Good morning, everyone!  It’s a gloomy day here, and the ocean is so choppy I can almost see old pirate ships and sea monsters.  Yesterday was fun – thanks so much for all the love for SAFE FROM THE FIRE!  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll stop by Amazon and give it a review.  If you haven’t gotten a copy yet, the bundled Bright’s Ferry 1 & 2 will be available this afternoon.

Next up, Muses!   SHADOW OF THE RAVEN, which comes out the 15th, centers on a powerful but lonely witch and the Muse she dallies with.  I’ve already gotten quite a few questions about making the muses male, so I wanted to chat about that today.  Why?  Why make these beautiful, mysterious mythical figures into men?  Well, my first thought was that if I wrote them right, my heroines would find each of them pretty inspirational.  The prequel is set in ancient times, but the series moves us into the present, and I thought it would be fun to have these incredibly powerful  men have to struggle to understand modern ways of life and modern women.  The wonderful thing about writing paranormal stories is that nothing is off limits, so HEARTS OF STONE will mix Greek, Norse, Egyptian, and Native American mythology, not to mention some good, old-fashioned monsters and demons.  I can’t wait!

As for making Cal into a sexy, clueless Muse of Epic Song, I was happy to find that a lot of the classical mythology translates nicely.  He’s a man of great wisdom, but mortals baffle him.  He’s all about fairness and justice, but human emotion is messy and uncomfortable.  He’s in for a few surprises…LOL…

I still have a few chunks of SHADOW to get through this week, so I’ll leave it there – there’s plenty of time to get to know Cal – he’s our hero in SHADOW, but I’m giving him the first Hearts of Stone book as well!

Happy Reading!