It's 92 days until Christmas. It's hard to believe with the extended summer-like weather here in Northern NJ. We sit on the deck, and yes, it does cool down at night, so we light the firepit and listen to the crickets and the chittering and trilling of the Easter Screech Owl who has taken up residence in the woods across the street from me. Saturday night, after a wonderful day at the Hoboken Public Library chatting with readers and authors, we came home, and our neighbors joined us for coffee and coffeecake around the fire. Do we ever solve the problems of the world? Nope. But we dream aloud. Speaking of dreaming, let me introduce today's guest, who doesn't have sugarplums dancing, but a life of hopes and dreams. Welcome, Liz.

​There are dreams I’ve had that didn’t come to pass. They had to do with being thin and having good hair, with being able to sing and dance, with traveling where and when I wanted to. Some of them were about business—at different times, I dreamed of having a bookstore complete with a cafe, a tearoom complete with a gift shop full of affordable things, a Victorian B&B on a lake, and a quilt shop.
In truth, I have absolutely no business having a business. My mind doesn’t work that way. But still … those dreams wandered around in my head and my heart. They still do.
So I write about them. More than once for most of them, and I do a really good job with those businesses. They all succeed, and readers all want to go to them—me included! It was fun naming them. Ones I recall are Tea on Twilight, Cup & Cozy, Keeper Shelf, A Soft Place to Fall, and in A New Kind of Hope, my Christmas novella, Silver Threads & Golden Needles. (Ask me how often that song played in my head while I was writing.)
Fee and Jed’s story was first published as part of a Dickens Holiday Romance anthology. When I wanted a Christmas story this year but ran out of time to write one, I remembered both the couple and Fee’s quilt shop. And I wanted to go back. I hope you’ll pay a visit, too.

A New Kind of Hope
 by 
Liz Flaherty
Fee and Jed were best friends who fell in love, but that was high school. Life and families and other loves had happened since that dear and distant time. They’re friends again, comfortable with each other and having so much fun at Christmas time in Dickens. They’re not still in love, but…wait…could it be happening again?
 
A peek between the covers. 
They walked downtown, their booted feet crunching on the snow. Jed held her hand much of the time, but released it so often to take pictures that they finally gave up the effort.
“Was it this much fun when we were kids?” he asked as they listened to the high school choir sing a couple songs before going on. “My folks liked coming downtown for this, but I don’t remember us doing it, do you?”
“We didn’t do it. We were too cool. And even when we did, you were taking pictures and I was with girlfriends pretending not to notice guys.”
“Good point.” He put the cover over his camera lens and slipped his arm around her, pulling her in close and holding her gaze. “So? Are you noticing now?”
“Noticing what?” She fluttered her lashes and grinned at him, wondering if there’d ever been a day that he was around that she hadn’t noticed him. And longed for him. And wondered what it would feel like to be as close physically as they were mentally. She’d wondered a whole lot about being close emotionally, too, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not yet, at least.
She wanted to think about the warmth of him at her side, about her heart racing, and about the touch of his finger where it just barely stroked her cheek.
They walked on, talking to old friends and new acquaintances. They stood and watched and laughed uproariously at the snowman-building contest across from the Common.
At a certain time, as if someone had whistled them into silence, the crowd grew quiet and watchful. They waited for the announcements that preceded the tree-lighting, looking around as other lighting in the area dimmed and went dark. Squeals of both fear and excitement came from children. Even the Christmas music that seemed to come from all directions became quiet and promising.
Then the tree lit, thousands of bulbs waking and glowing on the huge fir tree that had held the place of pride on the Common for more years than most anyone in town could remember. Following the universal breath of “ahhhh … ” came cheers and applause.
“Do you need to stop by the store?” asked Jed, as they walked away from the milling crowd.”
“No. Actually, I was invited not to.”
“You want to stop at Marley’s for a drink? It’s a good night for something mulled.”
She waited for just a few beats, her nerves zinging almost painfully. She felt herself blushing—she fully expected she’d be blushing in her coffin—and reached for his hands, holding them and looking down as if something about their joined fingers was completely fascinating.
“I have some cider at home,” she said, “in a slow cooker on the counter with mulling spices in it. And popcorn. And a fireplace even if it doesn’t work. We could pretend. And we could call out for pizza if we were hungry, too. You could—” She stopped, uncertain how to go on. How could a person be thirty-eight years old and scared to ask a man— “You could stay for a while.”
He drew his hands away and lifted them to her face, holding her cheeks so that she had to meet his eyes. Oh, that mesmerizing storm cloud gaze. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it.
Even if she’d wanted to.
“For breakfast?”
She smiled back into his eyes, smoothing their crinkling edges with her fingers. She wasn’t calm when she answered. But she was certain.
“Yes.”

