Progress on new book!

Manuscript with red edit marks

It’s happening! After months, well actually, years of life challenging me from many different directions, I’ve finally been able to refocus some of my energy on the thriller I started in 2021, and sort of finished in 2024. And I’m loving it! Female serial killer - fun! (To write. I’m certainly not cheering on serial killers of any sort in real life.) Is there maybe more than one female serial killer in the book? Hmmm…

There are lots of juicy goings-on in this book. So much so that I’ve been told (as was mentioned in a previous blog post) that it’s “too long” for readers in this day and age where attention spans last all of 30 seconds (give or take?) thanks to social media. And I admit, if I’m on Instagram and something doesn’t grab me pretty quickly, along I will scroll. BUT, that is not the same for me with books. I’ll give books much more time to bring me in. Hopefully other readers do the same.

Still, I took that “too long” feedback to heart (and, honestly, it was pretty long…but I still loved it) and committed to trimming word count. MUCH easier said than done. I cut a whole murder! I’m deleting a character I love! I took away screen time from another character that I hate-loved! {heavy sigh} Even after all of that, it will be a challenge to do more. Or decide that enough is enough. I want to be sure the story doesn’t lose the “magic” I’m getting from it. We shall see. But if all goes well, this book formerly known as Scaled Justice (it’s getting a revised title, too) will be published in 2026. Fingers crossed!