Dear Readers,
This past summer I struggled with the decision to take a temporary retirement. It wasn’t something that I wanted to do, and I did everything that I could to put it off so that I could finish Checkmate. A few times, I didn’t think that I was going to be able to finish the book. I sat down and started an announcement similar to this one, apologizing for not being able to complete it. It was something that Christi and I had to discuss on a weekly basis. Every single day I live in pain. I have several non-life-threatening medical conditions that should have been taken care of years ago. Unfortunately, and for reasons that I am not going to go into here, I was unable to get those problems fixed back then. I know this is going to upset a lot of people that are waiting for the next book(s). I wanted to get two books out to you before I started having surgery. This is in no way goodbye. This is me taking care of what needs to be done so that I can have better quality of life for my kids and myself and get back to writing full time.
My game plan is to take as long as I need to get my medical and dental problems fixed. When I come back full time, I promise that I will make this up to you. Until then, Christi and I have discussed this, and we’ve decided that to keep myself distracted between procedures that I should write a few short stories and give some of them to you for free, as a thank you. We are going to let you choose what short stories that you want. The only rule will be no short stories for characters that I plan on writing a full length novel for, i.e. Jax, Kale, etc. Writing a short story is something that I will be able to handle to keep myself busy and will not require as much work and effort as a full length novel.
If you have any questions, please contact Christi. I will be back, and I just hope that you’ll greet me enthusiastically when I do. Thank you again for all of your support.

R.L. Mathewson



From Christi,
I understand that you all are disappointed to hear this. Believe me, it’s not even half of the disappointment that R.L. is feeling right now. She has put out 9 books in the last year, and we have all gotten rather spoiled :). I do ask for your support on this matter. R.L. is one of the most dedicated authors I know, and I’ve known a few over the years. She loves to interact with her readers, loves to hear to what you all have to say, whether it’s about her books or just life in general. Her health right now is top priority. She can’t give us more books if she’s too sick to write, and we ALL want more stories! I believe the short-story idea is wonderful and will be a lot of fun.
If any of you have any questions please email me at [email protected]. I will read them and answer them as best as I can. I will still be a FB regular for her page :).
Thank you all so much for supporting this decision. It was a difficult one to make, a painful one to make, but sometimes life gets in the way and it needs to be dealt with.
-Christi