Bringing my Heroes Home

 It's official, y'all. With the release of the fifth and final novel, the menopausal superhero series is now complete!

 

This has been the work of a little more than ten years, and there's a lovely symmetry in that the first book came out in 2015, and the final in 2025. 

Origin story: This series started because I watched an X-men movie with my husband, and we were talking, as we often do, while we walked the dog afterwards. I was joking that the underlying message of X-men stories is always that hormones cause superpowers, and if that was the case, menopausal women should have the corner on that market!

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 He laughed and told me to write it down. So I did. 

And to my surprise, it was more than just a little joke--it was the opportunity to create a group of female characters finding community, purpose, and love while they deal with the changes wrought in the life by changes in their bodies. Metaphorical AF, right? 

The journey: Writing them was cathartic, joyful, and sometimes heartbreaking, bringing together my personal struggles and fears surrounding aging, friendship, and what perimenopause was doing to my body, my brain, and my life alongside my lifetime love of superhero stories. 

 

The shirt says "what doesn't kill you, mutates and tries again" 

I LOVE how I ended the series, and can't wait to share this with readers. 

The whole series is available direct from the publisher as an ebook bundle: 

buy here

 

You can also get it a book at a time from the Big River site, or request it from your favorite bookseller in paperback or hardback. 

The series in order:

 

 

Going Through the Change, where it all begins. Meet Helen, Jessica, Patricia, and Linda/Leonel and laugh and cry with them as they struggle with the sudden development of unusual abilities amid their busy lives, and find each other along the way. 

Part of what I wanted to explore is what a heroic life might look like for a woman with a grown-up life: a career, children, a household, a partner. Responsibilities. This book was the start of all of that.  

 

 

  

 

Friend or Foe, a novella, serves as a bridge story between the first and second novels, and a peek inside the mind of the mad scientist who caused all this trouble in the first place, Dr. Cindy Liu. 

This novella is also included in Agents of Change, which collects the novellas and short stories in a single volume.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Change of Life, the second novel in the series, all the characters are dealing with the aftermath of the events of book one: the affects on their relationships, families, jobs, and psyches. The plot centers around Patricia, the Lizard Woman of Springfield, and her quest for answers and vengeance. 

This book introduces Daniel Price, one of my favorite creepy villains. He's been body hopping for a hundred years in a a quest to extend his own life, with no regard to who gets hurt (or killed) along the way.  

 

 

  

 

 In Face the Change, our heroes come together to work for the Unusual Cases Unit of the mysterious Department run by the Director and learn about hero life in the spotlight. As they fight The Six, a mysterious group of psychic villains, they deepen their personal connections, finding strength in each other.  

An unexpected romance came into play in this one. I LOVE it when my characters surprise me. 

 

 

 

The Good Will Tour is another novella, which works pretty well as a stand alone if you want to try the series at low investment.  Jessica "Flygirl" Roark and Leonel (formerly Linda) "Fuerte" Álvarez set out to build community good will with a celebrity visit to the local hospital and end up needing to save the day when a desperate earthquake causing woman shows up demanding experimental treatment for her wife. 

This novella is also included in Agents of Change, which collects the novellas and short stories in a single volume.   

 

 

 

Just when our heroes thought they had things figured out, a mysterious power spike challenges their control of their abilities in Be the Change. 

I had a wonderful time expanding on Patricia's backstory in this one, introducing her mother, stepfather, and some information on her siblings and half-siblings. And Daniel Price is back because he was too good not to bring back. 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's the new girl in town: the series ender: Change for the Better. Readers will probably have noticed that Jessica "Flygirl" Roark has been…odd. Things escalate in this book and the menopausal superheroes have to scramble to save one of their own, while they face down enemies within and the return of Daniel Price and the shadowy mystery man, Bertrand Dietrich.  

I'm really proud of that final fight scene and that last chapter will hit you right in the feels. 

 

 

 

 

Through Thick & Thin is a collection of side-stories for the menopausal superheroes. It’s confession time in "Coming Out as Leonel." Join Patricia, the Lizard Woman, as she unravels the puzzle of Dr. Cindy Liu's disappearance in "The Right Thing," and then see her softer side (and her "better half," Suzie) in "Underestimated." Get ready for a wedding, and a heroic rescue, in "Flygirl's Second Chance."

