*And so we come to the end of the wedding chapter of the Quest. It is now posted in Favourite Photos 2026, where you can revisit it at any time - the Wedding

​He turned to Aeran... "Now repeat after me...."

and Aeran's grandfather passed her over to Kyle....who lifted her veil, and took her hand...

Kyle was getting some last minute instructions from the Bishop....

"I think we need to go find our places."

"It's time to begin."

"Yes, I guess we do."

It had been several months since Aeran and her friends had returned home from their quest, and she had returned to the quiet life she had enjoyed before heading out into the wilderness...

Her relationship with Prince Kyle had continued to grow, and he would come to visit often....

But today he had come with a purpose...

...and he got down on one knee...

"I love you."

"Would you marry me?"

"I love you too..."

Kyle sat down beside her....

"Yes....I will marry you."

 It's been a very challenging many months, and it was so much easier going through older photos and turning existing stories into books than it was getting inspired to take new photos, so I thought it was time to do an update on the book situation.
​My own personal library has grown with several new additions the past few months. I've added them all to the Books page on my website, but you can also click on the cover images below to learn more about them...

I've not offered any of them up for preorder, and have removed the prices from the Books page. Even though we have always ordered the books when there was a half price sale, the books are still too expensive for just about everyone, and with the 35% tariffs slapped onto everything back in September, there was no point anymore.  Plus we were having constant issues with print quality.  

Back when we first started getting books printed by Mixbook, who had the best quality at the best prices at the time, books were printed in California, and they were almost always perfect.  Then they started having Canadian orders printed by a company in Alberta, and then one in Ontario.

​ Now, Mixbook is not a physical company with its own printing facility. They are just an online company that gets all their orders printed at various printing companies all over the country. And everything is done by AI with no human oversight at any point, with no quality control. Books started arriving with issues. One printer would print too dark or too red, while another would print too light.  There was no way to request which printer an order would get printed at, so there was no way to colour correct files to accommodate how a printer printed the books.  So we were constantly having to complain and hope they'd redo the books better.  Which they usually did. But it was such a hassle arguing with them every time, and what was I supposed to do with all the rejects?  In the meantime I was only charging in US dollars what the books cost me in Canadian funds, so not making hardly anything on them - just the difference in the exchange rate - to cover my efforts. It was becoming way too stressful ordering books for fans never knowing if the books were going to be good enough. Every time a book order arrived we dreaded opening the box, never knowing if they would be good or not.

So Marianne decided to do a test, and gathered addresses of all the one-off book publishing companies out there. She started out with 15, and ended up cutting it down to five - most in Canada. We put together a small book of my favourite Forest Dweller photos, the smallest size book with the minimum number of 20 pages, to have printed at each of the companies, in order to compare print quality. The book was put together with no colour adjustments at all.

One company printed too dull, another too light, even though the covers all looked pretty much the same.  My sister's favourite, with the best print quality, was also the most expensive. Plus it had a limit of 100 pages, which meant they wouldn't be able to print many of my stories. My own personal favourite of the five books was still the one printed by Mixbook. 

So the takeaway from all this is that I'm still going to be turning my stories into books just for myself, and continue gambling with Mixbook, hoping they will turn out okay.  But I'm not going to be offering them to my fans unless both the print quality becomes more consistent, AND the tariffs are removed.

I currently have a toy store set up on my dining room table. ​I've wanted to do one for ages, and finally made the effort.

I used just about every mini doll, stuffed animal, and toy I have, and it looks especially realistic with the sun shining in through the window....

After the shop keeper moved in, he made a few changes.

He decided to move the bags of blocks to the bottom of another display case, and replace them with puppets instead...

 and take one down from the crowded upper shelf, and put it in the window instead...

And he was ready to open the shop for the day....