New Waverly book is here! Waverly tackles systemic police corruption while babysitting so if RAGE mixed with ABSOLUTE HILARITY is your thing, here’s the book for you.

Two months ago, Waverly Jones was given a reason to remain in her small hometown of Port Milton indefinitely. Her problem is that even for a private investigator who has solved several high-profile cases, her client pool in the area is limited, and there isn’t enough regular work to justify taking on the odd pro bono job—especially when strapped for cash because her agency is no longer a single-person operation, either.

For the first time, Waverly has an assistant—one who is as much her moral compass as he is a welcoming face to those in need of an investigator. So when the grieving, working-class mother of Madison Simmons—whose body was found in the woods after the spring thaw—comes to them for help, Waverly can’t say no, even if the sliding scale won’t be enough to cover it.

Despite the failure of authorities to look for Madison when she went missing, the death has since been confirmed a suicide. Still, questions plague her mother: why the sudden change in Madison’s behaviour before she died? What factors drove her to suicide?

And could there have been another person involved?

Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook – Payhip – Paperback – Hardcover 

I’m taking the day mostly offline–I’m going to take another stab at the rewrite of Waverly 4 (I think once I get this first chapter sorted, I’ll be more confident going forward), reorganize my tax expenses, take a shower, consider a walk. Release days are weird because there’s a build-up of energy but nowhere for it to go, because books are rare read right away, so you can spend two years of your life on something, anticipating it being read, and then it might take a while before you know if it has been (or was liked). (Also adding: someone read it early, a couple of people are currently reading it, and those folks have all loved it, so I am pretty lucky in that regard.)

Amazon is taking a few weeks to ship if you’re getting the hardcover, but hopefully your patience will be rewarded because this is (IMO) a great book–some more clues for the series arc, Waverly Being Waverly, glimpses at WHY Waverly is the way she is, several social justice rants in a trenchcoat, the behind-the-scenes section is loaded with long rants on the concept of unlikeable women. And while every book in the series is a little different–the character dynamics are always changing, etc–this book is sort of the prime example of my somewhat joking tagline: “She’s a feral cat. He’s a Disney prince. Together THEY SOLVE CRIME.”

(One day I will be able to afford commissioning a Disney-style drawing to that effect.)

I will try to get the soundtrack post up for Sunday, I just have to dig out the songs from it. (The only one I remember off the top of my head is Ashley Johnson’s in-character cover of “Take on Me” for the putting-together-a-bed-and-awkwardly-pining chapters.)

A reminder that Silent All These Years–Waverly 4, which is primarily focused on The Crossroads Butcher, as well as some of Waverly’s, uh, choices having consequences–is not due out until May 6 2025, so there’s no preorder outside of Kobo because everywhere else makes me wait until it’s a year away.

So I hope you enjoy this one and if you’re not started on Waverly, you can get the first book for 25% off with the code MEETWAVERLY over at Payhip.

Alternate title: Hauntings and Steps

Next week I’ve got a Patreon post going up about my reset days–not the Day Reset I talked about here, but turning off the WiFi at least once a week first thing in the morning has been helping with burnout. I got the new Waverly novella (which was supposed to be a short story) done and a round of revision in, a big revision pass on Taiga Ridge done, and other stuff the past few weeks.

The new novella is Haunting at Hayward House, about Waverly being asked to investigate a haunted house, and it’ll be included with The Killing Beach as part of a collection coming to StoryBundle this May, curated by Margaret at Tyche Books.

I thought it would be a short story, aiming for 5K, figuring it would come in just under 10K.

It’s…currently sitting at 20K.

I have to do another pass on it to add some flesh and tension, and trim some stuff out, but I expect the final count to still be over 20K. 😬 I’ll be able to reuse it later as well–it takes place after the fourth book, so next year when that comes out in hardcover, this will be included in the bonus section there, along with another short (yes, actually short) story I’ve already written.

Still, I’ve declared we’d better sell a bazillion copies of this bundle when it’s live.

Speaking of StoryBundle–I need review quotes for Waverly, preferably specifically The Killing Beach. If you’re an author or a reviewer who has read it and can give me a line or two for a blurb, I would appreciate it! I would like to avoid looking at store sites and GoodReads for reviews if possible, for my mental health lol. I mostly reuse review quotes from other books when I need them (I do not send out review copies; it’s stressful and I’ve had some bad experiences), but I need to supply ones specific to The Killing Beach. As thanks, I can send you an e-copy of the new novella when it’s done in May!

