Okay, did you notice I forgot to blog last Wednesday? Wait, don’t tell me. Some things are better left unsaid.

The Explanation Bit: Quite honestly I didn’t realize that I hadn’t blogged until Thursday afternoon when I was exploring architectural salvage warehouses with friends and putting lots of steps on my FitBIT. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday, my normal blogging days, happily digging into the engrossing lives of my new characters instead. In fact I’ve now written what amounts to fifty pages of my main character’s autobiography. And that’s just for starters.

The Tantalizing Bit: While I write these autobiographies for myself, sometimes it’s fun to share them with you. So beginning in early May I’m happy to say I’ll be blogging tidBITs from the first person stories of the three major characters in When We Were Sisters, accompanied by snippets of the book and photos of my characters–or at least the way I see them. They have insisted, and who am I to argue?

The Tantalizing Bit’s Sidekick: And before that? Well, on April 21st I have some fabulous photos to share with you relating to When We Were Sisters. I don’t want to say more, but this is a coordinated event with my publisher, and I really am excited. That’s a Thursday, by the way, but I’ll remind you on Wednesday the 20th to tune back in.

So while we’re kiBITzing today? More things you might like to know:

The Fun Bit: About that field trip to the salvage store? I only bought a cigar box, but it’s a very cool cigar box from Cuba and I’m sure it has a story to tell. The trip was, in a way, research for the new book as well as a chance to hang out with good friends. Want a hint about that book? One of the characters spends a lot of time looking through stores just like this one.

The Organizational Bit: Some of you on my email list may have gotten an email yesterday asking you to respond if you want to stay there. My provider filtered for readers who have not opened an email in over a year so I could clean up my list. Judging by the flood of responses, many of you DO open emails and want to stay. If you’re among them, please be sure to respond to that email this week–or use the form under contact at my website–to let me know. Just put “stay” in the subject line or be creative. If you are removed and don’t want to be, you can sign up again here. Be sure to fill out all the fields because when I choose a monthly winner for an autographed book or gift card, I must have your name and city.

The Free Book Bit: From Glowing Embers, first book in my Tales of the Pacific series is now free at all online bookstores. This is the ebook. At this time there’s no print novel to go with it. I advertised the new free price in the BookBub newsletter and got a gazillion downloads, plus lots of interest in the remaining three books, so that was fun. All four of these were filmed as movies of the week in Germany. They’re still being shown, but not in English. The book will remain free, so download at your leisure and enjoy if you’re interested.

The Final Bit: Don’t forget that if you don’t want to miss reading any of my blogs then you can sign up to have them delivered straight to your email inbox. The sign-up is on the top right under “Subscribe to Blog Via Email.”

**My bookstore links in this post go either to iBooks or Amazon, where I am an affiliate, which means I earn a smidgen if you buy through that link. Other bookstore options are listed at my website for every novel, and I encourage you to buy at your local bookstore first. Keep them open!