On the 1st of September, The Boy started kindergarten. He's three, but kindergarten can start as early as three in Japan. W00t! Hero Material and I liked the teachers at the school and everything, so we're very excited to enroll him there. A huge bonus is that it's very close. About five or so minutes by bike. :)

After I broke my iPod earlier this year, I told myself I wouldn't buy another. Guess what? I caved and bought a new one. Hero Material of course laughed at me. :sigh:

The big goals for this month are drafting The Billionaire's Secret Wife (Vanessa Pryce and Justin Sterling — Kerri's cousin from Reunited in Love) and seeing if I can wrap up the line edits for Merry in Love. It's behind because of a couple of family crises we had in August. I'm still aiming to have the book out in mid- to late October though, by working under a much more compressed timeline.

The first three books in the Hearts on the Line series are going to be bundled for a special collection in September. The collection (my first!) is available for pre-order right now if you want to grab a copy.

US
Amazon :: Apple

UK
Amazon :: Apple

Canada
Amazon :: Apple

Australia
Amazon :: Apple

New Zealand
Apple

Others
Google Play :: Kobo

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great September!

The three most important people in his life. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Never underestimate The Boy's capacity for creating laundry. 4 loads today alone…

Okay, mea culpa: I have totally neglected my monthly updates. I've had a bushel-basket of crazy real life crises and so on that totally drained all my energy.

My house in America had a water leak right before Christmas. The repairs were supposed to take 3 weeks. They finally ended in mid-April. The flooring had to be redone 2-3 times due to unimaginably bad workmanship by the crew. I can't even count the number of times the drywall had to be looked at again. It was a big challenge to manage it from Japan. I'm just glad it's over though.

The good news on the real-life front is that we moved in late January. We now have a bigger place, still river-front, and close to two big shopping centers. Sadly it's a bit far from Costco, but I'll live, esp. since I now have an actual office. :)

The new place, however, needed a new kitchen. The previous owner ripped out all the cabinet doors. I have no idea why. No, the doors weren't rotted or anything. And the stove didn't work quite right, and the fish oven/grill was really gross with rust all up inside it. Thankfully, ripping out the old kitchen and putting a new one in was done on time, with no major problems and very minimal supervision. The biggest angst we had with this particular job was deciding on the color of the new flooring.

Then The Boy got the chickenpox—he's okay now—and had some misadventures.

So since I had all these crises and issues, I didn't get to do any serious writing from January until late March. I didn't start writing again until late March, and very slowly, too.

The good news is that the sequel to Carnal Secrets—featuring Ethan and Kerri—are with a couple of betas. I've also outlined the 3rd book in the series featuring Ethan's younger brother, Gavin, so hopefully I'll be able to finish the first draft by summer if not sooner.

I'm hoping to release both titles this year before Christmas. If you want to know and/or get sneak previews, sign up for my newsletter below:

Hope everyone has a lovely May.

The Boy got diagnosed with chickenpox, so he's been going without bath or shower since Saturday (doctor's orders). Apparently, he's had enough because he got up and tried to sneak into the shower last night at 2am. I stopped him in time, and didn't think much of it.

This morning, I left him alone with Hero Material and went grocery shopping. He pretended to go to his room to grab some toys or something, but then he detoured and snuck into the shower and started the hot water*.

The Boy neglected to take off his clothes, so of course he got soaked through instantly. So Hero Material had no choice but to wash him, and he was thrilled to be finally squeaky clean again.

Thankfully, he's gotten over the chickenpox, so he can go back to daycare and hang out with his chibi (= very small) friends. Yay us.

* Japanese bathrooms have shower controls at around most adult's shin level because people here like to shower while sitting down. Also the water wasn't super hot or anything because it takes a while to warm up, and the shower temperature is set for 41C / 106F.

The Boy doing his “THOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!” pose with the Mt. Bandits chicken stick prop.