Happy New Year!

Happy 2012, Everyone!

This will be an exciting year for me. Beside promoting my newest book, THE GIRL WHO REMEMBERED HORSES, and working on a sequel, I have two more eBooks coming out this year from Musa Publishing.

I bet you think they're about horses, don't you?

Well, actually, they're not. But they both encompass the theme that seeps into all of my writing - the bond between humans and animals. (And this first book does have two old rescue horses in it.)

SIX DEGREES OF LOST, with a release date of June 2012, is a contemporary novel set in the Pacific Northwest. It's told in alternating voices of the two main characters - Olive and David.

Olive’s mother is headed to jail and her brother to join the Army, so thirteen-year-old Olive is uprooted from sunny California and dumped in Washington State like a stray, which is exactly what she feels like surrounded by her aunt’s collection of homeless dogs, cats, and horses. Fourteen-year-old David’s future is already carved in stone. From a military family with two brothers serving overseas, he’s been pointed towards the Air Force Academy his entire life - but a rafting trip gone awry and a burning hay barn might ruin his chances. When a runaway dog dashes into the road and is almost hit by a car, the search for its owners leads Olive and David, two kids from entirely different backgrounds, to an unlikely bond. Will their growing attraction to each other be enough to keep Olive from a foolhardy journey to find her mother? Will David risk his family’s plans and honor to save her?

WALKING THE DOG has a tentative release date from Musa of September 2012. Here's a short blurb about this novel:

Jared is smitten when his teacher seats the new girl, Sophie, right next to him. Even with the scar running up the side of her face, Jared thinks she’s the most beautiful girl in the entire sixth grade. But why did she transfer here so late in the year? Rumors say something bad happened to her.

Jared and Sophie develop a friendship while walking the guidance counselor’s new therapy dog, but Jared’s overprotective parents are not happy with this arrangement. Besides, ever since his younger brother’s accident, Jared is supposed to keep an eye on Petey. But little brothers can be pests. First Petey lets the orange cat loose at the animal shelter where Jared and Sophie have been secretly meeting. Then Petey turns up missing. Will Jared’s parents unravel his elaborate lies and make him do community service at the senior center? What will Jared do when Sophie shows up there, afraid to go home?

So 2012 will be a busy and exciting year for me. I'll be writing, revising, talking about my books, blogging, and hoping to find time for a little exercise and fun somewhere in there, also.

What about you? What do you have planned for 2012?