Work in progress

My third novel, Kindred, came about in a very unusual way. I was driving in the car and listening to the radio when the Black Crows song, Addiction, came on. I'd heard this song before, of course, but for some reason on that day, the lyrics stayed and haunted me long after the song ended. Says she talks to angels, says they call her out by her name.

For two days, that line played on endless repeat in my head until finally, to make it stop, I wrote a short story about a young woman named Miriam whom the angels call out. When I finished the story, instead of feeling better, I felt like I'd only started. That short story grew up to be Kindred. Phew, right? Nope. Normally, I would be finished. In my previous two novels, once I finished writing and editing the book I was finished with the characters. As much as I loved them, we were all ready to move on. Not Kindred. Two years after it first appeared, the darned image of a terrible being appearing to some unsuspecting fool still hadn't left. There was more left to say.

For those of you have read Kindred, I'm sure you can feel it too. I certainly got enough emails about it. There was more to Miriam and Emmett and Mo. I outlined an entire sequel, but for various reasons, I didn't write it. Instead, I wrote a different story: two very minor characters from Kindred have their own story told set in the same world where angels appear to unsuspecting individuals as the devil messes with their complicated sibling.  I've finished writing this book and it will come out this year, probably December, as the companion novel Spoils. More on that on a later post.

But in the meantime, there's this gap between where Kindred leaves off and Spoils picks up and the connection between Miriam and Emmett to Leni and Gavin seems so distant as to be almost invisible. So I decided to do yet another new thing. I'm writing a novella, a bridge between Kindred and Spoils that tells a bit about what happens to Miriam and Emmett, the Florida tea shop owner Natasha, and the critical link between Tennessee and Florida.

My first readers are now taking a look at it and I plan to post it for free by Fall, 2013. I can't wait to hear what you all think of it once it's out and I dearly hope you enjoy it.

More later,

Tammar