It’s the day after Christmas! If you celebrated, I hope you had a wonderful holiday.

While the news media is busy looking back at the events of 2017, I’m posting my own retrospective.

In 2017

I published four titles

Three of the book are in my Sons of the Spy Lord Series.

• The Bastard’s Iberian Bride
• The Viscount’s Seduction
• The Rogue’s Last Scandal

 

The fourth is a Halloween short story that’s a spinoff from an earlier novella.

• The Ghost of Depford Hall 

GDH was a virtual no-budget story (except for editing) and I created that cover myself on Canva using a picture from Depositphotos. My regular cover designer, Cami Brite of Brite Designs was bothered by the fonts I used. She came in a bit later and tweaked them for me.

Blogging

Every week I posted at least two blogs on this website. My regular posts went up on Tuesday, and the Marketing For Romance Authors Blog Challenge post on Friday. In completing this challenge, I got to know a wonderful group of authors who shared heartfelt stories, their best advice, and some pretty good recipes.

I also joined the Slice of Orange blog team, OCC RWA’s blog, posting quarterly.

Blogging takes time, but it’s good practice for the inevitable promo posts and ad writing required to get our titles out into the world.

Giving Back to the Writing Community

In 2015, a group of Southern California RWA members began planning the California Dreamin’ Writers Conference. I was privileged (well, most of the time, LOL) to serve on that committee. Last March, the conference went off with nary a hitch, providing great workshops for attendees and earning some much-needed funds for the participating RWA chapters’ programs.

Reaching Readers

In 2017, I found my way to the AHA (Authors Helping Authors) network, another generous group of published authors willing to cross-promote, and got to meet fans of Regency romance via the Bluestocking Belles, Teatime with Cerise, Susanna, and friends, and the Writerspace Pajama Parties.

I’m sending a huge Thank You to all of you who reached out to me via email or Facebook to share your thoughts about my stories, and to everyone who posted a review. Thank you so much for sharing the love of books and storytelling!

Research

Thanks to The Marquess and the Midwife, in October, I spent two weeks in London walking the same streets and visiting the shops and locations frequented by my characters. It took years to get this trip funded and organized, but it was so very worth it. I have lots of material saved up for both blogs and stories.

On the Personal Front

Look at that sweet face! We added these two members to the family this year, my grandson, and my son-in-law. We’ve been truly blessed!

What’s next?

Enough looking back! On Friday, December 29th, MFRW Authors and I will be sharing our New Year’s Resolutions.

How was your 2017?