Brooklyn Ann's Blog: Devastating life news, but some good book news in both romance and horror

Scroll down if you wanna skip the sad stuff.

I'm sorry for not updating in two months. Kent's family came up to help clear out the back patio and garage of our destroyed home, and then we organized his celebration of life. His band buddies played two songs from Kent's old band and I sang solo for one, "Spine," and in a duet with a friend. "Different Reason."

I'm a writer, not a singer, so I didn't do the best job, but my heart told me I needed to join in honoring his music.

You can check out the livestream we did HERE, or rewind it for the eulogies and stuff.

Since the slideshow didn't show up in the livestream, I uploaded it to Youtube and played some of Kent's band's album, which has much better vocals than my bad singing.

You can also check out my Eulogy HERE

We spread his ashes on the Fernan Lake Natural Area, a big hillside across the lake near our home. The city of Fernan wanted to turn it into condos and Kent fought hard to save it and succeeded. If not for him, we wouldn't have had this beautiful ecosystem and the bald eagles, who'd only recently recovered from near extinction by then, would have lost their nests.

Said city officials held a grudge and messed with Kent whenever they could. I included some of their shenanigans in my rockstar romance, Tempting Beat. ...And I may have killed one or two of them.

All in all, I really hope Kent's family and I honored him the best we could. And I will put in my will a request to scatter my ashes on the hillside with him.

The grieving process is the hardest thing I've dealt with. I try to stay busy so that I don't disassociate or have flashbacks of the tree crashing through our house and coming down on top of us.

And then I received some terrible news that I'd suspected and dreaded:

My wonderful dream home will be going up for sale as soon as it's rebuilt, and right now, I'm not in the position to buy it.

In edition to that heartbreaking news, the temporary housing that the insurance is paying for is waaaaay out of our price range. So we have less than a month to find somewhere else to live.

Right when I'm in the middle of searching for a third job. And right in the beginning of tourist season, when prices are sky high. And, of course, right when I am still struggling with my mental health in light of the awfulness that happened.

I want to again thank those of you who donated to the GoFundMe That has helped us survive these past 5 months.

But part of me is still praying for a miracle that I can get my home back. Maybe one of my books will go viral on Booktok like Colleen Hoover. I dunno.

Anyway, enough of the sad stuff.

Now onto the good news!

My agent has read my epic coming of age horror, The Graveyard Girls, and her notes and phone call weren't as dire as I'd feared, in that I'm not going to have to do extensive rewrites. Just some very practical trimming and tweaks that will indeed make this stronger and reinforce my whole purpose for The Graveyard Girls.

And once I finish that, she'll do the deep-edits and then starts shopping it. I had two dreams of getting a seven-figure deal on this book. So maybe that will come true!

Either way, I am glad we got a step further in finding a home for what I feel is the most important thing I've ever written.

In the meantime, I'm doing everything I can to boost my horror pen name.

I just turned in my short story for the upcoming Highway of Haunts anthology from Parlor Ghost Press (Coming in October!)

And I was interviewed by the Delight in Fright podcast! Check it out HERE!

I'm getting prepared for the Massacre on the Mountain event in September. It will be my first horror convention and it will also be my first convention and road trip without Kent. I need all your well-wishes that our drive across the Washington and Oregon deserts will be safe and that I sell enough books and art to make up for the cost.

Oh! And Lividian released the trade edition of Carrie Revisited, which includes an essay and art piece from me, released recently!

The color version is out of stock, but Lividian told me they will be getting more!

In horror/romance news:

I'm revising the new, unabridged edition of my 80s haunted house romance, Her Haunted Heart.

The characters are so cute and this book was my least scary, even has some cozy moments. But I am going to up the chill factor on this one.

Many of the ghostly happenings are based on the real haunted house I grew up in, so you'll definitely want to read this one!

And for my romantasy readers! (Or Game of Thrones fans)

To Wed a Warrior is featured in two ARC bundles over on Book Sirens!

To go straight to the book's download page, click HERE

Or you can check out this Sword and Sorcery bundle HERE!

I am still in DIRE need of reviews for this book, so if Booksirens doesn't work for you for some reason, and you're interested in reviewing it, let me know!

In Romance news:

My narrator is halfway done with the Bite at First Sight audiobook!

So it will probably release in either July or August. If you support me on either Kofi or Patreon, you'll get the book a week before anyone else AND, at certain tiers, FREE!

I will also be sending out a teaser chapter next week to those supporters.