Here comes that week that sits right before Labor Day, when summer isn’t over yet, not officially, but you can feel it starting to lean toward fall. The evenings get shorter. Something in the air shifts before the calendar’s caught up. I love this stretch. It’s a good one for reading on a porch while you still can.

Speaking of, if you picked up Bad Blood, Bad Faith last week, thank you. Getting to spend more time with Bex, Cloyce, Antoine, and Zatyr is a lot of fun for me, and it means a lot to watch this corner of Copperhaven find its readers. Book 3 is up for preorder: Hot Air, Hot Water.

Looking ahead, The Scattered Register of the Namekeeper is almost here. Phoenix and Parsnip’s next chapter in Mosshollow is getting close, and it’s up for preorder now. It’s spring where they are, and things are thawing, but what should be an easy season is anything but.

That’s all from me; short one this week.

Have a good weekend!

Happy reading,
Paula

Bad Blood, Bad Faith (Supernatural Consultant Files, Book 2) is available now on Kindle and in Kindle Unlimited!

When a six-hundred-year-old vampire silent partner needs a consultant who can keep a secret older than most countries, Bex takes the case. The problem: a forensic accountant with a wall of sticky notes has noticed that the “founder” in a century and a half of company photographs never seems to age. The bigger problem: Antoine knows exactly who this client is, and he is not happy about it.

Between a forced buyout, a notary who accepts payment no bank recognizes, and Antoine’s indignity journal creeping toward volume fifteen, Bex has to build an explanation boring enough to survive an audit before the truth gets there first.

Grab your copy today: Bad Blood, Bad Faith

If you’ve already read Full Moon, Full Inbox, you know the drill: bring snacks, use your best manners to save Antoine’s dignity, and pay attention to the basement moat situation. It’s coming back around.

Happy reading!

Paula

All these .99 books have one thing in common—they feature animals!

If you’re like me, you love animals in your cozies, and this promo is a great way to get more of that type of book into your kindle at a great price.

Check it out here: Cozy Mysteries with Animals Promo

Grab Impurrfect Magic if you haven’t read it yet, and maybe find some new to you authors or pick up books from authors you already love at .99.

Have a great weekend!

Paula

PS: Grades and Grudges came out last week. Have you read it yet? I’d love to hear from you!

In between deadlines, I’ve actually made it to the beach a few times this summer, which is a win. Home projects, less so. The list keeps growing while my writing schedule stays packed, so most days, it comes down to chapters or everything else, and chapters usually win. Still snuck out for a bonfire and the town festival this month, and yes, I may have picked up a few new book ideas at both. No promises on when they’ll show up, but you’ve been warned.

Speaking of new trouble:

Some professors publish. Professor Octavia Plumm preferred to borrow.

Magical courier Hollis Merribell has one job in Scholastic Row: deliver a parcel to the district’s most celebrated potion theorist before the Autumn Placement Trials begin. She’s not expecting to watch that professor drop dead in the examination hall, killed by the very hex meant to keep students honest.

The district rules it an accident and closes the file before the body’s even cold. It’s September, after all, the scholars’ month to chair the Holiday Council, and nothing ruins a reputation like a murder on your watch.

But the ruling doesn’t add up. With her sarcastic miniature reindeer familiar Crinkle sniffing out every lie in the room, Hollis starts pulling threads. This time, she might not be ready for what comes loose.

Grades and Grudges, Holiday Hollow Book 5, is my next book to launch, and it’s up for preorder. If you haven’t read the first 4 yet, you can catch up by starting with Snow Globes and Sabotage.

Also up for preorder, for anyone who wants to stock the queue:

That’s it for me this week. Have a great one!

Paula

Mourning Routine, Book 10 in The Afterlife Files, is out today. Whoop!

Before I get to the case, a word from Bernie.

Bernie’s Rules for Solving a Murder:

One. You always go back to the scene and look at it again with fresh eyes.

Two. Every case needs a board. String, color-coded sticky notes, and a photo in the middle with something written across it in red marker. She insists on the board, then supervises while someone with hands does the writing.

Three. No one is innocent during the red herring phase. She’s seen enough Agatha Christie adaptations to know how this goes.

Four. Binge-watching true crime is research and should be treated as a professional credential.

Five. Being dead is an investigative advantage. No locked doors, no sleep required, and no one can kill you twice.

