Happy witch-y and leaf-y month, !
NB: This is a time-sensitive message so I'm writing a little early this week. 😊 After this, we'll be back to our regular routine of sending the Sheltie Gazette towards the end of the week, so you'll hear from me next Friday-ish.
I just got back from Denver for the RMFW conference. It's always wonderful to get to connect in person with other writers, who are also readers! This one was extra special because I was a presenter at a writers'-con for the first time. I love teaching and talking about books, so it's always fun to combine them in a fresh way. If you know of a podcast or a book club where you'd like to see me, please connect!
Read on for my author-ish celebration of the week, two dresses that are worth the trouble of laundering, and Malin's latest talking buttons.... this one melts my heart!
Last day for 99c early bird pricing
My publisher will be raising The Domestic Diplomat to its regular price of $3.99 on October 8th, so if price is a deciding factor for you then be sure to reserve your copy today!
I have been trying to figure out how to market this book on social media, and it's been a tricky one. The problem is, I designed this book around the characters first, and the plot second, and somewhere at a distant 17th came concerns about how to fit it into a snappy one-sentence social media post.
Like I said last week, I think this book is both more sweeping and also more intimate than anything else I have out there. As for the characters—I loved staying with Peter, Celia, Marianne, and Leavenworth for two books in a row, and Peter's siblings (who don't arrive until the end) have a special place in my heart. They insisted that I tell their story.
So rather than a snappy graphic, here are three reasons you would want to read The Domestic Diplomat:
You appreciate books whose scope goes beyond a single flashy premise or a list of tropes
You want to both laugh and cry when you read
It has absolutely the most gorgeous, delicate, rose-garden-full cover ever
Try out a new story... a laundress who doesn't need a husband
Now that you have a to-die-for fictional pink dress, you need a purple one too — and a laundress who can manage all this delicate lace and silk. The fr*e story that Andrea has for you today has both the dress and the laundress, and a complex plot with revenge, "peeler" police force, and opera singers.
I currently have a soft spot for Regency romance about anyone unexpected, and laundresses and undercover police force certainly work. I've downloaded this already, and invite you to do the same!
Drumroll 🥁 for celebration 🎂 please!!!
Last night, I finished the manuscript for The Musician & the Marquess and sent it off for my beloved editor's (and I quote) "brand of terror" to be unleashed upon it. This is a full week ahead of the schedule I had set myself, and gives me some breathing room to do edits (and let Katie rip it to shreds) before it's due to my publisher.
I am super proud of myself for finishing this ahead of deadline and during some of the most chaotic months of the mother-school calendar.
But it's also good news for you!... especially if you are looking forward to the next two parts of the trilogy for Oona & the Swan. (Which, by the way, is also still on sale for a couple of days.) My re-imagining of Ireland's two most famous fairy tales is coming up soon!
Matheson does a wonderful job of developing their individual voices, and in doing so she also beautifully captures the struggles, joys, frustration, humor, and love found in raising a family through both the ordinary moments like managing dinner time and pickups and school struggles and the not so ordinary moments, like a magical swan in the bathtub.
—Elizabeth Huang, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Malin's sweetest words of the week
As many of you remember, we use "talking buttons" for the dogs — Malin is pretty much the only one who uses them as designed, although Sálie has started using her own mini-button board this week too! Before I left for the conference, I added some more buttons. The way I do it, I teach the vocabulary before adding the button, so I say a particular word clearly and repeatedly in a certain context over and over — like many of you do with your pets. So by the time I add the button, Malin already knows what it means.
So it was the sweetest thing in the world when I got back from the conference and Malin said "I love you." He pushed lots of "Mama," "I love you," "home," "happy," and "together" the first day I was back. Believe me, I gave him lots of love and cuddles too!
He also uses the button board creatively to express all sorts of firmly held opinions. Today, we've had a tree service taking out some of the trees leaning over our house. (I'm sad to see them go—but remember the tree that came through our roof last Christmas? My husband doesn't want any more of those.) None of us like all the noise and smell, and Malin spent the first hour running from room to room barking at them.
When that didn't work and the evil men remained in our driveway making noise, Malin tried the buttons. He pushed "outside" and stared very deliberately at where the men were working, then pushed "all done" and "bye-bye."
Sadly, the workers obeyed the contract to remove the trees rather than one determined Sheltie with a set of buttons.
Happy reading!
I hope where you are, it is merely leaves that are falling and not entire trees swinging past your window!
Bye-bye and good night, <— (that's Malin talking)
Cookie cookie play play play, <—(that one's Sálie)
Christy & the Shelties
Malin is the goodest boy
Any reasonable puppy would be distressed at a tree floating past their window
No pictures of me teaching, but here I am signing books at the RMFW conference!
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