Cheryl Mahoney's Blog, page 2

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (September, 2023)

Squeaking in at the end of the month with an update on September’s reading!  Let’s jump right in…

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister was a very good time-twisty mystery.  Jen watches her teenage son commit murder – and then starts living her life backward, each morning waking up on an earlier day.  I really liked seeing her try to put the pieces together to unravel what had happened, and how to prevent the murder.  A couple twists I saw coming, but others surprised me.

My book club se...

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (August, 2023)

Nearly the end of August, and hopefully cooler weather is ahead!  Time for some reading updates.

I finished reading After Anne by Logan Steiner, which I mentioned in my last update.  A novel based on L. M. Montgomery’s life, it was interesting and the people were portrayed very well – but I personally would have made a lot of different choices in what to focus on and how to interpret some of the more ambiguous things in her life.

I enjoyed Indexing Reflections by Seanan McGuire, sequel Indexing....

Writing Update (July, 2023)

I’ve been deep in revisions this month, making edits to Thorns 2 based on beta reader feedback.  I added more conflict to hopefully make things more exciting in the earlier parts of the book, and made some tweaks and edits throughout.  I brought Chapter One into my writing group, and did a substantial rewrite of that chapter.  I think most writers will agree, Chapter One is the hardest!

I have one more scene I want to significantly rewrite, a fight with a dragon that I also brought into my writi...

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (July, 2023)

Happy July!  Summer has arrived with a vengeance here; after a cooler June, July has had much hotter days.  Good for staying in and reading, I suppose!  I’ve been having a month of mostly fantasy books, which has always been a favorite, of course.  Lots of variety within that category, though!

I mentioned in my last update that I was reading a book about a character people forget – that book was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.  It sounds like the same premise as The Sudden Appe...

Writing Update (June, 2023)

My writing has been bouncing around between different books of my Thorns series recently.  I spent some time going through Thorns 3, my NaNoWriMo project of 2022.  I did some edits and made some notes, and concluded that the biggest changes need to be near the ending, to increase the conflict a bit more.  I then moved onto Thorns 4 for a little while, went through much the same process and came to pretty much the same conclusion – there’s some character things I want to weave in earlier, but mos...

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (June, 2023)

My recent reading seems to have been mostly fantasy and biographies – only one of which is typical!

My television watching has influenced my reading a bit lately.  I watched The Crown, which made me want to read a biography of Churchill, so I picked up Gretchen Rubin’s book, 40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill.  I love her Happiness Project, but I’m sorry to report this concept didn’t work for me.  It’s more or less 40 brief essays on different aspects of Churchill, and since the whole idea is ...

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (May, 2023)

Happy May!  This seems to have been my month for continuing and/or completing series, with a lot of books falling into that category.  I’ve been trying to stay on top of series and read them without too long a gap between books (because I forget too much, or lose track of the series entirely!) so I’ve been focusing some reading there lately.

I finished the last book in Martha Wells’ Raksura series, The Harbors of the Sun.  I’ve loved this series, so it’s kind of a shame to get to the end!  Books...

Writing Update (April, 2023)

Just a brief update this month! My biggest recent writing news, of course, was the launch of my newest novel, The Princess Behind Thorns, on April 4th.  Still very exciting to have that out in the world!

The second book in the series is currently with beta-readers, so I’ve been turning to Book 3, which I drafted in November, 2022, for NaNoWriMo.  It’s nice to work on a book that was drafted relatively recently, compared to the first two in the series.  It’s also a departure from the previous two...

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (April, 2023)

Happy Spring!  The weather is finally turning warm near me, but even though I do love reading under a warm blanket, my reading is still continuing along.  Mostly fiction in the last few weeks – and not quite as much Martha Wells as last month!

I did read two more installments in Wells’ Raksura series though – Book 4, The Edge of Worlds, and an anthology of short stories set in the same world, Stories of the Raksura, Volume One (of Two).  I should have read the short stories before Book 4, I thin...

Launch Day: The Princess Behind Thorns (Thorns 1)

It’s launch day, and I’m so excited to share this brand new series with you!  After four years in the writing, The Princess Behind Thorns is finally available, and I hope you’re going to love this new world and characters.

You can buy your copy in Kindle, paperback or hardback.

Here’s a little more about the book:

For this princess forced under an enchantment, escaping from her spell is only the first ordeal. Claiming the throne is even more dangerous.

Princess Rose Amelia has spent a hundred ...