Leia Howard - Author

A bundle of the first three Touch of Gray / World of Touch of Gray novellas is now available on Amazon Kindle .  Bundle includes: Out of Touch (Touch of Gray - Book One) Invisible Touch (Touch of Gray - Book Two) Wild and Wicked Ways      (World of Touch of Gray | Wendy Weather 1) Feel free to catch up to the Gray Verse prior to the publication of the next book in the series, Touch Too Much (Touch of Gray - Book Three) which is available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle . Enjoy!!!

As a writer, you want to devote your time to your characters, their story, and the world they inhabit.  Sometimes an idea for a scene or a plot springs into your head as you are cooking or cleaning and you feel compelled to write it down or make a note on your phone to be revisited later.  You feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish writing something, whether it be a chapter or the whole book.  Writing is what we do. As a self-published author, we may not have the same sense of enthusiasm about editing our work.  Even a writer with a publishing house doesn't necessarily look forward to working on copy edits.  To reframe this reluctance, I like to think of editing as an opportunity to refine and revise my work and make it the best story I can tell (in the time allotted). Oops, did I accidentally have someone that left a scene earlier speak dialogue?  Good thing I caught that.  Does an action scene make sense, are the movements clear?  Here...

Cover Design by: MatYan It's a new year and Gray Graham is now a member of the Psycept Council of Albuquerque in the Southwestern Alliance Conservatorship, or SWACon.  With her new position comes new duties, including welcoming 5,000 new Psycept residents to the PsyTown area of Albuquerque and helping to orientate them to SWACon life. But not all parties are thrilled with ABQ welcoming the largest group of residents to arrive in the past decade.  Shadowy forces emerge in a shocking attack leading Gray to work with the police and military to untangle the twisted network of foreign interference before more harm can occur. (Novella approximately 50,000 words) (Cover by: MatYan) ___________________________________________________________________________ Touch Too Much (Touch of Gray - Book Three) pre-order on Amazon Kindle Out of Touch (Touch of Gray - Book One) available on Amazon Kindle and Google Books Invisible Touch (Touch of Gray - Book Two) available on Amazon Ki...

Touch Too Much is the third book in the 'Touch of Gray' series.  Publishing wise, it follows Wild and Wicked Ways, another book in an adjacent series, but you do not need to read that to follow along.  Next month, I'll post the book description and link for pre-order followed by an excerpt. An updated character primer, a chapter one narration, and an informational video will be released shortly after publication, Spring 2020. For now, enjoy the cover reveal. Cover By: MatYan Story wise, Touch Too Much has many references to Invisible Touch (second book) and Out of Touch (first book) and continues some of the below story threads and revisits a mystery.  [ Spoilers for Invisible Touch -and- Out of Touch below] ********************************************************** In Invisible Touch, Gray was elected to the Psycept Council of Albuquerque and the council was preparing for new Psycept residents arriving in the new year.  She also co-founded ...

Where we stand (published works): Out of Touch , the first book in the Touch of Gray (TOG) series, establishes the main character Gray Graham.  It touches on the history of the world and why she relocated to another country.  It also delves into Psycepts (those with psychic perception), Gray's touch clairvoyant capabilities, and consulting on police cases.  Several peripheral characters are introduced like the police she works with, her employees at her agency, and some of her friends.  The central conflict is a mysterious border incursion and what it means to her adopted country and the Psycepts that live there.  Amazon Kindle and Google Books The second book in the series, Invisible Touch , expands Gray's world.  We learned a little more about other Psycepts including Gray's siblings, PsyWitch Wendy, and The Sisters Wyrd and Brother Bone (aka Blood and Bone Sages).  We also dive into the world of Psycepts living in Albuquerque and got a...

Wild and Wicked Ways is available on Amazon Kindle .  And now there is an informational video at my YouTube channel to go along with it.  Feel free to check it out. ************************************************************************* Out of Touch (Touch of Gray - Book One) available on Amazon Kindle and Google Books   OOT YouTube informational video Invisible Touch (Touch of Gray - Book Two) available on Amazon Kindle and Google Books  IT YouTube informational video

My books occur in one world.  My main series follows one character while I also have short stories about other characters interspersed throughout the main series.  Keeping track of the details between books can be daunting.  I've written a previous post about tracking details within a book.  Now I want to focus on following through from previous books. A big part of writing a series is planting seeds in your current work that will not come to fruition until later books.  I do not want to drop the ball in setting something up or forgetting to carry it out.  Here are techniques I use to follow through with plot points, character teases, dropping hints about future antagonists, etc. Write ahead Before I published the first book in the series, I had already written the second book, plus I plotted the third book, and I made plans for a short story with another character.   By writing ahead, I know if I need to go to a prior (unpublished) work ...

Touch of Gray takes place in a country that uses a 13-month calendar.  To give you an idea of what the months look like, below is a generic (not year specific) look at said calendar. I don't have a date converter to show you (because I'm not that talented). You can picture me with a paper calendar and the book calendars I created and counting the weeks and days (week 16-Tues, week 24-Fri, etc.) in order to compare dates. Cause, I'm old school... *************************************************************************** I have re-recorded the informational video for Out of Touch (Touch of Gray - Book One) and uploaded it to YouTube .  Invisible Touch (Touch of Gray - Book Two) will have it's informational video re-recorded and uploaded to YouTube within a week.  A new informational video for Wild and Wicked Ways (World of Touch of Gray 01) will be created and uploaded to YouTube at the end of January.  Enjoy! Out of Touch available on Amazon Kindle and Go...

I've been pretty good about periodically updated the pages linked at the top of my website. On my ' BOOKS ' page, I have covers and links to book descriptions, excerpts, and any informational videos or chapter narrations that may be available. Down at the bottom, I also include the reading order of the books. And...I conveniently list the links to purchase my books. 😀 On my ' PODCAST ' page, I have links to download my episodes or you can listen via the player on my page. Speaking of my podcast, the latest episode was just released.  Enjoy! Finally, I hope everyone has friends or family to spend time with this holiday season.  I am taking a break for the next few weeks.  I'll return in January with some exciting previews. Please take this opportunity to peruse my backlog of posts as I've been active on this blog for a year.  I am sure there is a post or two you may have missed.  😉 I'll talk to everyone in the New Year. 

Here is the character list from Wild and Wicked Ways (Wendy Weather 1; World of Touch of Gray 1) which is available now on Amazon Kindle .  Wild and Wicked Ways continues Wendy's story from Invisible Touch. Obviously, spoilers below for both Wild and Wicked Ways and Invisible Touch. ___________________________________________________________________ CHARACTERS Psycepts : Wednesday (Wendy) Randolph – PsyWitch and Vodun Priestess, twin sister of Sully. Member of the Psycept Council of Albuquerque. Diego Escudero – Weather Guide and son of Gloria Escudero, the head of the Psycept Council Tiko MacGillivray – Bone Sage, oldest of the MacGillivray siblings (aka Brother Bone) Libby MacGillivray – Blood Sage, specializes in blood analysis (aka one of the Sisters Wyrd) Vito Mata – Asomatous and a member of the Psycept Council Maddie - flora PsySapient Police : Sulien (Sully) Randolph – Detective Sergeant of the Psycept Police of Albuquerque, twin brother of Wend...