The Mercers Have a Great Mourning Routine

Doreen Mercer winds a stopped clock every morning and can’t tell Wren why. Her family remembers Ed perfectly: forty-one years of marriage, sourdough every Sunday, the lecture you got for buying bread at the store. What they can’t do is feel any of it, and they’ve just cancelled his memorial because they don’t see the point of a fuss.

Ed Mercer was murdered. The case is closed, the body is buried, and whoever did it is fairly sure this is over. Unfortunately for them, Wren isn’t giving up.

Mourning Routine is out now, and it’s in Kindle Unlimited. If you read it and enjoy it, a review would make my whole week.

Also on the shelf:

The Scattered Register of the Namekeeper is on preorder.

The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper and Full Moon, Full Inbox are both out whenever you want them.

Also up for pre-order is Grades and Grudges. Poor Holiday Hollow might be my least popular series, and this could be the last one. That makes me sad because I love Hollis and Crinkle so much, but my readers are the ones who choose what I write based on what they read, and I’ll use the time I’d spend on this series writing other ones if they don’t like it. We’ll see how this one, Book 5 in the series, does, and then I’ll make the decision.

Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Paula

As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

So, Mosshollow has its own newspaper, the Gazette. It’s printed by a dryad named Myrtle on a press that used to be a beehive and now runs on ink instead of honey.

There’s no big news from my desk this week, so I’m handing the newsletter over to the Gazette instead. Here’s what came off the press. Remember, the news on each paper is different, depending on what the reader needs to know. Enjoy!

That’s the village this week! If you want to spend more time in Mosshollow, The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper is out now, and it’s the one where Phoenix finds her mother’s old route ledger and the seventeen routes struck out of it. Book 4, The Scattered Register of the Namekeeper, is up for preorder.

Mourning Routine is also on preorder, Book 10 of The Afterlife Files. And Full Moon, Full Inbox came out earlier this month if you missed it.

Until next time,

Paula

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made through the links in this newsletter.

Phoenix has found her mother’s old route ledger, and inside it are seventeen routes struck through in Ember’s handwriting. These aren’t ordinary streets. They’re the lanes that ran on the Hearth itself, the far ones and the deep ones, roads that only a Hearthkeeper can hold open. When the Hearth went cold, they closed, and the village slowly forgot they existed. But at the ends of those dark lanes, people have been waiting. Some of the mail in that ledger has been waiting for fifty years.

So, Phoenix sets out to walk the forgotten lanes back into being before the solstice arrives and the year turns toward its quietest point.

If you’ve loved watching Phoenix find her place in Mosshollow, this one is about what she does with it. Old names, old letters, old doors opening again. I loved writing every step of it, and I hope you love walking it with her.

Grab Your Copy

The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper is available now in ebook and paperback, and it’s free to read in Kindle Unlimited.

And Book 4 Is Already on Preorder

Phoenix and Parsnip aren’t done yet. Book 4, The Scattered Register of the Notekeeper, is on preorder now. If you preorder it today, it’ll land on your device the moment it releases in September. The mail doesn’t stop, and neither do we.

In Case You Missed It

Full Moon, Full Inbox, the first book in The Supernatural Consultant Files, launched last week and is available in ebook and Kindle Unlimited. If you’re in the mood for something funny before or after your trip to Mosshollow, Bex Moore and her chaotic Copperhaven office are ready when you are. And Mourning Routine, Book 10 in the Afterlife Files, is finished and waiting for its launch day later this month. It’s my favorite one of that series yet.

Thank you, as always, for reading. Getting to send my characters down all their various roads and knowing you’ll be walking them too is the best part of this job!

Happy reading, and please hit reply to tell me what you think of Full Moon, Full Inbox and The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper.

Paula

Hello again,

It’s a holiday weekend, which for me has always meant one thing above all others, and that’s extra reading time. If you’ve got a few unhurried hours coming your way, I have a suggestion for how to spend them.

Full Moon, Full Inbox is out in the world now, in ebook and on Kindle Unlimited, and a long weekend feels like the perfect excuse to settle in with it.

If you haven’t met Bex Moore yet, she runs a little consultancy that helps supernatural folks fit in among the humans of Copperhaven. It’s a real job with real hours, and it comes with the coworkers to match. Antoine, her vampire assistant, is offended by roughly everything and keeps a running journal about it. Cloyce, her poltergeist office manager, files things by astrological principle and loses whatever she needs most. And Zatyr, who runs the coffee shop next door, makes an excellent cup and is an ongoing threat to her concentration.

It’s cozy fantasy, and it’s meant to make you laugh and welcome you in. Found family, gentle chaos, and a to-do list that flatly refuses to shrink.

