Today is kickoff day! What does that mean? It means we are two months out from the release of Unpredictable Magic. You wanted more in Jane’s world? Here it is!

Witches Angelina and Evan Everhart-Trueblood take a case that spirals out of control until the whole city is at risk in this exciting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Faith Hunter.

Angelina Everhart-Trueblood and her brother Evan run Everhart Investigations, a PI firm in Chattanooga that solves paranormal crimes committed by supernatural beings. When their new client wants help finding her friend, who supposedly disappeared during a reception at Angie’s aunt Jane’s winter residence, things get . . . complicated.

The client is not who she appears to be, and demons strike the city for the first time since the Witch War. On top of that, evidence is pointing toward the involvement of an overly ambitious vampire—who just happens to be Angie’s ex-husband.

As Angie and EJ (the former Little Evan) team up with CPD, they will have to dig deep into their magical reserves—and rely on some friends in high places—to rid Chattanooga of the danger creeping into their city.

As I mentioned in the last newsletter – I’m doing two signings. I had no intention of doing signings ever again, as I made very clear. But Penguin Random House PR team requested I do at least one. Firmly. They requested firmly. LOL

The first event is in Charlotte N.C. It will be at Park Road Books on Thursday, July 16 at 7 P.M.  There will be giveaways, maybe some treats if I can get bakery cookies, and I’ll do a reading. They have a very comfortable event area with seating. We will have in-conversation with a special guest, Q&A, and fun. Fingers crossed it’s what y’all want and y’all show up. I’m really quite nervous. Website is: https://parkroadbooks.com/  Park Road Shopping Center, 4139 Park Road, Charlotte NC. (704) 525-9239. Event listing: https://parkroadbooks.com/event/2026-07-16/faith-hunter-discusses-her-new-book-mindy-mymudes

The second event is “An Evening with Faith” at Liberty Book Company. 1037 Oakland Ave. Rock Hill, S.C. 29732, on July 18, 2026, 7:30 – 9 p.m.. (803) 327-9028. This is an afterhours event, which means the store will go into lockdown at 7:30 and it will be just us and the store owner and manager! There will be LOTS of giveaways! I will provide pizza—your basic veggie pizza and meat pizza. I am unable to meet all the different gluten-free needs, food allergies, etc, so if you have a food issue, please don’t be mad at me for not accommodating you. I will be happy for you bring your own meal and eat with us! I’ll provide colas and water. I’ll read from things you haven’t heard—like the new book, Unpredictable Magic, and the new Junkyard Cats novella (untitled). We will make live reels during the event, be casual, and have fun. SEATING IS LIMITED (meaning space but only 20 chairs). I recommend you be first on site to get a chair, and if you have disabilities, please call the store and RSVP with Alison or Rhyne to reserve a chair. (803) 327-9028. Event listing: https://www.thelibertybookcompany.com/s/stories/an-evening-with-faith

That special guest I mention? Mud will be with me at both events. Yup MUD herself. This is gonna rock!

Please make plans early. I really want to see y’all!
Faith

So, there’s news and more news. All of it good-ish news, since it isn’t world news or politics. Yuck. Trust me, you’ll never hear me nattering on about any of that.

I’m doing two signings. Yes, you read right. I had no intention of doing signings ever again as you well know, but Penguin Random House PR team requested I do at least one.

The first one is in July in Charlotte NC. It will be at Park Road Books on Thursday, July 16 at 7 P.M.  There will be giveaways, maybe some treats if I can get by the bakery cookies, and I’ll do a reading. They used to have a very comfortable event area with seating. Fingers crossed it’s what y’all want and y’all show up. I’m really quite nervous. (704) 525-9239 and website is: https://parkroadbooks.com/  Park Road Shopping Center, 4139 Park Road, Charlotte NC. More info to come on May 22.

The second event is “An Evening with Faith” at Liberty Book Company in Rock Hill SC. I don’t have a firm date yet, so watch for it. The event will be after hours, with LOTS of giveaways! I will provide food (maybe pizza?) but can’t figure out how to feed all the different gluten-free eaters, food allergies, etc, so it will be basic: veggie pizza and meat pizza, and if you have a food issue, please don’t be made at me for not accommodating you! I will be happy for you bring your own and eat with us! I’ll provide colas and water. And I’ll read from things you haven’t heard – like the new book, Unpredictable Magic, and the new Junkyard Cats novella.

