I am delighted to announce that I have signed the contract for a follow-up to Trouble at Turtle Pond! Miles and his friends the Backyard Rangers – as well as some NEW friends – will move on to another adventure in Marsh Hollow . . . this one involving owls!
Here’s this week’s announcement in Publisher’s Marketplace!
The announcement says Spring 2025, but actually it’s just been moved up . . . it’s coming out in late summer 2024!!
As some of you may have deduced from my website, which has owls hidden everywhere, I am a big owl fan. (I like small owls too – and those are in the book as well!) Miles and his friends will be encountering three types of owls that we have in Massachusetts, and learning about others. The research for this book has been incredibly fun: I’ve taken owl classes with the Massachusetts Audubon Society and elsewhere (one of them involved actually handling an owl!), gone on owl prowls, spent countless hours gazing into and listening in the woods near my house, dissected owl pellets (ew! but fun!) and even joined an owl bander and her team to track migrating saw-whet owls. I’ve learned so much about owls and their habitats! I’ve also enjoyed writing about Miles and his friends at school – this is actually the first novel I’ve set during the school year. So that setting is bringing them fresh opportunities, as well as fresh challenges, especially when they learn about some rival wildlife rangers on the other side of the woods.
I’ll be sharing more updates about THE OWL PROWL MYSTERY very soon, from the full summary to the book cover and more, so watch this space! Or better yet, please sign up for my mostly monthly newsletter, which will have behind the scenes tales of the publication process, in addition to my usual hopefully not-boring content: recent reads, conservation tips for creatives, writing and productivity hacks, and pictures of my dog! (Who is training to become a therapy dog who will read with kids in libraries – I sometimes have progress updates about that in the newsletter too! And if you liked the dog in Trouble at Turtle Pond, you’ll be seeing more a lot more of Chance the Dog in book 2!)
More soon!