That's it! Right there, in that picture. My book. I just...wow, I found out yesterday that all the signing was done and got the release date for TOUCHED BY SHADOWS (9/24/21), and I can still barely believe that it's actually happening. The book was five years in the making, and went through so many drafts, I lost track. And now it's going to be published. Thank you to everyone who believed in me and supported me, and thank you to JournalStone Publishing for seeing the greatness in a manuscript I was terrified to submit.

So yes, this post is off schedule, but I felt it would be better to talk about the book here than in 280 characters on Twitter, or on Facebook which I apparently will need to re-learn how to use...oh, and this post won't be a list, promise. "The year is 1974. Oumou, a young African American girl, escapes from an undisclosed research laboratory that has been exploiting her telekinetic ability in order to access an unknown dimension of strange energy. She seeks refuge in a backwater town in the middle of nowhere North Carolina, but even here things do not go well. The local reverend conspires to drive her out...or worse. As if that wasn't bad enough, something else escaped alongside of her and is pursuing her for its own dark purposes. Her only solace is the daughter of the kind family who took her in, and a bitter reporter with a special talent of his own. They'll have to fight together to stave of the encroaching darkness both of, and out of, this world."

TOUCHED BY SHADOWS is a tale of cosmic horror played in concert with the very real horror inherent in the timeless African American struggle to survive and thrive. It's a response to my love of the tales of H.P. Lovecraft and his mythos, and the disgust I hold for everything the man stood for and believed in. I put my anger and my hope in this story. And all the passion I have. And a really creepy monster. If you like cosmic horror with it's strange creatures, endless darkness and tentacles, overwhelming sense of existential dread, and characters way out of their depth fighting to survive, this book is for you.

Stay tuned for more updates! And if you're interested, mark September 24, 2021 on your calendars.

P.S. I am so unbelievably excited for you all to get to read this book!