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Springtime News 🌱

Writing Update

Spring is slowly pulling in into Minnesota and all of our snow has melted (for good? for now? who can say.) Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a prequel to That Murder Feeling. It’s not meant to be a full length novel, more “cookie-sized.” When I sat down to outline it, I wasn’t sure where it might end up length-wise but the word count just crossed from novelette territory into novella (17,500 words or above). So novella it is, a bit more than cookie-sized. It’ll be about 90 pages when it’s finished.

Even with an outline, I tend to do a lot of revision and editing. What I used to do — to give myself some distance from the manuscript and enable me to look at it with fresh eyes — is to tweak the font between revisions. Times New Roman to Palatino to Garamond, that kind of thing. It never worked as well as the universally recommended approach, letting the manuscript sit for a month or longer without looking at it or even thinking about the story. But I’m not a fast writer and adding big pauses between drafts is SLOW.

Green background. Chapter One. The first and only time that I saw Millie Barnhill, she carried a book. I couldn’t tell you what she might have been like on other days or in other settings, but that day—just about a year ago, in spring of 1983—what I saw was a slender woman in her late eighties in a track suit and sneakers. She stood in the checkout line just ahead of me, the single book in hand. We were in the main branch of the public library, centrally located in my small town of Two Lakes, Minnesota. What caught my eye were the mushrooms. Six or seven of them surrounded Millie, knee-high and with lively aqua-blue caps the size of dinner plates. The Mushrooms of Mischief.
The Green Draft

So with the novella, I’ve been trying this new thing where I change the background color in Microsoft Word’s Immersive Reader between drafts. I like the Immersive mode because you can choose column width and set it to be more like a published book. There’s also an option to change text spacing and have Word read the words back to you. And then there’s the page color.

The new approach, turns out, works well.

For one thing, having a specific, named color gives more of a sense of progress. Done with the Yellow Draft, next up: Green. And so on.

There’s also more of a delineation between drafts, encouraging forward progress. No sneaking back to polish previous chapters. Leave that for Blue.

And it’s just plain fun to choose the colors.

I’m limiting myself to four passes, which might be a lot for some authors, but not so much for me. I like to polish and tweak and move stuff around and debate whether Option A or Option B works better for a character or story line… So it’s good to have a framework. The planned sequence is: Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, where the read-through gets faster and faster each time.

After that I’ll draw a line under the manuscript. Done. Whoosh. Off it goes to my editor. When it comes back, I’ll make any changes and then there’ll be a final read either on paper or my Kindle.

The prequel story take place about a year before the events in That Murder Feeling. No title yet… Stay tuned for more!

The novella will be part of the Soul Garden Mysteries. Just a reminder, as a subscriber to my author newsletter, you have access to bonus content for the series! Click through to the hidden page on my website.

What I’m Reading

If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you’ll know that what I write hovers on the border between SFF and the mystery genre, sometimes falling more one side or the other. The same can be said of the books that I read (with a few other genres thrown in.) The last couple of newsletters I’ve had mysteries to recommend. This month, it’s two science fiction novels.

Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle. This one has been on my to-be-read list for a while. Based on the cover, I was anticipating a sci-fi thriller but it’s more of a combo of a thriller and an intricate murder mystery, with plenty of twists and time-travel surprises.

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei. An adventurous, imaginative space quest with plenty of likable and interesting characters. I’m about a third into the book and enjoying it very much.

Let me know if there are any novels you’ve enjoyed lately and want to recommend! (Leave a comment on Substack or reply to the newsletter email.)

Books, Lots of Books

March seems to be kind of a bookish month, in that there are spring sales and promotions everywhere you look. Here are a couple that include some of my books.

The first one—the graphic says it all—is geared toward time travel books.

The second is for cozy reads of all kinds — mystery, fantasy, romance. The link takes you to Kobo Plus but all of the books are available on other retailers too.

Hope you’re having a good March! Thanks for reading,

Neve

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Neve’s February Newsletter

The Paperbacks Are Here

My box of author copies of That Murder Feeling kept being delayed in shipping but finally arrived earlier this month. I love how that orange looks. It’s not quite so bright as in appears in the photo, more of a weathered, pastel hue.

I’ve mailed off copies of the book to the beta readers who kindly provided feedback on the early drafts — if you are on that list and didn’t get your paperback or ebook copy, let me know!