To everyone who grabbed a copy this week or added it to your Kindle Unlimited list, thank you. Launching a new series is a bit like opening a shop on a street where nobody knows your name yet, so it means a lot to see the door swing open and people wander in. I hope Bex and her disaster of an office keep you good company.

And if you tear through it faster than expected, the rest of the summer is stocked. Mourning Routine, Book 10 in the Afterlife Files, is on preorder now, and so is The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper, the third Phoenix Firebolt book. Grades and Grudges is coming soon too. They’re all different corners of my shelf, waiting for whenever you’re ready for the next thing.

For now, though, I hope you get some unhurried weekend hours, whatever you choose to fill them with.

Happy reading,

Paula

This one’s funny cozy fantasy, not a mystery, and it’s on the shorter side, novella length. I’ve loved doing the Afterlife Files novellas so much that I decided to do a cozy fantasy novella series too! This one was so fun to write that I’m super glad I made the decision.

Anyway, Full Moon, Full Inbox is Book 1 of The Supernatural Consultant Files, and it introduces Bex Moore. Here’s the blurb:

Bex helps supernatural beings settle into the human world, which is steady, fulfilling work that only occasionally involves paperwork filling itself out wrong. As a powerless fae in a world full of magic, she relates to her clients more than they know.

Her newest client is Mara Wolff, who just landed her dream job at a bakery downtown. Mara is talented, determined, and absolutely certain she has the full moon situation handled.

She does not have the full moon situation handled.

So now Bex has a werewolf with a workplace problem, an HOA filing formal complaints, and something stirring in the town’s copper seam that’s drawing supernatural newcomers faster than she can process their paperwork. Her vampire assistant is deeply offended by all of it. Her poltergeist office manager helps by inventing increasingly wacky filing methods and losing the things she needs most. They’re both spectacularly useless, and the inbox keeps right on filling.

Good thing the coffee next door is excellent. The man who makes it is annoyingly handsome and absolutely not a distraction from the chaos she needs to handle.

He’s a little bit of a distraction.

If that sounds like your kind of mess, Full Moon, Full Inbox is waiting for you now in ebook and on Kindle Unlimited. I hope Bex’s inbox makes you laugh as much as I did.

Happy reading, and please let me know what you think of Bex and her book.

Paula

I spent the last week camping, with just barely enough wifi to confirm the world was still turning and not nearly enough to do anything about it. It was exactly what I needed. Quiet mornings, a campfire most nights, and no inbox to speak of. It was also completely exhausting in that good way where you sleep on an air mattress and wake up sore and love every minute of it.

Here’s the thing about stepping away from the screen for a week: the ideas come pouring in. I came home with more of them than I know what to do with, and I’ve been writing fast and furious ever since. My notebook is a mess. My drafts folder is a happy disaster. I’’m super energized for work, and you’re going to be the ones who benefit from it.

Speaking of which, there are two releases right around the corner that I can’t wait for you to read.

Full Moon, Full Inbox is ALMOST here

In less than a week, you’ll be able to meet Bex Moore for real. She’s a supernatural consultant in the small town of Copperhaven, and her job is keeping the town’s less-than-human residents quietly, tediously blending in with everyone else. If you read the day-in-the-life I shared last time, you’ve already had a taste of her world: the poltergeist who reorganizes the files by mood, the vampire colleague writing strongly worded memos, the fire djinn next door making magic look like good coffee. It’s the first book in a brand-new series, The Supernatural Consultant Files, and it’s funny and warm and exactly the kind of cozy I love to write.

This series will be novellas and cozy fantasy, so no mysteries to solve; just humor, heart, coziness, and fun.

And then, The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper

Soon after that, Phoenix Firebolt is back. The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper is the third book in The Enchanted Post Chronicles, and if you’ve been following Phoenix and Parsnip on their rounds, you know that no delivery is ever as simple as it looks. I don’t want to give anything away this close to release, so I’ll just say it takes them somewhere new and leave it there for now.

Two book releases back to back will be busy for me, but after a week of doing absolutely nothing useful in the woods, I’m ready.

That’s everything for this week. I’m back at full speed and glad to be here.

Until next time,

Paula

PS: Hit reply and let me know if you like tent camping or prefer RVs, hotels, AirBnBs, or other ways of vacationing.

I thought it might be fun to give you a little peek behind the scenes this week, not at my desk, but at Bex Moore’s. She’s the consultant at the center of Full Moon, Full Inbox, and her whole job is making sure Copperhaven’s supernatural residents blend into ordinary small town life without anyone asking too many questions. Here’s a small taste of what a normal Tuesday might look like for her, in her own words.

