What's in store for 2016?

At seven months pregnant, I'm slipping into that lovely nesting stage where I want everything organized and ready for the baby. Somehow, that has extended to my characters and their stories because I know that I'll be useless when the baby arrives. I go into hibernation and don't emerge for a good three months.

So to ring in the New Year's right I wanted to talk about what books will be published and what I am or plan on writing.

First up? 

UNHINGE releases in DAYS.

Nine Days to be exact. (But who's counting?)

That's terrifying to me because I tend to be more attached to the Fairfax cast than most of my characters. I'm obsessed with their flaws and the inner workings of their minds. They always feel so real to me.Victoria is no exception. Like Naomi, she feels trapped in Fairfax. She's starting to realize that she doesn't belong there. Yet in order to leave she has to uncover the past and find out what led her to Fairfax in the first place.

Her story, to me, was equally as heartbreaking as Naomi's but for completely different reasons. I remember when I first wrote about her in Unravel. Even then she was very compelling to me. Who was this beautiful woman, walking around in full make-up, pajamas and that fur coat? Why was she always humming to her baby? Why did she speak in riddles and always look like her head was in the clouds?

She was enchanting yet I knew that there was something gruesome in her past and I HAD to find out.

I'd be the biggest liar if I said Victoria's book was easy to write. It wasn't. There were so many layers to her story and I had to flesh out every single part. Even the parts that were extremely dark.

But I'm so happy in how her story turned out. I hope you all enjoy her story. And I hope you're excited to walk back down the halls of Fairfax!!


Up next?

LACHLAN, LACHLAN, LACHLAN! 

Yes, he has a book. :) For the past year I've been outlining and working on scenes for his story whenever I had the chance. And while there's a huge part of me that is so ready to go back to the characters of Unravel, I'm also scared out my mind.
Naomi gripped ahold of my heart while I wrote her story. It's easy to connect with her but hard to detach from her. And she plays such a HUGE role in Lachlan's story.

There's not much I can say without spoiling the story, just that Unravel started it all. Unlock will end it.

Not the cover. Just an image that reminds me of Lachlan's story. :) 

LASTLY..
I'm extremely excited to start digging into The Surviving Trace.
I love this story with all my heart. When I open up the manuscript or even do research, my pulse picks up because there's something so special about this book. There's many elements as to why. One being that at the beginning (seven years ago) this story and characters were once part of Unravel. About six months before I published Unravel I cut this HUGE chunk out. I'm talking 50k worth of words. (Yeah it's just a number but believe me, it kills a writers heart.) There was just SO MUCH already going on in Unravel. It would've been too much storyline.
But I couldn't delete this other half of the story. It had less to do about the amount of words but the worth of them and what they meant to me. So much about TST made my heart race and screamed at me to finish.
So I put it away, determined that at some point I'd open the manuscript back up.

Every day I work on this story I find something different to love about it. It's unique and that's a breath of fresh air for me.  

Fairfax stories present their own challenges, like not revealing anything too soon. And The Surviving Trace has the same vibe— I have to watch how I introduce certain characters or how a scene plays out. TST has mystery and suspense, but at its core it is nothing but a love story.

I can't wait for you all to meet Serene and Étienne!! (If you look through the first chapter of Unravel you will see the smallest glimpse of them. ;) )

2016 may not seemed horribly packed, but I like it this way. 2015 was filled with nothing but comparisons. Of me watching other authors publish, publish, publish while I was trying to finish just one story. I want to slow down and really appreciate my characters. I only have one chance to enjoy their stories and it's so easy to forget that.