Dear Reader,

The past month and a bit since I sold my book to Avon has been a bit of a whirlwind of activity! I ended up more than doubling the length of Midnight In Your Arms, from just over 20,000 words to nearly 55,000—and I feel the story is much stronger and more substantial now. It’s been given the breathing space and room it needs to spread out into the story it was meant to be! That is always a good feeling for an author. No one wants to feel as though their story has been stunted, compacted into too small a space to really bloom.

I sent the final few changes to my wonderful editor at Avon, Chelsey Emmelhainz—and let me just take a moment to tell you how fantastic it has been working with her! She really gets what I am trying to do with my story, the mood and feel of it, as well as the style of my writing. She makes everything better without making me feel like I’m losing anything—a delicate balance. She is such an intuitive reader, which is the most important thing, I think, for an editor—because she must put herself in the place of (hopefully!) thousands of readers, and see the story through their eyes. That isn’t easy, but she does it with aplomb. I felt really comfortable with her, and the changes she made, from small to significant, have made Midnight In Your Arms into a story of which I feel very proud. It was a skeleton of a story only a few short weeks ago, and now it is fully fleshed out and dancing the Charleston! Whoot!

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been just over seven weeks since I wrote the first draft, sent it in, and got the call from Avon! I wish all projects ran this smoothly, with such satisfying results. I can hardly wait for October to come! Midnight In Your Arms comes out on the 30^th, just in time for my favourite day of the year—Halloween! Maybe I will dress up as my heroine, Laura Dearborn, the vampish 1920s medium who reaches across space and time to steal the heart of Crimean War veteran Alaric Storm III.

Now, Chelsey has advised me to celebrate with ice cream, even though it’s only 8 AM my time—and get on with the next story! I think I will do just that. I’ve been dreaming of a new hero and heroine who are clamouring to have their story told. Now that I’ve put the finishing touches on M.I.Y.A, I feel fully justified in indulging—both in ice cream for breakfast, and a brand new love story that makes the past as real as the present.

Love, Morgan.