So, SMP asked me to write the catalogue copy for Cruel Sister, and I didn't want to, so my angelic buddy Laura Anne Gilman did it for me:

When Penelope (“Penny”) Wintercraft-Hawkes gets a call from her older brother Stephen, she's delighted to learn that he and his wife Tamsin have returned from Hong Kong, and are finally planning to build their dream house, a reproduction Elizabethan manor, on their London riverside property. Since Penny's longtime companion, traditional musician Ringan Laine, is an expert on period architecture, he signs on as an adviser to the construction crew.

Shortly after the project begins, however, they learn that the site is supposedly haunted by a bomb disposal officer, killed on the site in 1948. Their joint fear - that Penny's sensitivity to the unseen world will be triggered somehow by song - while still present, is tempered by the knowledge that this ghost, at least, has no connection to music.

But this time, it's Ringan himself who begins to hear and see things he can't explain: A ghostly pack of hounds, baying and on the hunt. Voices no one else can hear. A horrifying vision, shared by Penny, of a red-haired girl named Margaret, drowning her sister in the Thames. None of this, however, seems to connect to the site's resident ghost.

More distubingly, Ringan is seeing through the eyes of a long-ago musician by the name of Pietro Bendone, Ringan and Penny finally realize that the visions they're experiencing are from a far more distant time. And if the truth isn't uncovered, Ringan may find himself caught in the body – and sharing the fate – of a man who died a terrible death four centuries earlier.

Their desperate search leads Penny and Ringan on a historical hunt, to a royal wedding nearly five centuries ago, to murder and terrible retribution, to the Bodleian library in Oxford, and, in the end, to hidden letters describing a terrible secret from the Royal Court of Henry VIII…

In CRUEL SISTER, noted author Deborah Grabien blends historical accuracy and supernatural mystery into a tense, satisfying whodunit.

"Penny and Ringan may be the most appealing couple of modern mystery, and Grabien again provides terrific historical tidbits." - Kirkus Reviews, Matty Groves

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Damn, she's good.

Huh. I guess all the "please don't let it suck" mantra-chanting I did while writing Cruel Sister paid off. From my agent:

Ruth says the book is fine and Toni has put through the d&a request. There may be some slight editorial requests -- Ruth is going through the manuscript again to see about that. It's scheduled for Fall 2006.

Works for me.

Yay! I feel all proud since I got to help in a miniscule way.

connie, you're thanked by name in the acknowledgements. Everyone who helped is, and you're in some very good company.

You can bet I'm going to be pimping this book, if only to say, "See? That's me! A real author's thanking me!"

See, I thank everyone who helps, because when I'm on anything resembling a roll, the last thing I can afford to do is allow myself the time to be distracted byu all the pretty shiny side alleys researching on my own digs up. So I loves my help-friends, I do. To quote Nicholas Rev.1: "Saves a lot of work."

An editor asked for the full manuscript of Vampire People, and here's where I suck: I haven't completed it. I kind of gave up on it and moved on to the next thing. It's not a huge deal to complete it (once this cold subsides), but I feel like such a dick.

YEA, ASKING FOR A FULL! WHOOPEE!

Don't worry; you'll complete it. You aren't a dick, you're somebody who (sensibly) decided to table the project to work on something new.

So this is a good thing, then? Cool. I keep having to tell people that there's no way in hell joss will blurb it. Stings.

I suppose he *could*, I mean, you have met, you're not just some random bitca off the street... But smart not to count your blurbs before they hatch. And, yeah, that's a good sign.