Huge appreciation to the beta readers and a big shoutout also to the book’s developmental editor, Kristen Weber, and its copy-editor, Shannon Page. I’m grateful for their sharp eye and care. Couldn’t have done it without them.

Signed Books

If you’re in the Twin Cities area, I’ll be signing/selling books at the Rosemount Writers Festival, our local book event here south of the Cities. The festival takes place on Saturday, March 14, 2026 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Order signed copies online! If you would like to order a signed paperback to be mailed to you, I’ve set up a Ko-fi page (pronounced “coffee,” as in “buy your favorite creator a cup of coffee.”) I’ll list books there as I happen to have them in stock, which is to say stacked on a bookshelf in my office. The books on the shelf tend to ebb and flow depending on what events/giveaways are going on. At the moment there are three listed on Ko-fi: That Murder Feeling (Book 1 of the new series), All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise (a standalone novel) and Regarding Ducks and Universes (also a standalone novel).

And don’t forget to let me know if you’d like your copy personalized!

What I’m Reading

I’ve been on a mystery reading stretch the last month or two. Here are a couple of books that I enjoyed:

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman. Cozy crime at its best.

Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests by KJ Whittle. A modern day retelling of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. A page-turner. London as the setting, sharply drawn characters, and an unsettling ending.

That’s it for February and thanks for reading,

Neve

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November News

The bonsai collection at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St. Paul, with the weak November sun at its mid-day height. The tiny trees are sporting fall colors.
The Bonsai Collection at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory.

We’re at the tail end of autumn here in Minnesota, with a sprinkling of snow expected in a day or two. I took the photo above a couple of weeks ago outside the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St. Paul. A short bit of history: the glass-domed Victorian-style garden opened in 1915, sits next door to Como Zoo, and is well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

That’s their bonsai collection, each tree on a shelf of its own, with the weak November sun at its mid-day height. Not sure why but it surprised me to encounter tiny trees sporting fall colors, same as their big cousins a few yards away! Nature is amazing. Below is a photo of the big trees just down the path.

The big trees at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory.

Book News

That Murder Feeling picked up a lovely early review from Readers’ Favorite: “Neve Maslakovic takes the genre and twists it… A unique, original, and charming mystery.” Less than two months to go till release day! If you’re a NetGalley reviewer, you can now access the ARC here.

In backlist news, The Far Time Incident, the first book in my time travel series, is the Monthly Kindle Deal for November. Last few days to grab it at the discounted price…

What I’m Reading

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite. Scifi novella. A fast paced, fun mystery set on a spaceship. The first in a series (Dorothy Gentleman Book 1)

My second recommendation is a book with a very long title: Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World by Edward Dolnick. Non-fiction. Entertaining, educational, and witty. It covers everything from 19th-century’s intrepid fossil hunter Mary Anning to UK’s World Heritage site unofficially known as Jurassic Coast to how the word dinosaur came to be.

That’s it from me for now. Happy Thanksgiving if you’re in the US, otherwise enjoy what’s left of November!

Neve

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Mid-Summer Update

The Reading Room at the British Museum

Hope everyone’s July is going well! It’s been very hot, rainy, and humid here in the Twin Cities.

The above picture is of the Reading Room in the British Museum in London. I took it back in May, when we visited family in the U.K. The museum, as always, was very crowded. Despite the sign, there’s no reading allowed in the Reading Room, but it’s a huge domed space with a grand ceiling and a calm, bookish vibe and I was happy to peek in.

The ceiling of the Reading Room.

Publishing Update

THAT MURDER FEELING, the series opener that I’ve been working on for a while now, has a publication date! The book is in the copyediting stage and the plan is for it to come out right after the New Year, on January 13, 2026.

Here’s the short pitch: To crack his first murder case and save his childhood friend, a small-town 1980s PI must trust his extraordinary ability to see emotions as living gardens. A whodunit with a cosmic twist.

More details next month. Stay tuned!

Backlist News

My near-future mystery/thriller All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise is on Barnes & Noble’s list of Hidden Gems: Unmissable Indie eBooks. The book is currently on sale on Nook for $2.99, so it you haven’t read it yet, it’s a good time to pick it up.