Cloyce met me at the door, glowing with the pride of a poltergeist who’d just done something he was very sure I’d thank him for.

“I’ve reorganized the filing cabinet,” he announced. “By vibe.”

“By vibe.”

“It’s a more honest system,” he said. “Names are arbitrary. Energy is forever.”

I spent ten minutes looking for the Hollis file under “cautiously optimistic” before I found it under “mildly betrayed,” filed there, Cloyce explained, because of something that had apparently happened to the folder in March. I asked him to put the alphabet back. He agreed, but made sure I knew it was a concession, and added that Virgo season made people so rigid about these things.

By the time I sat down, Antoine was already three pages into a memo titled Modern Vampirism: A Brief Corrective. A new client had called him “ancient one” and asked, with real sincerity, whether he slept in a coffin. He had not slept in a coffin in approximately four hundred years and took the question personally.

The inbox was its usual carousel. A gnome named Pernilla had started a garden gnome rental business and wanted to know if she had to disclose that some of the gnomes were, in fact, gnomes. A werewolf wanted an extension on a library book because the full moon had landed on the due date and he’d had, in his words, “a lot going on.” And the ghost who haunts the bowling alley on Third Street wanted help, because the new owner kept trying to upgrade lane six, which the ghost has considered his since 1974.

I went next door for coffee around two, mostly to escape my own inbox for ten minutes. Zatyr runs the place. He’s also a fire djinn, which around Copperhaven is mostly relevant for one reason: he can get the milk steamer to exactly the right temperature without ever checking a thermometer. I watched him do it for a woman who’d asked for her latte “extra hot, but not, like, scary hot,” and he nodded like that was a perfectly normal request and handed her something that was clearly both correct and slightly magic. She had no idea. That’s most of his job, honestly.

By the end of the day, the gnome situation had escalated in a way I genuinely had not seen coming, and the bowling alley ghost had staged a peaceful sit-in on lane six. I told Elle all of it at the Spin Cycle that night. She ordered for both of us before I’d even sat down, listened to the whole thing, asked exactly one question, and informed me that the gnome problem and the ghost problem were the same problem.

She was right. She’s always right. It’s the most annoying thing about her.

That’s a small taste of what’s waiting for you in Full Moon, Full Inbox, up for pre-order now.

ICYMI

Spells and Suspicions, Book 5 in the Brightstone Bay Mysteries, came out last week. Maple Winterbourne has a new job she didn’t ask for, a welcome packet that seems to be growing on its own, and, as always, a familiar with strong opinions about all of it. If you’ve read it already, thank you so much. If you haven’t had the chance yet, it’s available now.

Pre-Orders Open

Full Moon, Full Inbox, the first novella in The Supernatural Consultant Files AND Bad Blood, Bad Faith, the second one

Mourning Routine, Book 10 in The Afterlife Files

The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper, Book 3 in The Enchanted Post Chronicles

That’s everything for this week; happy reading!

Paula

Book 5: Spells and Suspicions

New to Brightstone Bay?

If you’re just joining us, Brightstone Bay is an all-supernatural town and Maple Winterbourne is its most reluctant problem-solver, a former SNOOPS agent with a sarcastic fox familiar named Solstice and a real gift for stumbling onto trouble she’d rather avoid. Each book also hands her a brand-new job she never wanted and turns out to be annoyingly good at.

The easiest way in is the Books 1 to 3 Box Set. From there, Book 4, Spells and Scandals carries you from there to where we are now, and then Spells and Suspicions will be waiting.

Also Worth Lining Up

A few more books are on the way, if you’d like to have them land on your e-reader automatically.

Full Moon, Full Inbox kicks off The Supernatural Consultant Files, a new humor-forward cozy fantasy novella series. If you like your magic with a side of paperwork and deadpan commentary, this one’s for you.

The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper is Book 3 in The Enchanted Post Chronicles, with Phoenix and her puffin familiar Parsnip back on the route.

Mourning Routine is Book 10 in The Afterlife Files, bringing the Grimm Family Funeral Home crew back together for another case.

That’s everything for now. I hope you enjoy Maple’s latest disaster of a job, and if you read it and enjoy it, a review would make my whole week.

Happy reading,

Paula

Maple Winterbourne is back next week, and, as usual, she’s walked straight into a situation she’d rather avoid but somehow is responsible for dealing with.

