Hiss – A Middle Grade adventure

I’m back after a busy summer! I finished my third middle grade novel. Hiss is a middle grade adventure novel, release date – May 2025! I finished a fabulous (but very intense) writing course with Reedsy, How to Write a Novel. I highly recommend it! It taught me a ton and I made some good writing buddies. It’s easy to feel you’re writing in a vacuum and the support from the community made all the hard work worthwhile.

This is the blurb:

Hiss is the story of Max Johnson and his adventure as a python. Twelve-year-old Max is a scientist, a pioneer eager to discover the secrets of the universe, a young mind alight with hypotheses and theories waiting to be proven. Too bad nobody—not the bullies at school, the new girl Darya, or worst of all, his own dad—can see it. They only see him as a shy, nerdy kid. If they see him at all.
But everything changes when Max transforms into a giant python after an accident in his dad’s laboratory. He has cool new senses, powerful muscles, and an entirely different perspective to explore. This could be his chance to be strong and courageous!
But when rumours of a boy-eating snake go viral and Max’s animal instincts grow harder to control, Max realizes that being a wild snake in a suburban world is dangerous.
If he doesn’t find his way back to his true form, he risks losing his humanity forever. But first, he must convince others of his identity and learn to see himself in a new way.
Hiss is a middle grade book of transformation, overcoming fears, and building relationships.

Where do these ideas come from?

Authors are often asked where they get the ideas for their stories. The idea for
Hiss came from an article I read in the Publisher’s Weekly Children’s Books newsletter.
At a school visit a children’s author asked a student, “If you weren’t a human kid what
would you be?” The student replied, “I would be a python and I would live in my dad’s
hot tub, and I’d go to sleep on the bubbles.” The children’s author says she still has questions for
that kid!
This anecdote sparked a series of ideas and Hiss was born.

An Author Must Eat

I’m a fortunate woman! My husband is a good cook and since he retired he makes dinner most nights. Last night was duck breast with berry sauce from a recipe on the food network site. He served it on a bed of quinoa and garnished it with chopped cherry tomatoes and parsley. Dead easy!