Carolyn Haines's Blog

Dear Readers and Friends,

I confess: August and February are my least favorite months. They both have crappy weather where I live. One is too hot and humid, the other is too cold and wet. But here we are, at the end of August, and keeping an eye out for hurricanes forming.

When I was a little girl, we didn’t worry about—or have—the monster storms we have now. Camille hit Biloxi in 1969. It eradicated that part of the coast, but it didn’t stretch all across the Gulf Coast states. Then Katrina cam...

Dear Readers,

Priya and I have been working on a lot of books lately, making some of my backlist available to read again. SO we have big announcements!

Two romantic mysteries and a long novella will soon be available as digital reads. RIDER IN THE MIST, BABE IN THE WOODS, and DARK RIDER have all been formatted and given new covers and they are ready to go. They will be available on Amazon for great prices very soon!

Many thanks to Harlequin Intrigue for returning the rights to me. And to Michael...

Dear Friends and Readers,

We’ve reached the midpoint of the year—in a whirlwind. DOGGONE BONES is hatched and out in the world. Lots of crazy things going on at the farm.

The sad news is that the big, wonderful camphor tree in the back yard that was struck by lightning two years ago had to be taken down. It was a huge tree and I loved it. But most of it was dead, and it wasn’t coming back. I waited and hoped that it would recover. The lightning just blasted it too hard. So I’m trying this newsle...

Dear Friends and Readers,

Summer hit my little farm this week. Temps above 90; killer humidity. Ugh. Not the most fun, but so far no hurricanes so I am counting my lucky stars. Weather around the world is getting more extreme and more violent. The planet is tired of abuse—or at least that’s what I believe. Mother Earth is striking back. I can’t say I blame her.

I’m going to launch a challenge: How many weeks can you go without purchasing something you don’t actually need? We have to have food, p...

Dear Friends and Readers,

As I mentioned last month, we’ve reissued THE BOOK OF BELOVED, and will soon have Book 2 of The Pluto’s Snitch series back in print. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY. Books 3 and 4 are available now. It’s always exciting to see books that are no longer in print from the publisher come back to life.

With that being said, I have more exciting news. Harlequin returned the rights on 20 titles to me! Yay! Yay! These are romantic mysteries that I wrote in the 1980s and 1990s under the na...

Dear Friends and Readers,

I’m very excited that we’ll have the first two books of the Pluto’s Snitch series back in print very soon. We have new covers designed by Pamela DuMond, great editing and proofing from Mahala Church, great interior design by Priya Bhakta. It takes a village to raise a Carolyn. Boy is that true.

It’s a process to bring a book back into print. The rights have to be reverted by the original publisher to the author (that would be me!). Then files...

Dear Friends and Readers,

I think as we all age, we spend time looking back as well as forward. I was thinking this morning of how much I loved sitting at the kitchen table writing out Valentine cards for every single classmate. This was elementary school, and the teacher had us all decorate white paper sacks from Lucedale Drug Store (I presume the store donated them.). We’d put our names on them and then decorate them with cut out hearts or colored cupids, flowers, butterflies, etc. Red,...

Dear Friends and Readers,

This is my life in the first month of 2025. Snow is predicted, I had to have the septic tank pumped (not a big deal except it took a while to get a company to come out—everyone is busy), I’ve had edit deadlines and need to be writing on the next Bones book, and I have a foster from the county shelter, Dolly.

On the whole, though. I have no complaints. I think of that terrific John Prine song, “Dear A...

Dear Friends and Readers,

Well, 2024 is done. I’m always amazed when a new year rolls around. It seems I never had enough time in the old year to do all I needed to do. No complaints, though. I got a lot done. It’s been a wild ride.

In 2024, I published two books: LIGHTS, CAMERA, BONES and BLUE CHRISTMAS BONES. I had a blast writing both books. And I posted an awful lot of awful puns on Facebook. I had plenty of laughs with my friends and I shed more than a few tears over losses of beloved pets...

Dear Friends and Readers,

This month we had an actual chilly morning—not cold, but chilly. It gave me hope. And this has been a really, really hard month so far. So hope is a good thing.

I’ve had two really sick cats for a long time. Scooter was almost 20, and she’s battled bladder infections, constipation, no appetite, etc. for several months. Castor, who was one of the Gemini twins, was 16. His brother Pollux died several years back of cancer. Castor was a beautiful Siamese looking cat who was...