Friends’ Book News!

As I make progress on the second book in my fantasy duology, several of my writing friends have news of actual book releases, upcoming or already accomplished! These range from nonfiction books on passionate interests to fantasy novels for both the young and the mature reader. I’m so pleased for my colleagues.

Here are the books, in approximate order of release.

My Canadian “friend of the pen” Kilmeny MacMichael has not one but two publications. The first is a chapter in the book Cooking The Detectives: A bite sized guide to the tastiest TV detective shows by Jenny Hammerton. Kilmeny describes it as “introductions to many popular and excellent TV detective shows… gossip about acting celebrities and their relationships with their kitchens… recipes from said celebrities…” plus her chapter about detective characters on the radio.

And after much dedicated work, Kilmeny’s very own book Blackmail, Bodies and Baked Noodles: A Guide and Recipe Collection Celebrating Box 13 is now available as an e-book and in a print format that should be easy to use for cooking! Here’s the description: “This book includes an introduction to each episode in the old time radio Box 13 series alongside half a dozen recipes from the voices of America’s golden age of radio and seventy recipes in total. Come and sink your teeth into history and adventure.” The recipes sound delicious! And if you’ve never enjoyed the excellence of old-fashioned radio drama, Kilmeny would be a good guide for where to start!

My old friend Susan Bensema Young has exciting news: she has just released her own passion project, Advanced Braidwork for the Model Horse after more than 3 years in the writing and decades of aspiration. Congratulations, Sue! As she describes it, “I have wanted to document my miniature braidwork techniques for many years, and this is it! This 225 page book exhaustively covers eight of my favorite pieces of braided headgear…There are 47 beautifully hand-drawn full page Plates and 323 photographs (all but 2 in color), buttressed by a couple of full page drawings.”

Her works are truly pieces of art in miniature. You can see many, many examples of her art on her website, and read more about the book in her blog. You don’t have to know anything about model horses to appreciate the beauty of these pieces.

My local friend Bernie Mojzes now has his own book of fantasy for the mature reader, Mistress of Bees available for Pre-Order, to be released on September 16, 2025. “Noble or ignoble, human or otherwise, everyone knows there is only one person in Ashbury to turn to when things go horribly awry: the self-proclaimed “Lady” Maris Goselin. Handy with a spell or a blade, Maris is known for her wit, her cunning, and her temper-and of course for her loyal bees.” I know I’m intrigued! (Plus I’ve had a peek at its excellent map.)

Meanwhile, my friend Aud Supplee is hard at work on the fourth book in her “Winnie and the Wizard” series. As a fan of her first three books for young adults and the young at heart, I’m very eager for the fourth book to come out! I must confess, I’ve had sneak peeks at Book Four as Aud has shared drafts of chapters with me, and I am really enjoying what I’ve read. Of course, since reading Frama-12, I feel like the characters Winnie, Mikey, and Kip are good friends of mine, and I’m anxious to see what happens to them. You can read a bit about the books progress on Aud’s blog.

Frama 12 Cover Art — Book One in the Series

I am so very pleased for you all, my friends! Congratulations on your hard work and exciting book news!

September 9, 2025 5

Book Review: Aylen Isle by Aud Supplee

Happy Tell a Fairy Tale Day!

After too long a hiatus, it’s time to wake up my dormant blog. And what better way than to celebrate some things I love: fairy tales and Aud Supplee’s books.

I’ve enjoyed observing Tell a Fairy Tale Day for several years ( 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024), and this year I particularly want to celebrate Aud’s latest book, Aylen Isle.

An enchanted sword and an out-of-control wand. What could possibly go wrong?

Aylen Isle isn’t a fairy tale retelling, but it has many fine fairy tale elements: a bewitched princess, conjurers and wizards, tree sprites, a forest with magical perils and healing “mother trees,” and an enchanted sword with a quite unusual origin (a stone enters into it, but not in the way you might think). All this in the refreshing twist of a tropical island!

