I have a birthday coming up soon. Not a “big” one, but big enough. I’m not feeling particularly sanguine about it. For starters, we’re about to get hit with the kind of heat dome that Europe has been facing. I’ve never been a summer girl. My mother hated air conditioning when I was growing up. My dad had a unit in his bedroom because he worked nights and needed to sleep during the day. I used to lie on the floor outside his door for the tiny blast of arctic air that escaped under the sill. At night, I’d lie in my bed, waiting for the blessed moment with the oscillating fan turned my way, gasping for air like a little beached bluegill. 

The older I get, the less heat tolerant I become. So I am not looking forward to the coming weeks. I am an autumn girl. I wrote this opening paragraph for A Nose for Death (Ginny Reese Mysteries Book 4) that was a love letter to autumn:

Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. And not just “fall” but autumn in every sense of the word. It’s the crackle of dry leaves underfoot as they skitter across the sidewalk on a windy day. The smell of woodsmoke in the air, and the wet mulchy scent of damp earth. It’s the honking of geese overhead on a cold, gray afternoon, the mournful sound resonating in your bones as you pull out your heavy sweaters and boots for the first time of the season. It’s how the spectrum of sunlight shifts from white to gold, slanting through trees with leaves of yellow, orange, and red, lighting up the last of the emerald-green blades of grass in the fields with an intensity seldom seen at any other time of year. It’s waking to air so crisp, it’s like biting into a fresh apple, with tracings of frost on the windowpanes.

But then I had to move the events in that story to early spring, which forced me to cut that paragraph. I saw a post yesterday that said there are only 19 Sundays left until fall and I almost wept at the thought. I was immediately hit with the fear that seasons are a thing of the past, and all we will ever experience from here on out is endless summer. My idea of hell on earth.

Since I’m not feeling great about turning another year older in a world that is increasingly hostile, I decided I would change up my hair color. I dye my hair regularly. When I was young, it was mouse-brown and now that I am old, it is mouse-gray. Not a nice dark iron gray or a pretty silver but the color of a juvenile Peromyscus leucopus, known as the white-footed mouse to you and me. (A vector for the hantavirus and a reservoir for Lyme, thank you very much).

So I got the bright idea that since I couldn’t lose 40 pounds before my birthday, despite the assurances of those diets featured on the covers of women’s magazines displayed at the checkout at the grocery store, I would go for a color change. I’ve been leaning red for a while now, but my mouse-gray hair is getting more stubborn about taking up color. I’ve been using an auburn shade trying for Molly Ringwald in her John Hughes era. Instead, I get an anemic strawberry blonde.

So yeah. It’s a Friday evening and I’ve had a glass of wine. Earlier I’d bought a box of home dye with a punchier shade.  A deeper auburn. I prefer darker colors on myself, but that’s another thing aging does… the makeup and hair colors that used to look great on you now only emphasize your age. (I should really start following some “mature women” influencers to see about working around that…) But just then I was thinking, “why not?”

Welp. I’m not sharing the results. Do you remember when Gillian Anderson went SUPER RED on the X-Files? To the point that they had a couple of bit part characters reference the color as proof she must be an alien because no one had hair that color. Yeah. I would have been pleased if I got that. Instead, I have something more along the line of… magenta. I’m sure it would look perfectly fine on someone else. I’m told it really brings out the hazel in my eyes. At least hair mistakes are short-lived for me because I gave up on long hair ages ago and now keep a permanent pixie cut.

The irony of this hair-coloring mishap doesn’t escape me, however. Something very similar happens to my main character Morgan Frost in my upcoming release, Hexes, Lies, and Alibis. She too, was hoping for a nice pick-me-up red but because she was experimenting with her newly-discovered magical powers (and made the rookie mistake of substituting ingredients in her spell), she wound up with something totally unexpected. That scene was written months ago, and I didn’t intend to reenact it for my birthday! 

If you like cozy fantasies featuring found families, midlife women coming into their strength and power, ghost dogs, and a frustrating new neighbor who may or may not have wings (and is kind of hot), then check out Hexes, Lies, and Alibis.

When Morgan Frost inherits property from her grandmother, she discovers the derelict farm is actually a portal to a universe where technology fails and magic rules. In a world where people use magic for everything from heating water to battling mythological creatures, Morgan faces a steep learning curve for survival. Especially since her grandmother was murdered by someone wishing to take over The Grange, granting them access to our world of science and technology. It’s up to Morgan and her new friends to see that this doesn’t happen.

Hexes, Lies, and Alibis (The Myth Element Series) by M.K. Dean is now available for pre-order on your favorite platforms. Release date June 30, 2026.

Amazon and these retailers.