Hi ALL!

I have been cooking new things, but this is getting a little too long, so I’ll do a recipe next time! 

For the first time in 5 years, I have been making jewelry, The first piece was challenge, but I did it. I’m waiting on supplies because I have 3 more necklaces to play with. I went back to jewelry because I had surgery on March 5 to remove scar tissue and glass and accident-trash from on and under my right jaw and repair a muscle from jaw-mouth area up to my right eye, all of which were remnants from an accident when I was 19. The plastic surgeon wasn’t able to get all the scar tissue (he was stunned when he got in there) but after a five-hour surgery, I look different. I mostly ended up with facelift and neck … neck something. When the swelling goes down, I’ll post pics. My jaw hasn’t looked like this since I was 19.  (Note from Mud—other than the mummy resemblance, she looks gorgeous.)

BOOK NEWS: I have a new compilation coming out the end of this month! TALES in the MIDST. Several of the six stories are from the Jane Yellowrock world, some with Mud and Angie, and one is the final revised Jane Yellowrock and Bruiser: The Elopement that Wasn’t. One is a reprint from Dirty Deeds 2, and one is a reprint from an anthology that had problems with internal matter. 

Some stories were seen in the newsletter, some in serial on the website, and one I think only a few people ever saw it all. I’ll be doing readings from the compilation starting this weekend, if I get my voice back. It isn’t up for preorder yet. I will announce when it goes up. But I thought you might like to see the way the cover turned out. 

The cover is spectacular! I used Rebecca Frank at Rebecca Frank Design and at Bewitching Covers. I work with her often and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her work! She does the Junkyard series covers, so you know she’s good! I used her intake form on her site where I told her about the book, gave her a single paragraph of description, and she came up with a mockup. Her email to me said: “Here’s what I came up with for the cover of Tales in the Midst! I wasn’t sure what you wanted to use for a subtitle, so I just put in a placeholder. If you want to change that, let me know. This still needs a lot of work – the bark texture is a bit messy and will be overpainted, and a lot of the details will still need to be painted as well. But let me know your thoughts so far and we can go from here. 

(MOCKUP of TALES in the MIDST below)

A superstar lineup is included in this urban fantasy collection featuring short stories from New York Times bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Holly Black, Kim Harrison, Faith Hunter, and more …

In this short story collection, our heroes get what’s due to them—with a supernatural flair.

But the injustices that have been holding…

This link will lead you to the PRH contest they are holding where you can win this lovely book.

****Labaka flashed his fangs at the new car and pulled a vamp-killer. Dumber than rocks.The driver—tall, dark, and half gorgeous—stepped like a dancer from his vehicle. New guy was Walter, wearing a black business suit, white shirt, and shiny shoes. His presence meant I’d been monitored by security all night, and Walter—the bodyguard who was blood-sworn to the queen to keep her godchildren safe—had left a meeting or a date to come save me. I was in trouble, one way or another.Labaka turned on Walter. Slashing out with a vamp-killer.Walter stepped inside the strike, knocked the short-sword away with a single block. Hit Labaka smack in the nose with the heel of his other hand. As the singer dropped, Walter caught him and slammed his head against his own car until the vamp went boneless. He threw Labaka ungently into his vehicle like a bale of hay.A weapon fired, cracking from the dark. Walter stumbled. Vamped out. Tore into the night. Three more gunshots sounded. Close. Deafening. Six seconds after vanishing into the dark, Walter reappeared, a limp man dangling over his shoulder. “I quite liked this suit,” he said casually, his old-fashioned upper-class British accent telling me more than anything that he was pissed.KeeKee and Lissa were standing inside the club, peeking out the open door, eyes and mouths wide. They knew me from college, knew about me being the queen’s godchild. But it wasn’t like I had ever displayed my fighting abilities or my magic to them. I had no idea how much they had seen.As he walked toward his car, Walter looked me over for injuries, studied the downed opponents, shook his head, and dropped the unconscious man at Berky’s feet. “This one is all yours.”The big bouncer looked from the unconscious man to Walter. “What am I supposed to do with him.”“Give him, give all of them, to the police,” Walter said, sounding eminently practical. “This looks like a terrible bit of gang warfare.”Berky looked around at all the prone bodies. “No, it doesn’t.”“Of course it does,” Walter said. “His weapon is in his suit pocket; his rounds mostly hit the club. The other rounds are inside me, so I’ll hang on to them a bit.”“No silver in them?” I asked too softly to carry. Silver was poison to vamps.“Oddly enough, no. I’m quite curious why.”

Mud’s Corner

Weather in Wisconsin is always a roll of the die. Yesterday, it was sunny, 60, and a nippy wind. Very springlike. Today, mid-afternoon, huge fluffy flakes fell from the sky, and now there are nearly three inches of nature’s dandruff on the ground. I’d play with MY TREES, but they are buried. Besides, I think Shine, my youngest springer, pruned it last fall. Again. It used to weep. Now it’s crying that it’s upright. (Culprit below). Time to plant tomatoes!