Oops, I called 911 on a controlled fire...

Hello friends! Please don't ask me how we're already halfway through January, because I really don't know.

📚 Current Read: I just finished the 3rd Poldark book (Jeremy Poldark) and tonight I'm starting Tough Guy by Rachel Reid. 

🍿 Current Watch: Let's be honest, I've been hanging out at The Cottage since Thanksgiving.

☕️ Current Drink: I've been on a blueberry tea kick here lately. It's just so fresh and yummy.

I hope you all had wonderful holidays. I finished a revision of A Faire Affair and took some much needed time off. I got to visit with family from in and out of state, called 911 on a neighborhood brush fire (oops—but in my defense, it was ginormous), and I taught my dad how to play my new favorite game, Hive, a sort of cross between dominoes and chess, which has a little feature in the new book. 

Now I'm back to revising and trying real hard not to let the plot bunnies for my next project attack. A Faire Affair is the interconnected standalone book 2 in the Tennessee Hebrides series, and if you're interested in a contemporary, he-fell-first, Renaissance Faire romance featuring a Scotsman in a kilt and slutty little glasses, I'll be sending out ARCs in April. If you like to review ARCs hop on over to my signup page. It feels so far away and also like it will be here tomorrow.

And now for the next installment of Art that Inspires Me. If we're going in order, it's time to show you the piece that represents Mistress Mackintosh & the Shaw Wretch. Because what Highland romance would be complete without a Highland cow? 

I actually painted this one myself back during the pandemic. Well—painted by number, but I was proud nonetheless, and it felt like the perfect way to celebrate my little book. I'm so happy to finally have her back up on the wall again, in pride of place alongside the box set and a gorgeous handmade piece featuring a rampant lion that a friend and fellow Highland Games vendor made!

I have a little bit of a breather for the first time in months with no immediate events on the horizon, but don't worry, I'm already packing the calendar for an exciting 2026.

If you don't follow me on social media, you might not know why my ebooks are no longer listed on Amazon. I've taken them down, hopefully temporarily, in protest of their new "Ask This Book" AI feature. Thanks to the advocacy of The Authors Guild, we at least got an unequivocal statement this week that our books would not be used for training AI with this feature, but I'm still not a fan. It allows Kindle App users (currently only those in the United States) to ask AI questions about the book they're reading, and it will scan the book to attempt to answer without spoilers. 

I've seen multiple examples of authors testing this feature and getting completely false and hallucinated answers. (In one case, the AI told the reader that a pair of brothers in the book were lovers, so no, I don't think there's any need for this feature.)

If you believe, like I do, that authors should have the choice to opt their books out of this functionality, please contact Amazon customer support and let them know. "Generative" (derivative) AI is only a foregone conclusion if we allow it to be. 

In the meantime, you can still buy my ebooks from Apple, Google, Kobo, and my website, or borrow them from your library through Libby, Hoopla, Borrowbox, or find them in a Kobo+ subscription.

Keep an eye out for a cute little price drop for Last Blue Christmas on January 23, and more to come soon!

Hang in there friends,