Welcome!

Thank you for joining me on my journey as a writer!  I'll be posting reviews of favorites from my reading list, along with tips and advice, beta reading pet peeves, and other tools I pick up along my journey to trad publication. Interested in sneak previews of upcoming books?  Contact me to be a beta …

I’m Reading: Get a Life, Chloe Brown, by Talia Hibbert

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill web designer who wants to experience life away from the hovering and smothering care of her family. So she gets an apartment and makes a list: Do something bad, ride a motorcycle, go camping, enjoy a drunken night out, have meaningless but enjoyable sex, and travel the world with …

I’m Reading: Highland Games by Evie Alexander

Zoe uproots everything when her great-uncle leaves her a run-down cabin in the Scottish Highlands. The cabin is the scene of her happiest childhood memories, and she hopes it will be where she finds herself and her future away from the pressures of London life. But her rosy memories of a rustic summer are no …

I’m Reading: So Not My Thing by Melanie Jacobson

Elle Jones has learned the hard way that the Internet is forever. After a humiliating teenage rejection by her pop star crush went viral, it threatened to follow her forever. But she regrouped and rebuilt. She's now on track to a wildly successful career in New Orleans real estate...until the man who wrecked her life …

I’m Reading: The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

Catalina Martín has a problem. When she discovered that her newly-engaged ex would be best man at her sister's wedding in Spain, she may have accidently let slip that she would be bringing a date. Not just a date, though, a boyfriend. A handsome, charming, non-existent boyfriend. It was that or showing up single (again) …

I’m Reading: The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

Calla Fletcher is pure city girl. A banking analyst and aspiring social media influencer in Toronto, her life is all about fancy coffee and high fashion. Then she gets the call. Her estranged biological father, an Alaska bush pilot and small airline owner, is sick. Calla must decide if she wants this chance to repair …

How to Receive Beta Reader Feedback

I can talk about writing craft and grammar, POV and character development. I can (and will) discuss how to give feedback on other people's work. But one of the hardest skills a writer must develop is the ability to receive criticism. Some people reportedly love criticism. They leap to the harshest editor they can find …

I’m Reading: Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Elle's blind date with the beautiful, snobby sister of her new business partner is a disaster, but she considers that emblematic of her life in general. It's for the best, really. Darcy strikes her as a particular kind of stick-up-the-butt snob who would hate everything about Elle and her chaotic life. But every time her …

Commas and Hyphens in Adjectives, Oh My!

Multiple adjectives modifying a single noun need commas, right? But in a writing group I'm in, we spent some time debating why this sentence is incorrect: "He sat at a hand carved, oak dining table." We could all tell by instinct that it is incorrect, but had trouble expressing why. The correct punctuation would be: …

I’m Reading: Finding Joy by Adriana Herrera

Warning: Contains Spoilers 26-year-old American Desta Joy Walker begin his life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The country was his father's first love as well as the place of his death. When Desta tries to follow in his father's footsteps as an aid worker, he finds the shoe doesn't quite fit. He reconnects with his heritage …

Double-Duty Description

I struggle with description. I'm not a visual person. In fact, sometimes I have to pull up a bunch of images or videos online to serve as a guide when trying to really evoke a person or place. So when I encounter description in a book, the question of "how much" description to use is …