What I’m Reading

I have three books to recommend.

Stuart Turton’s The Last Murder at the End of the World. A standalone novel. This one is hard to describe. As promised in the title, there is a murder, but it’s more of a sci-fi novel than a traditionally structured mystery. A weird and unconventional whodunit—my favorite kind of read.

Cascadia’s Fault by Jerry Thompson. Non-fiction. The subtitle says it all: The Coming Earthquake and Tsunami that Could Devastate North America. Thompson digs into historical and geological evidence of the fault that lies 30 miles offshore on the West Coast. I learned enough about plate tectonics and wave heights to make me uneasy the next time I happen to find myself in Seattle, but the tone of the book itself is not one of panic, but a reminder that it’s best to be informed, and who can argue with that.

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme. Memoir. I don’t even remember how I came across this one, but I’m glad I did. Julia Child arrives in 1948 Paris as a clueless 36‑year‑old who speaks no French and can’t cook. This joyful book didn’t exactly inspire me to spend more time in the kitchen, but it’s a lovely reminder that every meal should be savored—and so should the unpredictable adventure of life itself.

That’s it for now, thanks for reading!

Neve

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Neve’s January Newsletter

Hello. Grif hopes you are well.

Happy January! After the holiday break, I’m back on work on Book 2 of the new series. I’ve been using Aeon Timeline to pull all the series details into one place. The software has proven to be very helpful in keeping it all organized — character names, dates, and so on. I’ve mapped out the outline for the book in it and color-coded things nicely. I would post a screenshot, but it would include story spoilers!

For now Book 1 is still in a holding mode. Publishing does not move fast, and I do want to make sure that the series has the best possible launching pad into the world. I’m hoping to have a more concrete update in the next newsletter, but we’ll have to see.

Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle

Last few days of the Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle! Thirteen authors coming together to offer their books in a themed collection. Includes my futuristic mystery/thriller All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise. Find all the details here.

The Sci-Fi Explorations Bundle expires on midnight ET on Thursday, January 30th.

What Have I Been Reading?

I’ve got a couple of books to recommend:

Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility. Science fiction. I flew through this one. The past, the future, pandemics, time travel. A beautiful and unsettling read.

I’ve also been enjoying Joe Moran’s First You Write a Sentence. Non-fiction. This is not exactly a craft book, more of an ode to the beauty of the written word. A book best read at an easy pace and savored.

Social Media Update

I’ve been poking my head out of my hobbit hole to check out the new social media options. I tried Threads for about 5 seconds, but there’s no way to turn off autoplay for videos, so that’s an automatic no from me. I do like Bluesky, and it’s becoming livelier, with a robust and growing book community, so much that I keep wanting to call it Booksky. It has the feel of Twitter before it was X, with a similar interface and a 300-character limit for posts. Like Mastodon, there are no ads on Bluesky (though that may change down the road) and it has some cool, unique features like Starter Packs.

If you’re on Bluesky, you can find me here.

Thanks for reading!

Neve

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Neve’s Book Recommendations

Do I have a favorite genre when it comes to reading? As it happens, I have two.

They are (as you might expect) the ones I combine in my own books: science fiction/speculative and mystery. It’s by no means all that I read, but it is a big chunk of my Kindle content. 

I wanted to share a few recent favorites in those genres. These aren’t necessarily new releases, but they all lifted my spirits or stayed with me in some way.

Here we go, the books:

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderersby Jesse Q. Sutanto. Strong-willed, lonely Vera Wong, whose husband has passed away and whose Americanized son doesn’t call often enough, finds a dead body in her Chinatown tea shop and we’re off from there. Delightful and charming, this novel is as much a found-family story as it is a murder mystery.

The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis. This humorous alien-abduction adventure reads like a 1930’s style romcom where dialogue is everything. There’s a road trip and a whole lot of references to Westerns and sci-fi movies, a good seasoning of UFO trivia, and an adorable alien. The ending leaves an opening for a sequel. If you’re looking for a lighthearted read, try this one.

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. This standalone mystery/thriller by an Australian writer kept the surprises and twists coming. Set in D.C., the story unfolds in parallel — we’re reading a mystery manuscript as it’s being written, chapter by chapter, by an author named Hannah, along with feedback on the manuscript by an aspiring author and fan of Hannah’s named Leo. The emails to Hannah from Leo, at first seemingly harmless, soon turn into something sinister. A cleverly plotted page-turner.

