Maggie's Newsletter
June 1, 2008
Hi, wonderful readers!
 First
a big thank you to all those who bought
LOVER’S BITE and
helped to make it a New York Times’ Bestseller, a
USA Today Bestseller, an Amazon.com Bestseller,
and a Bookscan Bestseller! The feedback has been
excellent, and I’m so glad the book lived up to your
hopes and expectations. And I’m over the moon with the
brisk sales and stellar reviews. So THANKS!
And now on to news!
First, and most fun for
you, I think, Booknews!
 WEDDINGS
FROM HELL, the killer blockbuster anthology from
Harper, with Janienne Frost, Kathryn Smith, Terri Garey
and yours truly, will be hitting the shelves any day
now. It’s on sale date is May 27th, and
Amazon is taking pre-orders now. Do not miss this one!
And here’s a scoop for
you. The first look at the gorgeous cover for
ANGEL’S PAIN, coming
in October of this year. This one is Reaper and Briar’s
story and I really think you’re going to love it.
 I’ve
been trying to figure out why I like this cover best of
the three, and I think it’s a combination of the color,
that creepy green appeals to me, and the fact that the
hero’s face is smaller and shown at a better angle. In
the other two books the face took up the entire width
and nearly the length of the cover, and was facing dead
on (bad pun). I loved those covers, and they were
great, but this is even better.
Meanwhile, I’m hard at
work on a new vampire novel, BLOODLINE, for
release in May 2009. You’re going to love this one. I
can’t give too many clues, but I will tell you this.
You’re not going to believe the metamorphosis DPI
has undergone while we’ve all been blithely assuming
they’d been destroyed. Oh, they’re up to bad stuff this
time. Which means I get to have twice as much fun
bringing them down. Or rather, my vampires do.
So that’s my writing life
at the moment. Let me insert here some answers to two
questions I am asked Every Single Day.
*Yes, I do hope to write a
sequel to the Thicker/Colder/Darker trilogy
featuring Dawn Jones. No, I haven’t yet. Yes, I’ll
post here as soon as I know for sure. Nothing is carved
in stone. Even I don’t know for sure if it will
happen. But I do know I would like it to. And that’s
worth a whole lot. So stay tuned.
*No, I have no intention
of ending the vampire series. Ever.
Meanwhile, let’s talk
about the rest of life, shall we?
Work on the house is
progressing. It’s slow, and I complain a lot. Three
months is enough time to have built it from scratch.
But we just got the insulation up. It’s also plenty of
time for the insurance company to pay me, but I haven’t
seen that yet, either. Still, progress is being made,
bit by bit by bit. The doors and windows have even been
ordered! After ONLY 12 weeks! Wahoo! I can barely
stand the pace!
Okay, I’m being a bitch.
=) It’s necessary once in a while, just for mental
health reasons. It’s wearing on me, living in one room,
going to the laundromat, not having a kitchen. But it’s
hardly a hardship. A lot of people in the world have it
far worse. It’s just an irritation and one that is
passing with every minute.
I got a new grill and cook
out at least once a week, which is a great break from
frozen Healthy Choice meals cooked in the microwave.
I’m running three days a week, and the plan is to do
something else (DVD, bicycle, long walk, kayaking) on
the days in between, though that’s still just a good
intention. I don’t even have the kayak yet! I’ve told
the Universe that I’d like to find a pair of them used,
cheap, and in great shape. Just exactly what I need. I
also ordered up a car rack to carry them. So they
should be appearing in my path almost any day now.
My son-in-law Mike fixed
my lawn mower, swooping in like some kind of guardian
angel-mechanic, and so I’ve been able to keep up with
that, despite that the grass is growing at an
astronomical rate. I swear, the dandelions are four
inches higher within 48 hours or my mowing. But that’s
okay, too. Dozer LOVES dandelions. He rips into bunches
of them, and comes up with his mouth running over with
the yellow blossoms. He shakes them and growls at them
and throws them around and, yes, eats them.
Dozer, by the way, is
growing like crazy. At 4 months old he weighed in at 40
pounds, revealing a net gain of about 3 pounds per
week. He’s smart and wonderful and I don’t know how I
could possibly live without him. Thank goodness he’s
mine!
So life rolls on.
I haven’t posted here
since my latest adventure, so I’ll do that now. I had a
wonderful weekend in Altoona at the Florida Pagan
Gathering. Set on a Sellars Lake, at a campground, the
event drew more than 700 people. Guest Speakers
included the Australian band Spiral Dance, Yvonne and
Gavin Frost, Raven and Stephanie Gramassi, Christopher
Penszack, and many other. It was a fabulous
experience. The Saturday night drumming was still going
on when I left for the airport Sunday morning.
Amazing. I had a terrific photo shoot with my friend
Diane, and I’m hoping to use some of these in future
books and other PR. They came out great.
I made some great friends
in Florida, that’s for sure.
Mother’s Day was terrific,
but as always, a little bittersweet. I thought of my
mom, and I hunted down the tape she’d made when I was
fifteen, of her singing and strumming guitar. I never
knew it existed until after she died, when her sister
gave me a copy. I play it every Mother’s Day since.
But this year when I put the tape on, it wouldn’t play.
While it appeared undamaged, it must have been the heat
of the fire that warped it. That was a little hard to
take.
But on the up side, my
Gram promised to make me another copy, and this time I’m
going to transfer it to CD and also back it up on my
computer.
The rest of my Mom’s Day
was fantastic. The girls hosted a family breakfast at
Jessie & Ben’s place. We had everything yummy.
Calories don’t count for moms on their special day, you
know. So I indulged in blueberry pancakes, donuts,
banana muffins, fresh fruit and oh, so much more!
Dozer went with me and behaved admirably, if I do say so
myself.
The girls all pooled funds
to buy me a cedar porch swing, and I love it. What a
perfect gift. Since the inside of my house is still
mostly gutted, they gave me something to enhance the
outside! Perfect.
Then that evening, I had
pizza, tropical drinks (umbrellas and all) and movies
with the two youngest at their place. The drinks were
few and weak, for good reason, but we had a great time
and laughed until our sides nearly split. It was good.
A great mom’s day.
Most days have been very
good. A few, though, have been difficult, full of
delays, frustrations, and disappointments. I guess
that’s life. The secret is to have more good days than
bad, to find ways to feel happy in spite of whatever is
happening around you, and to gradually tip the balance,
in that way, toward the good stuff. You get what you
focus on, after all!
So that’s the update. I
can hardly wait until I can start posting pictures of
actual progress on the house. I hope it won’t be too
much longer!
Hugs,
Maggie
Maggie’s Feel-Good Websites:
www.hayhouseradio.com
www.abraham-hicks.com
www.effortlesshealing.com
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