Spells and Suspicions, Book 5 in the Brightstone Bay Mysteries, releases in one week. You can pre-order now and have it land right on your e-reader on release day.

Maple didn’t ask to become Brightstone Bay’s first Magical Hospitality Liaison. (That was Solstice’s doing. Solstice has opinions.) She also didn’t ask to plan a candidates’ mixer that turned into a crime scene, or to spend her week interrogating five very different suspects: a journalist with too much cash, a businesswoman with too much to lose, a research assistant with too much grief, a retired judge with too much pride, and a campaign manager who’s just a little too perfect.

But somebody poisoned a candidate in front of half the town, and somebody is going to answer for it.

A vacant Council seat. A front-runner with no pulse. And a former SNOOPS agent who’s already annoyed about the show tune-singing permits.

New to Brightstone Bay? Here’s How to Jump In

If you haven’t met Maple yet, or if you know someone who might enjoy this series, here’s the quick rundown.

Brightstone Bay is an all-supernatural town (no humans allowed), and Maple Winterbourne is its newest and most inconvenient resident. She’s a former SNOOPS agent with a sarcastic fox familiar named Solstice, a tendency to stumble onto crime scenes, and a deep reluctance to get involved that absolutely never holds.

One of the things I enjoy most about writing this series is finding Maple a new terrible job in each book. She’s been a daycare worker for supernatural toddlers, a stand-in for a theatrical production, an assistant in the town clerk’s office, and now a Magical Hospitality Liaison for a Council election. She hasn’t loved any of them. She’s very good at all of them. Or not.

The best place to start is the Books 1 to 3 Box Set, which collects Spells and Suspects, Spells and Secrets, and Spells and Shadows in one place. It’s a great way to get settled into the town before jumping into the newer installments.

From there, Spells and Scandals will bridge the gap to where we are now, and then Spells and Suspicions will be waiting.

Also on the Horizon

A few things to put on your radar while you’re waiting:

Full Moon, Full Inbox (The Supernatural Consultant Files, Book 1)

This is the first book in a brand-new novella series. If you enjoy cozy fantasy with a healthy dose of chaos and a workplace that runs on magical bureaucracy, this one is for you.

The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper (The Enchanted Post Chronicles, Book 3)

Phoenix Firebolt and her puffin familiar Parsnip are back for the next chapter. After everything that happened in Mosshollow, Phoenix is settling into her role as Hearthkeeper, which is, of course, when things get complicated. If you haven’t started this series yet, you still have time to catch up before Book 3 comes out.

Mourning Routine (The Afterlife Files, Book 10)

The grief is real. The memories aren’t. When Wren Grimm crosses paths with a family that’s going through all the motions of mourning without quite being able to feel why it matters, she knows something is deeply wrong. They remember the husband, the father, the brother. They’ve simply forgotten how much they loved him. Which is a problem, because somebody definitely murdered him. Wren and her found family are back on the case, untangling a cover-up built from stolen grief, a suspicious drug, and a mourning routine that looked perfectly normal right up until it didn’t.

That’s everything for this week. Spells and Suspicions will be in your hands before you know it, and Maple will be very relieved to have someone else worrying about the flying carpet permits for a change.

Paula

OK, down to business. I promised you this last week, and here we are. Time to make it official.

Writing the Afterlife Files novellas has been such a joy. There’s something about that shorter format that makes me want to pack every single scene with heart and absurdity, and it turns out I have a lot of both to spare. So much, in fact, that I decided to launch a second novella series. My notebook said yes. My spreadsheet agreed. My color-coded calendar was frankly concerned, but we got there. We’re doing this.

Introducing The Supernatural Consultant Files

Friends, meet Full Moon, Full Inbox, Book 1 in my brand-new cozy fantasy novella series, The Supernatural Consultant Files.

Isn’t it gorgeous? That overflowing inbox, the mug with the butterfly, the nameplate. I’m so happy to finally show it to you properly.

So, What Is It About?

The Supernatural Consultant Files follows Bex Moore, a powerless fae working as a supernatural integration consultant. She helps beings from the magical world figure out how to exist alongside humans without causing diplomatic incidents. It’s, as you might imagine, a job with excellent job security and a perpetually overwhelming inbox.

Book 1 opens when Bex’s newest client, Mara Wolff, lands her dream job at a downtown bakery. Mara is talented, determined, and absolutely convinced she has the full moon situation handled.

She does not have the full moon situation handled.

