Kim McMahill

In 2025, the National Park Service will waive entrance fees on six days. One free day has already passed. The next entrance fee-free day will be April 19, 2025, the first day of National Park Week. All National Park Service sites that charge an entrance fee will offer free admission to everyone. For more information visit https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/fee-free-parks.htm The remaining entrance fee-free days for 2025 are: June 19 – Juneteenth National Independence Day August 4 – Great American Outdoors Act Signing Day September 27 – National Public Lands Day November 11: Veterans Day (Photo: Kim McMahill - Yellowstone National Park)

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.” -John Muir-

During April in Wyoming, we generally get showers that bring May flowers, but whether it comes in the form or rain or snow is anyone’s guess. April can be beautiful or brutal. I’m hoping for signs of spring, but we’ll just have to wait and see. WRITING The fourth novel in The Beartooth Chronicles, Evil Under the Mountain, is still on tap for an April release. I don’t have the exact date yet, so hopefully you’re following me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KimMcMahillAuthor/ . In the meantime, if you aren’t caught up on the series, now is the perfect time . Refuge from the World (book 1) is only $0.99 and Above the Abyss (book 2) is still $2.99 to download. If you are caught up, I have a couple of free Risky Research prequel micro-reads for download, Midnight in Montana and A Formidable Foe . WANDERINGS Wandering was kept in-state in March. Mostly going to high school basketball tournaments and using those opportunities to check out things I may have missed ove...

Reviews are important to writers and readers, so I plan to share them here occasionally. This one was done by N.N. Light’s Book Heaven and appeared on Amazon and a number of other sites. 5 stars for Refuge from the World (The Beartooth Chronicles, Book 1) My Review:  A chilling scenario depicting the future consequences of global warming sets the stage for this YA dystopian tale. In Beartooth, Ashley McPhee lives a quiet life with her mother, Sara, her best friend Caleb, and a small group of families in a self-sustaining small community. With water levels rising and shifting tectonic plates, the United States is shrinking, and the residents of Beartooth fear the chaos and violence in nearby settlements will find them. Especially, after they learn the government plans to use an untested, geoengineering process to cool the planet, threatening their fragile ecosystem and potentially destroying their crops. To complicate matters even further for Ashley, her mother’s health is...

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road / the one less traveled by / offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth."   Rachel Carson

N. N. Light’s Book Heaven is celebrating their 10 th anniversary with a huge party, and I am one of the sixty authors featured. I talk about what I was doing ten years ago, what I’m doing now, how many books I’ve published, and I’m offering a very cool prize. Join in the fun and good luck! The giveaway is open internationally and runs March 1 – 31, 2025. Drawing will be held on April 1, 2025. Enter for the giveaway below and check back every day for new author posts: https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/n-n-lights-book-heaven-party a Rafflecopter giveaway

  Here’s an Irish Blessing for you. Have a great St. Patrick’s Day! May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you. May the luck of the Irish enfold you. May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.  May there always be work for your hands to do, May your purse always hold a coin or two. May the sun always shine warm on your windowpane, May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain. May the hand of a friend always be near you, And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

February was a brutal month in Wyoming. We always have a lot of wind, so when nearly twenty inches of snow dropped early in the month along with extended periods of single-digit day-time highs, it made for a rough start. Here’s hoping you had milder weather and March brings more sunshine. WRITING I’ve been in kind of a hold pattern on the next book in The Beartooth Chronicles, Evil Under the Mountain . My editor is working through the last round of edits, and we’re probably looking at a couple more reads after that. The cover is still in the design phase, but it still looks like we’re on target for an April 2025 release. The fifth novel in the series, Winter Resurgence, should come out in September 2025. If you still haven’t jumped into this series, the first two novels are available to download at reduced prices from major online book retailers or from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DMV1QS9Q/   Since I don’t have a lot of writing news to report this month, it’s a ...

I often mention how important reviews are to me, so I thought it would be nice to copy and paste reviews every now and then. This one for Refuge from the World (The Beartooth Chronicles, Book 1) was copied from Amazon. 5.0 out of 5 stars   Chilling YA Dystopian Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2024 This is a wonderful, YA dystopian book for fans of Hunger Games. It depicts a future society dealing with the chilling consequences of global warming. The main character, Ashley, lives in Beartooth, a small mountaintop community, with her mother, Sara. Their town is separate and independent from the rest of the USA, including the government. But as the state of the world worsens, governments contemplate using a potentially devastating scientific experiment to cool the planet. The residents of Beartooth worry about the survival of their crops and beehives, and they also fear their small community will be discovered and attacked by outside groups looking to control their s...

