I’ve put my book-in-progress on the back burner for the last two weeks, while I get Song of the Ancients re-edited and uploaded to Amazon under my own ownership.

I parted ways with my previous publisher a year ago, but we’re just getting around to making the split final. The good news: It’s given me the opportunity to correct some formatting errors in her original upload which have always driven me crazy. Hyphenated words in the middle of a line, for example. I even got dinged in one review for those, but what can you do. Correct them in the next edition, that’s what!
So, a new, sparkly clean version will be back up on Amazon for the public October 15.

Until then, I could really use your help.
Through October 15, I’ll send you a FREE pre-release ebook   in exchange for an Amazon or Goodreads review.  Just send me your email HERE or on my FACEBOOK page and I’ll shoot you out a copy.

The book synopsis:
Samantha Danroe moves from the Midwest to Sedona to start a new life. Instead, she becomes the prey in an ancient war between good and evil.
Nicholas Orenda is a sixth generation witch, in Sedona tracking the man who is killing off his family. “Three will be sacrificed to the dark,” according to his family prophesy.
Can Samantha defeat a supernatural killer and prevent the third sacrifice? Or will she be the catalyst that opens the gate to the underworld buried in Sedona’s magical red rocks?
If you’re interested in witchcraft and shamanism—or just a dark, spooky tale—you’ll enjoy Song of the Ancients, written by a practicing Wiccan priestess.
It’s the debut novel in the Ancient Magic series.
Now you can get in at the beginning—FOR FREE!
I’m trying to replace the 50 fabulous reviews I received in the original edition.
 
Which brings me to my second request for help:
Did you post an Amazon review of Song of the Ancients when it was released originally? You were so kind then, and I’ve made copies of every review before it disappears. Unfortunately, original reviews do not travel with re-released books on Amazon.

Would you be willing to repost your review for this edition if I send you a copy of your original? Again, all I need is your email here or on my Facebook page.

Thank you for your help!

After this re-release, I’ll be finishing my stand-alone suspense, Crescent Moon Crossing. It will be going out on query to agents and editors by early November.

And that means that I will have this year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to work on Book 2 in the Ancient Magic series! I am so excited to rejoin Samantha and Nicholas as they head to London to meet with the Council of Elders, and begin their next supernatural investigation…at the standing stones of Scotland!

Again, thank you so much for your support in my writing journey, including the bumps we’ve all weathered along the way. Your readership means everything to me.

Now, go get your free ebook copy of Song of the Ancients, and get reading!

The weather is finally turning fall-ish here in Northern Arizona. I’ve even slept one night under the down comforter. The dogs are foraging through the dropped leaves like puppies on their evening forest walks, while I have my hands stuffed in my coat sleeves.

But the hummingbirds haven’t migrated south to Mexico yet, and neither have the Monarch butterflies, so I know we’re in the midst of Indian summer, not full blown fall.
​
So, before I leave the book writing posts, and start thinking about Halloween topics, I’d like you to meet the last two important characters in Crescent Moon Crossing, my novel-in-progress

Meet Rumor Vargas - Protagonist

If you read my first book, Song of the Ancients, you will remember Rumor Vargas as Samantha Danroe’s business partner at their antique clothing store in Sedona, AZ.  
 
Rumor was that friend who would drag you to parties and events, while you grumbled all the way. The one who would make you dress in costume, even if costumes weren’t specified on the invitation. We all have one of those friends, right? Who is yours? My current one is Barbie G.

Renaissance Festival full attire despite the 100-degree temps. Ritual without a robe and long black dress? Are you kidding? Our latest costume opportunity was my favorite: Phoenix Symphony performing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I sat scrunched into the seat next to Barbie’s hoop skirted-theme dress and petticoats—and loved every minute of it.
 
So, Rumor was that kind of friend in my first book. But after her pal Samantha took off for London at the end of that book, with no intention of returning to Arizona, they sold off their store and Rumor moved south to Bisbee, another quirky Arizona town near the Mexico border.
 
In Crescent Moon Crossing, Rumor has again demonstrated her entrepreneurial acumen by opening an antiques store in Bisbee, specializing in folk art, occult pieces and yes, vintage clothing.
 
She has also earned her private pilot license and travels during the summer, acquiring antiques from around the world. If you’ve ever been to Bisbee, by the way, you know how well this eclectic store would fit in in there in real life!
 
Rumor, now 32, is American but has her Mexican father's olive skin, dark hair and eyebrows.  She is bi-lingual and often volunteers at a local refugee shelter called Hope House. By the end of the book, she also decides to advocate in court for illegals fighting to come in the United States and stay here legally.
 
Rumor's friend Abby has been murdered, and Rumor is a partial witness. She wants to help the sheriff find the murderer, and also clear her half-brother, who is a suspect.

Alberto used to be a coyote—a human trafficker for a Mexican cartel. Due to a regrettable act in his past, he owes a debt to the Cartel, which he is still paying back, now by smuggling other contraband into the states. He’s in over his head, and desperately wants out from under the Cartel’s thumb, but he’s worried they will harm his uncle and nephew if he refuses to work anymore for them.
 