These can be read separately of the novels, but I think you'll enjoy them more if you've already read at least books one and two. They're also all included in Agents of Change. 

 

 

 

 This anthology collect the novels and short stories into a single volume. 

• Friend or Foe
• The Good Will Tour
• "Coming out as Leonel" 
• "The Right Thing" 
• "Underestimated"
• "Flygirl's Second Chance"  

(this might be my favorite cover in the series, combining the silhouettes we used for the novels with the stripes or rays we used in the short work) 

 

 

 

I have some readings from all this work available on YouTube or in the Menopausal Superheroes slideshow on the "Read My Work" link in this website.  

And if that's not enough Menopausal Superheroes for you, you can also read another short story, "Intervention", exploring the background of Patricia and Cindy Liu in Theme-Thology: Mad Science or read a couple of free holiday stories I created for my newsletter subscribers: O Scaly Night (Patricia's version of Santa Clause is…violent) and (Flygirl's son gets to see her in action) Max's Mommy. 

If you find me or my publisher, Falstaff Books, at a convention or other in-person event, you can also get the very cool omnibus edition (second volume coming soon), and I hope to be able to share links for audiobooks in the near future.  

I'm working on a book tour this fall and winter to celebrate the completion of this series, so you may have a chance to come see me in your neck of the woods!  

Thanks to all of you who came along with me on this journey. Writing is great, but we need readers to make it worthwhile and I am so pleased that so many of you have connected to my characters and found escape and expression with me in these stories. 

May you find strength when you need it, joy in friendship, and love in one form or another.  

Wasting time? Or filling the well? An open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What is your favorite way to waste time? (be non-productive) Bird watching? Long walks? Does it help your writing?

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I'm…not very good at being nonproductive. Or as other have put it, I don't know how to relax. 

I've got a restless energy most of the time and a drive that can be unhealthy at times. This feeling that there isn't enough time to get all I want out of this life. 

But I have learned to value a few activities that aren't directly productive for the recharge, reset, and brain-wandering time that lets my subconscious figure things out.  

Plants are a big one for me. I'm a plant appreciator, even though I'm not an especially skilled gardener. I love to go on long walks in the woods or in parks, or even just in my neighborhood and "see what's growing." I have a plant app that tells me interesting things like the variety of names that plant is known by and whether this is a healthy specimen or not. I take a lot of photos so I can share my joy in all these small beauties with friends and on social media.

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 Baking and cooking is another one, though not in the summer--I melt! I love picking something I've never made before and trying it out. Bonus if it means I get to try out a new-to-me ingredient or piece of kitchen equipment. Bonus bonus: you get to eat your work!

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I also enjoy board games, watching old movies (with popcorn), and playing with my dogs. 

When I need to just zone out, my ADD brain requires multi-tasking. I put on an audiobook or a television show/movie that doesn't require my full visual attention, and listen/watch while I play a pattern matching game on my handheld video-gaming device. Currently, I'm back on Dr. Mario on my Switch, but the game changes every few months.  

 None of these feel like wasted time to me though. I can feel the ways that they feed me, fueling me for other endeavors. So maybe the truth is that I still don't know how to waste time.  

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New-to-me genres, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the July 2 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Natalie Aguirre, Cathrina Constantine, and Louise Barbour!

This month's question:

July 2 question - Is there a genre you haven't tried writing in yet that you really want to try? If so, do you plan on trying it?  

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I love trying out new genres, themes, styles, etc. For me, that's some of the joy of writing: going "I've never done that before, so let's go!" 

 

I'm in the middle of writing my first romances right now and it's a BLAST! After finishing my Menopausal Superhero series last year, I found that really wanted new project energy. So instead of returning to one of my back-burner projects, I decided I'd write romances featuring women in their 50s finding love: GenX romances. 

 

The first one is off for editing now and I'm nearly done prepping the second one for editing, then I'm back to finish drafting the third one. 

 

What will I do after that? I think I'll go back to the Gothic I started a couple of years back. 

