Just when I think my work on old books is done and I can (finally!!) get to some new material, I get another setback. Of course, “setback” is an angsty way to put it and quite incorrect. In fact, each time I’ve had to redo a book or a portion of my website, it’s been a really good step and I’ve been grateful for the result. But when you’re trying to move forward to producing new books, delays to get things right again can happen. It’s just part of the process.

Anyway (lol), just a word of update on the books as they’re being processed now:

• The Test of Devotion was out of availability for a while and I planned to discontinue it. But instead I’m moving towards a substantial rewrite of the book, similar to the ones I did for Harrisons and Victoria, to pull the ages of the characters down more. This worked really well with those two books, so I have hopes for Devotion after doing it with the others.
• Jurant is back on the website, with a new description. In fact, there are new descriptions for everything. I installed little captions to highlight each book as you enter the website and it was fun coming up with these slogans—a sort of crystalline approach to the story’s content—for each book.
• The “Chronicles of Palladia” series is not going to include City of the Invaders. I’ve reduced mention of the book on the website and it’s now a static book from the past. Future books have spun off into a focus on Consuela and her friends, not on Katia, her brother, and their angle.
• Victoria: A Tale of Spain has merged with the former Alyce into a nice little story suitable for roughly 5th graders. I have a new cover in the works, although I do like the current one as well. But I think the fairy-tale aspect (Victoria was originally based on Snow White, Alyce on Cinderella) didn’t make it into the final book and the old cover would better suit a fairy-tale story.
• Still working on Bellevere House. I’d like to bring it into a bit more compatibility with the general tone of the website—this book is a bit of a sore thumb and I’d like to turn it into a green thumb in a dexterous way if I can.

And there will be more updates.

Slogans—sluglines—little crystalline bits of the story. Whatever you’d like to call them, I have some of them ready for you! So I won’t keep you waiting, if you haven’t checked out the website’s cool new content yet. I’ve been working on these for a while and I’m finally letting out bits of the story’s framework—I guess that’s what it is. It’s like holding up a photograph of the story’s ideas.

• Beneath the shade of the pecan tree, the Harrison’s home is welcoming. But you might find there's more to them than meets the eye --A Year with the Harrisons​
• Jenny must fight for what she believes in--and to protect herself from her father's mistakes--The Test of Devotion
• Is Consuela really to be trusted? There are a lot of scoundrels in Belaria and she might know about some of them—Consuela
• For generations Victoria's family has lived in the shadow of the monarchy. A monarchy that has far too much interest in them--Victoria: A Tale of Spain
• Outside Jurant's imposing military school stands a forest and a garden. A garden with a power beyond imagination—Jurant
• Boating, playing tennis, and navigating wild swamps. Unlikely friendships can lead to unwelcome surprises--Bellevere House
• The beautiful city of Niferna. The medieval mansion of Vailsgabel. The pristine court of Millhaven Castle--Facets of Fantasy
• In dying mansions and towers filled with flowers and magic, two girls must make the decision to leave--Everwood and Renari combo
• A planet humans have seen before. 7 jeweled castles that hold their doom--Ryan and Essie
• Amethyst will get tangled up in more than she expected--Temmark Osteraith

See anything you like? :D
And there will be more updates. 

In Bellevere House, there are a number of women characters and the first two that jump to mind are Faye Powell and Helene Carter. Faye is the main protagonist of the story and we spend a lot of time in her mind, her perspective on things. Helene, on the other hand, is a newcomer who’s just arrived in this pleasant little place called Parkdale. She’s come with her brother and there are several things that he does while he’s in Parkdale. But Helene immediately sort of attaches herself to Faye and never lets go, in a sense.

The two end up being really good friends and I wanted this to be a positive message and an alteration from the original book. When I was going through it, I noticed these areas with a lot of tension and undercurrents—a falsity, if you want to call it that—between the original counterparts to Faye and Helene, Fanny Price and Mary Crawford. There’s all this jealousy that Faye feels on account of Edmund, her cousin, and there’s an insensitivity to that in Mary, to the point where she just doesn’t get a good feel for Fanny’s personality at all. And the friendship, of course, is like a cracked glass from the beginning.

The negativity that comes from this threads its way through the whole book. It’s a wonderful book and just amazingly realistic at times. But I didn’t care for this particular relationship between the two women at all, frankly. Also, if we take away the conflict, we get to see a lot more of Faye’s relationship with Ed and how their dynamic really springs from each other and not from an outer irritant like this girl swooping in to maybe interfere with their romance. And Fanny and Edmund are one of the things people remember from the book, so diminishing all this quiet sort of catfighting between the girls made me able to bring Ed and Faye to the forefront and clarify what’s going on in a way I really liked. I went through several drafts before I quite pinned down what that relationship was, but not viewing Helene as a problem was a big first step.

And there will be more updates.

Among the many things I wanted to correct this year--along with formatting, book organization, marketing, website design, blogging consistency, and unconstructive conversations with people--was the perception of romance in my works. I've never included much of it. When I read books, they tend to be children's, some Christian devotional, a little memoir or book about crafts and fashion--very rare YA. Romance isn't common on my periphery and that is because I TRULY do not usually find it an interesting aspect of a story. 

But in a market saturated with this topic, it became easy for people to assign this silence to the reverse--a great deal of interest that I was concealing. After all, people often find it hard to talk about something they really care about. They feel personal, lacking in confidence, and very much involved. For many years I've experienced snaps, snipes, whiplash remarks, and accidental slips that have revealed people assume romance is on my mind. I'm "really" a romance writer. One person believed I wrote romance for literally no reason and seemed nonplussed to find I wrote fantasy. Another accused me that my work was "really" 50 Shades of Grey and sent me endless skits that were "spoofs" of what I really wrote, supposedly. Another naturally told me one of my characters must be really me because, although this character was a small child, she was set up in opposition to a boy for most of the book. The message was clear--I was writing "romance" and hiding by making the characters children. And on and on and on. 

Because lack of clarity might have led to some errors about what my position is, I'm taking care to adjust book descriptions to hint what the character relationships might be. Who is in a relationship or might be interested in being in one. Because I am now talking about them, it will be impossible to assume I am concealing them, and you will also notice that the focus is always on broader themes. 

And there will be more updates.