July came in swinging. Two book fairs, rolling out my ARC for Book Four, and creating the book trailer for this deliciously dark installment in the Somewhere Aching universe. I’m running on caffeine, stubbornness and the faint hope that autumn will save me.

Hello Friends, July has arrived in a rush of sunshine, late nights, and the kind of busy that makes the days blur. I’m neck‑deep in creating book merch for upcoming fairs — mugs, bookmarks, keychains, stickers, annotation cards — a whole world of Somewhere Aching in physical form. It’s chaotic, but it’s also a joy.

For years, I buried my voice—softening the darkness, hiding the truth, and censoring the parts of me shaped by trauma. But honesty has a gravity all its own. I write with grit now, without guilt, and for the readers who crave fiction that feels real.