I love to travel, to see the world, to learn about other cultures. But there is so much more to travel than beaches, pretty scenery, or exciting activities, it’s also about changing the way we see the world and our place in it. On one of my favorite PBS travel shows, the host closes each episode with the following quote. It struck a chord with me, so I have part of the quote in my blog header. Here is the rest.    “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain

Book Reviews serve a variety of purposes and are very important to readers and writers. Reviews help other readers choose books. A review provides information about a book that a marketing blurb may not. Sales and reviews factor into a bookseller’s algorithm. Mo`re book sales and reviews help a book achieve a higher ranking on a bookseller’s site, which provides more exposure for a book and its author. Additionally, more reviews may get authors noticed by book clubs, blogging communities, book review sites, and other promotional venues. Lastly, many authors do read reviews and may find helpful feedback in articulate reviews to improve their craft. For example, saying “I hated the book” isn’t helpful, but explaining that you find multiple points of view confusing, there were too many grammatical errors, there was too much detail and it slowed the story down, or there was too much profanity, gives the author feedback to consider. Conversely, pointing out what you liked about a book i...

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day no matter how you choose to acknowledge the day. Whether you spend it with someone special, curl up with a good romance novel, or treat the day like any other, enjoy!

The days are getting longer which makes me happy. I know there is a lot of winter left, but seeing more light feels like we’re over the hump. I hope your new year has gotten off to a great start and many wonderful things come your way in 2025. WRITING In late January, I participated in the Winter Book Fest fundraiser at our local library. It was a great way to connect with readers, and it was a lot of fun. I hope to do more in-person events in the coming year. 2024 saw the release of the first three novels in The Beartooth Chronicles . I’ve been working with my editor on the final edits for the fourth novel, Evil Under the Mountain, and it’s slated for an April 2025 release. We are already moving forward on the fifth novel in the series, Winter Resurgence . It will be released in late summer or early fall, probably September 2025. If you still haven’t jumped into this series, the first two novels are available to download at a special discounted rate from most major online boo...

The Beartooth Chronicles follows the story of Ashley McPhee, who arrived in Beartooth with her mom, Sara, when she was three years old, and Caleb Solomon, who arrived about the same time. They have been best friend ever since, but as the story begins, their relationship enters a new phase as they navigate the challenges of adulthood. The Beartooth Chronicles is a story of survival in a crumbling world, but unlike many dystopian novels, the series is not about fighting against the government. The series focuses on the residents of a small, isolated community who work together to find solutions to each new challenge the community faces. Though insulated from many of the problems threating the survival of humanity, their future is far from secure. They are determined to hold on to what they’ve built and will fight to protect their community and each other from outside threats, both human and animal predators. Series Blurb: In a world plagued by natural and human disasters, a gro...

The word adventure means something different to everyone. To some, adventure may be trying a new restaurant or hairstyle, and to others, true adventure can only be defined by climbing Mount Everest. To me, it is somewhere in the middle. I strive to explore the gamut of adventure through actual experiences and fictional stories of survival drawn from my imagination. I write adventure, suspense, crime fiction, and dystopian novels with two primary goals – to entertain readers and to take them on far-flung escapes across America and around the world . I hope you will join me in 2025 in finding new adventures, between the pages of books and in adventures far and wide.  

Welcome to this week Book Hooks Blog Hop. Please check out the blurb below for the first novel in The Beartooth Chronicles, Refuge from the World , and epic dystopian adventure and endearing love story. The first three novels are available now (book 1 is just $0.99 to download), the fourth will be released in April 2025 and the fifth is slated for September 2025.   In the heart of Beartooth, life was simple—until the world began to change. Ashley McPhee has always found comfort in her quiet, mountaintop community. From tending honeybees with her mom to sharing childhood adventures with her best friend, Caleb Solomon, life in Beartooth has been peaceful. But when a government plan to geoengineer the planet threatens their food supply and way of life, Ash and Caleb are forced to confront an uncertain future. As Ash faces her mother’s failing health, Sara’s final wish adds a new layer of complexity: for Ash and Caleb to unite in marriage. Thrust into a relationship that’s evolving...

Happy 2025! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and your new year is starting out with a bang. This year has been a rollercoaster of emotions, making me more apprehensive than usual for the holidays. Fortunately, I was able to skip Thanksgiving so to speak, and Christmas turned out better than I had hoped. We were surprised and blessed to have family come to us this year, making it the best holiday in a very long time. A lot has happened in 2024, most of it not so good, but I’m optimistic that 2025 will be much better, and hope yours will be as well. WRITING The third novel in The Beartooth Chronicles, Isolated from Anarchy , was released in November 2024. Edits are well underway on the fourth novel, Evil Under the Mountain , and it looks like were on target for a February 2025 release. I also got exciting news from my publisher. There will be a book five in the series coming out later in 2025. I’ll share more info on that release as details unfold. If you still haven’t jumpe...