Tag Archives: science fiction

Last Rites – A Last Healer Mystery

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When I wrote The Last Healer, I did not intend to continue the story in a sequel, but several people who read the book said they wanted to read more about Katie and Joe. I decided to get to work on a second book that I titled Last Rites. I am happy to say it is now available.

Last Rites starts three months after the events of The Last Healer. Katie and Joe return from their honeymoon and learn that Katie’s friend, Ashley has been shot and near death. They race to Milwaukee so Joe can use his healing powers to save her and end up investigating the murder of Ashley’s mother. Like the first book, their investigation again leads them into danger.

This story continues to highlight the differences in personalities. Katie is the outgoing one. She knows how to talk to people and has a good moral compass. She also is a modern girl with fashion sense. Joe, being over a hundred years old, is grounded in the past. He is polite, chivalrous, and wise. He is also uncomfortable with technology and can sometimes be blunt when talking to people.

If you haven’t read The Last Healer, you can find it here. If you would like to read Last Rites click here. While it is better to read the books in order, you can read Last Rites by itself. If you do read one of my books, I would be grateful for a review. As of this writing, the print versions of Last Rites are not yet available due to an error in the cover design. I’m hoping to have that fixed soon.

Writing My First Novel

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Recently I finished writing my first novel and plan to self-publish it as soon as the cover is ready. How I got to this point is the real story.

I had the idea for the story floating around in my head since 1996 or earlier. I wanted to outline the story before starting, but I never could come up with an ending or even a decent middle, so I put it on the back burner and thought about it occasionally. Finally, on July 30, 2018, I started writing. I hoped that the story would resolve itself as I wrote.

It went pretty well for a while, but I soon hit a roadblock. I made many changes to what I had written, so the story became different from what I originally envisioned. Still, I couldn’t think about where I was going with it. So for nearly five years, I would add to the story only occasionally.

Things changed after St. Patrick’s Day this year. That day the company I worked for went out of business, and I was out of a job. I found myself with time on my hands while I looked for work. During that time, I was writing with new enthusiasm. I managed to break through the roadblock and finished the first draft of the book around the first of May. So it took me about six weeks to go from less than 24,000 words to over 60,000 words. I’m sure most writers could do that easily, but considering how long it took to write the first 24,000 words, I thought it went well, especially since I had no outline to follow.

I then read through the book two or three more times, correcting errors and inconsistencies. I gave a copy to my wife in hopes that she could find mistakes for me, but she was way too busy, so I sent it to my mother. She read it and sent back three pages of corrections. I was amazed that I missed so much. After that, I added Gramerly to my Word program, which helped me catch many more mistakes.

I read through my book six or seven times before I was ready to publish it. Then I had to wait for the cover. I contracted with someone on Fiverr to illustrate it for me on June 8, but he was swamped and gave me a delivery date of July 8. He finally finished the front cover a day late and I was able to publish the ebook on my birthday. I’m now waiting for the back cover for the print edition. If you are interested you can find the book here.

If you do decide to purchase my book, I would really appreciate a review.