Best of all, Aylen Isle centers on some of my favorite fictional young people: Winnie, semi-reluctant heroine on more than one world; her adorable little stepbrother Mikey (who knows something about magic and multiple worlds); and their friend Kip, aspiring magician. They all have important roles in helping the bewitched princess and preventing their nemesis from bringing trouble to the kingdom of Aylen Isle—or any other world, for that matter. And that’s only part of what they have to deal with!

I’m not alone in my love for Aylen Isle. Kirkus Review calls the novel “A gripping adventure enhanced by a creative plot, lively dialogue, and strong female characters.” (If you don’t mind mild spoilers, check out their excellent full review here.)

And the Readers Choice Awards’ 5-star review calls Aylen Isle, “an imaginative and well-crafted novel, which draws readers into a magical world of adventure and self-discovery. With a well-paced plot, timely-twists and turns, and a relatable female protagonist, the book will keep readers engaged until the very end.” (Their full review has mild spoilers, too.)

Aylen Isle is the third book of Winnie’s, Mikey’s, and Kip’s adventures together. In my opinion, you’ll enjoy this book more if you’ve read at least Hutra, their previous adventure, first. And really, part of the joy is seeing all these young people grow and deepen over time, so why not start with Frama-12, the beginning of it all?

Read more about Aylen Isle (and the whole series) on Aud’s blog.

I recommend Aylen Isle for fantasy lovers from Young Adult to Young at Heart!

February 26, 2025 4

Book Review: Hutra by Aud Supplee

Happy National Tell a Fairy Tale Day! In honor of the day, I want to celebrate Hutra by Aud Supplee.

“One lefthanded world. Two missing little boys. Three teens must make it right.”

Hutra isn’t a fairy tale or retelling per se, but it is a fine, fun portal fantasy, part of a series with many fairy tale elements: queens and kings, enchantments, wizards, and knights in shining, er, pink armor with magic swords! Check out Frama-12 (available now) and Aylen Isle (when it’s released) for more about those excellent things.

But you don’t need to have read Frama-12 to enjoy Hutra. Just jump right in, and soon you’ll be plunging through a time tear into another world. You’ll get to know some of my favorite young people: Winnie, avid runner and former reluctant general; her friend Kip, aspiring magician; and her adorable little stepbrother, Mikey, who knows something about generals and magic.

The world they jump into seems like Earth, but something is definitely—off. Make that a lot of somethings. Good thing they have young Nor to help guide them in this new world, though he’s more astonished than they are at their arrival. Nor is an animal communicator, and one of my favorite people in the whole series. As Kirkus Review says, he shines: he’s “privileged but principled, rebellious but deeply affectionate.” Nor may be privileged, but he’s not at all spoiled; in fact, he’s a pretty humble young man, driven by curiosity and a passion for helping animals. Which turns out to be helpful when looking for a lost little boy!

You can meet Nor early in Hutra, and also on Aud’s blog, where she’s posted a deleted scene in honor of Hutra’s “birthday.” I like this scene a lot, and I like the rest of the book even better!

Happy belated birthday, Hutra! And happy reading to all.

February 26, 2024 1

Some Excellent (Belated) News

A nonfiction project has kept me so busy that I have rather badly neglected my blog. So, without further ado, here is some belated but really fine news.

First of all, my good friend Aud shared something quite exciting: not only did she get a really good review from Kirkus, but that august publication also made her an offer it makes to only a select group of Indie-published authors! Go, check out her blog and find out. My other news can wait.

If you haven’t already gone to Aud’s blog, here’s more: she also revealed the cover for her second “Winnie and the Wizard Book.” And I love it even more than the cover to Frama-12! Is that a Frama-scope I spy? And…perhaps even a time-tear??

