Hi friends! I’m just popping in quickly to let you know about an opportunity to download a PDF of my novella EVIL’S APPRENTICE for free! Subscribe to my newsletter at this link and you’ll get the free PDF in your inbox right away. Then you’ll get an update from me no more than once a month with upcoming publication dates, things I’m working on and other giveaways. I promise to never spam you and to never give your e-mail away!
Here is the description for the novella:
Evil’s Apprentice is a dark paranormal novella in The Witch of Highland Falls series.
Edmund is a teen on the run from himself, the frightening powers that burst out of him uncontrollably and his own destructive past. If only he could lay low and not draw any attention to himself for, say, the rest of his life, he should be fine.
But it’s too late for that.
He has drawn the attention of a frighteningly powerful man who takes Edmund under his wing. Or into his lair? He does teach Edmund to control and use his powers but at a cost that Edmund never anticipated. This is how life is for him now. He must learn to live with it.
Then he meets Margaret and has a reason to live for something else. But she’s hiding a dark secret of her own.
Evil’s Apprentice is a shadowy story of beginnings and endings, hope and despair, love and loss.
Grab your free copy when you subscribe to my newsletter at this link!
Hello for the first time in… too long! I have the best intentions to pay more attention to the blog in 2020 but you know what they say about good intentions! 😉
My plan for The Witch of New York City, Book 3 in the Witch of Highland Falls Series, went a little off the rails this summer when I ended up starting a new day job after 18 years at the old one. Change is hard! But ultimately good. So I got a little behind on editing and the final polishing of Book 3 but I’m excited to announce that it is out there in the world and ready to be read! You can find the book at this link, available for either purchase or read for free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
Here is the cover and description of the book:
Tig simply wanted to help other people with powers. How did it go so wrong?
The race to rescue a kidnapped friend has led Tig, Joseph and the rest of their powerful friends to New York City. But this city belongs to Alastair – the sadistic madman who’s spent most of his life in unrelenting pursuit of ascension. Alastair’s equally powerful disciples are ready and waiting for them.
They must rescue their friend before his mind is lost to insanity and before another dear friend tries to take his place. How many more people will Tig and Joseph lose? Will they lose each other?
The Witch of New York City is the exciting finale in The Witch of Highland Falls trilogy. Fans of Amanda Hocking, Julie Kagawa and Kiersten White will love this series that combines their best qualities such as characters to fall in love with, paranormal action, and romance.
I’m so excited to share the finale of this series with you all! I’m already in the planning stage for my next series, which I’m planning to be five books. More to come on that!
Today, I have a fun surprise that I’d like to share with you. I’ve teamed up with 35+ fantastic authors to give away a huge collection of Paranormal & Sci-Fi Romances to 2 lucky winners, PLUS a brand new eReader to the Grand Prize winner!
Oh, and did I mention you’ll receive a collection of FREE reads just for entering? ;D
You can win my novel THE WITCH OF MAPLE TREE CAMPGROUND, plus books from authors like Evangeline Anderson and Mina Carter.
I’m so excited! Today THE WITCH OF MAPLE TREE CAMPGROUND goes out into the world! A big thank you to those who pre-ordered the book. I’m so excited to share the next leg of Tig and Alec’s story with you, and to introduce some great new characters, too!
You can grab it on Amazon at this link and on other platforms like Nook, iBooks, Kobo, etc. at this link.
I’m so excited to share with you that The Witch of Maple Tree Campground will publish on June 28 and is available for pre-order now! If you want to pre-order from Amazon, select this link. To pre-order on other digital formats like Nook, Kobo, etc. select this link.
I can’t wait to see what you think of Book 2. Tig and Alec are back but there are some new characters that I’ve grown very fond of, too!
Here’s the description:
Their biggest threat has been eliminated.
Tig and Alec are out of danger…
Until danger follows them home.
When Tig seeks out others with powers, she has the best intentions. Now Maple Tree Campground—and the group of misfits living there—has a big target on it. Since Tig wouldn’t listen to Alec’s gut instincts in the first place, he feels he must take drastic actions to keep his dark premonitions from coming true.
Can Tig save them all and put the ghosts of her past to rest? Or will Alec’s secret destroy everything she’s worked to protect?
If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, you can do so at this link and a free PDF copy of EVIL’S APPRENTICE, a novella in this same series, will show up in your inbox right away!
Thanks for reading and if you would be so kind as to leave a review for any of my books, it would be much appreciated!
I’m so excited to share the cover of my upcoming novella: EVIL’S APPRENTICE. This is a prequel in THE WITCH OF HIGHLAND FALLS series. Book one in the series was out last year and I’m working furiously on book two. This novella, though it is set decades before THE WITCH OF HIGHLAND FALLS, is best read in between book one and two. It tells the backstory of Ned, who is a somewhat minor character in the first book. I’ve been dying to tell Ned’s story because he is such a fantastic character and there was so much more to tell about him!
So, without further ado…
I am so in love with this cover. The designer incorporated just the right amount of dark creepiness into the design!
