Shakespeare's Blood comes from my years as an English teacher, and some of the crimes within that story might come from Shakespeare's admittedly bloody plots. It's the only one of my books that I would warn people not to read if they aren't into nasty murders. While I have no desire to write such things, when an idea comes along I write it down. It's only later that I think, "Ick. That was a gory one!"

I wrote the story when internet publishing was in its infancy and I was unaware of the pitfalls. I pitched it to a publishing company that promised all sorts of love and support for its authors. What it was, I found out in time, was a woman with issues that revealed themselves in long emails to her authors about her mother, the state of medical care in this country, and being loyal to her instead of "nitpicking." 

I didn't nitpick openly, but I did notice that the cover was highly unrepresentative of the story, and the editor I was given knew significantly less about the English language than I did. Sales were dismal, and I ended up not renewing my contract and asking for my rights back. I had to get an attorney to get her to follow through and take the book down from her site so I could publish it myself.

I did write a sequel a few years later, so if you like SB, look for Charlie Dickens' Documents to find out the next part of Mercedes' adventures.

Shakespeare's Blood: Mercedes is on a tour of Britain when her companion is murdered. When she leaves the tour, she finds that the killer is now after her. With the help (or maybe not) of some men she meets along the way, she delves into the reason she's being pursued, which hail back to Shakespeare's life and a huge secret surrounding the Bard.

This book is available here for $2.99