Release Day for Skin Deep!

Sometimes it's what's on the outside that matters...

That’s the tag line for my newest book, Skin Deep, which I’m very happy to announce ships today from all the usual online retailers—Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo—and in paperback as well!

Skin Deep is a contemporary paranormal romance (yes, that means adult not YA, but the level of steam is restrained) with a bit of a twist: while the hero is a selkie (I have been obsessed with selkie folklore since childhood), the heroine does not fall into the usual human-with-no-powers role often seen in shape-shifter romance. Unbeknownst to her, Garland Durrell has a strange gift: the quilts she creates are imbued with magic. She’ll have to learn to use that gift to save the man—er, selkie—she loves as well as the town that is her new home from an evil entity bent on destroying them—and claiming her magic for itself.

As much as I lurrrve writing historical settings and characters, this book was just as fun to write. It’s set on Cape Cod, near which I grew up and where I still spend a lot of time, and writing a setting I know so intimately was both easy and hard—easy because all I have to do is close my eyes and I’m there, but hard because I needed to make readers see it as well and not just assume you would feel the contours of the land, the colors of the ocean, and the scents and sounds that I do.

In addition, I’m a quilter (though not with my heroine’s talent!), and again it was both easy and difficult to bring the tools, the processes, and most of all the sensibilities of the craft to life in a story.

And of course, there’s that thing I have for selkies...but we’ll talk more about that later. ☺

Skin Deep has already received a 4 ½ star/Reviewers Top Pick designation from Night Owl Reviews; I hope NineteenTeen readers will give it a try!  You can read an excerpt on my website to get a feel for the story...and just for fun, I’ve created several quilt templates that can be downloaded so that you can color and create your own enchanted quilts.

Have fun, and thank you for celebrating with me!

 

Surprise!!

Hey, guess what? I have a new book coming out, and it’s available for preorder!

I haven’t talked much about Skin Deep here because it’s (a) not YA and (b) not historical fiction. But it’s based on a couple of my other passions: quilting, selkies, and Cape Cod. I suppose it was only inevitable I'd have to write a book including them at some point.

Here’s the blurb:

After a painful divorce, Garland Durrell looks forward to settling into her home on Cape Cod to make the quilts that are her passion. On the first morning of her new life she finds a man and a small boy washed up on the beach, both badly wounded. Since the town chief of police is strangely reluctant to help, Garland takes on the care of the mysterious pair who don't seem to remember what happened to them--and feels her own heart begin to heal.

Alasdair does remember. He and his son Conn are the last of the ruling family of selkies from the waters around the Cape, locked in a decades-long struggle with an evil that threatens all, selkie and human. He’s not sure if he can trust the lovely, blue-eyed woman who takes them in until he touches one of her quilts and feels the magic she’s sewn into it...and the emotions that he never thought he’d feel again.

But the evil entity that stole Alasdair’s sealskin and left him for dead quickly senses both his presence and Garland’s magic, and is determined to destroy one and possess the other. Only Garland and her quilts, made with a power she barely believes she has, can save them all from destruction—if she can avoid being destroyed first.

Skin Deep’s official release date is April 12, but it’s available for pre-order now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple ibooks, and Kobo, and will be available for pre-order in print as well in the next couple of weeks.  I promise that I’m working on more historical stories (set in 1810, if you recall) but sometimes those other pesky interests will demand my attention too. I hope you’ll give Skin Deep a try!