I have always been a fan of witches.
From watching Bewitched as a kid, to reading Anne Rice and Diana Gabaldon books in college, and watching Practical Magic a million times, I have a fascination with the supernatural. Not the comic book style, over the top hocus-pocus stuff, (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but a world almost like ours where someone like me could see a ghost, or discover magical powers, or maybe travel through time.
A few years ago, I had an idea for a cozy mystery series with a young witch turned amateur sleuth. I knew it wouldn’t fit my usual audience of readers, so I decided to launch a new pen name.
Unfortunately, shortly after the first two books were released in late 2019, a barrage of personal life issues nearly derailed the series completely, and could have sunk my writing career. I went from being a part-time author as a creative outlet to being a single mom of two daughters who needed to earn a full time living, fast. I either had to make writing work as a career, or give it up and go back to the 9 to 5 office grind.
A co-writing career begins
This is when I teamed up with TB Markinson for our first co-write. I turned my attention completely to sapphic romance and started earning enough to cover my bills. Soon I found that any time I tried to work on the cozy series, the emotional trauma I associated with that time of my life made it impossible for me to make progress. I knew at that point my cozy pen name was effectively dead. However, I still wanted to complete the series I’d started in a satisfying way for those readers.
I’ve told my newsletter readers about this series before, but what I didn’t mention then (because she said not to) was that by the time I got to book 4 in the series, the only way I could finish them was to have TB cowrite them with me. It brought the joy back to the stories, and we said more than once how much we wished we could write them as a sapphic series.
Sapphic paranormal women’s fiction?
Fast forward to this past fall. With the launch of the new I Heart SapphFic website and several writing projects with grueling deadlines, we were both mentally fried. We needed something totally new to bring the fun back into writing.
As it happened, a big change had come to the reading world in 2020 when 13 authors of mainstream cozy mystery, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance decided to team up and create a unique genre for readers who craved kick-ass heroines who were in their 40s and 50s. They called this new genre Paranormal Women’s Fiction.
Being in midlife ourselves (TB and I both will turn 49 this year), and having seen some shit over the past few years, we’ve both become fans of Paranormal Women’s Fiction. What’s not to love about scrappy divorced women the world wants to dismiss as irrelevant totally kicking butt and beating the bad guys, am I right?
These were characters we could relate to, and seeing them triumph was a cathartic experience. We started wondering if it would be possible to completely rewrite the old cozy series as Paranormal Women’s Fiction. And this time, let’s make it sapphic!
My So-Called Hexed Midlife Series is born
Midlife is the Cat’s Meow, which is our first book in the My So-called Hexed Midlife series, isn’t simply a rewriting of Spirits, Pies and Alibis with an older main character. That would have been much too easy. We’ve created totally new characters, made big changes in the mystery itself, and of course, introduced a sapphic love interest for our recently divorced heroine, Tallulah Shipton.
What you will get in this series is awesome sapphic representation in a genre that currently has little to none. We would be delighted if readers of K.F. Breene, Deanna Chase, Robyn Peterman, and the rest of the Fab 13 authors who started the PWF phenomenon would read and fall in love with our books, too. We’re doing our best to deliver characters and stories that are authentic to the PWF experience, just with 100% more sapphic content.
What to expect
Of course, you will get our usual buffet of quirky characters, snarky humor, and witty banter. There is a main sapphic romance, (and a few for side characters, too), but it will take multiple books to unfold. We hope the excitement of solving murders and battling evil will help you be patient on that front if you’re primarily a romance reader. As always, we value deep character development and thought-provoking plots.
These books may have a little magic in them, but they are really about human relationships, family, friendship, and the mystery of falling in love.
If you’re not sure what you think of this whole PWF thing, we hope you’ll give them a try. We can hardly wait to go on this new adventure with you!
