2025: The Year of the Butterfly

Welcome to the Writing Year of the Butterfly! We hope 2025 will be a year of low-pressure writing where Penna and I can float from story to story as our mood suits us.

Solstice Reads

I'm not familiar with many winter solstice reads, but one of them is the marvelous fantasy by Ginn Hale, Lord of the White Hell. The two-volume novel is the first part of The Cadeleonians, a high fantasy series that satisfies my cravings for imaginative worldbuilding, complex plot, characters that I fall in love with, and romance. Lord of the White Hell also wins my award for favorite use of the solstice. The scene of Kiram sneaking around the dorm late at night to leave gifts for his fellow hellions is one of those storytelling magical moments that I reflect back on each year with the return of the winter solstice.

Sympathy for the Hellhound

You could call Crossed Lines a fix-it series. It places the Supernatural characters from roughly the start of their second canon season into the world of Caffrey Conversation. Thanks to Penna's series, Neal and Mozzie are on their way to much brighter futures. In Crossed Lines, Dean, Sam, Bobby, and yes, Crowley too, all have a chance as well.

Favorite Holiday Reads

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall.
Sam—please don't call him Samwise—is the perfect cinnamon roll for a cold December night.

Holiday Stories 2024

Penna and I are adding two more stories to the Caffrey Conversation collection this year.

Caffrey Conversation: All for One

Neal's canon expertise as a fencer inspired me to introduce a Thee Musketeers theme in Caffrey Conversation. Ten years ago, I set the stage in The Woman in Blue by having Neal join a university fencing club. The club's leader, Aidan Phillips, was so impressed with Neal's ability that he gave him the nickname of d'Artagnan. When Fowler framed Neal for a theft in the following story, The Queen's Jewels, Neal's university friends leaped to his defense. Peter was one frustrated boss during that con. Even though Neal assured him he was one of the team, none of the details could be shared since they were illegal.

Caffrey Conversation: A Better Way

In Winston's Diamonds, I added the Mosconi Codex to my Red Diamonds collection of dangling threads where it joins Adrian Tulane, the Dentist of Detroit, Raquel LaRoque, and Alice Langton. In A Better Way, I add threads connected to Vermeer and Mozzie.