What a pretty girl!

The year is 1816. Napoleon has fallen. And summer never came. The ash still hangs in the air over Europe when Conall Maguire loses everything—his land, his future, and the people he would have died to protect. What begins as an eviction on a Donegal hillside becomes something far stranger: a dangerous passage through the contested waters of the Mediterranean, into a world of ancient enmities, shifting allegiances, and a trade in human lives that powerful men on every shore call commerce. From the wind-bitten wilds of Donegal to the fog-bound French coast to the spice-thickened air of labyrinthine Ottoman ports, Maguire moves through a landscape of breathtaking beauty and quiet brutality—a man out of place in every world he enters, fluent only in grief and a patient, implacable rage. Maguire’s only hope is to unravel a tangled web of murder, human trafficking, and dark alliances before the slave market swallows the people he loves forever. Black as the Sea at Night is an epic novel of empire and its wreckage: the violence that treaties make polite, the lives that fall through the cracks between civilizations. A sweeping tale of betrayal, survival, and vengeance, Black as the Sea at Night will leave you breathless to the last page.

Behind the gates, nothing is as it seems. When Detective Tim Riley is called to a riverside park where a beautiful, affluent woman lies dead—an apparent poisoning, five thousand dollars untouched in her purse—he knows this is no ordinary overdose. The victim is Julie Starkoff, a thirty-year-old Russian-born interior designer and resident of Lakeshore Heights, the gated enclave above Vancouver Lake where the lawns are immaculate, the marriages complicated, and the secrets run deep. At the other end of the neighborhood lives the Kerrigan family—Celeste, ambitious and volatile; Graham, a former intelligence operative now navigating the subtle indignities of stay-at-home fatherhood for their two children, Emma, 13, and Justin, 10. Their life gleams with suburban perfection. It’s a lie. Meanwhile, Phaedra Voss—sharp, self-made, ruthless in ways she’ll never admit—climbs the corporate ladder at Beaumont Sinclair one calculated risk at a time. A stolen glance at the branch president’s inbox exposes a sweeping financial conspiracy, forcing her to decide how far she’s willing to go—and whose loyalty she can afford. Her lover, Beaumont’s top broker Derek Thurman, is murdered in a seedy corner of downtown Vancouver, and the political threads running through it reach further than anyone imagined. Another killing makes clear the fallout is anything but contained. From the fog-shrouded banks of the Columbia River to the gleaming kitchens of the nouveau riche, Lakeshore Heights weaves a noir thriller of infidelity, obsession, financial crime, psychological warfare, and a marriage coming apart at the seams. With an ex-spy at its center, a killer on the loose, and a neighborhood full of people who have mastered the art of looking innocent, Ross Trevelyan’s novel asks the question that haunts every perfect façade: What does a man owe the truth—when the truth would destroy everything he loves.

WIPs coming in 2026-27:

The impossible dream! 😭

An illustrated flow chart of laboratory activities in the preanalytical phase, analytical phase, and post analytical phase of testing showing the importance of specimen collection and all the steps of analysis including calibration and quality control of equipment etc. This is mostly for blood chemistry but I do microbiology and microscopy and molecular testing for infections and their treatment.

For #labweek here’s a sample of some of what we do in a hospital #lab!
This doesn’t cover a lot of what I do as a microbiologist however.

Happy lab week Charlie! 🩸❤️

Happy Lab Week !

😂

Hey Happy #LabWeek all you lab peeps! Clinical labs! Hospital labs! Research labs! Environmental labs! Veterinary labs!
In honor of all of us I’m sharing this cutesy pipette by @nushdeco.bsky.social! We all need one!

#SundaySnips

Content WARNING: Implied self harm
(For whatever reason I can't use the blur function right now.)

As far as I know, I've only used this word in my blood-mage WIP, & there were only 3 instances.

Yessss

Picture of the book The Need for Dandelions by Alex Larkspur surrounded by dandelions and a vase of dandelions sitting on a wooden table. This is the cheesiest thing you will see on bsky today, apologies (not) it’s the only review I’m capable of.

When you know at first glimpse of a snip or a character that you’re going to love a book then wait forever to get it & then you love it as much as you thought you would & read it straight through for two days & you cry at the end @applesncinnamon.bsky.social
this happens 😭 🥰 #booksky #indieauthor

You ask such interesting questions Charlie. I believe the answer is both.
The only way to go is to leave Drisal behind (Drisal has obligations), but among the facets of this journey hides a quest for independence he has no conscious awareness of embarking upon.

There are some fun adventure moments for him too! ☺️

I wrote nothing but a policy for work. 😞

#AwesomeCharacters
🪉Rushak: An “adventure” is a fun thing. A three-day whitewater race. A camping trip with Drisal in the mountains. A forbidden jaunt with Cerel down to Mackery to get into trouble. Or, joining Lara in the below image.

Not the hellish series of ordeals the book turns out to be.

#AprilAdventure
🪉Rushak thought he was prepared to be away from Drisal and for certain things his Work would entail … but … no.

So massively creepy. Love all the images!

Two books sitting on a piano On the left is Etheri by Sage. T. Green Cover is blue with a darker blue hand rising from the bottom with a nimbus around it. Title and Author name are in white. On the right is The Need for Dandelions by Alex Larkspur. Cover is yellow. Title and author are in greenish brown letters. Beneath the title two men stand back to back. The shorter one has brown hair and a dark tan tunic. He wears a flower pendant and is holding up one hand. He has a worried expression. The taller one on the right, looking back over his shoulder, is blond and dressed in green. His expression is standoffish, maybe angry or irritated. The hilt of a sword can be seen in his hand. The men, title and author name are all surrounded by floating dandelions, both leaves and flowers.

I ordered a couple more books on my list finally and they both got here today. I’m super psyched!
@applesncinnamon.bsky.social
@sagetgreene.bsky.social

I think it would be a pretty big bundle to ask people to commit to. I want to be able to present a physical book option.

Thanks! I’ll find some corner of the weekend to relax in I’m sure!

My fuster cluck of a book has to be restructured now. I need my debut novel to be a standalone.😅 But yeah I know I’m not the only one with this predicament.

This is great

😆

Sure, it’s a verb and all. I just worry about how its usage in a certain context will land for the reader.

Thank you Charlie. 🙏❤️

Thank you! 🙏

🙏✨

Thanks!

Thanks, I’ll probably find a constructive way to deal with it. 😅

And thanks for your kind words.