Here is the description:
Evil’s Apprentice is a dark paranormal novella in The Witch of Highland Falls series.
Edmund is a teen on the run from himself, the frightening powers that burst out of him uncontrollably and his own destructive past. If only he could lay low and not draw any attention to himself for, say, the rest of his life, he should be fine.
But it’s too late for that.
He has drawn the attention of a frighteningly powerful man who takes Edmund under his wing. Or into his lair? He does teach Edmund to control and use his powers but at a cost that Edmund never anticipated. This is how life is for him now. He must learn to live with it.
Then he meets Margaret and has a reason to live for something else. But she’s hiding a dark secret of her own.
Evil’s Apprentice is a shadowy story of beginnings and endings, hope and despair, love and loss.
EVIL’S APPRENTICE will be available for download on Amazon on Friday, Sept. 15.
I did not realize it’d been so long since I last posted! A lot has happened since then but one of the big things is, obviously, a conscious decision to post less often on the blog. I sincerely hope to get back to posting more often some day but right now, I’m really trying to keep up with my girls’ busy schedules. Knowing that I won’t have them in the house for too many more years has me re-arranging priorities (my oldest is a senior this year!).
The other reason I decided to post less on the blog was born of a desire to just plain write more. Which I’m happy to say I have been accomplishing. Since I published THE WITCH OF HIGHLAND FALLS in early March, I have finished the draft of a prequel novella that goes with that series and a draft of another MS that is the beginning of a whole new series. I’m working on getting both out to beta readers now and booking an editor for both. I have the outline for the second book in TWoHF series almost done and I cannot wait to start drafting!
Also, in the meantime, I updated the cover for TWoHF.
I am so excited to have re-connected with a designer that I used to work with (at a former day job). She is incredibly talented, as you can see! 🙂 I look forward to working with her on the next thing (and the next, and the next, and the next…).
My plan for now is to keep in touch with folks via Twitter (@kitty_murry); Facebook (@kittymurryauthor) and my newsletter, which I plan to get off the ground soon. You can sign up for the newsletter at this link. I’ll update the blog when it seems appropriate.
And that about sums it up! So, do tell… what have you been up to? 🙂
My Mom recently moved out of the house that she and Dad moved into more than 45 years ago. It’s amazing how much history surfaces after you have been hunkered down in a place for that many years. So many things get put away in boxes and forgotten about. The picture above is one of those things. I had never, ever seen it before. This is my Dad in front of his printing shop in a small town in northern Minnesota, circa 1950. I knew that Dad owned his own print shop many years ago. After that, he owned a series of small town newspapers and when he retired he went back to his first love: letterpress printing.
I have fallen so totally in love with this photo in the last few days since it surfaced. It’s the wallpaper on my computer and I just can’t stop looking at it. My Dad loved a challenge and he loved to work hard and he loved to bullshit. He and Mom raised eight children, all of whom absolutely adored him. I’ve missed that guy every single day since his death almost 11 years ago.
The reason this picture has resonated so deeply with me, though, is not just the reminder of who my Dad was and what a great human being he was, but the reminder of where I come from. This reminder couldn’t have come at a better time than when I’m about to publish my very first book. Dad was an entrepreneur. Always. He was always a small-town business owner and when things weren’t challenging enough anymore, it was time to move on. His roots? Grandpa was an entrepreneur. He was trained as a lawyer but owned his own small town print shop, too. Both he and Grandma were homesteaders on the high, dusty plains of North Dakota. Grandma, who was also the town’s first postmistress, lied about her age so she could claim her piece of land.
What must it have been like to live back then when such frontiers were still being breached? The beauty of this question is that I’m about to find out. There’s never been a better time to be an artist of any sort – writer, musician, photographer, painter. The incredible connections that the world wide web provides this generation has created its own kind of frontier. The only thing required to join the fray is hard work, the ability to rise up to the challenge and the courage to push the “publish” button.
I read a great quote from Robin Sharma the other day: “Greatness lies just outside your comfort zone.” I sincerely hope that is true. It’s taken me half my life to step outside my comfort zone to publish this book. But looking at this picture wraps me in the knowledge that I come from people who weren’t afraid to step outside their comfort zone. If I work hard, rise to the challenge, and pick myself back up when I fall, I know that Dad will be smiling down on my efforts to carry on the family entrepreneurial spirit.
I’ve been sitting on this for a little while and itching to put it out into the world. Here it is, the cover for THE WITCH OF HIGHLAND FALLS!
Isn’t it purty?! Thank you so much to Phat Puppy Art for the gorgeous cover.
THE WITCH OF HIGHLAND FALLS will be available through Amazon Kindle beginning March 2, 2016. It is available for pre-order here. It will be available in other formats later this year. You can add it on Goodreads here.
Here is the description for the THE WITCH OF HIGHLAND FALLS:
She has powers she can’t control.
He has powers he wishes he didn’t.
Their powers could get them both killed.