 

Often, when I want to try out a new genre, I write a short story first. It lets me play with something new at a lower commitment (in time, energy, etc.) than taking on a novel. It's been fun, and it's really built my catalogue since I've gotten 24 of them published in anthologies over the past ten years.

 

 

 

There's a lot of horror in that list (I LOVE writing short horror), but there's also urban fantasy, literary fiction, women's fiction, alt-history, fantasy, science fiction, weird, ghost, romance, fable/fairytale, and dystopian in there, especially since crossover genre is a real thing and you can end up with a weird urban fantasy alt-history with romantic elements and have to ask yourself what genre it is. 

 

I haven't yet written any steampunk. Besides the Gothic, I've also got a historical women's fiction trilogy I'd like to get back to and finish, and well as a young adult fantasy. I've never written a thriller or a mystery. OOOOH, maybe a western would be fun. I love to read weird westerns, so writing one would probably be even more fun. 

 

So far, I don't have much interest in writing straight up realistic fiction or military scifi, but otherwise, there isn't much I'm not interested in trying. Trying on new genres is a delight. 

 

How about you? Are you a genre-hopper as a reader or writer? Or do you have favorite lanes to swim in?  

When I was just a little girl, an open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Chat with readers about a childhood event that still sticks out in your mind, something you'd like to go through again.

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 Life feels pretty busy, hectic even, here in my fifties. I'm sandwiched between elder care and youth care, with my mother-in-law facing some mobility issues and my youngest kiddo learning to navigate life with EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, an auto-immune condition that affects strength and stamina). 

 Even though I left teaching a few years ago, it sometimes feels like every hour of my day is spent in service to others. I do it out of love, but that doesn't mean it's not wearing. 

So, I think I'd most like to go back to one of those seemingly endless summer days when I actually had time to get bored and felt like I had nothing to do. Maybe an afternoon sprawled out on the floor in the livingroom with a pile of comic books we'd just picked up at the local used book store spread out around me, enjoying a little snack plate my Mom provided before she also flopped down to read. We can just sit there for a while, reading companionably together. 

Sounds pretty darn good about now. 

How about you? Something in your childhood you'd like to revisit, experience again? I'd love to hear about it in the comments! 

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Foundational Books, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the June 4 posting of the IWSG are PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melisa Maygrove, and Jean Davis!

This month's question:

June 4 question - What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult?

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There's something special about books you read in childhood and young adulthood, isn't there? The root they take in your heart and mind is deeper and stronger than things you read in other phases of life (at least that's how it's gone for me). 

 

I've written about this before, in particular about revisiting those books as an adult--it can be fraught, because sometimes those works don't hit the same way when you read them with more experience under your belt, and you see unsavory things that sailed past you as a child. 

 

So a few books that have stayed important to me: 

 

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I first read this when I was 12 or so years old, and it was a revelation. After years and years of "good" and "nice" girls, here was an unreliable, weird, and dangerous young woman narrator. Witchy and wild, and judgmental about the people in the town. 

As the story evolved and I learned more about her family history and her past actions, my heart started beating faster. It felt *transgressive*, like I was getting away with reading something subversive, and that has stayed a part of me every since, both in what I like to read and what I write. 

I still read at least part of this book nearly every October, and it still works for me every single time. If pressed to choose a "favorite book of all time," this is often my choice. 

I did also like fine, upstanding characters…not just the misfits and miscreants. In elementary school, (maybe 3rd or 4th grade?) I plowed through TONS of Nancy Drew books. Some of them had been my mother's and my grandmother's. Others came from the library (the bookmobile ladies would hide them under the seat for me so they'd still be available when they got to my stop). 

So, I saw a few different versions of Nancy--her looks and details changed across her reboots. One version of her had an eidetic memory, which I found almost as fascinating as ESP and really hoped I would develop. 

Nancy was independent and smart and kind, and her father trusted her to take care of herself, even in risky situations. She had wonderful and supportive friends, too. I LOVED that, and I'm still attracted to stories that give the characters agency and skill. 

I haven't read a Nancy Drew since childhood, but she still gets a piece of my heart. 

