Caryn Larrinaga's Blog

I loved getting to talk about The League of Utah Writers with Bryan Young on Fox 13 last weekend. It’s such a wonderful organization and has had an enormous impact on my career – I’ll sing its praises anywhere, anytime.

Click here or on the image below to view the video on the Fox 13 website.

I am so deeply honored and extremely proud to have won a Cat Writers Association Muse Medallion for “The Candlewick Caper.” I’m thrilled the judges loved the story and these three mischievous cats!

The story was inspired by an anthology theme in the Holiday Hijinks series. The publisher was looking for stories about animals getting into mischief or having adventures around a winter holiday. I instantly knew what I wanted to write about: cats inspired by my own little schemers.

My gray tabby is typically the mastermind, digging sandwich scraps out of the garbage to share with his orange tabby brothers or showing them how to jump onto the countertop to access that most delicious of forbidden delicacies: an unattended butter dish. The kitties in “The Candlewick Caper” are similarly impish at their humans’ Yule craft night.

It is seriously the cutest collection I’ve gotten to be a part of. There isn’t anything scary in this one, just some good wholesome fun.

You can find “The Candlewick Caper” in TIDBITS & TINSEL TAILS from Camden Park Press, and you can get signed copies on my website (they make fabulous gifts!).

Happy book birthday to This Isn’t the Place: A Collection of Utah Horror!

I’m extremely proud and excited to be part of another volume of the Utah Horror series. This is my fourth time, after Apocalypse Utah, They Walk Among Us, and Wasatch Witches.

The theme of This Isn’t the Place is hauntings that take place anywhere other than a house. I set my story “Mushroom Hunting” in the great outdoors, inspired by a hike my husband and I went on above Bountiful, Utah, where we encountered a place that just felt… wrong.

There are so many fantastic stories in this collection. I hope you’ll check it out and let them fill your evenings with some genuine shivers!

Pick up your copy now wherever books are sold or directly from Timber Ghost Press

I am indescribably thrilled to announce that I am now represented by Stacey Kondla at The Rights Factory!!

Working with a literary agent is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. Publishing is a strange world, and I’m excited to have an advocate and a partner on this journey.

I met Stacey at the Quills Conference last year and pitched her an unpublished novel. To my delight, she loves the book! She is just phenomenal, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this and other projects.

Stacey and the other agents at TRF represent some fantastic writers, and I’m proud to be joining their client list. You can see me at https://www.therightsfactory.com/Authors/caryn-larrinaga

Happy book birthday to TIDBITS & TINSEL TAILS!

This is the latest installment in the Holiday Hijinks anthology series from Camden Park Press. In this volume, cats and dogs are the stars, getting into all manner of mischief and misadventures during their winter holiday festivities.

I loved working with Lyn Worthen at Camden Park again. She puts together the most fun anthologies, including Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse, which included my story “Bad Luck Bridget.”

For Tidbits & Tinsel Tales, my story, “The Candlewick Caper,” was inspired by my own furry little schemers. My gray tabby is typically the mastermind, digging sandwich scraps out of the garbage to share with his orange tabby brothers or showing them how to jump onto the countertop to access that most delicious of forbidden delicacies: an unattended butter dish. The kitties in “The Candlewick Caper” are similarly impish at their humans’ Yule craft night.

It is seriously the cutest collection I’ve gotten to be a part of. I hope you’ll use it to add some holiday whimsy to your season! Click here for signed copies.

The Davis County Journal, a paper covering the county where I grew up and where Timber Ghost Press is headquartered, ran an article about Timber Ghost, founder C.R. Langille, and her philosophy behind horror.

I can’t say it enough, but I love working with C.R. She has a fantastic eye for the best in creepy, weird, and strange stories. She’s a genuine advocate for horror, and she fights fiercely to make sure the authors she’s chosen to work with are well taken care of, compensated fairly, and paid on time. Working with her again would be a dream, so I’m glad the spotlight is being shone on her and Timber Ghost.

