I sent The Dirty and the Dead (Constabulary Casefiles #3) to my editor yesterday afternoon. And that means I’m going to start working on Ashes of Empire: Imperial Ghosts. Speaking of Ashes of Empire, the audiobook of Imperial Echoes will come out next Tuesday, January 25th. It’s already available for pre-order from your favorite retailer.

When do I expect The Dirty and the Dead to hit the bookshelves? Hopefully by mid-February, barring any unforeseen events or my editor finding major issues.

Around here, winter’s bite is making itself felt in earnest. Our days are bone-chillingly cold, just like the planet on which Caelin Morrow is conducting her latest investigation, as you’ll see next month. From Sunday night to yesterday, we got almost half a meter of snow (about eighteen inches), which made up for the paltry snowfalls since early December. At least the sun is now out for a few days after almost a month of dreary, cloudy, gray days.

Here in the writer’s den, things are also cheerier with a new nine gallon freshwater aquarium replacing a tired old bookcase filled with books that haven’t been opened in decades. Yesterday afternoon, it received its first tenants, a school of neon tetras and four small, delicate and fun to watch golden shrimp. All seem in fine fettle this morning, and it’s fun watching them variously swim and scamper around the plants, rocks and driftwood. We’ve had aquariums before, but got rid of our last one more than a decade ago, when we shared our home with three dogs. Now that we no longer have any dogs, I figured since I spend most of my day in the writer’s den, I might as well add some undemanding life I can watch while my brain dredges up the next plot twist.

And that’s all the news I have. Stay safe and healthy, fellow humans.