We couldn’t believe it when WordPress informed us that we had been writing our blog for Poppy Cove Mysteries for an entire year!  It made us stop & think about what a year it’s been, the velocity it has moved at & how much had changed, & yet how much has stayed the same.

To go back tho just over a year ago, we had just finished writing our first book, STRANGLED BY SILK & knew we had to come up with a suitable (which in this case, means fun!) pen name to represent ourselves, the stories, place & time.  Barbara Jean Coast, with a sparkling champagne personality & fun-loving half-wit was born!

Then we started looking at how to reach our future readers, getting published, going from a handwritten manuscript to a published novel, finding complete strangers who would fall in love with our story as much as we have.  We researched agents & publishers, in both new & traditional way.  We got our hopes up, got rejected, our hopes dashed, praying & visualizing our way through the process, all the while knowing we had a good tale that needed to be shared.  Then, one quiet day, an e-mail showed up with an offer from Cozy Cat Press.  We were thrilled, but took our time, considered our options & future plans & happily signed the contract.

Now we have a terrific publishing home that suits us well with a great group of writers & many new friends, a tangible copy of STRANGLED BY SILK, & to our pleasure, the start of a fan base.  We’re learning how to reach our readers better & converse through the start of interviews & questions.  Best of all, we’re still finding the time to write more of our Poppy Cove Mysteries & loving our lives.