Coming 2026

If you could…would you do the right thing?

Althea Gataki loves what she does, even when it drives her crazy. She works tech support in the communications field and knows all the ins and outs — and maybe some paths that aren’t entirely all that legal. She puts everything into her job, because she likes it done right the first time. She’s not afraid to take chances, especially when she finds answers where no one else dares. Her older brother is an ace military pilot, and she’s annoyed that he doesn’t write more often.

Claudia Beecham is an engineering wiz but works far below her status as a coding boffin for a vendor that creates communication devices, both public and military. She’s quiet and unassuming and she’d like to keep it that way so she doesn’t attract unneeded attention. She’s also one of those Beechams, part of a large extended family stretching across several levels of the FairIsle Space Force.

Althea and Claudia are lovers, huge nerds, avoiders of family drama, and owners of a ridiculous and sassy Maine coon cat named Grizelda. They’re both turning twenty and must soon make their Citizen Claim for FairIsle, deciding once and for all if they will become permanent stationsiders or planetsiders. And all they want is to spend their hard-earned vacation time relaxing and staying away from the chaos of FairIsle’s fiftieth annual Emancipation Day celebrations. Simple request, yes?

Not when your homeworld is on the verge of being re-invaded by that same federation it escaped those fifty years ago.

Theadia is the story of two young women coming to terms with an uncertain future. It’s the story of a young planet and its space station making a name for itself as a successful transportation hub in the local galaxy. It’s the story of friends and comrades realizing they cannot always depend on their leaders. It’s the story of one’s willingness to take dangerous chances, even when it could mean your job…or your life.

Theadia is the story of doing the right thing.

Prepping the manuscript

WHOOF. I spent most of Thursday afternoon prepping Diwa & Kaffi for its July 1 debut, and it took me a little longer than I expected! Formatting the manuscript itself wasn’t all that hard, though I’m clearly out of practice and had to fix a few embarrassing errors.

No, it was the cover that was the biggest pain in the butt! I’ll spare you the details other than that my photo editing apps were refusing to do what I wanted them to do. For now I’ve uploaded a slightly touched-up cover that I can deal with, but will most definitely upload a much better one when I have more time and brainspace for it.

But yeah, at this point the book is ready to go! I’m right chuffed that this book is finally about to be a reality!

Coming Soon: New E-Book!

In case you haven’t guessed already, I am planning a quick release of Diwa & Kaffi, preferably on 1 July to coincide with Smashwords’ annual summer sale. This gives me a little less than two weeks to a) finish the ‘temporary’ cover I’d started making the other day, and b) format the Word file to e-book form. Thankfully I can do both in that amount of time as I’m a quick worker and the novel has been completely revised, cleaned up and ready to go for a good few months now.

What inspired this surprise release? Sigur Rós, of all things. Last Thursday they’d popped onto their Instagram feed and simply said ‘oh hey we have our first new album in ten years coming out tomorrow, have fun’. On that very same day, I’d gotten an email from Smashwords about their summer sale, and realized this was a perfect time to send it out into the wild. I posted it in serialized form for my readers here a few months ago, but I felt it was far past time to share it with the rest of the world.

To be honest, I really miss the thrill of releasing e-books like this! My last one was In My Blue World in early 2019, so it’s been a four-year gap. [I’ve obviously been busy since then with writing and real life stuff, of course.] I’m looking forward to getting this one out to you in a couple of weeks! Stay tuned for updates and links!

Coming soon, Autumn 2017

lidwells-practice-cover-a

It’s a rock memoir.  It’s a music biography.  It’s fiction.  It’s a love story.  What the hell is it, anyway?

Meet the Lidwells! is the story of a family band from the 90s — four siblings and two cousins — rocking out at town and county fairs and wherever their parents could book them, until they hit the big time with the insanely catchy hit “Grapevine.”  They sign to a major label and become a huge success, selling out on tours, finding their faces plastered in teen magazines…only to burn out fast, lose their way, and go out in a blaze of glory less than a decade later.

And yet, somehow, they manage to keep their love of family (not to mention a ridiculous obsession with music) strong and unbreakable.

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Not the final cover, obviously, but you get the idea.

This was a story that came to me out of nowhere while I was working on my daily 750 Words back in early 2015.  Okay, maybe not out of nowhere.  One of my online friends had casually mentioned family bands at some point, and that led me to think of the Osmonds.  [I will freely admit that I loved that band when I was a little kid, well before my obsession with the Beatles.  Crazy Horses is still a great album.]  At the same time, I’d been reading a lot of music biographies, and was also working on my Walk in Silence project, when it occurred to me that writing a fictional music bio would be a hell of a lot of fun.

And it was!  I spent a good couple of weeks utilizing my daily words, coming up with fictional interviews, backstory, and even a discography.  Meet the Lidwells! will be my next project once the Bridgetown Trilogy is wrapped up, and I’m totally stoked about completing this one!

I hope you enjoy it!