Where Did the Cornfield Go?

Here is the tale of the vanishing Cornfield. If you enjoyed The Body in the Hayloft, you may have noticed it’s book three in a series. If you haven’t read the first two, and tried recently to obtain copies, you may be confused.

My publishing journey apparently requires the willingness to embrace change. Much like my career in a global corporation, I just won’t go away. Throw a workplace curve at me? That’s my new job title. Shutter your publishing house? I’ll get my books out by some other route.

Back in 2012, I was still enamored with traditional publishing. I hadn’t been able to acquire an agent. I was thrilled when my debut novel, Stone Cold Dead: A Rock Shop Mystery, was accepted by Five Star. They also published the second in that series, Stone Cold Case.

After sending in the third book, Stone Cold Blooded, there was a long silence. Crickets. The news finally came. Five Star dropped their mystery line. Not me personally. Wrong place, wrong time. They had been shedding genres like a bird molting feathers in spring. Their romance line had previously gone away. Now their entire stable of mystery authors went poof overnight.

My mystery novels were now orphans.

Enter Encircle Publishing. They saw an opportunity, and several Five Star orphans jumped on it. Stone Cold Blooded was their flagship publication. Yay! I was still traditionally published!

The creative and kind folks at Encircle struggled mightily to become a player in the small press world. The entire staff has a passion for authors and literature. They re-released the first two books in my Rock Shop Mystery series, and published my stand-alone Survive Or Die.

In the meantime, I was offered a chance for a write-for-hire gig with Annie’s Fiction. Through fortuitous circumstances, this opportunity involved signing with an agent. I had hit the big time! In my mind, anyway.

The Annie’s books paid no royalties, but the paycheck for writing a book to their specs was satisfying. I made more money on these gigs that I did on my entire catalog to date.

My agent suggested we aim for a market that paid royalties. I developed a cozy mystery series. She tried her best, but there were no takers from the big publishers. With her permission, I sent book one to Encircle.

The Rose Creek Mystery series was born with The Body in the Cattails, Encircle Publications, May, 2023. A mere six months later, in November 2023, The Body in the Cornfield was released.

Then I sent in book three, The Body in the Hayloft. And waited. And waited.

I’d played this game before. In the meantime, my agent retired, Annie’s Fiction ended, my mother passed away, I retired, and then my father passed away. I wrote the novel of my heart that no one seemed to want. The final blow was Encircle moving to a hybrid model. Now, instead of being a traditional publisher, they would charge for their services. Fair, if that’s what you want to do. But it wasn’t for me.

So many changes, all of them disappointing. Except for retirement. That was welcome. Now I could do full-time what I’d always wanted to. Except that all my familiar publishing venues dried up.

What to do now? Give up? Actually retire?

Naw, I wasn’t ready to give up. Besides, I had written book three in the Rose Creek Mystery series. I couldn’t quit when I had a perfectly good novel ready to release.

The path forward appeared murky.

Then my daughter declared she had no interest in trad publishing. She had witnessed my journey from the sidelines. We co-authored two books in a YA series that doesn’t fit the angsty, adult-ish tone of current YA. And we started on a series whose pitch captured attention and interest.

A ninja kidnaps senior citizens and places them with families in need of a grandparent.

We both had a very good feeling about this project. Merida was determined to figure out self-pubbing. She also had completed children’s picture books she knew were going to be a hard sell in the trad children’s market.

Off we went. She did the technical and business work for the most part. Soon, we had multiple books in the usual places self-pubbed books appear. With new writer friends, we also pursued brick-and-mortar businesses to carry our physical books.

The Body in the Hayloft, book three in the Rose Creek series, was released in December 2025. Soon after, I received my rights back for book two, The Body in the Cornfield. Book one is still under a Harlequin Worldwide Mystery contract.

The Body in the Cornfield happened during a high-stress phase of my life. I had pushed it out quickly, and perhaps not fully baked, so to speak. This was my chance to re-do the book.

Cornfield wasn’t as rough as I feared. I am pretty proud of this written-under-pressure book. But I did expand mystery plotlines, trim excess words, align the tone with the rest of the series, and craft better hints and revelations of clues and red herrings. However, it’s not available yet. There’s no place to order this book.

Where did the Cornfield go? It slipped into publishing limbo for a brief time. Dropped by one publisher, newly adopted by an itty-bitty self-publishing press. The Body in the Cornfield, book two in the Rose Creek Mystery series, is planned for re-release this summer. The novel will also receive new cover art. (The original cover version is available exclusively at Basecamp Books & Adventure in Colorado Springs.)

The Body in the Cattails (book one) is available through Harlequin. The original cover version is available at Basecamp Books & Adventure in Colorado Springs.

The Body in the Hayloft (book three) is available in the usual places, plus Basecamp Books & Adventure in Colorado Springs.

The Body in the Chuckwagon (book four) will release this fall. Book four continues the story of the Rose Creek Reads book club. And will potentially end the series. We’ll see if inspiration and/or sales drive the creation of a fifth novel.

Because I really like this world in the northeast corner of Oklahoma. Half of the series to date went on a bumpy journey through trad publishing. The second half is in the hands of our own venture, Top Hat Cat Publishing. I’ve fought hard to keep this series going.

So much work. Editing. Cover art. Book design. Formatting. Getting the books up online. Hand-selling to libraries and bookstores.

Is it worth it?

Have you ever watched a televised series that is cancelled midstream? Like the cult classic Firefly, or the high-stakes thriller The Old Man. The dissatisfaction level at incomplete series? High!

I don’t want to leave readers feeling like the characters in my novels simply . . . stopped. Fell off the edge of a suddenly flat earth.

More important to me, I don’t want to feel like I left something undone.

At this point in my life, the best route to completion is this experiment in self-publishing. I don’t have to be an orphan anymore.

It’s a good thing I didn’t retire-retire.