A fan wrote me recently mentioning an error she’d found in PERISH BY PEDICURE, book number eight in my Bad Hair Day mystery series featuring hairstylist Marla Shore:

On page 153, it says: "When Dalton called to say he'd stop by with Brianna, 'Maria' decided to pull together a quick lasagna dinner.

Who is 'Maria'? Is that supposed to say Marla?

I looked it up, and Maria is in the hardcover version, page 153. But in the paperback, it reads Marla on the equivalent page 181. Obviously, I’d noticed it or a fan had already alerted me, and I got the mistake corrected for the mass market version.

Then I went back to my original manuscript. On page 196, it reads thus:

"She decided to pull together a quick lasagna dinner when Dalton called to say he’d stop by with Brianna."

In the copy edited version, the editor changed it to this: "When Dalton called to say he’d stop by with Brianna, she decided to pull together a quick lasagna dinner."

Okay, so where did Maria come from?

Next, I went to the page proofs for the hardcover edition, page 153. It read the same as above.

No Maria or Marla. So how did this sentence get changed?

Then I looked up the page proofs for the paperback version. This one says, "When Dalton called to say he’d stop by with Brianna, Marla decided to pull together a quick lasagna dinner."

Obviously, I’d made the correction by then.

The puzzle remains: How did Maria insert herself into the final hardcover when it wasn’t in the page proofs?

A ghost must have added it. That’s the only explanation.

The point of this lesson: It’s not always the author’s fault. Sometimes, yes, mistakes do get past us, no matter how many read throughs we do. We’re only human. But sometimes errors will occur in the editorial process and then we’re lucky if we catch them.

Now for a confession. There’s one at the beginning of KILLER KNOTS. Gold stars to you if you’ve caught it.  Don’t worry, though. I’ve alerted my editor to make the correction for the mass market edition, thanks to some diligent fans. Now let’s hope my request is granted.

A ghost tampered with my book 3, Dead Giveaway. The client's name is Will Knight, but for some reason AFTER copy edits and page proofs, his parents became Mr. And Mrs. WRIGHT. Later on in the book, their names are correct. Go figure. One reader caught it and apparently no one else cared! I found it strange, though, since the client had been Will KNIGHT since I created him. Maybe someone had a senior moment in the transition from page proofs to the actual book. But we all make mistakes.:)