Suddenly, Bex is navigating a werewolf’s workplace crisis, an HOA filing formal complaints about events it can’t scientifically explain, and something stirring in the town’s copper seam that’s drawing supernatural newcomers faster than she can process their paperwork. Her vampire assistant is deeply offended by all of it. Her poltergeist office manager helps by employing increasingly creative filing methods and losing things she needs at critical moments. They’re both spectacularly useless. The inbox isn’t getting any emptier.

It’s a very good thing the coffee shop next door is excellent. The man who makes it is annoyingly handsome and absolutely not a distraction.

He is a little bit of a distraction.

Is This Like Phoenix Firebolt?

Both series are cozy fantasy, and both have all the things I always bring to my books: found family, genuine heart, and characters you want to spend time with even when they are making everything harder for each other. If you love Phoenix Firebolt, I think you will find a lot to love here too.

The difference is mostly one of register. Phoenix Firebolt has warmth and wonder and a real sense of adventure in its bones. The Supernatural Consultant Files is more humor-forward in the way the Afterlife Files novellas are, with comedic chaos as a central feature rather than an occasional guest. Bex has a found family of coworkers and townsfolk, a job that never stops generating paperwork, and a very full inbox. It’s designed to make you laugh out loud. Both series have my whole heart; they just express it a little differently.

Grab Your Copy!

Full Moon, Full Inbox is available on preorder right now. Grab it so it lands on your device the moment it goes live, or add it to your Kindle Unlimited list so it’s waiting for you when it releases.

Also On Preorder NOW

It’s shaping up to be a full reading season, and I have two more things on preorder I want to make sure are on your radar:

Mourning Routine is the next Afterlife Files novella and it’s on preorder now. Usually, I have the next book’s pre-order ready to go when I publish a book, but this one was a little late, so I wanted to make sure you know it’s up now.

The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper is Phoenix Firebolt Book 3 and also on preorder.

I hope your to-be-read pile is happy to have some additions. Thank you, as always, for reading and for being here.

I need to get back to work, and I’m gonna need more coffee. Oh! Hit reply and let me know what you think of the new cover.

Paula

I have three things for you today:

First: Grave Missteps, the newest Afterlife Files novella, is live! Wren and the crew are back with another case at the funeral home, and let’s just say things get complicated fast. If you’ve been following the series, this one picks up right where we left off. Grab it on Amazon or read it free on Kindle Unlimited.

Second: I’m part of a Free Cozy Mystery Book Sets promotion on BookFunnel right now! If you’re looking for your next paranormal cozy mystery binge, there are 29 free box sets, including one of mine, to browse. It’s a great way to discover new authors alongside some names you might already love. Check it out right here.

Third: I have a small, slightly vulnerable ask. The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow has been out for ten days now, and I’ve been SO grateful for everyone who’s picked it up. If you’ve finished it and haven’t left a rating or review yet, would you consider taking a minute to do that? It doesn’t have to be long, even just tapping the stars makes a huge difference. Early reviews are what help new readers decide to give a book, and a new series like The Enchanted Post Chronicles, a chance, and right now every single one matters more than you know. I really appreciate it. Just head to this page right here and scroll to the bottom; click where it says Write a Customer Review.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Each and every one of you being here means the world to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, apparently Dmitri’s been reading aloud from a Victorian cemetery etiquette manual for forty-five minutes, and no one else has the heart to tell him Halla left the room.

Paula

PS: Don’t miss next week’s newsletter. I should have a bit of a surprise for you then. Here’s a sneak peak:

May is doing its best to be a full-time job over here. We had Mother’s Day, an anniversary, are in the middle of end-of-year recitals, and there have been approximately seventeen other things happening all at once. Which means this newsletter is arriving on the wings of caffeine and sheer determination. But there’s good stuff to share, so let’s get into it.

New Release: The Brightstone Bay Mysteries Omnibus 1

The Brightstone Bay Mysteries Omnibus: Books 1–3 is now available, and it’s the perfect way to binge the whole start of Maple and Solstice’s story in one go.

The omnibus collects Spells and Suspects, Spells and Secrets, and Spells and Scandals in a single ebook. If you’ve been curious about Brightstone Bay but weren’t sure where to jump in, this is your moment. It’s three paranormal cozy mysteries, one sarcastic ex-SNOOPS agent, one extremely opinionated fox familiar, and a whole town full of supernatural residents who are absolutely not going to make Maple’s life easier.

It’s also a great one to recommend to a friend who likes their mysteries with magic, found family, and a slow-burn romance that refuses to behave.

