In Wooden Nickels, Hattie and Raymond sit down to bowls of she-crab soup, but soup isn’t the only thing you’ll find crab in here along the Chesapeake Bay.

t’s one of the things we here in Maryland are famous for – blue crabs. Yeah, yeah, technically our southern neighbors in Virginia have crabs in their section of the bay as well, but everyone knows the ones from up in the Maryland section are far superior to those from Virginia.

Part of that is probably because Maryland is where the famous spice in the tin can is from – Old Bay Seasoning. Old Bay wasn’t created until 1938, but long before then people were steaming (not boiling, *shudders*) their crabs in a combination of paprika, peppers, garlic, and other spices. Just as lobster was considered a poor man’s food, so was the blue crab. They’re vicious little monsters, and once they latch onto you with their claws, they’re not easy to detach. Plus there’s a lot of work that goes into picking the small amount of not-so-filling meat from all the shells. Although Native Americans, Colonists, and African Americans have consumed them in the past, the blue crab didn’t become widely eaten until the late 19th century, and even then recipes were less about picking through a heap of steamed crabs dumped on a table, and more about getting a container of already processed crabmeat and adding it to stew, soups, or sautéing it in wine. It wasn’t until 1930 when the Baltimore ‘crabcake’ became famous that the food really took off.

As gross and messy as it might be, I love getting a bushel of steamed crabs, and picking through them on a hot summer day, suffering through painful papercut-like slices on my fingers from the shell fragments, and digging through sections to make sure I’ve gotten all the yummy crabmeat out. I’m a purist, but friends like to dip the meat in melted butter or an additional dab of Old Bay before eating it.

Preorder your copy of Wooden Nickels at the following distributors, and fall into the world of 1920’s prohibition-era Baltimore!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DWDYV4Z/
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wooden-nickels
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wooden-nickels…/1128756780…
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/…/book/wooden-nickels/id1387689263…

Hattie Malloy is a boat-legger.

Not a bootlegger, but a boat-legger. She smuggles booze up and down the waterways of the Chesapeake Bay, using her illusion magic to keep the G-men from getting wise to her cargo.

Those who have never seen the Chesapeake Bay might not realize its grandeur. The Bay is the third largest estuary in the world, and the largest in the US. With it’s brackish mix of fresh and saltwater, the Bay is roughly 200 miles long with more than 150 major rivers and steams as well as over 100,000 smaller tributaries contributing to its waters.

Think about that from the perspective of a boat-legger for an instant – more than 100,000 little, marshy, out-of-the-way rivers and steams to duck into and hide from the feds when you’ve got ten barrels of moonshine that need to go from Havre de Grace down to a dimly lit slip in Virginia with only the moon and the stars to guide your way. The Bay’s width ranges from 4 to 30 miles, so if you hang close to the coastline, you can see that Treasury boat coming, and pull in to safety. And although there is a deep trough running down the middle of the Bay, its average depth is only 21 feet, making it ideal for smaller boats.

Forget about bootlegging booze in an old truck, racing down narrow dirt roads in the middle of the night to make a delivery. A boat and the Bay are the keys to your success— and to staying out of the hoosegow. Well, a boat, the Bay, and a gift for creating illusions.

Wooden Nickels – White Lightning Book 1 releases September 18. Take advantage of the special preorder pricing at the following retailers:

Time to give everyone an update of where things stand in my writing world.

1. Queen of the Damned should be out on audio ANY DAY NOW! It’s done and has been in Audible’s quality queue since the end of the month. It normally takes them a few weeks to review, so at the latest you should be listening to it next week some time.
2. The final Imp Series novel, The Morning Star, is on track to go to edit at the end of May and I’m planning a late June release. Because I want to get it to you as soon as possible, I won’t be doing a preorder on this one.
   For those of you who are lamenting the end of the Imp Series, please know that Sam isn’t going anywhere. She’ll have cameos in future Imp World series as well as the occasional short story or novella.  After The Morning Star releases I’ll be turning my attention to a few new things, as well as returning focus to my Templar Series, but all your Impish characters will return next year in a new series. I may even do a holiday Sam short to tide you over.
3. I’ve got an amazing project I’m working on with J.P. Sloan that’s got Moonshine, Mobsters, and Magic Users.  The White Lightning Series will kick off on September 18th with book 1—Wooden Nickels— and will continue with a monthly release schedule through the new year. Expect 6 books in this series, and possibly more as well as a spin-off series if things work out. For more information, check out the White Lightning page on my website.
4. I’ll be participating in a shared-theme project called Love Spells! These are laugh-out-loud paranormal romances, and I think you’re going to like these fun books! My contributions will be releasing early next year, so stay turned for covers and more information.
5. FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDITIONS – I know those of you who bought the German edition of A Demon Bound have been (im)patiently waiting for the rest of the series to be translated. I’m happy to announce that I have contracted with someone and hope to have Satan’s Sword completed and available in German around the end of the year. If that novel goes well, the rest of the series should follow in fairly quick succession. These translated editions will be exclusive to Amazon.
   I’m also in talks with someone to translate the series into Italian. If that happens, those novels should be out starting late this year. I’ll update everyone as soon as I have more information!