Strike While the Iron is HOT!

And Baby! It's getting HOT in here!

Have I mentioned that I type approximately 145 words a minute? I say approximately because I've actually broken the program doing the speed check. It's supposed to go up to 150 wpm, but every time I got close, I'd get back an error report. I'm not saying this to brag. It's a skill I've worked very hard to develop, and there's good reason. I can write a lot more books if I am efficient.

Efficiency has been my middle name lately.

Take April 6-May 12, 2025. In a little over a month, I have written not one, but two novellas. Now I have to give credit where credit is due. The first novella was a partnership project with my friend and fellow author J.B. Caine. We wrote THE VEIL OF SHADOWS in two weeks. Each of us wrote approximately 20,000 words of the 40,000 in the novella. (For those not in the know, a novel is typically 50,000+, depending on the genre.)

Tonight, I typed THE END on a novella I started (all by myself) less than two weeks ago, which has now found its title. Here's the title and the working blurb (subject to change):

SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED

The earthquake was only the beginning.

When the New Madrid Fault shatters the Mississippi Delta, the world stops—but Maggie Harwell can’t. As Arkansas’s preparedness coordinator, she’s seen it all: hurricanes, terror attacks, and oil spills. But nothing prepared her for this.

Towns are gone. Roads are impassable. Help isn’t coming. And the high school football field? It's the new front line.

Injured and out of her jurisdiction, with a command center reduced to rubble, Maggie is running on grit and coffee, holding a fractured region together by sheer will.

Beside her stands Lt. Colonel Marcus Devlyn—infuriatingly steady, maddeningly brave, and exactly the kind of man she swore she'd never fall for.

When seconds count, help is only minutes away.

In the face of government budget cuts and the sheer magnitude of the disaster, help isn't coming. Fighting fatigue and injury, Maggie pushes herself beyond her limits, committed to saving lives at all costs. As hope thins and hard choices close in, the question isn’t just whether Maggie will live. It’s how far Marcus will go to save her—and what a broken region will sacrifice to hold on to its last symbol of strength.

One woman. One mission. No backup.

In the heart of disaster, the only thing stronger than the quake is the human spirit.

SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED is a story of survival, sacrifice, and second chances.

*Inspiration for my Book Cover Artist

I'm not sure what's next for Maggie and Marcus. But I'm running this one by my buddies in the Emergency Management realm for ideas and injects. With any luck, this one will get published later this year, too.

Yes, I said too, as in also. THE VEIL OF SECRETS, Book 1 in the Manifest Destiny Series, comes out July 7th. Want to know more? Check out my previous blog post for details.

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