ICYMI: The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow is Out!

In case you missed last week’s news, The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow, Book 2 of The Enchanted Post Chronicles, is now available! Phoenix is back in Mosshollow, the post office has opinions, and someone’s been using charms that were very much not approved. Namely, the whole town.

Free Cozy Fantasy Promo, Including The Crossroads Cartographer!

If you love cozy fantasy, there’s a multi-author promo running right now with a bunch of cozy fantasy reads, and my novella, The Crossroads Cartographer, is part of it. It’s a great way to find some new authors and stock up your TBR.

Browse the free cozy fantasy promo here

That’s everything from my corner of the chaos this week. I hope your May is a little calmer than mine or at least that the good parts make the busy ones worth it.

Happy reading,

Paula

Subscribe now

When I published The Magical Mail Logs of Phoenix Firebolt, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I’d written my first cozy fantasy, put it into the world, and hoped someone would show up.

You showed up.

You showed up in numbers I didn’t expect, with reviews that made me cry at my desk, with messages about Parsnip and the cobblestones and the Undeliverables drawer. You told me this world felt like a place you wanted to stay.

So, I went back to Mosshollow. And now it’s ready for you to go back too.

The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow is live today. Ebook, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

This time, Phoenix knows the route. She knows which mailboxes open from the left and which ones need to be asked politely. She knows the cobblestones warm up and cool down depending on if she’s climbing or descending. She knows Parsnip’s sardine expectations and she meets them without complaint.

But a compliance goblin is coming. He has a brass measuring device, a leather ledger, and a hundred codes that Mosshollow’s enchantments were never built to satisfy. The word he keeps writing in his notes is decommissioned, and it means exactly what you think it means.

Phoenix has to fight for the village. The village has to fight for itself. And somewhere on a quiet lane that smells like leather and old paper, a bookbinder is making something that might help, if the village writes itself into the pages first.

Get The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow right here.

New to the series? Start with Book 1, The Magical Mail Logs of Phoenix Firebolt. The two books read beautifully back to back.

Thank you for making this series real. I started with one book and a hope. You turned it into a world I get to keep building.

Paula

We made it. The leaves are out, the lilacs are about to make everyone lose their minds, and I have things to tell you.

* * *

One Week Away: The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow

The Unapproved Charms of Mosshollow arrives on May 8th. One week. Seven days. Approximately forever.

If you haven’t read The Magical Mail Logs of Phoenix Firebolt yet, this is genuinely the best possible week to fix that.

Phoenix starts the series living the most invisible life imaginable with a beige apartment, beige commute, beige everything. Then a letter shows up with no stamp and no postmark. Just her name, written in ink that shimmers.

She ends up in Mosshollow, where the cobblestones hum, the post office is alive (and opinionated), her puffin has strong feelings about sardines, and the Undeliverable letters, the ones no one ever claimed, have been waiting for someone exactly like her.

It’s a book about grief and belonging and what happens when you stop being efficient at a life that isn’t really yours. I love it very much, and I think you will too.

Start with The Magical Mail Logs of Phoenix Firebolt and you’ll be perfectly primed for May 8th’s new release. Here’s a sneak peek of its cover!

* * *

A question for you

I’m thinking about putting together a Brightstone Bay box set, and I’d love your input because you’re the people who actually read these books.

Quick Brightstone Bay geography lesson for anyone still finding their footing: Brightstone Bay has two series running through the same town with many of the same characters. The Spells books (Spells and Secrets, Spells and Shadows, Spells and Scandals) are cozy mysteries following Maple Winterbourne, ex-SNOOPS agent and reluctant solver of magical crimes. The other books (Fire and Fangs, Brooms and Brimstone, and more) are paranormal romcoms, each following a different couple. Same town, overlapping cast, but different genres.

So: if you were handed a Brightstone Bay box set, would you rather it be...

The mysteries only (Books 1-3 of the Spells series)

A mix of both (Mysteries and Romcoms in chronological order)

Hit reply and tell me. I read all of these, and it helps me know what you want.

* * *

In Case You Missed It

Dead Ringer (The Afterlife Files Book 8) is out, and yes, this is the one that went on a little misadventure before landing correctly. If you missed the whole saga, you can catch up right here, but the short version is: the right file is now where it belongs, Wren and the gang are intact, and we do not speak of the other version. The correct Dead Ringer is out there doing its best, you can update your version if you got the wrong one (see the catch-up link to learn how), and if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, a review would make my whole week.