The Bullet That Missed: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery If you’ve somehow missed this popular series by Richard Osman, this is the third in the sequence and just as good as the previous two. (The fourth book came out in September; I just haven’t had a chance to read it yet.) Four elderly friends in an English retirement community meet every Thursday to tackle unsolved murders. Soon to be a Netflix movie, and what a cast! Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie. Am I looking forward to the movie? Oh yes.

We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read by Caroline M. Yoachim, a short story. I don’t read many short stories these days and I don’t even remember how I came across this one, but I am glad I did. This uniquely structured piece (story? poem?) revolves around a communication barrier between an alien race and humans, and reminds the reader that a fundamental shift in perception and thought process is sometimes needed. You can read it for free in Lightspeed Magazine. (But don’t try to read it on a phone! The format is 2+ columns of text, so a tablet or laptop works better.)

The photo at the top is of Grif the goldendoodle enjoying his Minnesota summer at the park down the block. We’re VERY happy that the July Fourth fireworks, which are a multi-night affair here, have tapered off. Grif’s not scared of them (and this is a dog who’s spooked of the doggie door we had put in just for him and refuses to use it, and also undecided how he feels about the strangeness of windy days.) Every time the fireworks went off in the neighborhood, he wanted to run into the yard and bark ferociously at them, only no one would let him out. Run to the back door. Bark madly. Every. Single. Time. Even at 2:00 a.m., which happened on more than one night. (Did I mention we’re happy the fireworks have finally tapered off?)

Thanks for subscribing to this newsletter and hope you’re having a great July!

Neve

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New Year’s Newsletter

First, a welcome if you’ve recently found your way to this newsletter via my website, or a Voracious Readers Only giveaway, or the ArtWorks parking-lot fair back in September. Very happy to have you here!

This past year has gone by kind of fast, and yet when I think back to January it seems like a long time ago. A side effect of a pandemic year that was weird and strange for everyone? Our goldendoodle (Grif, age 3 1/2) agrees that time is a fluid concept — each spring he seems to completely forget all about snow once it melts away and is freshly surprised (and a little outraged) by its appearance when winter rolls around once again. Above is a picture of him frolicking during our first big snowfall of the year (17 inches!). It took him a couple of days to accept the change in his backyard. He checked the neighborhood streets, too — the white stuff was everywhere on his walks — and then he went back to doing what he does best, enjoying himself. He’s a carpe diem kind of dog.

Moving on, a writing update! I’ve been working on Book 1 of a new speculative mystery series. The current word count is just about 59,000 (out of an estimated 75,000 words) which makes it seem as if I’ll soon be nearing THE END, but really that’s just the messy first draft. Next comes the shaping stage. Shifting, adding, taking scenes out, rewriting chunks, fiddling with the setting and the characters, polishing dialogue, pulling tight the strings of the story. I’ve set myself the challenge of a one-word title for this one. (I picture my cover designers pulling at their hair… She has a looong name AND she wants a long title?? Regarding Ducks and Universes…. All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise… Argh!) I’m sure I’ll change my mind a few more times about the naming of the book, but the working title at this point in time is (ta-da!) Dogwood.

Finally, I have a question for you. What three books that you read in 2021 were your most enjoyable/memorable (or just happen to be on your mind as you read this)? It’s fine if the books didn’t actually come out in 2021, the publication date doesn’t matter, there are no rules here really, other than that I suppose they should be in the one of the categories that have brought us all here: speculative fiction and mystery… Could be a sci-fi mystery. Could be just mystery. Or just sci-fi. It’s all good. 

To start us off, here are three books that I read this past year that I quite enjoyed:

  • Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. In some ways an old-fashioned sci-fi tale. If you liked The Martian, you’ll enjoy this one.
  • The Nils Shapiro series by Matt Goldman. Mysteries set in Minneapolis. There are four of them so far and I’ve read the first three. Page-turners with snappy dialogue and local color.

There you have it. You can reply to this email with your 3 books (or comment below if you’re reading this on my website) and I’ll include a list of everyone’s recommendations in the next newsletter. 

Happy holidays! Wishing everyone a safe and happy 2022!

Neve