Royal babies!

A newscaster just announced excitedly, "The royal water has broken!" Gross. But apparently this means Prince William and his wife the former Kate Middleton are about to become parents. The birth of someone else's baby isn't usually something that would cause me to panic, but in this case I've just started worrying.

The U.S. government loves to release controversial information and bad news at times when the media is off its game. Lousy economic results, for instance, can be counted upon to emerge on Fridays at 5 p.m. before a three-day weekend.  So today when every news outlet in America has its eyes trained on Princess Kate's birth canal, there's the perfect opportunity for government to release the most offensive news that it's been keeping under wraps for months. They could let us know that Congress voted to spend $10 trillion to convert the moon to a Death Star. The Constitution's been amended and George W. Bush is eligible to be president again. Federal tax rates have been increased to 150% of gross earnings. The possibilities are endless and equally terrifying. Although the thing about George Bush being president again is obviously the most chilling.

So stay alert and pay special attention to any news coming out of Washington today. It's definitely something they don't want you to know.

Dead People!

Sometimes I worry about dead people. In horror movies, zombies are pretty creepy because of their single-minded focus and complete inability to be reasoned with. Individually they're not a huge threat, but in large numbers (and they always come in large numbers), they're a force to be reckoned with. Vampires as depicted by Hollywood aren't terribly scary. Sure they're merciless murder machines, but it's usually over quickly and they're still human enough to maybe be talked out of killing a victim. In fact, if movies and TV are to be believed, vampires are more interested in falling in love and spending ridiculous amounts of money on humans than slaughtering them.

Ghosts freak me out because I actually believe in them. I make a point of avoiding movies and TV shows about hauntings or general ghost activity because they might prevent me from ever sleeping again. I worry about someday buying a house that's haunted, then not knowing what to do to get rid of it. You've got to disclose that to a potential buyer, right? And they'd probably insist that you drop your asking price. Talk about scary.

Anyway, speaking of scary things, I've just released a new book. I started writing it years ago when my husband and I moved into a house located next door to an old cemetery. (Much as I worry about dead people, old cemeteries aren't scary – just cool.) On one of our many walks through the graveyard, we noticed a headstone that marked the grave of a woman who had been born 150 years ago. Oddly, it didn't have a date of death carved on it. She had to be dead, but why wasn't her year of death on the gravestone? It piqued my curiosity, and I started doing some research to figure out what had happened. Unfortunately, I knew nothing about genealogical research, so the whole thing was a learning experience.

This new book of mine, called Graveyard Kids, is the fictionalized account of my search to figure out what happened to the tombstone's owner. It's a fascinating story that I tell from the perspective of a seventh grade girl who's living at the cemetery because her father is the graveyard's caretaker. And I might have added a little vampire intrigue to keep the readers' interest. The book is available at Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle versions, and it's also available everywhere else as an ebook. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Happy reading!