Penguin Random House has a giveaway for Unpredictable Magic starting Monday May 11. See the banner! Go! Enter!

[[INSERT BANNER]]

Moor book news: I am almost done with the new Junkyard Cats series novella. I give it one week and I’ll be done with the rough draft. I will give it a hard edit and then it’s off to a new editor. It’s long for a novella, y’all. It’s edging up to 50K words which is a LOT!

In personal news: I have a lovely garden area. I am so happy about the Japanese Maples and the potted thymes, my few sage plants, and three different flavored basils. I can’t eat from my garden soil for a few more years—since the pesticide poisoning—so all the edible stuff is potted. I try to put in 2 hours a day in the beds, but this week I have been lax. Well, I’ve been writing a bit more, trying to finish a novella, and it rained one day so much that the ground was a MUSHY red clay MESS! All that means I am behind, so I’ll hit the beds Saturday morning.

This spring, I did lose two JMs and I have fears for three more. I’m thinking hard about replacing the dead ones with bigger trees at end of summer. Maybe even ten-year old trees. I’m tired and sad seeing the young ones struggle!  

It’s been a cold spring and paddling has been almost nonexistent. I finally went on Tuesday last, and made 6 laps, got to playing and swam 6 times. I’m not as strong yet as I need to be to try and get tricky. Haha! It was cold, even with 2 layers and a wetsuit. But it refreshed my soul. Mud wants me to do vids of me at the white-water center. Soooo… Maybe Sunday afternoon I’ll try to take some. I’ll be in 3 layers with a wetsuit on top, so I’ll look like I put on 50 pounds.

Over all, I’m happy with the books, the series (serieses?), and my life.
Love you all,

Faith

Hey, Y’all!

I had all those releases (one compilation, one anthology, one novella) in March/April and they are finally out now! Tales in the Midst, Paranormal Payback, and Junkyard Riders. If you haven’t read, they are all out in eBook, all are (or soon will be) out in paperback, and all but Tales in the Midst are out in audio. The audio company turned down Tales in the Midst, and I refuse to use AI, so it will not be in audio. I am truly sorry about that, but it is what it is.

Have you seen the revamped (giggle) website? It is gorgeous! The AMAZING RJ Blain did it for me as a gift, though I did bribe her with Le Creuset treats. She has a lovely collection courtesy of www.faithhunter.net Check the website out!

My garden beds are FULL of WEEDS. They look horrible. I worked for close to two hours today, and managed to dig weeds out of half of the new bed, put cardboard over the ground, and a heavy layer of mulch on top. It looks great. I am exhausted. I am getting too old for the nonsense of weeds!

I am starting tai chi, and have taken my first online lesson. I am using YouTube, instead of in person classes, because I don’t like leaving the house. I feel the motions and moves already! I’ll keep you up on how it goes.

I have been cooking new dishes with about 50% successes and failures. A total failure today was the roasted red cabbage chunks. The recipe called for olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt, which I have used many times on other veggies to great success. The result was bitter, which does make me wonder if the cabbage itself was the problem. I have never had bitter cabbage! I think I’ll have to toss the entire thing. (Shudders at the taste.) I made up for that failure with an old standard: sliced and roasted carrots with half olive oil and half maple syrup as a marinade. 

I’m drinking new tea – an Apple Chai which I recommend for autumn, and a luscious black tea Thai Chai, both from Adagio Tea. Soooo good! I also made my own herbal chai with a tiny chunk of dried turmeric root, 6 dried ginger root slices, one dried anise “flower,” one cinnamon stick, five whole black peppers, and two dried clove buds. It is wonderfully soothing, good for the digestion, and also is quite tasty, if I say so myself!

While sipping teas, I am reading. I have recommendations.

Jennifer Estep’s Only Bad Options and Only Good Enemies. Excellent! Available now. Book three coming soon.

The first three books of the Dungeon Crawler series, by Matt Dinniman. They are well crafted, but I lost interest on book three, and put it down. Come to think of it, I put it down to read the following book, and it was so fabulous, I could not come back poor Carl, so that might have been the problem.