Because she’s always making room for others in that spotlight, she was gracious enough to send the journalist covering this story my way for some quotes, and they ended up using a photo of me holding MOUSE TRAP as well.

Check it out here:

Sometimes, we’re lucky enough that something good can be salvaged from something bad.

Earlier this month, my publisher, C.R. Langille of Timber Ghost Press, was alerted to the fact that one of the cover artists she had worked with on several titles had been passing off AI-generated art as his own original work. Timber Ghost Press has taken a hard stance against and pledged not to use AI-generated art in their book covers, so this came as a shock. C.R. was only told about one title, but for safety, she ran the other covers that D Goodman had done through an AI art checker and found that another book cover, the one for Mouse Trap, had been created with AI-generated art as well.

As happens on X/Twitter, there was a bit of a pitchfork frenzy about the issue. But I think C.R. did exactly what was most appropriate: she owned the past decisions, was transparent about the whats and the whens and the whys, and immediately moved forward to commission new covers for the affected titles at her own expense.

Wherever you stand on the ethics of AI-generated art in book covers, I hope that we can all agree that artists using AI content need to be up front about doing so. C.R. was mislead. She had made decisions about which artists to use based on those artists’ statements about their own work. And once she found out the artist had lied, she wasted no time getting new covers.

I feel awful that C.R. had to go through all this. But as always, she’s been an unbeatable advocate for her authors, and she went straight to one of my all-time favorite horror cover artists to get a new look for Mouse Trap: Don Noble, who also did the cover for Dread Softly.

It turned out so beautifully!! Honestly, I love it even more than the original one. The vibrant colors, the Astorian Victorian house, and something sinister hovering over it all. I think it’s absolute perfection.

You can pick up this gorgeous version of Mouse Trap everywhere you found the original: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BDS3NB4S or signed copies at http://carynlarrinaga.square.site

MOUSE TRAP won the Silver Quill award for novellas at the Quills Banquet last night!!!! I’m so excited, honored, and most especially grateful to Timber Ghost Press for having faith in this book and making this possible.

I wasn’t able to attend the conference or banquet because I’m recovering from surgery, so C.R. Langille dropped the award off today. Isn’t it gorgeous? And I am sure it wasn’t on purpose, but the gap between the etching and the wood block is exactly right for the paperback.

Seriously, so grateful this little book has gotten such big attention. Thank you, thank you!

WE DID IT!!!

Mouse Trap is officially a #1 New Release on Amazon!

Thank you everyone who has supported Mouse Trap so far by buying the book and/or boosting the signal. You are all amazing!

Big thanks also to BookBub for selecting Mouse Trap as a new release to highlight in their daily email!

I’m freaking out!

As promised, here’s that information on the special, enormous giveaway I’m running for the launch of my newest book!

Mouse Trap, my novella about a sinister supernatural creature haunting an old Victorian home in Astoria, Oregon, is coming out on January 3. It’s just in time to start the new year off right.

And to help you start off your year even better, I’m giving away a $50 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner! 

Here’s how to enter:

Pre-order Mouse Trap before release day OR purchase it from Amazon on release daySend a copy of your order receipt to caryn @ carynlarrinaga .com (be sure to remove the spaces – I had to put them in to thwart bots)That’s it! 

As a bonus, every person who sends me their order confirmation will get a FREE ebook copy of my collection of short and strange stories. Here’s what reviewers are saying about Dread Softly:

“Spooky and slim and easily done in one late night sitting, which is really the best time for this sort of thing… if you dare.” – NetGalley Review

“These 11 tales are delightfully dark and full of unnerving surprises.” – Goodreads Review

“Every story in this collection is a winner.” – Goodreads Review

Remember, everyone who sends me their order confirmation after pre-ordering Mouse Trap gets entered to win a $50 Amazon gift card AND gets a free copy of Dread Softly. Don’t miss out.