Another foundational mythology for me was Grimm's Fairy Tales. I had a lot of versions of these--the ones my German great-grandmother would tell me from memory, good old Disneyfications, and various tellings and retellings from illustrated volumes. 

I especially loved all the ones about clever girls escaping harm and rescuing those around them. "The Feather Bird," "The Old Woman in the Wood," "The Twelve Brothers," "The Robber Bridgeroom," and of course, "Hansel and Gretel" (honestly, Gretel's name should go first).  

Childhood can be a time of feeling helpless and small, even when you have a relatively safe, secure, and loving family. So, these stories of girls who were underestimated proving that they do indeed have what it takes? Yeah. That still works for me.

So, if you find me and my work subversive, feminist, and a little feral? Well, it's not my fault. Blame Merricat, Nancy, and Gretel. They helped make me who I am. 

I still LOVE reading, but now I'm a writer and a well-educated critically-thinking adult…so I analyze while I read in a different way than I did when I was only looking to lose myself in a story. That said, I feel like I'm developing a whole new set of foundational books as a writer. They feed and inspire me in entirely different ways. I may have to follow up with a post about those--the books that are making me now. 

How about you? What books made you who you are? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

 

Getting Triggered (to write), an Open Book Blog Hop Post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What are your triggers for writing? (For instance, what gets you hyped or starts the story in your head).

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I have at least ten ideas for a story nearly every day, but not all of those make it to the page. 

Some of them only take a mental moment's exploration for me to realize that there's not enough "there" there to develop into a full-blown story. They are at best bon mots that I might toss off on social media or in a social gathering. 

Others I might explore more fully, but then find that they fizzle. That little spark that had me excited, energized, or curious enough to start just sort of dissipates and it drifts off in the breeze. 

Some are so tenacious that they take root even when I don't have the time or freedom to sit down and play with them right away--they just keep butting up against my subconscious like an orca threatening to capsize my kayak until I give in and write the darn things. 

Generally, I'd say, a story needs three at least two of three things to really get started with me: 

• a bright enough spark
• a window of exploration soon enough that the idea gets pinned to the board before it can fly away
• deep enough roots to grow under the surface even if left un-nourished
• or being "the thing" that I need to write just then, the idea that scratches an itch I might have trouble defining for myself.  

One of these isn't enough without at least one of the others. There are too many ideas to develop them all, so the competition for my keyboard and head-space can be fierce. 

For example, the Menopausal Superheroes concept came to me in a flash. A nice bright spark that made me laugh aloud and start looking for time I could devote to it. I held it out there as a bribe to myself, the "something fun" I could play with after I finished the heavier-going more literary novel I was working on at the time.  

link to book

The romance novels I'm working on now didn't come in a flash like that, but they were "the thing" I needed to write once I'd finished my Menopausal Superheroes novels--new project energy and the excitement of something I'd never written before. The idea had deep enough roots that it didn't matter that I didn't start the first one for months after I first had the thought. They'd been there growing in my subconscious substrata just waiting for me to find or make the time for them. 

How about you? What decides which ideas get developed and explored for you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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When sci-fi becomes real, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What sci-fi invention would you like to make real?

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My first thought when I saw this question was that I'd love to have a Replicator. You know, the Star Trek device that you can just tell what you want to eat and it makes it? 

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As a child with no interest in cooking, but a lot of interest in snacks, this seemed like heaven to me. But, these days I've got my doubts. So many cool ideas have been badly executed by companies looking to make profits soar by cutting quality and service, I'm afraid we'd end up with something more Douglas Adams than Gene Rodenberry. Instead of "Earl Grey, piping hot" we'd get something "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."

 

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A lot of scifi, for all its interest in gadgets and technology, has an underlying message about the dangers of relying on it. From Ray Bradbury's smart house horror, to the Matrix, we see again and again how something that seems like it's there to make your life easier can be a trap. At the very least, there's an element of "be careful what you wish for." 

Flying cars seemed pretty cool until it was my kid getting a driver's license. When that happened, I was pretty glad we were still tied to the ground for car travel. 

Still…I might risk it. For a holodeck :-) How about you? What scifi invention would you want in real life if you could have it?

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