Happy Mother’s Day to all those who celebrate. Big hugs to everyone who has really complicated feelings about parents and parenting.

I have five published books and half-a-dozen WIPs in various stages and of all those, only two feature main characters who are also parents.

Motherhood is a fundamental part of my existence. My role as a mother influences my core values, my political beliefs, the media I consume, and the media I create.

And because parenting is all consuming in the real world, I like escaping into a pretend world where parenthood isn’t a fundamental part of the characters’ existence.

As a story about ancestral magic, however, Bound by Ink is an important exception. This sapphic fantasy romance is the prequel to Roots in Ink and both main characters are mothers.

Specifically, mothers who f*ck. Quite a bit, actually.

Motherhood is part of their identity and their character arc, especially Sara’s whose teen children are coming into their own magic. Showing how children are learning their inherited magic is a vital juxtaposition to the world that Emma lives in where magic is illegal and forgotten.

Despite this, motherhood isn’t Sara or Bethany’s entire identity. They are healers, helpers, and lovers. They have friends and interests and talents that go beyond parenting. They are whole people of which motherhood is just one part.

I really enjoyed writing these two women and getting to reflect on motherhood by exploring who they are beyond it. I would have delved into it a bit more had I not been confined by the events in Roots in Ink.

Mother’s Day Sale

Pick up your copy of Bound by Ink as a treat for yourself or someone else this weekend.

The eBook instant downloads and signed paperbacks will be on sale ONLY in the Sweet Magnolia bookshop from Friday, May 8 through Monday, May 11.