By nature, I am a planner. As I write this, I have four different lists sitting on my desk (three of which are to-do lists, broken up into different categories: real life stuff, writer stuff, and cover design stuff).

I have always been a planner. I like to know what’s coming next, what to expect. I like knowing how my days are going to pan out. But sometimes, I can plan all I want, and things still go sideways. This year has been a spectacularly colourful illustration of that fact. Nothing at all has gone according to plan.

As some of you know, we moved back in February. It wasn’t a small move. We uprooted our family and moved halfway across the province. When my husband was first transferred, we thought we would be in a new home and settling in by the end of March, and here we are, the end of May, with no evidence that it will happen this summer. Chances are, it won’t happen this year. We’re in transition, and I hate it. Everything is up in the air and our situation seems to change daily. For reasons totally beyond our control, we are stuck and there’s no way to move forward, only sideways.

Despite all this, I truly believe moving was the best decision for our family, and it has afforded us opportunities we wouldn’t have had if we’d stayed where we were. One of those opportunities was for me to write full-time. I looked forward to it with more excitement than I’d had for almost anything else in my life, and so far, it has been fantastic. I’m happier writing, and when the day came to make the transition from part-time to full-time writer, I sat down and I made a plan.

I planned out all my releases for this year. I planned out covers and story arcs and meet-cutes and happy endings.

And then I started writing.

In March, I released Copper Creek. It was probably the most fun I’d had writing a book in a long time. Frankie was a blast to get to know and when I finished, I felt recharged and ready to tackle the next book. Consulting the list, I saw that it was a continuation of Laguna: Beck and Brody’s story.

I wrote Laguna last year as part of a summer giveaway (and you can still download it for free here if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet). I loved the boys and their story was far from finished. So once Frankie’s book was out of the way, it was time to give B&B their HEA.

Only, when I sat down to write it, the words felt awkward and forced. I couldn’t seem to get into their heads and it was driving me nuts. The harder I tried, the more difficult it became and then I realized the reason it was so tough. I was working on the wrong book. I set aside Beck and Brody’s book and picked up Witt and Mason’s. I’d intended for Close to Home to be the fifth book in the series, but apparently, I’d had it wrong.

Witt and Mason will get their happily ever after on May 31st.

So sometimes things don’t go according to plan at all. But sometimes, it works out for the best.

Witt:
I excelled at two things: systems engineering and going completely unnoticed.
The engineering took work and determination. The invisibility came naturally. Until one day, the wrong person noticed me. Battered and broken, I fled, escaping to Sawyer’s Ferry and the only friends I’d ever had.
Now, I just needed to figure out what I was going to do next.

Mason:
Life was good.
I had a great job, good friends, and a family who loved me. Even my roommate was decent. At least he was until he let his nudist brother come to visit. The opportunity to house-sit and help an injured friend couldn’t have come at a better time.
All I’d needed was to avoid an awkward situation for a few days, but I got more than I bargained for when my entire uncomplicated life flipped upside down. The last thing I’d been looking for was love, but it wasn’t until Witt that I realized just how much I’d been missing out on.

You can add Close to Home to your Goodreads TBR list here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45712756-close-to-home