As I write this, we’re a touch under three weeks from summer. It didn’t snow in April where I live, despite Prince’s best efforts, but we’re coming out of one of the rainiest springs I can remember in California.

I’m back with an update, and some good news on two long-awaited projects. My contemporary paranormal novel is coming in the next week or two, and the omnibus Mendocino volume that I’ve been promising for almost two years is in the final stages (again/still) for an ebook and paperback release this summer.

“You Are My Water, My World”

There’s a non-zero chance that I’ll feel like the “lhude singe cuccu” in that poem from my title, ready to sing as soon as summer arrives whether I’m ready or not, but I’m getting ready to submit “You Are My Water, My World.”

Some of you remember this story being born in April 2025, starting from an image that became a meme. By the third chapter, it was suddenly a paranormal, why-choose, chosen family, pheromone-laced romance that closes its first volume with a lightweight cliffhanger.

I’ve revised the cover as well. Fresca in the water remains, but there’s a book in the story itself that’s reflected (figuratively and literally) in the new design.

If all goes well, you’ll get a teaser to the sequel once you get through this book.

When I first wrote the end matter, I planned to have book two out by the end of 2025. With book one coming out in the middle of 2026, the timeline is shifted, but your feedback will help me decide how urgently to focus on the second novel in this series.

“Mendocino Hearts”

Another long-awaited effort will be queued up afterward, with a rebranding for the series and moving toward the new covers I made.

Mendocino, my six-part trilogy that was only supposed to be a short story, is in my Reedsy formatting system and should be released as an omnibus by Independence Day, with a minor birth control adjustment and some new front and back matter.

I really want this paperback in my hands, and yours, soon. You could almost say it’s bound to happen eventually.

Just calling it “Mendocino” or “The Mendocino Saga” felt a bit off, but it was a working title for a trilogy that went way beyond my expectations. “Mendocino Hearts” seems like a more generous association, letting the family move away from the coast while keeping ties to one of my favorite towns in California.

Into the summer

Speaking of coastal towns, later this month I’ll be getting away for a few days to write, edit, and figure out the status of the dozens of fragments and projects in my Reedsy account. Some of them are sentences or pages, but there are a few stories that have broken 30, 40, or even 50 thousand words.

I’m pondering a few ways to get the content in front of readers, from an early access gallery for my Patreon subscribers (50% off your first month with code ICUMEN) with snippets and early chapter teases, some level of the same here on my blog, or just honing a few things down to encapsulated shorts to publish and see what people want to see more of.

I know some of you are waiting for some sequels, and those drafts are started: Brenda Marie, Sex and Taxes, and Majesty of Defeat have follow-ons in the works already, plus a couple of sequels to as-yet-unpublished works. Those will eventually get more attention, but they’ve been comfortable while they waited for me to get back to them.

Where to start reading

“You Are My Water, My World” will be my first published full-length novel (after almost two dozen shorter works), and I think it may be my best work yet. But if you don’t want to wait for it, here are some places to start.

If you’re new here, I’d suggest my Mendocino Hearts series as a starting point. A man finds a beloved ex at his doorstep in stockings and heels, pulling her in to a slowly resuming relationship after years apart. Soon after, he meets an enticing young woman in Mendocino, finding their connection immediate and unexpectedly complicated. Love comes through and the family grows, over the course of six stories.

Wanting to start out lighter? Majesty of Defeat is a medieval-set romance with an adventurer who becomes the long-awaited king of a neighboring nation, claiming his queen, dispelling a would-be usurper to the throne and its inhabitant, and setting out to expand his domain and his family. This is a standalone story but a sequel is on the way.

Sex and Taxes is a contemporary setting with succubi and tax returns. It sounds weird, but it works. In a world where you can give a little bit of your soul to get out of tax debt, Banda finds himself offering that sacrifice, but there’s something different about him, unlike anything his succubus enrolled agent has ever seen. He might not be able to make his payment after all, but that could be good for both of them. Like the previous book, this one is self-contained but there’s more on the way.

For purely realistic relationships and some mother/daughter drama, check out Escape Artist. Kaira brings a gift to Jason for his escape from her daughter, but there’s more than a case of wine to welcome him to freedom of sorts. But her daughter, his ex, thinks she still has sway over him. This one is self-contained and there’s not likely to be a follow-on story.

Stay tuned for Kelvin and Fresca coming to your Kindle soon!