On to the next

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The Haverhill Pie Syndicate was a group of ladies form church who all made pies for occasions like Christmas and funerals. A few of the ladies had moved on to other churches in the last few years, but they still un.jpg

Hallelujah! I finally finished the first draft of my Southern women’s fiction novel. The current working title is Haverhill Harmony, but that is likely to change. Since I usually pick the title after the book is done, I can’t say what the final title would be but I have some ideas.

Seven years after the end of Cauldron, Amy has picked up the pieces of her life. She’s put together an impressive resume as a marketing consultant and moved far away to San Diego, but she’s not really as satisfied with her success as she thought she would be. When she inherit’s her great aunt Ralph’s crumbling Victorian house in her hometown of Haverhill, North Carolina, Amy decides to head home and supervise the renovation and sale of the house. She thinks it will be all business and then she’ll go back to her career in San Diego. Things don’t turn out the way she plans when she’s asked to help revive her family’s dying community church, and her best friend, Barrett, turns up on her doorstep looking for a revival of his own. To add to her complications, she can’t seem to resist her attraction to her contractor, Fleming Sinclair, the last person she would have expected to find in Haverhill.

It would be a lie to say that I hadn’t thought about what kissing Fleming Sinclair would be like. I had…a lot. I had imagined a conflagration of desire so hot they’d have to take us to the burn unit. I had imagined.jpg
For those who have never witnessed a moping pug, a good pug-mope consists mainly of lumbering around even slower, a lot of groaning and pooping in front of the door usually just after returning from a walk..jpg

This book promises to be a lot of fun. There are familiar characters in Amy. her old pal Barrett. and Fleming Sinclair, plus some new characters in the form of a handsome young minister, a cantankerous old gossip and a geriatric pug named Steve McQueen.

As always it needs revision, and it won’t be released before the next Once & Future book. Haverhill picks up seven years after the end of Cauldron, so there might be a Once & Future spoiler or two for keen eyed series readers. Although this book follows Amy Monroe, it is not a fantasy book. Instead it is Southern women’s fiction, and hopefully funnier than the Once & Future books. Amy is a particularly sassy character and her internal voice is so much fun to write.

Now that I have drafted this novel, I can get back to Sarah and Dermot. That’s a good thing, because they’ve been whispering in my ear for the last month. I’ve been plotting Book 4 off and on all this time and have most of it outlined. There is a bit more plotting to do, but I should start writing soon. I’m looking forward to getting back to these characters.