On the Loss of a Muse by Eileen O'Finlan

 

                              

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On Friday, January 16, 2026, my muse passed away. She was 17 years old, calico, and very fluffy. Her name was Autumn Amelia. She was a gorgeous Maine Coon mix. As anyone who knows cats well can attest, they are excellent at hiding illness and pain. I knew she was slowing down. That wasn't surprising. She'd been considered a "senior cat" by the vet for several years. She'd also been on medication for hyperthyroidism for several years, too. However, it did take me by surprise to find out at her December vet appointment that her liver and white blood cell counts were way off. The vet thought it might a side effect from her thyroid medication and suggested taking her off it for a month and rechecking her bloodwork. If her liver and white cell counts were headed back to normal, we'd know that  was the cause.

A few days before her next appointment, I could tell she was very sick, so I called the vet. They had me bring her in that afternoon. A recheck of her bloodwork showed that not only had her liver and white cell count not improved, but they had dramatically worsened. The vet was certain she had liver cancer and, given how quickly things had gone downhill along with her current condition, felt that she probably only had a few days left. Not wanting her to suffer any longer, I asked the vet to euthanize her. I held her in my arms, told her how much I loved her and what a special cat she'd been. I reminded her that she would live on in the Cat Tales books, and I asked her to send me the next kitties that needed a loving forever home. She left this world peacefully in my arms, soaked with my tears.

Autumn Amelia used to live with me along with a beautiful Russian Blue cat named Smokey. They were the inspiration for All the Furs and Feathers, a novel I wrote while home from work for a month recovering from a major surgery. Smokey passed away just as that book was being completed. My mom, who had been living with me, went into a nursing home due to advancing dementia one month later. She would pass away within three years.

Autumn and I were on our own ever since. We shared a home and a life. She was a great source of love, affection, amusement, and inspiration. She was always with me while I was writing, laying next to (or on top of) my keyboard. I called her my muse for that's what she was. My beautiful, magical muse. She celebrated with me when the second Cat Tales book, All in the Furry Family, was released. I bought cat "wine" for her and we toasted the unboxing of the new books when they arrived. 

She was a regular fixture at the writing group that meets at my house every Wednesday evening. They will all miss her, too.

Autumn and Smokey are the main characters in the Cat Tales series books. Their characters are based on their personalities. Many of their antics in the books were true to life including Smokey's zoomies before a storm and Autumn's penchant for stealing food. Autumn really did take apart my humidifier and eat the charcoal filter when she was a kitten and she really did have a pirate ship that she adored just like in the books.

The Cat Tales series will continue. I have the basic idea for the next book in my head now. Smokey and Autumn Amelia will return with all their furry and feathered friends. 

Autumn Amelia and Smokey

And in the next book, they will have two new friends because Autumn and Smokey completed their assignment very quickly and sent me two new kitties to help heal my broken heart. Zachary and Josette are brother and sister orange cats who are now living with me. I have had one cat or another since I was six years old and simply could not stand being without one. They came from a local shelter and now have a forever home where they will be loved and pampered for the rest of their lives. They will also become characters. I need to finish the paranormal book I'm writing now before I can start on the next Cat Tales book, but that will give me plenty of time to get to know Zach and Josette so that their personalities can shine through in the next story.

Rest in peace my precious Autumn Amelia. Thank you for your wonderful inspiration and for sending me these two new babies to love.