I’ve been getting my steps in this week while working on taxes–it’s such a mess, tracking everything from both my writing business and my freelance business and getting it all sorted. My writing income is up a little from 2022, which surprised me since there was no new Livi book (although Charon’s Gold didn’t do well, a new one in the series tends to give the others a boost) and my other new releases did really poorly, but it’s basically Patreon’s influence–sixty percent of my writing income is from patron support. I don’t think I can possibly thank everyone sufficiently, but it truly is making a massive difference.

So about 8500 of my steps today came while I was doing taxes, because combining two things I don’t want to do but need to is apparently the way to actually get them done. If only I could talk and walk at the same time, I’d knock some phone calls off my list, but having to focus really hard on processing auditory information means I’d likely trip and break something.

I feel like I’m finally crawling my way out of burnout, so hopefully another few weeks of lying low and getting through taxes, medical appointments next month, and freeing up my schedule a little when I get this novella done, I’ll be able to tackle some of my writing to-do list.

Alone at Night Hardcover Update:

I said this on Bluesky but I’ll repeat here: I do not have my new hardcovers yet. They have not even been printed. They will be for sale on Amazon as of April 2 regardless, but I’m annoyed as I was hoping to hand-sell a few signed ones early as I make more (buying on Amazon, I make about $3 on them, which is very little for the extra work that goes into them) and had bought ten, which is a huge chunk of money to part with. So…yes, they are coming! I do not know when! 😬

“I need to post on the blog,” I’ve been thinking, and then I left the post draft open in a background tab for three hours.

There is nothing terribly interesting happening, other than things to whine about, and no one likes that. Medication hassle! Not sleeping! Back taxes! The crushing weight of working in publishing during capitalism! The usual.

The Dweller sale picked up some new readers, in no small part due to the shares on Bsky, so I hope they grab some of the other standalones. I’m focused on trying to refill the writing well as much as possible because I’ve got a lot of stuff I need to write this spring, including a Waverly short to be included with a StoryBundle thing in May, and I’m gutting and rewriting large chunks of Waverly 4 from scratch.

Final files for Alone at Night are almost entirely done–I just need to add the usual patron thanks, and in the case of the hardcover, finish some illustrations (I am doing them myself, so they’re not as good as Alan’s but I don’t have the funds to pay for complex drawings this time around), and complete the full wraps. Print should release in time with the ebooks on April 2.

I noted this on Bsky but I will say it here in the hopes of reaching more people:

If you buy paperbacks…

Stuff comes up and people forget; books are expensive and people delay buying, etc–I know this, that’s cool. But if you want Waverly specifically in paperback, please start purchasing the second and, when released, third book.

I’m happy to put out print for those readers, but my usual print buyers have been getting the Waverly hardcovers–which is great! I am so glad to sell a couple copies of those given all the work that goes into them.

But when it comes to paperback sales, I checked, and A Wild Kind of Darkness sold one copy. One. The first sold 6 (and there’s one return and/or cancelled order give Amazon has a discounted one sitting there). I have not even hand-sold books; I got five at my author’s discount, put one on my shelf, and gave one to my mother. I still have three for sale, they’ve never moved.

Having paperbacks introduces extra problems with KDP as I’ve talked about before. When people return paperbacks, or when they cancel an order as it’s being printed, a copy ends up sitting in a warehouse, and Amazon will keep lowering the price over and over trying to get rid of it. I have to then unpublish the paperback entirely so that they actually sell the warehouse copy, otherwise they’ll just print and ship a new one at the discount, and the discount remains. Eventually, they will start dropping my Kindle price to match, and I get paid on the discounted price, not retail, plus there’s the risk of price-matching.

It’s fine if I’m actually selling copies, but most of the time I don’t in print and, again, this is a huge potential headache for me–I have a lot of books, and it’s a lot to monitor.

If Alone at Night, the third in the series, is not moving paperback copies, I’ll just be doing ebook and hardcover for this series from the fourth book on.

So consider this a heads-up, it’s totally okay if folks don’t want paperbacks! But if you do…I have to actually see copies selling to justify the time and stress that goes into making them lol. If the fourth isn’t in paperback next year, that’s why.

eBook buyers, make sure you preorder! I’m three shy of the last one’s preorder numbers on Kindle and it would be nice to know she’s got that tiny core audience.

Kindle – Kobo – iBooks – Nook