Ilona Andrew’s, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. I am in awe. It will take 2 reads to take it all in, but wonderful. Available now.

And I am just starting the third and final book in RJ Blain’s Lowrance Vampire trilogy DEATH DANCE! This series is fun, snarky, fast moving, and offers a different concept of vampires: their history, gifts, relation to shapeshifters, and how to view them in history and present. And did I say Fun? Fun! This novel opens with the beheading of bad-guy-vamp, which is a favorite opening for me. The cover is adorable too, see below. It’s out in Tuesday 4-21 everywhere. https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dance-Lowrance-Vampires-Book-ebook/dp/B0F2ZWKXH8/

I hope all are doing well. Life in 2026 is just as weird (though in a different way) as the rest of the 2020s. Breathe. Read! We will get through this too.

“Okay,” I said. I opened a bottle of water and drank, waiting.

“This refers to the being previously known as Garrouling PopPop,” he said, as the air filters shot the scent of peppermint into the room. Bug aliens used scent as part of speech, and the speech part wasn’t anything a human mouth could make. Garrouling PopPop, no peppermint scent, was the best I could do.

“Okay,” I said again and put the glass bottle in the rack for cleaning and refilling.

“Garrouling PopPop is no longer in a state of maximum inactivity.”

“Uhhh. Okaaay. What does that mean?” I asked.

“Garrouling PopPop,” Gomez said, with a fresh spray of peppermint.

The scent was so strong, I started sneezing.

Between my sneezes Gomez finished, “—is no more.”

“He’s dead?” I asked. I grabbed a handkerchief and shoved it against my face.

“He is not a he and never was. Garrouling PopPop is not dead. I have told you repeatedly that Garrouling PopPop has been in a state of maximum inactivity. Now, Garrouling PopPop is no more.”

“Which sounds like dead. Please stop saying his name. I’m dying here.”

“No. Your poor ability to scent emotions, your limited neural capacity, lack of neural computing capability, and deficient problem solving skills are insufficient to understand my captain’s biology.”

“I think you just called me stupid,” I said. “If he’s not dead, what is he?”

“The closest analogy in your nonspecific language is, ‘active, timorous, saturated, multilarval sponge state’.”

I pressed the spot on the command center that flushed the smells out of HQ. “So, he’s not dead.” I blew my nose vigorously.

Gomez sighed. The AI actually sighed. He had been around Jolene way too long. Tuffs, who had clearly been listening, jumped and slipped through the flap opening in the office, taking the slide to the lower levels of the Bug ship. “They have no equivalent pronoun in your language. However—they are not dead.”

From Junkyard Riders, novella 5 in the series.

Dearest Reader…

LOL Can you tell I’ve seen some Bridgerton? Anyway, I know my fans are not gentle, they are rabid reading warriors with a TBR pile six feet tall, and love of tea or coffee bordering on the psychotic. Oh, wait. That’s me. Ok. On to the news.

I told you all about the book to come out soon—Tales in the Midst—and that I would alert you all when preorders were up. The publisher surprised me by calling and saying, “I skipped the preorder because Amazon was being a pain. Tales in the Midst is up on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble.”

I gulped slightly and well, here we are! And so far, readers love it! I hope you will enjoy! Please buy, read, and (koffkoff, because I never ask enough) leave a lovely review!

To let you know where I am working and what I am doing, here is a lovely pic of the garden. In tea news I am drinking apple chai from AdagioTea.com. The chai is far stronger than I expected and I didn’t sleep last night! Whooeee!

Hugs all around!

Faith

Mud’s Corner

It’s out today! Coming soon on Kobo and B&N

Hi ALL!

I’m here, mostly alive (though a little fuzzy brained) and am keeping up with all things Faith. I do have news of a personal and a professional nature. BOOK NEWS BELOW.

PERSONAL NEWS: My garden (such as it is these days) is coming along nicely though I think I lost 3 Japanese Maple trees after transplanting. It breaks my heart! But I’ll get more this fall and replace if it turns out they didn’t make it. The weather here has been crazy, and trees don’t always react well to weird weather andtransplanting. 

I have been cooking new things, but this is getting a little too long, so I’ll do a recipe next time! 

