Walpurgis Night, Moving Boxes, and the Best-Laid Launch Plans….

I had a plan. A beautiful one.

I had developed an elaborate media and marketing campaign for the launch of Secrets of the Red Oak Tavern. There were graphics to make, posts to schedule, newsletters to write, little flourishes to arrange — all of it designed to usher this book into the world with a bit of style and ceremony. And then, right in the middle of that process, we decided to move.

So now those beautiful plans are more or less dust, and I am scrambling to get my act together before launch day.

We moved into a new apartment, and at the moment, my earthly possessions appear to be engaged in a witness protection program. Nothing is where it ought to be. I have already discovered that the new bathroom sink is several inches lower than the old one, which apparently is enough to make a person feel as if she has entered an alternate dimension. My toothbrush is somewhere. My sense of order is somewhere else. And yet here I am, trying to resurrect a book launch from the middle of a sea of boxes.

The thing about moving house is that it is both disruptive and cathartic. It forces you to look at everything you own and ask questions you can usually avoid. Where did this come from? Who gave it to me? What is it worth? Do I keep it, sell it, donate it, or finally admit that I do not, in fact, need it? A move has a way of turning your entire life into a sorting table.

And then there are the deeper things. The photos. The boxes of family history. In my case, hundreds of old photographs left behind after my mother passed — faces of aunts, cousins, and relations I never knew, people from a California life that existed before Hawaii, before me, before the version of the family I understood. It is strangely moving to hold all those unknown lives in your hands. You realize that not every important thing can be neatly labeled, filed, or explained. Some things are simply inherited. Some are mysteries. Some are blessings in disguise. And some, apparently, belong in a very pretty storage chest.

It is not a spotless room, a color-coded drawer, or immediate enlightenment in the middle of unpacking… though the urge is there, especially after five minutes online looking at gorgeous home organizer sets and realizing, with a chill, that the ghost of Martha Stewart has entered the chat.

So now, instead of the graceful campaign I originally envisioned, I am doing what writers and other reasonably resilient people do: adapting. Improvising. Grabbing the next available symbolic moment and declaring that yes, obviously, this was the plan all along.

Which brings me to Walpurgis Night.

April 30, the night before Secrets of the Red Oak Tavern goes live, has long been associated with bonfires, folklore, spirits, thresholds, and the general sense that the veil between worlds has become a bit more negotiable than usual. Frankly, I cannot imagine a more fitting eve for sending a mystery with occult currents out into the world. If ever there were a night for a book to step out under strange skies and make its case, this would be it.

So perhaps my new plan is this: forget polished perfection. Forget the campaign that existed in my head before the moving boxes staged their coup. Let’s call this what it is — a Walpurgis Night launch. A little wild. A little chaotic. A little magical. Held together with intention, nerve, and whatever tape gun I can still locate.

And since every holiday deserves a gift idea, perhaps the perfect Walpurgis Night present is a book with secrets, atmosphere, danger, and a touch of the uncanny.

That would be Secrets of the Red Oak Tavern.

In the middle of all this disorder, the printed proof copies arrived safely at the new address, which felt like the universe filing a change-of-address form on my behalf. So perhaps that is the real sign. Not that everything is in order. Not that the plan was flawlessly executed. But that the book has arrived, I have arrived, and somehow, despite the chaos, we are right on time.