Tig has always been a freak but at least her parents were happy about it. The more weird things happened around her, the more obsessed with the paranormal they became. But now her mother is a vegetable. Then when her father dies right in front of her, the coroner says it was internal bleeding. So why does she feel so certain his death has something to do with her?
Alec is firmly under the thumb of the most twisted man on Earth. His life has been a sick nightmare since Foster found him on the streets years ago. His apprenticeship has taught him skills like blood sacrifices and body severances. He wonders if either of them can be considered human anymore.
Now Alec must lure Tig into a deadly trap. Will she come quietly? Or will her unwieldy powers protect her when she needs them the most?
I was extremely lucky to be able to attend the inaugural Nerdcon: StoriesOct. 9 and 10. The only reason I had the means to attend was because it was nearby (Minneapolis). As I keep telling people: this is NOT fly-over country! (Okay, that’s a whole different post.)
Anyhow, Hank and John Green were the brains behind this awesome con. I heard about it several months ago and barely hesitated before purchasing the tickets for myself and my daughter. Best. Purchase. Ever. The overarching theme of the two-day event was “Why Stories Matter” and there were so many awesome panels with authors I admire and the best part was discovering a few new writers whose books I’ll be reading, solely based on their awesome personalities on the panels.
I have never been to any kind of “con” before so I have to admit I was totally starstruck when seeing some of my favorite authors walking the halls. For the most part I left them alone because you could tell they were scurrying from one panel to the next or from panel to signing, etc. But I also spent some time just hanging out on a bench people watching and it was so cool to see people like Maureen Johnson, Holly Black, Stephanie Perkins, Mara Wilson, Maggie Stiefvater, Rainbow Rowell… all just stopping to take selfies and say hello to people whenever they could. So many awesome authors.
Some of my favorite parts were the signings. Maureen Johnson not only signed my book but was awesome enough to take silly selfies with lots of folks (I look particularly hideous in this picture – sorry):
Another signature I was excited to get was Patrick Rothfuss. At his table, there was a volunteer that you could hand your phone to so he could snap a quick pic for you (brilliant!):
I also got a great signature from Maggie Stiefvater (no photo with her – and I don’t know what I was thinking because she totally would’ve done it – but her signature is my favorite … you can see why, right? She did that drawing in about two seconds. Awesome!)
The whole crew from the Welcome to Nightvale podcast was there and shenanigans ensued. The New York Neo-Futurists (which includes several of the Nightvale folks) performed “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” which is their “attempt” (their word) to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. One minute you were laughing, then crying, then learning something, then trying to figure out what in the heck they were trying to say. It was crazy. And awesome.
My daughter got signatures from the whole Nightvale crew, Maggie Stiefvater, Mara Wilson, and John Scalzi (whose books she had never read… she picked one up just prior to the signing, read the first chapter and became an insta-fan!). Sadly, she could not get into either one of the Hank Green signings. It was chaos. John Green was there, but did not do a signing. My daughter thinks it’s because it would’ve been too crazy (she’s probably right).
Other highlights: I almost ran Mara Wilson over as I was heading into the bathroom and she was heading out (smooth, right? sorry Mathilda!). We both said, “Oh sorry, excuse me,” at the exact same time. Is Mara Wilson from the mid-west?! My daughter washed her hands standing next to Holly Black, who was touching up her awesome blue lipstick. I told her she should’ve asked for make-up tips. 🙂 And then there’s the story of Jake the Tech Guy. Jake the Tech Guy became a celebrity on Saturday night when he saved the day during Open Mic. The audio stopped working and Jake came to the rescue. Dessa Darling – who was emceeing – gave Jake his props, got the crowd chanting for him and then started a signature line for him. That’s the kind of cool, spontaneous stuff that happened at Nerdcon.
Arguably one of the best parts of the weekend was not an official part of the event: Maggie Stiefvater had challenged John Green to a race on Twitter months before the event and it was ON! They set it up with a nearby race track and on Friday night Maggie and John went off to race – with lots of the Nerdcon attendees following them, it seems. My daughter and I didn’t go but there is video! Which is great because you would probably not believe me when I say that John Green’s car CAUGHT ON FIRE. This video is kind of long – his car lights up at about the 5 minute mark. And I mean, it legitimately lights up. It’s not just smoking! It’s pretty freaky!
As I said, I’ve never been to any kind of con before. This was really an awesome experience and one that I’m particularly happy that I shared with my kiddo! If you ever get the chance to go to something like this – don’t hesitate. According to their Twitter account (@nerdconstories) they are 100% planning to do it again next year. Yay!
powers that burst out of him uncontrollably and his own destructive past. If only he could lay low and not draw any attention to himself for, say, the rest of his life, he should be fine.
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000039_00010]](https://kittymurry.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/the_witch_of_highland_falls_frontcvr.jpg?w=201&h=300)
I am so excited to have re-connected with a designer that I used to work with (at a former day job). She is incredibly talented, as you can see! 🙂 I look forward to working with her on the next thing (and the next, and the next, and the next…).
Kitty Murry 