In the book, we learn about human smuggling into the United States from Mexico and Central America—a hot political topic at the moment.

During one smuggling trip across the Arizona desert, Alberto’s group encounters what is known as a “Cherry Tree” or “Rape Tree.” Often these trees are strewn with women’s garments as a warning to stay out of a certain Cartel’s traffic territory. These trees are seen on major smuggling routes between Arizona and Mexico.
 
A coyote will make $3,000 to $4,000 a head on Mexican illegals and up to $10,000 for Central American fares. He will bring a few to a dozen people per trip, and may make a trip a month or more.
 
But these rape tree warnings are more likely left by Cartel members, like Alberto, marking their drug smuggling routes. That’s where the big business comes in. An official estimated that cartels send a stunning $60 billion worth of drugs into the U.S. every year. Mexico’s former Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna dropped that number at a conference in Juarez a couple of years ago.
 
Will a border wall stem that drug flow? I don’t know. Statistics show that most of the drug smuggling happens other places, like the actual legal border checkpoints. So it feels like the wall will kill off the normal migration routes of local wildlife, rather than kill off the drug trade. There’s just So. Much. Money.
 
The Cartel tie-in does make for some great conflict in the book. First, Rumor is estranged from her father’s side of the family, and vehemently against Alberto’s involvement with the Cartel. Her father isn’t happy about it either, but he’s supporting Alberto’s efforts to get out from under his employer’s hold, and he’s cut ties with Rumor for fear that she will turn her brother over to ICE if he visits the states.
 
Since Sheriff Jones’ wife was killed by a junkie, he also has some wound-related reasons to be suspect Rumor’s brother in this murder investigation. This sets up some interesting conflict for Coop. Can he be unbiased in his murder investigation with Alberto, a drug trafficker, as one of his suspects?
 
I’m approaching 65,000 words, and my goal is to have the rough draft finished before November 1. I would so love to have this one in the can, and begin National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) with a NEW novel to write. Keep your fingers crossed!

#Amwriting  

I’ve been writing a suspense novel, tentatively titled Crescent Moon Crossing, for nearly two years now.  That’s a big chunk of time to devote to a single project, but my first novel, Song of the Ancients, took just as long.  They’re both set in Arizona--Ancients involved the Sedona vortexes, and Crescent Moon Crossing takes place near the Mexico border around Ft.  Huachuca and Bisbee.

I enjoy writing stories set in Arizona. The landscape has such variation, and the cultural mix is diverse. If you want to write paranormal, there’s a lot of spiritual lore and beliefs to draw on to make the world you create believable. If you’re interested in cowboys, horses, desert or ranch life, you’re definitely in the heart of things here. Or, you can go a completely different direction, and include border issues, drug smuggling and Cartel danger. That’s what I did for Crescent Moon Crossing.

Book Teaser:

Staff Sgt. Jace Merrick has two short-term goals: Join Army Intelligence, and kill his wife.

When his bleeding-heart spouse, Abby, begins volunteering at Hope House, a group that leaves supplies in the Arizona desert for illegals crossing the  border, he hatches a plan to make her murder look like a coyote smuggling operation gone wrong.
But someone beats him to it. Someone who has a grudge against Jace Merrick.
You met these two villains in my last two previous blogs.
Now it’s time to meet the good guys.  

Meet main character, Sheriff Cooper (“Coop”) Jones
Coop is a widower with a young daughter, Sadie (you’ll also meet her in the book). His wife was killed by a junkie in a home invasion while Coop was with the Miami police force.
 
After he buries his wife, Coop decides to get as far away from Miami as possible. 
 
He is now the acting Sheriff of Cochise County, AZ, through a circuitous set of events.  The police chief he worked for in Florida met the Maricopa County Sheriff at a national conference, and recommended Coop for a job in Arizona if anything came open. When the Sheriff of Cochise County was killed in a traffic accident, Coop got the call.
 
He’s had only been in Arizona a few months when he has to investigate the murder of a woman, Abby Merrick, in a remote stretch of desert outside Sierra Vista.
 
It looks like she may have stumbled on some Mexican Cartel members smuggling drugs or human cargo across the border. He initially suspects a young Hispanic man who has Cartel ties, and also happens to be the younger brother of Rumor Vargas, a well-respected antiques dealer and business owner in nearby Bisbee.
 
On the other hand, Abby’s Army husband, Jace, also has a pretty strong motive to kill his wife. He’s in the middle of a long-term affair with a lanky blond Lieutenant with a highly connected daddy.
But the more Coop digs into Abby’s death, the more things don’t quite add up for either of these suspects.
Someone else has a grudge against Sgt. Jace Merrick. A life and death grudge. 

​Coop is fast becoming a favorite character of mine. When I first started writing him, I put the Sheriff’s personality characteristics through the Myer Briggs personality tests (as part of a writing class I was taking). He came back as an INTJ (Introverted-Intuitive-Thinking-Judging), an interesting character type. Kind of a loner.
 