   

                            Zach                                                                            Josette

Groundtruthing by Paul Grant

https://books2read.com/Notorious-Moose-Jaw “Great storyline, and if you are from Moose Jaw (or wish you were) the story jumps out at you as you recognize the buildings, streets and even people.” Ron Rollie, after reading Notorious Groundtruthing – using information based on real-life obervations – gives stories a verisimilitude that resonates with readers. Saskatchewan is a drama queen when it comes to climate, which is why climate plays a major role in both of my novels. We go from minus 40C in the winter to plus 40C in the summer, the wind is almost always blowing, and we get more than 600,000 lightning strikes a year, plus hail, rain and snow in any given month, even August. On the plus side, the lightning puts on a helluva show, the wind scours the clouds from the bright blue sky, and the extreme temperatures ensure that the province is sparsely populated – just two people per square kilometre, compared to 5.4 in B.C., 15.9 in Ontario and 28,000+ in New York State. And as Ron Rollie says, it makes a great backdrop for a story. Notorious (BWL 2025) is set in present-day Moose Jaw. During the Covid lockdowns there was a massive spike in the use of, and addiction to, methamphetamine. Post-pandemic, the problem persists, along with the money laundering and murder that come with the drug trade. While the cops try to catch the killers, journalist Eleanor Bell follows the money to discover who is behind the meth operation, and how they’re linked to an almost forgotten Balkan war. Astraphobia (BWL 2025) is part of BWL’s Paranormal Canadiana series and set during the formative years of Saskatchewan as a province. It follows three generations of Moose Jaw farmers who are stalked by lightning, which is absolutely capricious, killing some and sparing others without regard to whether they are saints, sinners or somewhere in between. Can the family ever escape the McKenzie Curse?

A New Road to Travel by Jay Lang

My latest book is a psychological thriller, and writing it changed something in me. I have written in other genres before and really explored them, playing with different tones, building all kinds of characters, and experimenting with pacing until I found what worked. But this time it felt less like experimenting and more like arriving somewhere I was meant to be. From the very first chapter, something clicked. Instead of focusing on what was happening around my characters, I became obsessed with what was happening inside them. The fears they would not admit. The lies they told themselves. The quiet justifications that slowly snowball into something much darker. What feels so different now is how deeply I lean into those inner pieces. It is not just about what happens. It is about why it happens. I found myself digging into emotions we all try to hide. Anxiety. Obsession. Guilt. That creeping doubt that maybe we are not as in control as we think we are. Writing in this space forced me to slow down and really sit with discomfort, to stretch out tension until it almost hums under the surface. There is something addictive about creating that kind of atmosphere. It is intimate and unsettling in a way that lingers long after a scene ends. I caught myself thinking about these characters at random times during the day, wondering how far they would go and what would finally push them past the point of no return. That kind of curiosity feels different. Stronger. Somewhere in the middle of drafting, I realized this was not just another project. It felt personal in a creative sense. I am fascinated by the human mind, especially its darker corners, and finally giving myself permission to explore them fully has been both terrifying and exhilarating. I think I may have found exactly where I belong. https://v13.net/author/jay-lang/

Everyone Is a Character by Julie Christen

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 Everyone Is A Character

By Julie Christen

My life is full of people. Every single day, so many people. They come and they go. Some hang on a little while, or a long while, then they ripple away in time. Some stay, always. Some mark the beginning of an era, others mark the end. Some are a blip, others leave a permanent impression. Some are good. Some are not good.

I watch them all. Quietly, from the sidelines. Everyone is a character.

A subtle look, a quirky habit, a predictable reaction, I tuck it inside my mind, saving it for later. From hairstyles to hand gestures. Material. A cadence in gate, a clever comment, an obvious tell. Material. Memorable expressions, weird hobbies, hokie one-liners. Material. Scars, tatts, piercings. Material. Ticks, oddities, obsessions. Material.

Everyone is a character.

Sage advice, words you live by, modeling by example. Material. Bad choices, risky choices, indulgent choices. Material. Weak moments, moral dilemmas, fatal flaws. Material. Youngest child, middle child, oldest child, pedestal child, forgotten child. Material. Troubled background, mysterious origins, silver spoons. Material. Kind, evil, weird. Ornery, timid, benign. Sturdy, frail, oxen. Material.

The list goes on. 

Endless material. Maybe from you. And for that, I thank you.

Everyone is a character.

