Hi elf lovers,

I've been hard at work on the second book in the Valley Glen Elves world. In book one of the series, we can see that Ambassador Lilliana and Historian Strailer have met before. I have been dying to tell their story. Love and Lab Extractions will be my next release and it's a prequel to the main series.

Not really a novella

I planned on writing a cute little novella about their romance as teens. Fifty thousand words later, I realized there's still more to this story. So Lilliana and Strailer's story is going to be a full-sized novel about their opposites-attract love story.

Sometimes, editing makes you dig deep

Lilliana likes things done just right. She's a stickler for details and she's sometimes quick to judge other people by her exacting standards. I got great feedback about the storyline during the first round of readers, but some people thought Lilliana is a little too judgy. A little too harsh. Kinda bitchy. The thing is ... I love her hard edges. I wanted to help people understand her better, but I also didn't want to tone her down.

She struggles with perfectionism. She's an enneagram one -- The Improver. The Perfectionist. It was actually a conversation with another enneagram one that helped with my editing breakthrough. She told me the perfectionist's deep motivation was to "do the right thing." There's one part in the story where Lilliana tells a white lie to the male main character, Strailer, to cover for her boyfriend's jealousy. I realized that Lilliana would feel deeply guilty over being caught lying. And that's when her character's vulnerability opened up for me.

The book, Love and Lab Extractions is at the editor now and I'm curious to see what Megan at Willow Oaks Author Services says about Lilliana now.

Cover Reveal Teaser

Wanna see the cover? Here's a teaser for you:

Want more? I'm not good at keeping secrets so the full cover is already on the website.

Would you like an Advanced Reader Copy ebook?

I'm always looking for folks to help out with reviewing early copies of my books. If you'd like a free ebook copy and to be part of the launch team, click here to sign up.

Speaking of books, I'm part of two promos this month.

The first one is a bunch of books released with the theme of Women in Fantasy

The second one is a group of free books around the theme of Broody Heros. It includes the first six chapters of Cascade of Sparks. Jovan, the male love interest in that book, is definitely grumpy and broody.

I hope you have a great June and happy reading!

Mary