Check my Linktree right here for anything else you might have missed.

* * *

That’s all from me this week. Time to go enjoy May. Next week or the week after, I’ll have a little surprise for you.

Paula

So, embarrassing confession time: I accidentally published an early draft of Dead Ringer instead of the final, many versions later, version. Eight years and dozens of books without a major mix-up, and this is the one that got me. This was a draft that still had some continuity issues, character inconsistencies, and a few plot holes. If you read it and thought something felt off compared to my usual work, you weren’t imagining things, and I’m sorry about that.

The corrected edition is live now on Amazon. If you haven’t already downloaded or purchased it, doing so now will get you the right version.

If you’ve already purchased or downloaded the book, you should have an update available in your account. You can go to your Content and Devices page on Amazon and check for it, then press the Update button. However, your Kindle still might not update the book even after pushing the button, even if you’re synced. It will work better to remove the download from your kindle (long press it and choose remove download from the list), then re-download it (go to your library, choose the book, then hit download). You won’t have to pay again.

If you have any problems, Kindle customer support can help you. You can tell you have the new version of the book if the first paragraphs read as follows.

“If you’re going to kill me, the least you could do is crank up the heat.” Georgie Pell glared at me from the preparation table, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “It’s like a meat locker in here. I might be technically deceased, but I still have standards.”

Georgie Pell, property manager and perpetual complaint machine, was a more challenging client than most. Mainly because she was still alive. Partly because she was a zombie.

I’m so sorry for the confusion, and thank you for sticking with Wren and the crew at Grimm Family Funeral Home. They deserve better than a rough draft, and so do you.

If you do read the fixed version, like it, and feel moved to help me out, I’d be so grateful if you’d leave a review.

And here's a puffin I met at the zoo to help me say sorry. You can't be mad at a puffin, and I hope you don't stay mad at me.

Happy reading,

Paula

Dead Ringer is here! Book 8 of The Afterlife Files is out today, and I am so excited to put this one into your hands.

Here’s the setup: Georgie Pell wants a fresh start. After decades of undeath, the zombie property manager is ready to leave Honeyvale behind—new identity, new life, the whole disappearing act. So she hires Wren to stage her death. Standard procedure. Ash mixes the compounds. Everything goes according to plan.

Except it doesn’t. Because when it’s time to bring Georgie back, there’s nothing to bring back. Someone swapped the reversal agent for a fake, and what was supposed to be a temporary shutdown is now very, very permanent.

Which means somebody used the Grimm Family Funeral Home to commit a murder. And Wren takes that personally.

What follows is a tangle of financial fraud, shell companies, a business partner with too-polished grief, an ex-girlfriend with more secrets than she’s letting on, and a sabotage so precise it had to come from someone who knew exactly how zombie staged deaths work. Wren, Ash, Bernie, Dmitri, Nana, and Banshee are all on the case—which means there will be investigation boards with color-coded sticky notes, dramatic vampire outbursts, and a ghost impersonating a sheriff on the phone.

If you’ve been with this crew from the beginning, you’ll love this addition. And if you’re new here, welcome! You can absolutely start with Dead Ringer, but I won’t lie: the banter is even better when you know the backstory.

———

———

In Case You Missed It

A quick roundup of recent releases, for anyone playing catch-up:

Petals and Peril (Holiday Hollow Book 4) — Hollis and Crinkle’s latest adventure takes them to Springtide Grove, the district of eternal spring. A body in the blossoms, a reindeer with allergies, and a whole neighborhood hiding something behind the petals.

The Magical Mail Logs of Phoenix Firebolt (The Enchanted Post Chronicles Book 1) — A cozy fantasy about a woman who trades her beige life for delivering mail in a magical village from a living, breathing tree that keeps secrets. One of them is hers.

Final Curtain (The Afterlife Files Mysteries Book 7) — The one with the vampire ballet company, an opening night murder, and Dmitri at his most dramatically unhinged.

———

Pre-Order Alert

Spells and Suspicions, Book 5 of the Brightstone Bay Cozy Mysteries, is available for pre-order. More details coming soon—but if you want to lock in your copy early, the link is live.

Check out other pre-orders and new releases (and all my series in order) here.

———

That’s the news! Go grab a book (or three), settle in somewhere comfortable, and if anybody interrupts your reading, just tell them Wren needs you at the funeral home. It’s technically not a lie.

Talk soon,

Paula

P.S. If you read Dead Ringer and have a favorite Bernie moment, hit reply and tell me. I collect them like she collects true crime facts.