For those of you waiting for the print version of Dead Dreams, a trade paperback is now available. It's up on Amazon already but will take a while longer to filter through to other sites like Barnes & Noble. Eventually you should be able to order it through your local bookstore.
 The next book in the Dakota Mystery Series is finally out!
I’ve uploaded Dead Dreams to the various ebook sites and it is available at most already. (Kobo is the exception.) The print version will lag a month or so behind, if all goes well. Just a little on the background of this book. I wrote the opening scene several years ago after one too many rejections from literary agents. I thought seriously about giving up writing at that point, at least for publication. Then I found myself sitting down at my laptop and writing what it felt like to be a failure at the one thing I thought I was on this earth to do. So the idea of Dead Dreams was born, though I wrote Dead White first. With winter around the corner, I hope this mystery set in July warms your holiday season. I am grateful for every single one of my readers, who’ve made my dreams come true!  The e-book cover for Dead Dreams is done!
I'm really pleased with how it turned out, thanks to the magic of Glendon S. Haddix of Streetlight Graphics. The draft of Dead Dreams is now in the hands of my editor. I've got my fingers crossed that revisions won't be a nightmare. I'm still aiming for a release date before the end of the year. Sorry for the radio silence. I'm busy working on the second book in the Dakota Mystery series. The title is Dead Dreams. Per usual, I'm all in a muddle at this point and don't have a clue how I'm going to wrap it all up.
But I'll get there somehow. Or so I have to believe. Who knows what my editor will do with it when I turn it in. But here's a blurb for those of you who want to know what's coming. The ebook should be out by the end of the year. If not, someone's gonna die. ;-) Dreams can inspire, crush—and even kill. When Sheriff Karen Mehaffey calls back Adam Van Eck to look after his ailing mother, he reluctantly returns from pounding the boards on Broadway—and is found days later, shotgun in hand, with his mother planted dead in her garden. With half her head blown off. He claims he was chasing rabbits. Right. But Karen is too distracted to listen to his prevarications, what with rising flood waters threatening the town. Going for the stars—sheriff’s stars—wasn’t turning out to be a dream come true. And she’s been offered a dream job in Washington DC. Detective Marek Okerlund, on the other hand, welcomes the distraction from the anniversary of his wife’s death and his mother-in-law’s unannounced visit. But who other than Adam Van Eck could possibly want the retired schoolteacher dead? The only link to her life outside her garden is the Dream Team, a group of high school students dreaming up ways to revitalize the dying county of Eda. With the detritus of dead dreams all around, Karen and Marek must flush out a killer. Before the levees break.  Though the Missouri River divides both Dakotas, the regional differences between East River and West River are especially marked in South Dakota.
West River considers itself Western: Cowboys & Indians (in capital letters), ranch land, and large reservations. My fictional county of Eda is East River in South Dakota, the part few write about but where both flagship state universities reside, not to mention (really) the state penitentiary and mental hospital. It hosts the largest city in the state (Sioux Falls) and has gorgeous sunsets, bluffs, and rivers but no mountains to speak of. Oh, and lots of mosquitoes. East River considers itself Midwestern, at least the farther east you go. Corn and soybeans are prime instead of rib. The exact cowboy boot/hat vs work boot/seed cap demarcation is murky, if not muddy, but again, the farther east you go, the less likely you'll see a Stetson. As a child, after going with a friend to a rodeo show, I wanted to be a Cowboy (when I wasn't dying to be an Indian) and one Christmas got all duded out. Then I got laughed at and quietly retired my duds. Didn't I know I was an East River Dakotan? But I know a few West River Dakotans and they've let me ride out with them, and not laughed too hard when the horse got away with me. (I should've gotten a clue when they gave me a horse called Toronado.) So, I've given up my dream of being a Cowboy and settled into my East River roots. Speaking of dreams, my next book is tentatively called Dead Dreams and was inspired by my own failures as a writer. Dreams can inspire, crush...and maybe kill. Another thing about East River Dakotans: they're champion slow talkers. Or, in my case, slow writers. Hopefully my readers will forgive me this regional quirk! No publication date set yet, as I'm in the middle of writing it after some healh issues delayed me, but presumably in 2012. |
M.K. CokerAuthor of the Dakota Mystery Series. Archives
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