Emery and I are both Michigan girls transplanted to sunny southeastern Pennsylvania.  Well, it has been sunny.  In the twenty years I’ve lived here, we’ve had two major snow storms, major meaning they accumulated more than a foot of snow, and each time, within three days all the snow was gone.  Totally gone.  Nothing left.

Until this winter.

In the last three weeks, we’ve gotten three feet of snow.  The last batch had finally started melting when today’s storm came through.  Plowing was a nonstarter.  To be fair, they tried, but around here, they aren’t used to the idea of follow-up plowing.  They take off that first layer, but the bottom ice layer is left to the powers of nature and friction to deal with.  Which, to be fair, is normally a valid strategy around here, except when it’s not.

Being the cocky Michigan driver with an overly developed work ethic, I made the attempt to get to work this morning.  I have a 4WD car, and the roads I travel are all major, so I presumed they would have been well plowed.  In my mind, if I could get off my block, the rest of the trip would be a snap.  Not so much.  After three miles of sliding and drifting, and more importantly of everyone else drifting and sliding without any kind of control, I chickened out and turned home.  So now I have the day at home with kids who have missed four days of school and another eight inches of snow to be shoveled.

Emery walks to work.  Guess where she is?

Available today from Liquid Silver Books:  A Blanket of Bitter Frost.  Book three in our Arcana Ancien series, this book picks up a few months after Shadows of an African Sun left off and follows the continuing adventures of Diana, Graeme, and Peter.  When Graeme begins to lose his ability to communicate with the world around him, it’s up to Diana and Peter to find a solution before time runs out.

This book proved to be quite a challenge for Grey and I to write.  The first book has the excitement of discovering the characters and the world they live in.  When you get to writing the second, you have the basics down and can have fun seeing where they take you next.  Both Shadows and the second book in our Creatures of Sin series were a veritable breeze to write.  Third books turn out to be our nemeses.  Things start out all right, but the halfway point to last third  is like pulling teeth to get written.  The bones are good, but things don’t quite fall into place.  Grey’s not a huge fan of re-writes, and for some reason it tends to be my forte.  So after we let it sit and talk it over some, it’s time to re-read and re-work.  In the end, it is well worth the angst, but frustrating as hell when it’s come so easy before.  Books four and five in Arcana Ancien have pretty much written themselves for out.  Hopefully the next books in our Creatures series follow the same trend.

We can but hope.

Almost made it through another week, kids.  Once again work has been work-y for both of us, but we’ve still managed to be productive.  Our current WIP is moving along at a fairly steady pace.  A little over 7k in a week is decent for us and we’re both loving the characters, so that’s rather brilliant.

In other news, on Monday, the third book in our Arcana Ancien series will be released from Liquid Silver Books:  A Blanket of Bitter Frost. Always good.  Except our poor little series doesn’t garner all that much attention, and we haven’t figured out what exactly we’re doing wrong.  It’s M/M/F with magic!  What’s not to love about that?  Sure, there’ s not vamps or weres, but we have a pretty kick ass demon who makes an appearance.  Plus magic!  And a hot, mature threesome!  None of that angsty, twenty-something drama.  *sigh*

Solo-wise…yeah, I’d rather not talk about it.  Thought I was over my little funk, but apparently not.  Fortunately, the duo writing is going strong.  And as long as I’m writing in some form, things are all right.

As you might have heard, here on the East Coast, we got a little bit of snow this week.  Emery and I always enjoy these “snow events”, as they are euphemistically called here.  After all, we both grew up in central and northern Michigan, where three inches is just another winter’s day and no one really starts counting until it hits feet.  This one got our attention, though.  I was stuck at home for two days with three kids who still haven’t gone back to school, while Emery risked life and limb to walk the ten blocks of trecherous Philadelphia streets to get to work.  But in a lot of ways, it was great.  I made lots of soup and had fun driving my 4WD out of parking spots everyone else still has to shovel, and Emery got some great pictures of the city.

Best of all, though, we had just finished the third book of Creatures of Sin, and swore to ourselves that before we started the next one, we were going to do at least one project that didn’t involve those boys.  That’s always hard, just because we know them so well and have so much more to tell in that world.  Starting with new characters is always a little trepidatious, kind of like starting a new job.  Are you going to like the characters?  Is the world going to be interesting?  Do you know enough about your setting and period to do a good job of it?  We’ve already had one couple crash and burn on us because we didn’t know enough about rally driving to fake it.  But we took a deep breath and launched ourself into another one.  So far, so good.  We’re certainly enjoying the characters so far, and while we might need a little research on the setting, it’s not something so technical and specialized that we won’t be able to manage with a little due diligence.  So now we’re settling in, getting to know the gentlemen in question and starting to let them whisper in our ears as we get to know them.  It’s rather exciting!  I’m looking forward to reading it when it’s done…

Work has still be rather work-y this week, but Grey and I have started tagging again, so things are slowly getting back to normal.  Our third book in the Creatures of Sin series has been “done” for awhile now, but neither of us were happy with how it finished up.  We had three-fourths of a solid book, which is frustrating as hell.  But we finally figured out how to fix things.  Yay!  And I think we address several of the issues some readers out there have had with the previous two books.  As an added bonus, there’s more sex and Montgomery…sadly not more sex with Montgomery.  David can dream, however.

Once we re-wrap up book three, we do need to figure out our next project.  Definitely an India venture.  Beyond that, we’ll know when it hits us.  And Grey just loves not having a plan.

Pop on over to AllRomanceeBooks.com and check out Unshuttered, written by Grey and I as, well, Grey and I.   Be warned as this story is light, fun, contains excessive caffeine consumption, and inappropriate darkroom behavior.  And not only do you get a fantastic read for you money, but all proceeds go to the American Heart Association.  So go, read, and support a very good cause.