For the first time in 5 years, I have been making jewelry, The first piece was challenge, but I did it. I’m waiting on supplies because I have 3 more necklaces to play with. I went back to jewelry because I had surgery on March 5 to remove scar tissue and glass and accident-trash from on and under my right jaw and repair a muscle from jaw-mouth area up to my right eye, all of which were remnants from an accident when I was 19. The plastic surgeon wasn’t able to get all the scar tissue (he was stunned when he got in there) but after a five-hour surgery, I look different. I mostly ended up with facelift and neck … neck something. When the swelling goes down, I’ll post pics. My jaw hasn’t looked like this since I was 19.  (Note from Mud—other than the mummy resemblance, she looks gorgeous.)

BOOK NEWS: I have a new compilation coming out the end of this month! TALES in the MIDST. Several of the six stories are from the Jane Yellowrock world, some with Mud and Angie, and one is the final revised Jane Yellowrock and Bruiser: The Elopement that Wasn’t. One is a reprint from Dirty Deeds 2, and one is a reprint from an anthology that had problems with internal matter. 

Some stories were seen in the newsletter, some in serial on the website, and one I think only a few people ever saw it all. I’ll be doing readings from the compilation starting this weekend, if I get my voice back. It isn’t up for preorder yet. I will announce when it goes up. But I thought you might like to see the way the cover turned out. 

The cover is spectacular! I used Rebecca Frank at Rebecca Frank Design and at Bewitching Covers. I work with her often and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her work! She does the Junkyard series covers, so you know she’s good! I used her intake form on her site where I told her about the book, gave her a single paragraph of description, and she came up with a mockup. Her email to me said: “Here’s what I came up with for the cover of Tales in the Midst! I wasn’t sure what you wanted to use for a subtitle, so I just put in a placeholder. If you want to change that, let me know. This still needs a lot of work – the bark texture is a bit messy and will be overpainted, and a lot of the details will still need to be painted as well. But let me know your thoughts so far and we can go from here. 

(MOCKUP of TALES in the MIDST below)

Rebecca said: “I start with a base of stock images and 3D renders for the draft to get the idea across, and once the draft is approved, I paint over to add details and polish. 

See FINAL cover of TALES in the MIDST. It is the most beautiful cover I ever imagined!

Stay tuned for more news about the book!

Mud’s Corner

This book is coming out April 14th! Squee!

Paranormal Payback

Jim Butcher, Kerrie L. Hughes

A superstar lineup is included in this urban fantasy collection featuring short stories from New York Times bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Holly Black, Kim Harrison, Faith Hunter, and more …

In this short story collection, our heroes get what’s due to them—with a supernatural flair.

But the injustices that have been holding…

This link will lead you to the PRH contest they are holding where you can win this lovely book.

