race or sexuality box, and La’Tasha is not the only character of color in the series. The sheriff is Black, Mason is biracial, and both Coco and Leo are Hispanic. (There are also a few others you haven’t met yet.)
I also understand how, early on, it might feel like La’Tasha is being reduced to Hazel’s helper. That isn’t her story, though. This is just the start of her arc, and in books three and four, especially, you’ll see her strength and power shine. I realize it’s early in the series, and my intent is unclear, but I will never use a character’s race, gender identity, or sexual orientation just to say I am inclusive. I would also never reduce a person of color’s worth like that. Especially not a Black woman. They are some of the strongest and most disrespected people on this earth. They deserve more than minor character status. All I can ask is that you trust me.
This feedback has inspired me to do better about describing characters on the page and to expand the character bios on my website to include details about race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. And thank you for calling this out. It tells me you care enough to ensure that non-straight, cis, white characters are being treated with respect. I wish everyone cared that much.
When will Book Three release? I just finished Date Night With Death, and I really can’t wait to read Vivienne and Leo’s story!
I’m so happy you’re enjoying the series! I’m doing surgery on book three right now. While rereading the very rough first draft, I realized there was something big I wanted to change. That meant switching around the order of books four and five. I’ve been re-drafting both to weave in those changes, and once that’s done, I’ll get back to editing book three. If I can stay on track, my goal is to have it out by spring 2026. One little heads-up, though. A different couple (not Vivienne and Leo) will be stepping into the spotlight in book 3. Don’t worry, though, Leo and Vivienne will get theirs soon!
Which characters will be featured in future books?
I’m guessing you mean which characters will be the leads. I do have all of that mapped out, but I’m not quite ready to spill the details yet. What I can say is this: if you’ve read the first two books, you’ve already met the couple who takes center stage in book three. You’ve also met one of the leads for book four, and their partner gets a mention in book three before making a grand entrance at the end. The couple for book five has already been introduced, and one half of the book six couple was introduced in book two. Vague enough for you? 🙂
What is your writing process like?
I feel like this question could be its own blog post, so I may circle back to it in the future. For now, here’s the short version: I start with voice recordings, since I can talk through ideas much faster than I can type. Later, I transcribe those recordings into a rough outline. That outline serves as a loose guide while I draft the first pass of the story. The story doesn’t really come together until the third or fourth draft, and that’s usually the version I send to beta readers and editors.
Thanks to those of you who wrote in, and as always, thanks for being on this journey with me.
It’s finally here. Date Night With Death is out in the world.
This was the book where I realized I wasn’t just writing another paranormal romance—I was building a series. It’s also where I first introduced the bigger threat that’s been quietly looming over Moonridge (slight spoiler alert: The Concord 13).
When I finished Once Upon a Blue Moon, I immediately dove into this one because Mina needed her story told immediately. You’ll notice right away that the tone is darker. That shift felt natural. My process has always been to get the bones of the story down first, and then during revisions I dig into the characters’ voices. Hazel had her sharp sarcasm. Blake carried that gruff exterior with the soft side tucked underneath. With Date Night With Death, Mina became the focus. She’s direct, no-nonsense, and dealing with some heavy personal struggles. Her coping mechanisms are avoidance first and gallows humor second. Dex, on the other hand, is a Reaper. He’s walked through the human world but never truly lived in it. Exploring how an old soul like him would interact with people, how he’d shape his speech patterns, how he’d discover his wants and needs, was a ton of fun to write. That said, I also realized that I can’t just write a story about Death himself without focusing on death. Exploring this aspect is what brought on the slightly darker tone.
Writing this also turned out to be personal in a way I didn’t expect. While working on this book, memories of losing my aunt to a brain tumor almost twenty-five years ago surfaced. She was the light in our family, and her kids have always been more like siblings than cousins to me. When she got sick, I was living far away, broke, and unable to show up for them the way I wanted to. That left me with a lot of unprocessed grief and guilt. Writing Mina’s story helped me work through some of that.
On a lighter note, the introduction of the Vampire Wives might be my favorite part. I’m a reality TV junkie, especially The Real Housewives, so slipping that influence into Moonridge felt inevitable. They brought me joy to write, and don’t worry, you haven’t seen the last of them.
Some early readers have felt the series took too dark a turn here compared to the lighter vibe of book one. I get that. But honestly, this book holds a special place in my heart. It’s still my favorite so far… though book three is giving it some serious competition.
Thank you for reading, for coming back to Moonridge, and for sticking with these characters as they grow. I can’t wait to share what’s next.
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