 
Grab your copy today because remember it's only 92 days.
Amazon: https://a.co/d/2DiAbVy
Everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/bogDg0

More about the author.
Liz Flaherty wanted to shake off the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books.
Well, she writes books.
She lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway.  She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide nearly every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that.
You can find her all over the place, but this is easiest:  https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty
​She’d love to hear from you!

Oh, my! It's already the middle of September. We've had some outstanding days here in Northern NJ. The Sun has been shining and the temps perfect. Warm days and cool nights. While I know we need rain I can't help enjoying it. One of the other things I enjoy is being in the kitchen. This year I've taken to preserving the bounty of fresh foods from our local farmers. Canning and freezing tomatoes in different forms, freezing fruit and berries, corn on the cob and yesterday salsa and peppers. I think my jalepeno haul were some of the hottest I've ever had. My fingers are still burning today. Ah, well, momentary pain will lead to yummyness in the coming months. Speaking of yummy, I have a yummy series from a delightful author on today's blog. Lyndi Alexander is back and talking about her path to authorship and its ups and downs. Take it away Lyndi...

Like many other writers, I knew I wanted to tell stories since I was in grammar school. But the story of a pair of unlikely partners thrown into an accidental apocalypse seemed like it would be a story I could never tell. 
101 queries.
I sent it to agents, to editors, to anyone I could find an address for who I thought might be interested. #101 was finally a yes. The “book of my heart” became a reality, thanks to editor Liz Burton at Zumaya Publishing. She convinced me to expand the story from one to three volumes, The Color of Fear, a young adult series: WINDMILLS, DESTINATIONS, and ADVERSARIES.
 
This is the story of Lin Kwan, a young Chinese girl who finds herself caught in the middle of world-changing events after a terrorist attack wipes out much of the Caucasian population of the world. Her father sends her a request from America to bring Chinese herbs to facilitate a cure.
Kwan’s voyage to a decimated America, accompanied by her sensei Li Zhong, is traumatic, and surely would tear the heart from a lesser soul. The world she finds in San Francisco isn’t any better, but she’s determined to complete the task her father has set for her.
In San Francisco, she finds nurse’s aide Valery Paz, a Latina teen who’s survived the virus that killed her whole family, and who now works on the black market caring for patients who can’t come to the hospitals.
She also meets Xi San, a young Chinese man who’s taken on the task of guarding the Pacific Heights neighborhood in which Kwan comes to live. The streets are lawless, patrolled by roving gangs, and San, believing he has nothing else to live for, puts his life on the line every night keeping safe those who struggle to remain alive.
But the gangs aren’t the only menace to peace and peace of mind, as San discovers. A man known only as Gabriel preaches his message of hate and white supremacy on the few remaining air waves, backed up by the evidence of the terror attack.
Kwan has her own problems, as a Chinese spy tracks her to the United States, determined to stop her from giving her father the medicines she’s brought all the way from China–even if it means killing them both.
Reconnecting with Xi San by chance, Kwan and Valery join his group of diverse travelers as they cross America, headed for St. Louis, where civilization is being rebuilt. Between the caravan and safety, danger lurks—Gabriel, a self-styled religious leader and white supremacist, who has organized his army from Upper Midwest survivalist and militia followers, sweeping south, determined to take their violent revenge for the white man.
Life after the devastating biological terrorist attack is on a recovery vector as Kwan is finally able to deliver her precious cargo of herbs to her scientist father. Or is it?
The virus may be mutating, spreading to infect those previously immune. Tzu Shin and his fellow scientists—and now Kwan—are literal prisoners of the US military. The White supremacist army of the demagogue Gabriel has invaded St. Louis. And the Chinese assassin Piao finally knows where to find his targets.
Kwan and her friends, Valery, Eddie, and San, are ready to fight to the death to defend their recovering world. The question is: Are courage and determination enough? Or will the fallout of the plague overcome them at their final stand?
Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5HtphfL7TE&t=21s
 
The political climate at the time I finished the series was such that I wondered if having a white supremacist villain had become outdated. Clearly, history has continued on a path that indicates it is not. Fighting racism is an ongoing battle, and Kwan and Xi San are heroes who demonstrate the very best.
WINDMILLS was nominated for book of the month at Long and Short Reviews; ADVERSARIES won Book of the month in April 2021.