I’m so tempted to ask Aud if I can post that cover, but I want you to see it for yourself along with her cool Kirkus news. (This is not a spoiler: I’ve read an earlier draft of Hutra even before Frama-12, and that’s where I became so very fond of Winnie and her companions.)

My second (or is it third?) bit of news: the next Enola book is out: Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade! (Truth be told, it came out just two days after Aud posted her fun blog; this is an embarrassment of riches.) I loved this latest Enola adventure! Lady Cecily appears for the third time, and I think I enjoyed this book even more than her second appearance. There’s such a wealth of great characters, old and young, and Enola (my favorite as always) is in fine form. Elegant, even. It was a treat to read. (Just don’t read it as your first Enola book. Start at the beginning!)

So, here’s a number of things to celebrate and I’m happy to share them. I urge you to check them both out if you haven’t already.

October 26, 2022 3

Frama-12 Release and Review!

Frama-12 by Aud Supplee steps out into the world today!

I was delighted to be given an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. Full disclosure: anyone who’s read my recent posts will know I can’t claim to be objective in this review – I’ve known this book since it was a kid! But I will do my utmost to be honest.

So, here’s my honest opinion: I just finished Frama-12, and I enjoyed the heck out of it!

Here is a quick summary (from the book cover and the author’s website):

Winnie Harris, following a warrior code in honor of her mother’s fighting spirit, will do whatever it takes to protect her little stepbrother, Mikey. Kip Skyler, charming to everyone but Winnie, impresses her stepbrother with his sleight of hand. Now Mikey wants them to pass through a time tear into Frama-12 and save the inhabitants from an invasion. She’ll be the general and Kip the wizard.

Winnie sees two problems with the mission. Frama-12 is just a fantasy game, right? And Kip is majorly annoying. But she’s only half right. If the incompatible teens can’t work together, an enemy could march through a very real time tear and attack Earth.

To really enjoy a book, I have to like the main characters – mostly, at least. Winnie and Kip are like most teenagers, and most people in general: at times they can be exasperating, and at other times, deeply sympathetic. I came to care about both of them early on. As for Mikey, he’s an adorable little kid who tugged at my heart strings and made me laugh – and sometimes he’s unnervingly mature. But, unlike some other precocious kid characters, Mikey has a very good reason for this. He tells Winnie about it early in the story, but she doesn’t really believe him at first. He’s just her little stepbrother, right…? (Well, yes and no.)

As Winnie soon finds out, Frama-12 is home to a host of new, strange creatures and peoples. Some are alarming, some benign, some funny – and some of them a mix of all of the above. Winnie has to learn which can be trusted and which to beware of. Meanwhile, she’s confronted with a myriad of new sights, sounds, smells and tastes. She gets help in navigating all this from some unexpected sources—if only she can ease up and listen to them.

In trying to live up to her mom’s spiritual courage and determination, sometimes Winnie feels she has to be too independent, too strong. And that can make her downright stubborn at times. But over the course of the book, she learns more about what true courage looks like.

By the end of the book, there are some mysteries and unanswered questions – but I have it on good authority that there will be another book of adventures with Winnie, Kip, and Mikey. Hurrah!

This book is light and a lot of fun, but it also deals with some serious issues, like loss, separation from loved ones, and the challenges of stepfamilies. The story deals with these issues with warmth and heart. I highly recommend it for Young Adults and the Young at Heart looking for a fun contemporary adventure into a rather wacky world. It’s a great summer read.

So if you’re ready for adventure, Frama-12 is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and independent bookstores.

And if you happen to be in southeastern Pennsylvania, you can meet the author and get your book at a signing with her on Saturday, August 6th!

If you’d like to read my interviews with Aud, you can read them here, where we interview each other about anthologies we’re in and other fun stuff, here, where we talk especially about conferences we went to, and here, where Aud talks about earlier publications and her general writing process.

Congratulations, Aud! I’m so pleased Frama-12 is out in the world where readers can enjoy it!

July 13, 2022 5