To outsiders, INTJs may see to project an aura of “definiteness” and self-confidence. Sometimes mistaken for arrogance by the less decisive, its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise—and INTJs can have several—they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don’t know. 
​
My choice of actor to play Coop (hey, I can dream), is soon-to-be-Walker Texas Ranger Jared Padalecki. He's leaving a 15-season stint as youngest brother Sam Winchester in Supernatural.  If I had to guess, I'm thinking he's an INTJ in real life. 

Another favorite is Luke Grimes. He plays youngest son Kayce  on the outstanding TV western, Yellowstone.

​Whatever they happen to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause, and both perfectionism and purposeful disregard for authority may come into play.
 
These personality traits should make an interesting sheriff, don’t you think? If you’ve ever watched the Western crime suspense series Longmire on Netflix, you’ve already met an INTJ lawman, and he’s a doozy of an example. 

​Longmire features Sheriff Walt Longmire (Aussie actor Robert Taylor), who grapples with a hazy past, complicated moral decisions, and the bad guys of modern Wyoming. 
             
Like Cooper Jones, Sheriff Longmire is also recently widowed. Both characters are men in psychic repair. They bury their pain behind a brave face and meticulous thinking. And both men have a deep understanding and respect for their environment and its indigenous people.

I hope you will come to like Sheriff Coop Jones as much as I’ve enjoyed writing him.

 Meanwhile, as I’m working feverishly to this book, take a look at Longmire and Yellowstone, and let me know what you think of their true-to-life western actors.

My writing week took a strange turn this week.

I’ve been plotting to have my bad guy murder two women camping in the Cochise Stronghold Campground near Tombstone. The first woman I patterned after someone I don’t much care for (there are so many perks to being a novelist!) She’s bossy, so the bad guy decided to kill her first. He slit her throat when she visited the latrine before bed and then pushed her into the self-composting toilet.

 My husband suggested strangling the second girl and stuffing her in the “bear box” at their campsite, but I wasn’t sure she’d fit without cutting her up. Those boxes are kinda small, and I didn’t want my killer to have the deal with a hacksaw and all that blood. (My son said the hacksaw would work better than a chainsaw—more precise and less messy.) But still, who travels with a hacksaw?  So I countered with rubbing her body with the morning breakfast’s bacon grease, and leaving her out as a treat for the bears.
​
Ultimately, I decided the whole “two young women camping alone” scene was cliché, and scrapped all 3,000-plus words. But, damn! It was fun to write. And I’m keeping the scene…who knows, maybe you’ll read it as a short story when I submit it to some horror magazine.   

While we’re on the subject of bad guys, I’d like to introduce you to our first novel suspect, the victim’s husband, Army Staff Sergeant Jace Merrick. It remains to be seen whether Jace is pure evil, but he is definitely a narcissist and a sociopath with no conscience.

He enlisted in the Army during college, after losing is scholarship (it was his professor’s fault, of course), and was infantry, 11-Bravo. He’s a smart guy and has done well. Now his military career is taking a satisfying leap forward with his transfer to Ft. Huachuca, AZ, for Intelligence training.

That is, until his wife, Abby, threatens to report his long-running affair to his commanding officer. Unfortunately, his lover is a female officer, also at the Fort. If he doesn’t break off the fraternization, they could both be court-marshalled. He’s not going to let Abby use his affair against him. In fact, he’s plotting how to get rid of her and make it look like a Cartel human smuggling operation gone wrong.  

In researching sociopaths, one of the things I found interesting is that they see nothing at all wrong with their way of living in the world. Every decision a sociopath makes is based on “how does it affect me.” They are noted for their shallowness of emotion, and the hollow and transient nature of any affectionate feeling they may claim to have carries a certain breathtaking callousness.

They have no trace of empathy and no genuine interest in bonding emotionally with a mate. Once the surface charm is scraped off (and often there is a thick overlying layer of charm—sociopaths are very good at their game), their marriages are loveless, one-sided, and almost always short-term.

As the book evolves, Jace will refuse to acknowledge any blame or even responsibility for the decisions he makes, or for the outcomes of his decisions.   The American Psychiatric Association actually has a term for this, “consistent irresponsibility,” and it’s a cornerstone of the antisocial personality diagnosis.

I thought it would be difficult to write a sociopathic personality, but, as it turns out, I am dealing with one in my real life right now, so it was easy to find examples to pattern the behavior.

There’s a good chance you may have a conscienceless sociopath in your life as well. According to the book, The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PhD, sociopaths make up about four percent of the population.

Often they are attractive, intelligent and extremely successful. But because they truly have no conscience, self-awareness is impossible, and the rest of us just shake our heads and mutter,”Whaat? How can you possibly think that…act like that…do that to someone?”

If you have a close relationship with a sociopath, with a person who truly has no conscience, all my research says not to put out the effort to try and change him or her. Instead, walk away—and take your loved ones with you.

In the end, just as the sociopath has no genuine relationships with other people, he has only a very tenuous one with himself.

Stop by next time and meet another suspect, Rumor’s brother Alberto. He’s a Cartel coyote and drug smuggler, but much more of a good/bad mix than Jace. I think you’ll like him, and he’ll teach us some about smuggling people and contraband across the Mexican border into the States.
Until then, good reading.