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A missing woman, a chatty dead girl, and a detective who’s running out of time by donalee Moulton

 

Cardinal has landed. 

This is my newest book, and the most recent in BWL’s Paranormal Canadiana Collection. Set in Nova Scotia, Cardinal follows private detective Em Montgomery as she hunts for a missing woman. She expected dead ends. She did not expect a dead girl who refuses to stay buried. The detective finds herself knee-deep in fog, small-town secrets, and the uneasy sense she’s being watched by more than wildlife. 

I thought I’d share the opening pages with you.

 

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 PROLOGUE

Thorburn Exchange, Pictou County, Nova Scotia

Tuesday, April 23, 1889

 

Catherine McIntosh kicks off her blankets. Again. She’s hot, and in the whirl of a restless sleep, her body seeks cool air. Any relief from the overwhelming heat. The eight-year-old doesn’t understand why it is so hot. Why she is so hot.

Her mother gently pulls the blankets back over her daughter’s feverish body. Catherine is sick, has been sick for days and days now. This started so simply, so normally. A sore throat, a mild fever. Catherine is long past that. Now her entire body aches and a red rash has spread across her little arms, legs, torso. Her fever fills the room with an anguished heat.

 

No one is saying the words every parent dreads to hear, but in her heart, this mother knows those words to be true. Scarlet fever.

Catherine’s mother refuses to hear the whispers consuming her daughter’s bedroom. Defiantly, she makes plans for Catherine’s ninth birthday a month from now. There will be cake. There will be games and songs and a present. Something special. Perhaps they can afford a doll. Catherine loves dolls.

At some unknown hour, Catherine’s mother falls into a fitful sleep. When she wakes, she faces the cruelest of realities. Her daughter will never turn nine.

 

Catherine has stopped tossing and turning. Her fever has vanished. The red sandpaper that covered her body has disappeared. Soft white skin remains. A smile spreads across Catherine’s face. Then she sees her mother crying. Catherine goes to comfort her. To hug her.

There is no hug. There is no comfort. Catherine does not understand what is happening. She is, after all, only eight years and eleven months old. Catherine sits beside her mother. Sees the rumpled quilt on her bed. Sees someone lying in her bed. Catherine wonders who it might be. Tries to hug her mother. Again.

She hears someone calling her name. It must be her father, but it doesn't sound like her father. It doesn’t matter. Catherine is not leaving her mother.

Ever.

 

Greenvale Road, Pictou County, Nova Scotia

Thursday, April 23, 2026

 

Yellow birch trees bend a welcome in the wind. Balsam firs wave a needled hello. There is a lilt in Nell Gillis’s step, a half-smile on her face, a lightness in her being. Nell feels at home. She is not sure why. This is not her home.

The granite headstone looks its age, and ageless. Moss has nestled in the carved letters and ridges that give the memorial its foundation. Nell stretches out her hand to caress the stone, a prayer ready on her lips. Her hand stops inches from the stone. There is a brightness to the mossy granite as if somehow sunshine emanates from within.

Nell withdraws her hand. She reaches instead to the ground and gently places a ragdoll at the base of the headstone. It settles alongside dozens of other offerings: a stuffed elephant and a cuddly teddy bear, bouquets of artificial flowers, dolls of all hairstyles and attire. Someone has cut a small spray of mayflowers. The sweet, spicy scent tickles Nell’s nostrils. Nell made her gift back in Halifax more than one hundred and seventy kilometers away. She wanted to replicate what a doll might have looked like when plastic and assembly lines didn’t exist. When Catherine McIntosh was a little girl.

This is Nell’s fourth visit. It will be her last. Nell raises her head from the gifts spread on the earth before her. She realizes she has not been paying attention. She has been inside her head. She has forgotten that where there is sunshine, there are shadows.

The last thing Nell Gillis remembers is a loud, unearthly growl.

Catherine McIntosh's grave in Nova Scotia today.