I promised that I would take you on my writing journey regarding my new book Windshadow, coming out who knows when.

If you follow me on Facebook and I know many of you do, then you know that the book was contracted to The Wild Rose Press and that I’ve received the cover already. That tells you a lot but not much, actually. So let’s digress.

Digression is one of my favorite things.

First, the origin story: After Scott died in 2019, his sister Diane and her husband Jeff invited me to journey to Ireland with them for the Dingle Food Festival (on the craggy western shore.) That trip was the inspiration for the book. We joked about calling it 400 Meters to Love (referencing the treacherously narrow drive to the Airbnb and the innkeeper, an elderly German man named Peter.

So, the book is set on the craggy western coast of Ireland, during the Dingle Food Festival, and the heroine, a widowed website designer from Dallas, stays in the house owned by a reclusive German named Peter, who is significantly younger than the real McCoy and much more handsome.

RULE NO. 1: Write what you know.

So, I started the book, and as often happens, I set it aside to finish Sensible Shoes and Saving Samantha, but returned to it in 2024, wrapping it up that fall.

Then came confusion about how to publish it.

Option One: Search for a traditional publisher (trad pub) or an agent, which, if I found one to buy the book, could take up to three years to get it into print.

Option Two: Go back to The Wild Rose Press, royalty paying, reliable, and gets the book out in a year. But does not do audio books, does not get the books into stores, and does no marketing.

Option Three: A friend who writes for Harlequin Suspense offered to submit my book to her editor. It would take longer to publish, but it would get me into bookstores, and I could make some actual money by selling a ton of books. (I tried for years to get into Harlequin and never made it.)

Since I’m not stupid, I chose Option Three and sent the MSS (manuscript) off to my friend by email.

RULES NO 2 and 3: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and networking pays off.

After 3 months, during which I began work on The Corfu Book, my friend said she had talked to her editor. She learned that Harlequin Suspense books are set only in America, mostly the West, and feature a military or police hero. Since Windshadow did not check those boxes, I thanked her and rethought Options 1 and 2.

Windshadow is the first in a four-book series called The Widow Women Mysteries. I am 74 (this is not a surprise to most of you, as you are, too.) I do not have three years to wait for my book to come out. And 12 years is entirely too long to wait for the entire series to be in print. I would be…geez, I can’t even count that high.

So Option 2 it is. I sent the MSS off to my editor at The Wild Rose Press.

RULE NO 4: Dance with the one that brung you.

Then began the dance:

My editor, I’ll call her Judi, cause that’s her name, said she liked the book, but we needed to tweak some things in the first chapter before she could send it up the food chain to be contracted. This was February.

We added more emotion to the first chapter, heightened the suspense, and magnified the sense of danger.

Also, I had to remove Siri’s name. You know…copyright.

It was a much better, stronger opening, with a generic GPS I’ll call Hal.

So she sent it along to the senior editor and I received a contract in email, which I e-signed and e-sent back. This was March.

And I got another round of edits from Judi for the full MSS.

While I was working on those (which, happily, were not extensive), I received my author packet and instructions to fill in the author portal: my graphic ideas for the cover, title, dedication, back cover blurb, and author bio, plus a short logline (a teaser.)

By the time I finished Judi’s edits, the front cover showed up in my email. I was blown over. I cried. It is truly more evocative, more powerful than I could have imagined. The designer is Teddi Black. She created my other two covers, and I trust her to know what I want: strong, clean, powerful, photographic covers, with readable titles. And she delivered in spades. This was April.

RULE NO. 5: Patience is a Virtue

So that’s where we are now. I’m waiting on Judi’s next round of edits (I assume she’s not done with me yet.) Then we go through proofreading and galley proofs.

Then comes the release date (six months to a year after the last proofs.) So perhaps late this year or early 2027. I’ll be patient. Cause one year beats three every time.

I hope you’ll keep reading. There’s so much more to come.