Hello again! I promise to keep this post short and sweet!

As many of you know, I write books that involve the spirit world…cozy paranormal mysteries is what I like to call them! My Tess Schafer-Medium series (all found on my author page on Amazon) includes many of the things that I’ve learned and encountered over the years. They also include things that others have experienced and shared with me! Mostly, though, my imagination is let loose and they pretty much write themselves.  Honestly, it’s how I feel when I’m working on a book…I’m just the typist, taking dictation and wondering what is going to happen next! I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again because it’s worth repeating…our IMAGINATION is the way IN to the spirit world! It also opens the door to spirit coming IN to ours!

My recent book Tangled Up Hearts has nothing to do with the paranormal. It’s a straight up, contemporary romance … my first one to be published!

In this story I wanted to show how a lack of communication and bad assumptions can really mess up a relationship! AND, I wanted to show how those things can be overcome, cleared up and forgiven, bringing happily-ever-after (with continued hard work!) to the lucky couple!

I have to tell you…if I am reading a romance and it doesn’t have a Happily-Ever-After ending…I will NEVER read that author again and I will feel very cheated! (expectations can make or break us, they really can!)

Okay, back to my book. But first, how the story idea came to be. When I was in the military (I served in the Air Force for twenty years, five months and seventeen days) I worked in a career field that consisted of about 90 percent men! In some places (I moved around a LOT), I was the ONLY female on a particular crew! As I went up in rank, I started attending meetings and I can’t even tell you how many of them I went to where I was the only woman present. Talk about feeling invisible! (it often seemed to be the general feeling that I didn’t know anything because I was JUST a girl). Although many of the men in those meetings didn’t give a hoot what I had to say, I made a point of speaking up anyway. Not that it mattered much because I was a female and my opinion wasn’t worth their notice! I did, however, get a great deal of satisfaction out of saying “I told you so” when things went as I HAD EXPECTED and EXPRESSED!

Um, ya, I’m getting off point. That happens when I start talking about my military days. Old resentments and all that…let me shake them off!

Okay, I’m ready to move on!

Aside from fighting for a smidgen of equality, there were a few perks for my situation as well. Working with that many men gave me the opportunity to hear THEIR side of the relationship sob stories (whether I wanted to hear them or not!) Also, being the only female, they expected me to explain to them the mysteries of women! Why do women this and why do women that…why, why, why! They (the majority of the men I worked with) seriously didn’t have a clue most of the time! Honestly, ladies, you have to spell it out to them (if those guys I worked with are a good representation of the rest of the male population). Expecting them to just KNOW is asking for disappointment. The good news? They really do WANT to know! So tell them. Again and again and again if necessary (and yes, it will be necessary!)

Honestly, during those twenty years, five months and seventeen days, I felt like a walking advice column sometimes! Either that or I was fodder for the work-center tabloids! (sigh) Men, I’ll have you know, gossip just as bad if not worse than women! So anyway…I discovered that most of the time, the problem with relationships going sour was all the ASSUMING going on. All the EXPECTATIONS that can’t possibly be met (not ALL of them anyway!) and all the perceptions made that were WAY off point!

I wanted to write a story where all those things were involved. Of course there had to be physical attraction too! Next I had to give them (the feuding couple) HISTORY and a past that wasn’t all bad. We do like to cling to our memories don’t we?

So, once I got the basics out of the way, I allowed the story to commence. Holy cow did those two get on each others nerves! But where sparks fly there’s more than meets the eye (hey! A poet and didn’t know it!) (Smile)

I love books where the couples bicker and fight their attraction and yet, despite everything, they fall in love. So that’s how Tangled Up Hearts came to be!

Now, the story to follow MOMENTS IN THE MOONLIGHT…which will be released on New Year’s Day and is available for pre-order…does get back to my paranormal roots! That one was a lot of fun to write because it included romance and paranormal phenomena!

The girl lead in this book showed up briefly in Tangled Up Hearts but this is NOT a continuation of that story.

In Moments in the Moonlight, I wanted the focus of the story to be the romance but I couldn’t resist having the story take place in a haunted inn! I thought having a ghost involved would make it a little more interesting! Also, I let my characters from the Tess Schafer-Medium books put in an appearance! Tess, being a medium, was a perfect fit for the story and I totally enjoyed meeting her through a stranger’s eyes!

Okay, that’s it! I just wanted to get the word out about the two books. I’m so darned excited about them! I feel like blushing when I think about my mom and other family members reading them but I don’t care. I’ll just deal! (smile)

As for future posts to this blog, I’ve decided to cover each of the Tess Schafer-Medium books and the paranormal phenomena that pops up in each story. Where did I get the ideas? What DO I believe? Is any of that real? Does “the light” REALLY keep you safe? HOW do I know that what I’m saying is true? All those questions, I shall strive to answer. So if you are curious about it…spirit contact of various forms, hauntings, ghosts, the after-life, spiritual symbols and messages, well then you might want to visit back…or better yet, FOLLOW this blog!

Thank you for reading! I do pray for continued blessings to shower upon each and every one of you during the new year ahead!!