When we last left Duncan...

When I began this blog yesterday, I thought I might con one or two people into reading it. And I obviously did, as Deeze left the following message for me on Goodreads: "Wow you must be a little psychic, just the other day I was thinking of sending you a message to ask how the next Duncan Andrews installments coming along, although I'm not sitting in a basement or in my underwear

Look forward to hearing a few of your thoughts and seeing your updates."

It's nice to know someone cares! So for Deeze and anyone else interested, here's the skinny. I'm about 2/3 through with the 2nd draft of The Scarlet Tide, the 3rd Duncan Andrews book. I'm hoping to have it in shape to send out by the end of the month.

For those who aren't familiar with Duncan, his story started in my first published novel Pale As a Ghost. The second novel in the series, Animal Instinct, came out last year. Duncan is a private detective based out of Indianapolis who has some psychic ability in that he knows whenever something supernatural is around. He can also see and talk with ghosts, which is a good thing as his boyfriend, Robbie, is still hanging around even though he died over a decade ago. Duncan's best friend is Gina, a centuries old witch, and his bulldog, Daisy, is a zombie.

Confession time: The Scarlet Tide, the working title of the third book, nearly wasn't the third book. All last summer I worked on a Duncan Andrews story and got almost to the end (I had just got to the 60,000 word mark) when I realized it wouldn't work. At all. The plot was okay, but it wasn't for Duncan and company. It was much too serious and came across like Bugs Bunny starring in Schindler's List. Too jarring. So I abandoned it, a hard thing to do when you've put three months into something. Still, it was the right thing to do.

I'm much happier with The Scarlet Tide. There are still some things I need to fix, but overall I like the plot. This one concentrates more on the dynamic between Duncan and Robbie and Nick and will lead directly to the fourth (and last?) book in the series. Stay tuned!