Happy late February and early March! I have been having fun writing, editing, writing some more, and working in the garden. I already had some 26 (or was it 28?) Japanese Maples, and I added 10 more. Nothing has leafed out yet, and unless you know where the trees are it’s hard to see them, but I am LOVING the early shape of the garden and I made a breathless reel of that. It’s on my facebook official page here or here.  I still have to move rocks, but that’s for another day and time. And another backache! I’m happy and ready for spring, planning a one-day trip to the land next week. I hope all you are having grand end-of-winter month! Now?  Just for you guys! Here is an early peek at Unpredictable Magic. **** Labaka flashed his fangs at the new car and pulled a vamp-killer. Dumber than rocks. The driver—tall, dark, and half gorgeous—stepped like a dancer from his vehicle. New guy was Walter, wearing a black business suit, white shirt, and shiny shoes. His presence meant I’d been monitored by security all night, and Walter—the bodyguard who was blood-sworn to the queen to keep her godchildren safe—had left a meeting or a date to come save me. I was in trouble, one way or another. Labaka turned on Walter. Slashing out with a vamp-killer. Walter stepped inside the strike, knocked the short-sword away with a single block. Hit Labaka smack in the nose with the heel of his other hand. As the singer dropped, Walter caught him and slammed his head against his own car until the vamp went boneless. He threw Labaka ungently into his vehicle like a bale of hay. A weapon fired, cracking from the dark. Walter stumbled. Vamped out. Tore into the night. Three more gunshots sounded. Close. Deafening. Six seconds after vanishing into the dark, Walter reappeared, a limp man dangling over his shoulder. “I quite liked this suit,” he said casually, his old-fashioned upper-class British accent telling me more than anything that he was pissed. KeeKee and Lissa were standing inside the club, peeking out the open door, eyes and mouths wide. They knew me from college, knew about me being the queen’s godchild. But it wasn’t like I had ever displayed my fighting abilities or my magic to them. I had no idea how much they had seen. As he walked toward his car, Walter looked me over for injuries, studied the downed opponents, shook his head, and dropped the unconscious man at Berky’s feet. “This one is all yours.” The big bouncer looked from the unconscious man to Walter. “What am I supposed to do with him.” “Give him, give all of them, to the police,” Walter said, sounding eminently practical. “This looks like a terrible bit of gang warfare.” Berky looked around at all the prone bodies. “No, it doesn’t.” “Of course it does,” Walter said. “His weapon is in his suit pocket; his rounds mostly hit the club. The other rounds are inside me, so I’ll hang on to them a bit.” “No silver in them?” I asked too softly to carry. Silver was poison to vamps. “Oddly enough, no. I’m quite curious why.”Happy late February and early March.I have been having fun writing, editing, writing some more, and working in the garden. I already had some 26 (or was it 28?) Japanese Maples, and I added 10 more. Nothing has leafed out yet, and unless you know where the trees are it’s hard to see them, but I am LOVING the early shape of the garden and I made a breathless reel of that. It’s on my facebook official page here or here. I still have to move rocks, but that’s for another day and time. And another backache! I’m happy and ready for spring, planning a one-day trip to the land next week. I hope all you are having grand end-of-winter month! Now? Just for you guys! Here is an early peek at Unpredictable Magic.

Mud’s Corner

Weather in Wisconsin is always a roll of the die. Yesterday, it was sunny, 60, and a nippy wind. Very springlike. Today, mid-afternoon, huge fluffy flakes fell from the sky, and now there are nearly three inches of nature’s dandruff on the ground. I’d play with MY TREES, but they are buried. Besides, I think Shine, my youngest springer, pruned it last fall. Again. It used to weep. Now it’s crying that it’s upright. (Culprit below). Time to plant tomatoes!

Book news first. And there is a lot of it! Then some personal stuff, just for my Newsletter fans.***JUNKYARD RIDERS (Book 5 in the Junkyard Cats series.) NOW, NOW, NOW!!! Audible, E-Book, and paperback are up for sale. You may have to type in Junkyard Riders eBook by Faith Hunter to find it because the audio and the electronic are NOT connected yet. Or you can click on the Amazon links below. All Junkyard Cat’s books are now also available at KOBO, because you asked for it!

Amazon eBook, Amazon Audio, Kobo eBook

PAPERBACK! You can order from the regular sites, but for signed copies, call The Liberty Book Company at 803-327-9028. They will take your order over the phone, and I’ll come by and sign it, as I am still in Rock Hill at least once a week!

Also, have you seen and shared the vids from my professional Facebook site? Please do!!!! I need all the help I can get sharing about Shining Smith, in order to be able to keep writing and sharing this fabulous world with you. Here’s the link to that site, just in case you haven’t been there in a while. Because of my fans (and MUD’s (*blushes—Mud)  hard work!) the book did great, getting down below 140 overall at Amazon, getting to #1 and #2 in subcategories and to #7 or better (I forgot to look on release day) in Sci-Fi/ Fantasy. Squeeee! If you have missed all the hoopla, the blurb is below, but if you already have yours and loved it, please consider leaving a review, and clicking like on the good reviews you find. That helps more than you can know with analytics. Whatever those are…

JUNKYARD RIDERS: Shining Smith returns, taking on the “Dark Riders,” a paramilitary group motorcycle gang searching for Gov. political power, military connections, and alien tech. The Dark Riders are closing in on Shining’s secrets and, while she would rather nest in her new roadhouse, Shining must protect her own, once again taking the battle to the enemy.

Unfortunately, CAIT, the original AI on the junkyard’s crashed spaceship, has its own agenda buried in the ship’s code and choses this time to implement it. There is nothing Shining can do to stop it, except what she does best – plot an offensive, get her people in place, and hope Jolene can outsmart the virtual alter ego.

