I’m happy to tell you that my new collection of short crime stories called, Taste of Temptation has been published!  It’s available in ebook form on most ebook sites and the print version should be out in about a week.  Taste of Temptation has four short stories and also introduces the first four chapters of my new full-length book, The Inca Code.  I hope that book will be published by the end of the year.

This is my first collection of short stories to be published.  (I’ve had stories published here and there in other anthologies)  So, it’s exciting and satisfying for me..  Writing a short story is much different than writing a novel.  The plot and character development move much faster.  Instead of 300+ pages, a short story gives the writer only 10-15 pages.  Yet, all the structure and “steps” that are part of a novel must be included in the short story.

The experience of writing Taste of Temptation made me a better writer.  Many people assume that writing a short story is easier than writing a novel because the short story is, well, shorter.  But in many ways, it’ harder.  A short story requires that everything get boiled-down into only the most essential parts.  Every word must count.  That forced me to be a better writer—even if a short story is shorter.

As my friend and writer, Libby Fisher Hellman, has said:  “Writing a novel is like a marriage while writing a short story is like an affair—fun but short!”