Blood Game hits stores six weeks from tomorrow! My excitement is building, and it’s a little bit scary too, to be honest. In the next six weeks I’ll be setting up newspaper interviews, appearing on podcasts, talking to bookstores about their local authors tables and possible book signing events, et cetera. And I have no idea what I’m doing. Part of the fun, I suppose, but also a little scary.
Right now, I’m looking forward to the yuletide slowdown. The kids are coming over tomorrow, Christmas Eve, for our annual “Feast of Seven Fishes,” a Neapolitan tradition. Crab legs, shrimp scampi, calamari, smelts, baccala (salted whitefish), salmon, and angel hair pasta in a butter and anchovies sauce. The stockings are stuffed, the presents are under the tree, and a few “long winter’s naps” have been guiltlessly enjoyed already.
So what’s keeping me busy lately when it’s work time? I’ve gotten my website fully up and functional — autographed and personalized books can now be ordered through it. My book isn’t available in bookstores until Feb. 4th, and it can be preordered on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and several other places before that. But my website is the only place anyone can get it earlier than that.
Just a few hours ago I finished setting up my LLC, Eagles Hill Publishing. And about fifteen hours ago I finished the final edits on Crying Call, the second book, due out February 2026. That one is now completely done except the cover — still going through edits on that with the team at Miblart.
These next six weeks, I’m looking forward to getting back to actual writing. I even went to the local Shelby Township Writer’s group last Thursday, for the first time in six months. In between all the marketing and publicity stuff, I’ll be getting back to writing Drawing Dead (Book 3) and outlining Fearful Symmetry (Book 4), and maybe even getting back to the spicy romance Becka and I are co-writing.
Snow is coming in a few hours, which is perfect timing. We have the food, we have the bright lights and candles, and we have the hygge. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. In Iceland, they have something this time of year called “Jolabokaflod,” literally “Christmas book flood.” It’s traditional that people exchange a lot of books, and then spend much of the dark winter cuddled up in blankets, with candles and mulled wine, just reading. I like the thought that my books will be among them soon. Maybe not so scary after all.