I am so happy to announce the launch of my second fantasy/romantasy novel in the Murder of Crows series set by Lake Michigan and Lake Superior: White Hurricane. This book takes place in something like 25 dimensions of parallel reality, all fighting for the future of the world to come back into balance amidst life force energy being drained out of people and animals alike by strange nature spirit guides that hop dimensions with our characters (who are trying to have a romance in the middle of this and the awkward situation of being not quite the same species).

For launch day, I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes into how this story came about. I hope you pick up a copy for your next beach vacation!

Purchase Murder of Crows White Hurricane Now on Amazon

Murder of Crows: White Hurricane -- The Backstory

So during the writing of this book, I was sick. Like really really sick. I'll spare you details, but the upshot of the situation was

1. the illness pushed me back to publishing and remote work promoting lakefront Michigan lifestyle brand that ties in with my publishing work

2. I learned a LOT about healing

I saw doctors, I saw specialists out of state. I saw shamans, and threw everything I could at the problem. But the problem, in the end, was that my connective tissue is fragile from a genetic mutation. Here's the thing, though. This took 3-4 years to figure out, 3 decades to get diagnosed despite a lifetime of odd health problems and injuries that wouldn't heal. There WERE no answers when I started. We only know that my hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome is caused by a mutation to the KLK15 kallikrein gene because I had the opportunity to be part of the first research study looking for the genetic root of this problematic disorder that causes joint dislocations, gut problems, neurological dysfunction, anaphylactic reactions (your immune cells are embedded in your connective tissue) and much more. After the long journey of the last few years, I realized I knew a great deal about healing from a practical and emotional level -- but also from a physics perspective.

Along the way, I became fascinated with how healing can make use of the mind-body connection. It isn't just that the body can get sick when triggered by extreme mental or physical stress. It can also heal by the same pathways. I studied how modern physics (string theory, M Field theory) embraces this idea of the mind and body having multiple points of connection, which can be "traveled" like pathways in the mind and body to fix somatized traumatic tension in the muscles and nervous system and brain, and so on.

What would happen if characters in a fantasy novel kept bumping up against each other rather than traveling intentionally between "realms"? It's not a literal take on what I was studying while healing this flared disorder, but it was a way to have fun with all the material I absorbed while surviving about 3 dozen ER visits with closing throat, mysterious bruising, fainting, you name it. At this point we are really REALLY sure I don't have lupus or lymphoma thank goodness. Gods bless the individuals who had to fight through that as well, such as singer Halsey who got the same diagnoses a couple of years ago while I was in the trenches with this fight.

That's the thing about this book. It's fun, it's a romance that's a bit of an interspecies devotional sacrificial love story: inspired by how strong my husband had to be while I was sick without even being able to understand what was happening to me. But it's also dead serious: during this battle for my health, I realized a couple of things.

1. Nothing is worth being this sick. I had to change Cronicle and my writing work to a real estate investment and lifestyle brand to find something I could do on a flexible schedule. Because EDS still doesn't have a cure, and MCAS, the anaphylactic sidecar to this circus, doesn't have great treatments yet. I had to change my entire life around being more relaxed to stay healthy. At this point I realized it wasn't really a choice anymore.

2. I am dead serious even after this decade-long break in publishing fantasy fiction and magical realism about helping people who have been oppressed by illness or people or circumstances to find their voice.

Stay tuned for some classes on finding your voice. Instead of book signings I don't have the energy to run, I think I'm going to put together a remote class instead and test it on a few in-person local events in Michigan. If you have any topics you'd like explored to give me some ideas to start for writing prompts, please let me know in comments or on social media. What we are going to explore in these classes is the same thing I'm exploring in this book, which is live today in paperback and ebook on Amazon: how can you find your way with your intuition when no one explains the rules of reality to you and you have to figure it out as you go along?

I hope you love the story! I have linked book 1 and book 2 below in case you'd like to start at the beginning of the series. I have made book 1's ebook free for an easy start to try the series. Thanks for your support and encouragement through all this crazy last few years. I'm super excited to roll out a lot of content for you related to these topics and remote work in the coming months.

BOOK 2 Launching Today: Murder of Crows White Hurricane

BOOK 1 free ebook to start series: Murder of Crows Reverse All Tides