It's been a busy month. It's been a busy year thus far. It's still March, for a few more days, the third month and if we're counting, I've had two new releases so far in 2023.
Tall, Dark, And Cherokee debuted in February and has been stacking up some pretty decent reviews ever since. My alter ego – one of them – also has a new title out, The Lone Wolf of Kilkenny. In the meantime, I'm looking ahead to the release of The Last Love of The Leannán Sídhe from Evernight Publishing on April 27. Down the road, you'll be seeing a reprise of Miss Good Samaritan from Champagne Books as well as The Scarred Santa (reading final galleys for that one now) from The Wild Rose Press. At some point, still unknown to me, At Face Value (World Castle Publishing) will be out as well. So will The Bean Sídhe's Change of Heart (Evernight)
Last week I submitted a new submission, Huck's Legacy to Evernight Publishing. Fingers crossed while waiting for that. I've also submitted a sweet romance, The Cowboy's Last Chance to The Wild Rose Press.
And of course I'm at work on more titles…I have multiple novels in what I'm calling The Laredo Series that chronicles the Wilson family in post Civil War Texas. And yes, there are more in the works.
Meantime, though, I thought I'd share some thoughts on the moon, an old favorite that was once more mysterious than it is now!
Growing up, some adults that told children that the moon was made of green cheese. I never really believed it because that shining, silver orb seemed too pretty to be stinky cheese. I did, however, believe that there was a man in the moon.
After all, when the moon appeared, I could gaze upward and see his face, an eye, a nose, sometimes the hint of a smile.
The man in the moon was magical and mystical although no one, including me, could define him or his purpose. My black-and-white checked copy of Mother Goose had him coming down out of the sky long enough to burn his mouth on porridge. My grandmother said he carried a bundle of sticks on his back. Whoever he was, I liked to see his face and form on the surface of the full moon.
Sometimes my mother read me a little poem that said the moon was the North wind’s cookie that got eaten each month. The South wind, so the story went, baked a new cookie, devoured again in an endless cycle.
My dad said that we could tell the weather by watching the moon. If the half-moon appeared to be turned up like a cup, it would rain. More often than not, it seemed to be so.
All the magic in the moon faded when science debunked it all. On July 20, 1969, man walked on the moon for the first time and my aunt made sure I watched that historic moment.
On that day I was staying at Aunt Janet's and sat parked before her television set and watched.
I heard the words spoken, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
History happened that day, but it was also the end of innocence for my generation. As one of the tail-end members of the Baby Boomers, I saw the loss of my dreams, the debunking of the stories. dreams, the stories, and the mystery. Science stepped in to replace the myths and magic. There was no longer room for the man in the moon or the north wind's cookie.
We were the last of the kids who believed in the Man in the Moon. We were the last who wondered whether or not the moon was made from green cheese.
With The Man in the Moon reduced to a series of craters and mountains on the lunar surface, the other mythical things we cherished soon faded from our imaginations as well. If there was no Man in the Moon, then perhaps there were no fairies hiding in the flowers, no elves making shoes – or even baking cookies in a big tree.
Sometimes I still gaze up at the full moon and see a face. Imagination has never vanished in me - if it had, then I would not have become a writer. And just maybe, a part of me still wants to believe.