Windmills
Bio-terrorists release a plague in the United States that spreads to kill most of the world’s Caucasian population. As the deadly virus mutates, Tzu Shin, a renowned medical doctor and biologist, defects from China to help develop a cure. His only daughter, Lin Kwan, is left behind in Hong Kong with her aunt.
Then Kwan’s father summons her from across the sea to bring him Chinese medicinal herbs he needs to develop a cure. Lonely and missing her parents, she accepts the challenge, traveling with her sensei Li Zhong to the New World.
But a Chinese assassin is on her trail, determined to kill her and Li Zhong, and when Kwan discovers her father has disappeared, she sets out on a journey to find him and deliver her precious cargo, a quest that she may not survive.

Destinations
Xi San saved the life of a mysterious girl one night in his ravaged San Francisco neighborhood. He can’t get her out of his mind, but believes that she’s lost to him.
Lin Kwan came to America to bring her scientist father Chinese medicinal herbs, hoping to stop the virus that killed most of the world’s Caucasians before it mutates to infect the rest of the world. On her way to finding him, she meets again the man who once saved her, a man she can’t forget.
With a diverse group of fellow travelers, they head for St. Louis, where civilization is being rebuilt. Between them and safety, danger lurks—Gabriel, a self-styled religious leader and white supremacist, who has organized his army from Upper Midwest survivalist and militia followers, determined to take revenge for the white man.
But Gabriel isn’t their only enemy. Before they reach their destination, they will battle nature, prejudice and even those hidden among them who wish their destruction.

Adversaries
Life after the devastating biological terrorist attack that decimated the White population in the US is beginning to recover as Tzu Lin Kwan is finally able to deliver her precious cargo of herbs to her scientist father. Or is it?
The virus may be mutating, spreading to infect those previously immune. Tzu Shin and his fellow scientists—and now Kwan—are literal prisoners of the US military. The White supremacist army of the demagogue Gabriel has invaded St. Louis. And the Chinese assassin Piao knows where to find his targets.
Kwan and her friends Valery, Eddie, and San are ready to fight to the death to defend their recovering world. The question is: Are courage and determination enough?

Welcome back to Around the Fire. Here in Northern New Jersey, it's been feeling a bit like fall. I love the colors, the smells, and the crisp, warm days followed by cool (sometimes cold) nights. Even though the trees are still green and the crickets and frogs set up nightly concerts, some of my Autumn decorations have been making their way out of storage. Pumpkins, orange and yellow leaves, scarecrows, and mums. Driving around, I see some others looking forward to fall. Halloween is right around the corner, and boy, do I have a great guest today on the blog just in time for the season. Dan Rice is a fellow Wild Rose Press author. His specialty is Young Adult paranormal, but today we'll learn about the Five Things He's Learned stepping into a new phase of his writing career. Take it away, Dan.

Five Things I Learned While Writing Phantom Algebra 
​1.     Writing in the third person is great.
Phantom Algebra is the first novel-length work I’ve written in the third person. My other books are all first person present tense, think The Hunger Games. I had written in third person before, but writing an entire novel in third person of publishable quality struck me as a daunting task. All my previous attempts at crafting a story in the third person are either gathering digital dust on a hard drive or in the cloud or have been scrapped altogether.
What I discovered is that writing in the third person is great fun and not as difficult as I feared. It allows you to delve into the minds of so many characters beyond the protagonist. You can tell scenes from the perspective of that brutally nasty antagonist, crafting a three-dimensional character and creating suspense up the kazoo.
Part of the reason writing in the third person came easier than I expected is how much I’ve grown as a writer since my first book was published. My weakness has always been characterization—I was the person in the critique group who was rightfully brutalized for creating slipshod characters. That’s not the case any longer.
 
