Well, what a couple of weeks.

Let me bore you with the details. Long drive from Florida to New York. Arrived in New York to find substantial damage to the floors of our house by what appears to be a plumber who didn’t do his job correctly or in time. Meetings with professionals to determine what to do. Cleaning and opening the house around the damage, a quick trip to Cleveland to see a granddaughter dance and a grandson play T-ball. Then home just an hour ahead of the my brainstorming buddies, who arrived for five days to work on ideas, proposals, and books together.

And somewhere in the middle? The launch of Lady of the Night, the first novel in my romantic suspense series, New Orleans Nights.

Lady of the Night was written not long after I began my writing career. Lady was my first romantic suspense novel, but certainly not my last. When my publisher turned it over to me again several years ago, I knew I would revise and republish Lady, and then Bayou Midnight, the sequel.

What I didn’t know, and what still astounds me, is that I would read them and decide to write the missing third book of the series, Night Magic. My publisher had believed that my hero, Skeeter Harwood, a major character in the other two novels and lifelong friend of those heroes, Joshua and Sam, was too much a bad boy to have his own book. You’ll wonder why when you read it. Skeeter’s warm-hearted, funny and as heroic as they come.

For the past months my husband (who we call Proman, short for project manager) has been learning how to format books in many different ways, all required by different bookstores. Last, but not least, he learned to prepare them for Amazon’s CreateSpace, which means Lady of the Night is already out in paperback and the other two will be, as well, as soon as they launch. We figured out how to set prices (I will earn exactly the same amount for both the paperback and the eBook), how to choose a great cover artist, and so much more.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Lady of the Night every bit as much as I enjoyed writing it all those years ago and then revising and republishing it this past week.

While my website page has all the individual links to online bookstores, you can also access them easily at books2read.com. Just click, choose the bookstore you’d like to buy the book from, and you’ll go there in an instant. You can even specify–or not–that you always want to be taken there if you use books2read’s universal links.

Bayou Midnight will be published on July 15, and it can be pre-ordered now. 

Night Magic will be published on August 15, and it, too, can be pre-ordered at this time.

I kept track of some of the more outrageous things that were said during our brainstorming sessions. And I have photos! Next week come back to enjoy them.

(Did I mention that tomorrow fans, heaters and generators arrive to dry out our floors, which is why I’m publishing this earlier than usual. Wish us luck.)