What's Next?

Frank and Ellen Strong, on whom
Earth's Imagined Corners Is Based

So, maybe you read the short story collection How to Be a Man and liked it. Or maybe it's on your bedside table in the stack that tips over whenever you extract a book. But then you've seen the press for the novel Deep Down Things and you're intrigued.  You think, this author is weird and wonderful! Or at least weird.  What else is she doing?

I'm here to answer that question.

I have a historical novel coming out in January!  It's called Earth's Imagined Corners, and it's the first in a trilogy called the Round Earth Series.   Here's what it's about:

In 1885 Anamosa, Iowa, Sara Moore is a dutiful daughter, but when her father tries to force her to marry his younger partner, she must choose between the partner—a man who treats her like property—and James Youngblood—a kind man she hardly knows who has a secret. When she confronts her father, he beats her and turns her out of the house, breaking all ties, so she decides to elope with James to Kansas City with hardly a penny to their names.

I'm particularly excited about this one ~ oh, let's face it, I'm particularly excited about all my books! ~ because it's the first novel I wrote and it's based on the lives of my great grandparents Frank and Ellen Strong.  This one follows them as they make their way from Iowa to Kansas City, and the next two in the series follow them as they work their way across Nebraska, their brush with the Battle of Wounded Knee, and then settlement in northern Wyoming and the influx of the Mormon community.

I'm also working on a young adult series called the Wyoming Chronicles.  They are re-imaginings of classics set in contemporary Wyoming.  The first is a rewrite of Pride and Prejudice, called Pride, set in Jackson Hole.  It's about sisters Elizabeth and Jenna and their flirtations with some well-off summer people named Charlie and D'Arcy. Can they catch their eye?  Will it be just a summer fling?

This is the girls' half of the series. There will also be a boys' half, and the first book I think I'll tackle for that is The Island of Dr. Moreau, and it'll be named Moreau. It's about a young man who gets lost in a winter storm and is rescued by a mysterious man and taken to Hole in the Wall, where there's a mad scientist and a bunch of mysterious creatures.

Anyway, that's what's up for me! Now I need to get cracking!