Cover reveal for a new epic fantasy by Brandy Ackerley, an author interview with Jessica Renwick about her new middle grade fantasy, and a special milestone for me—my twentieth anniversary!

Being an author, I have discovered, is nothing like anyone ever expects it to be. And today, I made a decision to go down a road in my career that surprised even me.

On Sunday afternoon, I had the privilege of being interviewed on Facebook by author Joy Norstrom, one of the authors with whom I am co-hosting the Inspiring Women event at Audreys Books in Edmonton on Thursday. (The other is P.D. Workman.) For posterity's sake, and in case you missed it, I am copying the interview here.

"The Enemy came to steal, kill, and destroy my passion, but God flipped the switch on the devil’s own scheme. The thing that was meant to keep me down helped me to focus on the essentials." Read more of Melissa's amazing story in today's blog post.

Writing reviews is probably one of the very best ways you can help your favourite authors (besides buying their books). On sites like Amazon, once a book has a certain number of reviews the platform "rewards" it by showing it in the "Also bought" lists. Some readers and book newsletters won't even consider reading a book until it has 25, 50, or even 100 reviews. But what makes a good review? Here are the "3 Rs" of writing a good book review.

Wow, so much has happened last week/will be happening this week that I'm going to be posting a couple times this week. For today, because it's Monday, because it's been a while, and because I'm much better at posting these moments on Instagram and Facebook than keeping my blog updated, here's a 7 Things summary of what's been going on.