Em Brooks's Blog

The Allegheny Chronicles: The Healer was released on November 15th and I am very excited to share it with you. It is the fourth book of The Allegheny Chronicles (TAC) series but I keep insisting you don't have to read them in any order (Some people like to have origin stories AFTER the initial adventure.) So, let's get you acquainted with the series. Q:Where did you get the idea to write

 The Allegheny Chronicles: The Healer releases on Saturday, November 15, 2025!!! Did you want a sample?

 

Prologue

Fall 1991

Theyoung woman’s dark hair was tucked behind her ears as she stared at the urndisplayed on the table before her. Her eyes memorized every detail of it. Itwas ceramic with a blue glaze and a lid. He had loved blue. Surrounding the urnwere pictures in frames, as well as flowers and candles. Her eyes rested on theface of the young man in the photo.

Thisdidn’t seem...

It has come to my attention that perhaps my title, "Portrait of an Unlikely Affair," although poetic, might be giving off the wrong "vibe" for readers, mostly due to the word "affair."

Ok. I get it. 

These days the word "affair" is synonymous for "cheating on your significant other." 

And no one likes cheaters. 

And no matter how *I* meant it, it will always be up to the reader and their interpretations.

And I can say a thousand times, "It's not about affairs! It's taking the old time definition of i...

One of my favorite sayings is, "Learn from the mistakes of others because life is too short to make them all yourself." (I'm not sure who said that, perhaps Mark Twain, Will Rogers, or Groucho Marx but a quick search didn't bring anything up.) But, it is also good to learn from other people who are willing to share their experience with you. 

On a whim I signed up for a free "Writer's Boot Camp" put on by Hay House Publishing. It is a four day workshop, basically, where they have a 2 hour talk. O...

 *sigh*

It's a double edged sword. It's bittersweet. It's...…absolutely maddening. I have a love-hate-but-mostly-hate relationship with this whole A.I. concept. Take for example this image with the title on it above. It was created using A.I. in Photoshop but I have to ask, "Why the frick does she have a Klingon forehead on her nose?" It's a great mystery. I didn't tell A.I. to create it, and yet, image after image, it created them like that. And this whole editing for audiobook using Virtual Voi...

 

As children, growing up, we have some really fanciful ideas about adulthood.  For instance -- no more school and no more "learning" stupid things we'd never use. Another would be that adults have it all together. Of course, then we "grow up" and get out of school only to learn how silly and fanciful those falsehoods we believed are. The truth is, we are always learning and being adult means you just "wing it" and make things up as you go. That's basically it. 

Recently, I have gotten six of my n...

 Hey, Audiobook lovers! 

On May 26th, I published my very first audiobook on Audible using Virtual Voice, which means I have new opportunities to review and relaunch my books. Hooray!!! 

My Portrait of an Unlikely Affair series... Yes, that is a unique name. No, it's not about extramarital affairs. No, it's not a spicy romance book. Yes, it does have clean love story. Yes, it's got some drama. So what's it about?

OK, so, it's about Avonlea Stone, a celebrity, an actress, and a big deal, who is in h...

 

A few weeks ago, I put forth my belief in the existence of mischievous little gremlins that exist somewhere in the digital world and pop up once an author hits the button that says, "Publish Your Book." And at that moment, these publishing gremlins get in there, omit words, scramble words, misspell very obvious words, and honestly do everything to make it look as if the author is a dimwit and hired a toddler to edit their book. 

I admit, the thought of these publishing gremlins gets in my head a...

You pour your whole soul into something. Hours of your life. Your focus. Your being. Everything.
And in your mind, you have anticipation of a reaction for others to validate the feat you just over came.
And you get crickets. 
But let's be honest. As you were toiling away, working hard at your endeavor, everyone else around you was locked into various stages of their goal, their own chaos, their own drama.... Their own life. Their own world. And while you expected a response from them, they didn't n...

Recently, I noticed I received a review on GoodReads where a reader mentioned editing errors in the book she read. She wasn't being critical, she was just pointing them out for future reference. Being attentive to these things, and appreciative of the comment so I can fix it, I immediately reread the book she had read and couldn't find the instance she was talking about. 

Am I just not seeing it?

I will be the first to admit that sometimes I'm only human, and mistakes do occur. My writing and edit...