Mea Culpa
Writers make mistakes. We try to avoid it, but it happens, either
through editing oversights or plain old ignorance. Here are some
of mine.
Some of these have been fixed in reprints, but not all the books have been reprinted since the error was found
What you won't find on this list are typos. When the manuscript
goes into production, it's retyped (not by me) I then re-read it looking for typos, but by that point
I've read the book so often I know what every word should be, so
I catch very few errors. If you find typos in the latest book,
let me know (really, I do appreciate it and will get them fixed!)...but please don't chastise me for being careless and
ruining your enjoyment of the book. I hate typos as much as
anyone and do everything in my power to avoid them.
Bitten
Six years to the month after the first publication of Bitten, and
I have an error report! Philip's niece is referred to once as
Betsy and once as Becky. By this point, I can't even remember who
the heck Philip's niece was and why she was in the story, but there you
have it.
Stolen
None reported, but one that I caught...too late to fix. Elena's
year of birth is given as 1969. It should be 1968 and it was an
obvious keystroke error on my part—I can't forget her YOB because it's
my own! I must have sped past the typo in every re-read, knowing
what it should be.
Dime Store Magic
The infamous
"Paige's two shirts" error. In the book's sole sex scene, Paige
removes her shirt...then later removes it again. I know I reworked
this scene and must have not realized she'd already shed that particular
article of clothing. The fact that the repetition was never
caught, despite being read by several editors, proves that no one edits
sex scene very closely!
One "non-error" readers have pointed out. In the ritual Paige and
Savannah conduct at the end, the compass directions associated with the
elements differs from the normal ones used in Wiccan rites. This
was intentional, part of my attempts to keep my Otherworld witch race
separate from Wiccans, so I don't appropriate anyone's faith for my
fiction.
Industrial Magic
Jaime makes a comment about "hydro." This is a Canadian-ism.
We use the word for electricity. Jaime should not. I'm aware
of a lot of words I shouldn't put in the mouths of my American
characters. This, I'm afraid, wasn't one of them. But I know
better now.
John/Han's basement casket. Considering he lives in New Orleans,
I've been told he shouldn't have had one...a basement that is. The
infuriating thing is that I was careful about this for Miami, but just
never thought about it for New Orleans. Sadly, this one isn't a "one-line
fix" (unless I insert a line like "The house was on a really, really big
hill, so John was able to dig a basement") So it'll stand as is, a
monument to my ignorance.
Haunted
First, a "non-error" that's been reported. Eve refers to the
current resident of Glamis Castle as Lord Glamis. It is not—it's
the Earl of Strathmore. I knew this from my research, but had a
creative choice to make. Eve would assume is was still Lord
Glamis, as it was in Trsiel's stories. I could have had her make a
comment about the current Lord Glamis and have Trsiel correct her, but
decided that was awkward and unnecessary. A couple of readers have
disagreed, but I'll stand by my original decision. As narrator,
Eve would make the mistake.
Second, a true error. One of the serial killers says "Was sie sind?"
and it should be "Was sind sie?". Long story behind this one.
I really did try to get the translations right, but I failed here.
Sincerest apologies.
Broken
None reported...yet.
No Humans Involved
Jaime says she only knows two vampires: Cassandra and Aaron, then
mentions later that she got the Brentwood job as a referral from
Zoe...who is a vampire. Overzealous editing here. The
line originally read "...only know two vampires well enough to ask
for a lock of hair." When I'm editing, I'm always tightening.
Here I removed words that changed the meaning. It'll be fixed
in future printings.
Hope's age. She says she's 28.
In every manuscript on my computer, she's 27 (which is right) Only in the printed version of NHI she
says she's 28. I have no idea how this got changed. Did
I screw up and change it in copyedits? Was it a typo in the
setting process that I missed? I don't know, but it's now
affected Personal Demon (where she appears to have regressed a
year!), so I'll be changing this to 27 for future
printings.
A non-error that was reported. This is
similar to the one in Haunted. Hope says something
about American high society being worse than in Bombay. The
city has been called Mumbai for a dozen years now. I knew
that, but I was stuck on what Hope would call it. She's
quoting her mother, who came from Bombay thirty years ago.
What would her mother call it? In serious conversation,
she--and Hope--would use the correct name. In a flippant,
off-hand comment, the old name seemed more likely. But if
someone who is Indo-American strongly feels that I was wrong, I'm
open to changing it.
Personal Demon
Hope's age. The error is actually in NHI (see above)
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