2.     Writing in a shared universe didn’t limit my storytelling
Initially, I was pumped to learn that my publisher was putting together a multi-author YA horror series titled The Haunting of Pinedale High, as in a haunted high school. I thought, great! I write YA! I write fantasy! Horror is fantasy adjacent, right? It all falls under the umbrella of speculative fiction…more or less.
So yeah, I was duly excited. But then I realized that I’d have to share a story world with other authors. I didn’t know if I liked the idea of sharing. Shared character, shared setting, shared lore… I was a bit nervous. Wouldn’t all this sharing business limit my storytelling?
I was pleased to discover my trepidation was entirely misplaced. I chose to lean heavily into the classic horror trope of past trauma. Zuri, the protagonist, is haunted by past trauma, as is the ghost with whom she will eventually form a bond. The past trauma trope is inherently character-centric, so, in the end, I didn’t feel the shared setting, loose rules surrounding the ghosts, and a handful of shared characters limited the tale I wanted to tell.
3.     Horror—in this case, a ghost story—is super fun.
I enjoy reading a good horror yarn from time to time. My Heart is a Chainsaw, Clown in a Cornfield, and almost anything by Stephen King have entertained me and made me peek around corners just in case something lurks in the dark. But I’ve never considered myself a massive fan of the genre, nor had I put serious thought into penning a horror novel. Oh, I had dabbled in the horrifying by writing a short story or two, but it wasn’t my jam.
I discovered that writing a YA horror, a ghost story to be precise, was super fun. It didn’t strike me as all that different than crafting a YA fantasy. By tweaking the fantastical elements, they become hair-raising and frightful, opposed to magical or awe-inspiring. Populating an underground lair with enormous nightcrawlers, engorged rodentia, and satanic magic is delightful. It speaks to my inner child who watched black and white monster movies on TBS and was terrified of arachnids.
4.     Deadlines are good things.
Phantom Algebra is the first writing project I’ve had with a deadline that wasn’t self-imposed. If I wanted to participate in the series, I needed to turn in a polished manuscript in a hair over a year. As a writer with a day job, I’m pretty good at finding time to grind out and edit words, but it usually takes me at least eighteen months to go from idea to submittable manuscript, and I was in the middle of another writing project. Crunch time, indeed!
However, I found out that having a drop-dead date focuses the mind. I created a more detailed and logical plot outline than ever before and assiduously adhered to it while banging out the rough draft in record time. Most pleasing of all, the story was strong and freer of errors than anything I had previously written. Not only had I met the deadline, but I had produced perhaps my best writing ever. 
5.     Writing is its own Reward.
When I first embarked on writing Phantom Algebra, I feared the project would be a slog. I had a deadline, which was something entirely new for me as a writer. The genre was one I typically don’t write, and the tale was set in a shared world. Despite all that, I found the writing process, from planning to the rough draft to the edit, as invigorating as ever. Writing fiction, like many creative endeavors, is truly its own reward.

Phantom Algebra
The Hunting of Pinedale High
By
Dan Rice
Zuri and her mother settle in Pinedale, North Carolina, to start over. For years, they’ve been on the run from Zuri’s father, a retired boxer and full-time gangland enforcer.
In Pinedale, Zuri finds a gym where she can train in mixed martial arts to pursue her dream of becoming a champion fighter. At Pinedale High, she discovers friends among the outcasts, academic challenges, and something unexpected…ghosts.
When Zuri encounters a tween phantom haunting the library, her life is turned upside down and inside out as she attempts to help the spirit. This incurs the wrath of devils, living and dead. Zuri will need her martial arts prowess, heart, and the aid of friends to protect everyone she loves.

Grab your copy today!

Amazon
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble

Dan Rice pens the young adult urban fantasy series The Allison Lee Chronicles and other speculative fiction, both short and long, in the wee hours of the morning. To discover more about Dan’s writing and keep tabs on his upcoming releases, check out his blog, join his newsletter, and follow him on BlueSky. His latest novel, the YA horror Phantom Algebra, releases on September 15, 2025.
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To get your fulfill all your Haunted reads, here's a link to the entire series.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9YZWG5Z