Release Day: A Wild Kind of Darkness

The second Waverly Jones Mystery is out in the world today, at long last.

This is the last of the six books I wrote/finished in the back half of 2021, if y’all were around then. I was extremely sick with a relapse, taking expired prednisone I had in my cupboard from 2014 to patch me through until I could see a doctor in January, and I just went nuts writing all the things (some hypomania from pred contributed to that). I finished Witch Hunt, wrote Dweller on the Threshold, finished The Killing Beach (at long last), finished Charon’s Gold (at long last), then for NaNoWriMo in November I wrote Watcher of the Woods and A Wild Kind of Darkness.

That buffer has carried me through and given me some breathing room so I wasn’t scrambling to figure out what my next release would be.

Of all the books, Dweller and AWKoD were perhaps the ones I enjoyed the most. The Killing Beach took me four years to write; by contrast, AWKoD just flowed like water. The cold case in the book is based on a real-life unsolved murder from East Gwillimbury, Ontario, which I go into detail about in the behind-the-scenes look in the hardcover edition.

Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook | Payhip | Paperback | Hardcover | Signed Paperback on Etsy

A startling find has altered Waverly Jones’ whole world and given her a reason to stay in her hometown of Port Milton—which means she needs work to pay some bills. So when she’s asked to look into a sixty-year-old double homicide cold case, she takes the job, no matter how unlikely it is to be solved.

Behind decades of rumours and theories—most of them scandalous and unsubstantiated—a portrait of an unconventional woman in a very conventional small town takes form, and the murder baffles even Waverly. The evidence and case files are gone, the leads from sixty years ago were dead ends, and while there is no shortage of suspects and motives, it seems impossible any of the witnesses are still alive—let alone the culprit.

On top of that, the mystery disappearance of the detective she’s been in love with since she was seventeen finally has some answers, but has led to even more questions. What actually befell him eleven years ago? What happened to The Crossroads Butcher?

And will her sister’s body ever be found?

Amazon is very behind with hardcover shipping–I have copies of The Killing Beach in stock at Etsy but not the new one, and if ordering from Amazon yourself, expect a delay. (Out of my hands, I’m sorry.)

I generally take release days off in “celebration” by which I mean I know I need time to do admin things (like newsletters, blog, remind social media I exist, and so on) and I…write. Because writing is my idea of a good time. Plus I’ve got NaNoWriMo, juggling two projects, and I always hit 50K by day seven, so I’m hoping to today as well, just 5K to go though it’s cumulative instead of a single project (although I wanted a 10K day).

It’s 2:30 pm.

I haven’t even gotten to the “remind social media I exist” part yet (other than whining on Bsky).

The past several months in particular have been like the Bride v Crazy 88s scene in Kill Bill. Last week I reached the point where I thought much of the battle was over, and then yesterday it was like O-Ren Ishii showed up and said, “You didn’t think it was gonna be that easy, did you?”

You know, for a minute there? Yeah, I kinda did.

Who is paying for Skyla’s medication now? We don’t know! Pharmacy needs a thing from insurance. Insurance says it’s not a thing yet. Government won’t pay without the thing. What is going on? I have no idea! But sure, let’s go back to making it complicated, right when I’ve got confirmation it’s working.

I was chasing stuff down last night, the pharmacy woke me early this morning about the delayed shipment, so I have not slept and I’m running on fumes.

Happy release day to me, indeed. Silly rabbit.

I hope you get a chance to pick up and read the new book, and that you enjoy it as much as I do.

The third book, Alone at Night, is also up for preorder: Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook 

If you’re a Kobo reader and haven’t picked up the first yet, The Killing Beach is currently part of Kobo’s Mystery BOGO Sale for the month of November. If you need a second title, have you tried Trouble Wore Red? A completely different PI story, totally bonkers, and will leave you grinning (possibly with sympathy knee pain and heartburn if you are over forty like the protagonist).

I’m going to crash for a bit, rest my eyes (if Shawn will stop causing crime; he did not sleep well either and is in full goblin mode), and hope I either check later and find an email from someone telling me what I need to do or that they’ve fixed things, or that I at least feel awake enough to get some words in.