January 2025 News & Events
Alexandra Sokoloff's author newsletter
Hello, Happy New Year, and thanks for signing up!
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Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
—where we talk about books and movies and how to write them:
After the Gold Rush
—where I post about the history of my beloved California, focusing on what happened after the Gold Rush; telling the stories of women and races who are too often shamefully left out of the history books; and looking to history to figure out how in the world the U.S. got where we find ourself now (and how we get out of it).
Okay, that’s the housekeeping. On to the news!
New Year, New Series, New Book Deal!
We’re starting the New Year out right: We have a new series and a new book deal!
I say “we” — because Lost Highway is a collaboration with my husband, Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.
Craig & Alex in Joshua Tree, CA
Maybe it was because we were one of those couples who did surprisingly well being locked down together during the pandemic. Maybe it’s because we travel so easily together, and we love doing joint research on the road. But last year, we broke our longstanding promise (I believe it was actually in our wedding vows) that we would never (ever, not in a million years) write together. We actually like being married to each other, so this was quite a risk.
And I won’t lie, it was a bad idea for a long time.
Actually, crime does pay!
The thing is, even when we wanted to kill each other — which was sometimes daily —the story was so good we had to keep going. And hey—we’re just about to finish Book 2— and we’re still married! Result!
Here’s a sneak peek of the book — we’ll be able to announce all the details shortly.
LOST HIGHWAY
—follows a brash, take-no-prisoners mother on an epic journey into the wilds of California as she searches for her missing teenage daughter.
A year ago, Lou Gomersall’s 19-year old daughter Abby set off on a mysterious road trip —and vanished without a trace. When the police fail to come up with answers, Lou takes the family RV on the road to investigate other missing persons cases, enlisting millennial vanlifers, Gen Z entrepreneurs, boomer RVers, sympathetic and not-so-sympathetic police, homeless sages, truck stop sex workers and everyone in between, in her desperate mission to find Abby—
Or face her killer.
Read about our co-writing experience in:
NEW HUNTRESS BOOK!
Yes, I have started writing a new book in the Huntress Moon series. As soon as we finish Book 2 of Lost Highway, it will be full speed ahead on that for me.
Because let’s face it — there are now more predators to dispose of than ever. I’m on it.
FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke is closing in on a bust of a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street — an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who appears to have been present at each scene of a decades-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may be that most rare of killers: a female serial.
His hunt for her will take him and his team across three states, and force him to question everything he thought he knew about justice… and evil.
Start at the beginning with Thriller Award-nominated, Audie-Award winning Huntress Moon
All six Huntress Moon books are FREE on Kindle Unlimited!
Also —
Craig is writing a new psychological thriller —
for Simon & Schuster, and his witchy Scottish mystery The Trials of Marjorie Crowe is out now in hardcover and paperback as well as ebook and audiobook.
Marjorie Crowe is set in a Scottish village that Craig made up, but if you had enough whisky you could probably find it just a few miles from where we live!
Spooky scenes in spooky settings abound!
Devil’s Pulpit, Finnich Glen - Stirlingshire, Scotland
Island of Dead Dolls
The New Year is just kicking off, but already the calendar is filling up.
2025 EVENTS & APPEARANCES:
Our in-person appearances this year include Bloody Scotland; Bute Noir; Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, in New Orleans; & Harrogate International Crime Festival.
And finally, THANK YOU - for making this writing life possible.
This is a very challenging time in publishing, with so many fabulously talented author friends struggling. We are so grateful to be able to do this maddening, exhilarating, deeply rewarding thing called writing for our living — and that readers like you continue to support our books.
Hoping the best for you and for all of us in 2025. We have a lot of counter-programming to do, so let’s get this year started.
—Alex
