When you're a cozy mystery writer and are talking to a friend about a plot issue while walking on a fairly busy street, and you say out loud, "but what do I do about the dead body?!", you get a few strange looks!

That was me a few weeks ago, when I realised the fix I'd found for my plot issue in Two Sparks of Mystery created another issue (body dump location). And then I realised the "new" killer wouldn't have contacted the victim, so I'm still trying to work that out. Dominos falling, ripple effect, butterfly effect, however you slice it (no pun intended), this book is killing me. I'll get there, but I'm frustrated it's taking me so long, I was hoping to be at least halfway through the second round of revisions by now, and I still haven't started. Grmpf.

The Secret Santa story is progressing but slowly (mostly because every time I start writing, my mind wanders to the plot problems in Two Sparks of Mystery), but I'm close to finishing the first draft. My biggest fear is that this one won't be ready to share by November, and it doesn't feel right delaying past December (even though Xmas does come round every year). I'll do my best, that's all I can do. If you have title suggestions, please share, because (1) I'm really bad at titles and (2) there are already a lot of books called "Secret Santa Mystery"!

Last but not least, A Slice of Mystery was featured on Dru's Books Musing, a site dedicated to cozy mysteries, where Abigail talks about a "day in her life", check it out!

Not free, but close! I'm taking part in the Introverted Indies Stuff Your Kindle event running from 3rd to 5th July, midnight to midnight (UK timezone), and Your Knowledge Or Your Life? will be on sale for $0.99 / £0.99: head over to see all the books in the sale (various genres, most will be 0.99, and a few will be free!)

Now, for the free books:

If you like character-driven fiction, check out this event.

Small Town Mysteries, Curiosities and Crimes - Cozy Mysteries​

Sci-Fi & Fantasy? Check this out!

Discounted books:​
​Summer Cozy Beach Reads & Cozy Mysteries​

And if you have KoboPlus, you should check out this highlight page, you may discover your next read!

As always, you can read my books (and many others), through your library app - If you can't find my books in your app, your library should have a way for you to request them (usually by filling in a form).

As an aside, I'm really excited that a few libraries in the US bought A Slice Of Mystery (rather than "rent" it) - it means that the librarian you read it enjoyed it enough to make the commitment (buying the ebook is more expensive for libraries, so it means they expect quite a lot of patrons to want to read it), and it's the sort of thing that makes my heart swell.

Definitely not on purpose, but I seem to have read only YA books this month (plus a couple of non-fiction) - One I really enjoyed was This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron, but I wish it had come with a warning label on the cover: it's a duology (which I didn't know), and the first book ends on a cliffhanger. My library didn't have the second book, so I had to wait (at least, that's one benefit of leaving books on my TBR pile for ages... I didn't have to wait a whole year to get book 2!)

One thing that will probably make my TBR pile worse in the next few weeks is the "(Optional) Summer Reading Challenge" list! Sign-up here to download the suggested reading list (so many books!), and why not join the Facebook group to talk about the books you're reading and win gift cards?

Last year, more than 15,000 readers participated in the challenge, and thousands joined the Facebook community to share recommendations, reading progress, and favourite books.

The goal is to read 9 books throughout the summer and this year's challenge includes:

• Summer Reading List featuring participating authors
• Monthly reading trackers
• Monthly giveaways
• Digital completion prizes

Sleep is absolutely paramount for me, and I'm usually really good at protecting it, no matter what, but this month has been difficult. I don't know if it was the weather changes (cold, hot, cold, hot), humidity levels (remind me to never move to Florida!), stress, or just the way the planets aligned, but I definitely didn't get as much sleep as I needed, and that made everything more difficult.

You see, when I lack sleep, I'm pretty much useless.

Tasks I can usually do without too much effort took significantly longer to complete.

Tasks that require more brain power (such as writing the first draft of a new story) were nearly impossible. I did make some progress, but I'm not where I want to be, very far from it actually, and I feel like I'm letting you down.

I know I need to give myself grace. I am a human, with a brain wired a little bit differently. I know I need to take a proper break, ideally a couple weeks off, but that's not really an option at the moment. I'll figure something out, and as I always say, "everything happens for a reason, even if it can sometimes take years to figure it out!"