But the cataclysmic snowstorm crashing in with all the power and subtlety of Mateo in his WarBot suit could be the end of them all.

***Buy Paranormal Payback here

In other Book news — In case you missed it: see below the blurb for another anthology (with the most wonderful Jim Butcher!), called  PARANORMAL PAYBACK.A superstar lineup is included in this urban fantasy collection featuring short stories from New York Times bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Holly Black, Kim Harrison, Faith Hunter, and more …

In this short story collection, our heroes get what’s due to them—with a supernatural flair.

But the injustices that have been holding them back might cost them more than they realized. . . .

In “Mister Petty,” a brand-new Dresden Files story from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher, a woman hires Goodman Grey to get back at her cheating husband. She’s about to find out that Grey isn’t your ordinary detective—he’s a professional monster. And he’s going to balance the scales.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, “Dying Isn’t Just for the Young” follows an elderly widow reckoning with family scheming to take away her independence in a world infected by a disease of vampirism.

New York Times bestselling author Faith Hunter’s “Razors and Revenge” finds the vampire bounty hunter Shiloh awaiting her judgement at the hands of the Dark Queen, fresh off a brutal werewolf attack and the loss of a dear friend. But Shiloh’s not just a vampire anymore—and the wolfish instincts growing inside her are howling for blood.

ALSO INCLUDES STORIES BY Jennifer Blackstream, * Maurice Broaddus * Delilah S. Dawson * Kevin Hearne * Tanya Huff * Kerrie L. Hughes * R. L. King * R.R. Virdi***NEW BOOK NEWS! Y’all remember all those shorts you got a peek at online, in the newsletter, and as serial releases? Well, a publisher bought them as a single book length unit and the compilation will be out sometime after March in trade and paperback. I have no title, no release date, no nothing except the good news. More on that later.***

Buy Unpredictable Magic Here

NEW BOOK NEWS! Y’all remember all those shorts you got a peek at online, in the newsletter, and as serial releases? Well, a publisher bought them as a single book length unit and the compilation will be out sometime after March in trade and paperback. I have no title, no release date, no nothing except the good news. More on that later.

***

Final book news for the newsletter: Unpredictable Magic will be out in July in all formats!

Some preorder links are up. Go, search, find and preorder! (Or, for Amazon, linked button above—Mud.)***

Me as a writer news:The website is getting an overhaul because it had major security issues and problems far beyond my ability to deal with. Mud conscripted RJ Blain, (yes, the RJ Blain) to help and she and JR ripped it apart and started over on it. Only one page is up but I am thrilled as I can be at it! Check it out, but know it is a work in progress. Also, check out RJ’s work. I especially love her series: Magical Romantic Comedy (With a Body Count). Here is a link to my favorite book in the series. Personal news?As to the grief process, well it’s good stuff / hard stuff—the yin and yang of life, you know? I mostly finished cleaning out mama’s house. My brothers and I each took what we wanted of her personal possessions. She had already given away a lot of it to us, so we could enjoy it while she was alive. Which was really cool. On the 20th of this month, my brothers and I sold the house—to my middle brother. He and his wife are living there already, making it their home. I’m both happy and sad when I’m over there, but life changes and moves on.The weather? Oy. ‘Nuff said. LOL! Love you all,

Mud’s Corner. 

I am freezing. And I am really getting to HATE tech. First, I made a podiatry appointment 6 months ago. Text came up to confirm appointment. I hit the wrong number, no redo, and someone snapped it up. So, either wait 6 more months, or try someone I’ve never heard of before. I can’t wait. Then, I had another appointment I set on the computer. Get to office, and no sign of said appointment. They were able to get me in, because golly, gee…my appointment slot hadn’t been filled. AND THEN I discovered the nightmare of Faith’s website. Granted, I’ve wanted to revamp it for a long time, but there was corruption, and lack of connections, and a HUGE mess. I was chatting with RJ, we have a lot of similiar interests (she just got some antique apothecaries) and I had a meltdown. I am so glad she is both Faith and my friend. She fixed a lot of it, now I have to figure out the rest. Give a minute. Or give me a holler, I always need help.