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My mother didn’t bake pies. She said it was pointless with four children and a husband. All that work and it was gone in one meal. A cake and at least there would be some leftovers. She didn’t really like to cook. I asked her once if she could hire someone to either cook or clean, which would she choose? She said she would choose a cook. That sounded crazy to me. Who wants to clean? Her life was…

We All Need Sparkle

Came across this poem that I wrote in May, 2020, near the beginning of the pandemic. I need a manicure. I need a pedicure. My hair’s not too bad. I trimmed some ends and pushed the sides behind my ears. My shoulders are sore from leaning over the computer. My quarantine world is getting smaller and smaller. I shop online. Groceries arrive. Books arrive. Same. I wish I could order a…

I Live in a Tree House

(Written April 2020) I live in a tree house. As the trees turn green in the spring, my forest closes in around me. Wraps me in branches filled with life. I plant flowers on the deck and the blood red of the begonias reminds me that life can be violent. Squirrels race across the deck to the trees on their rodent superhighway. The first hummingbird of the season arrived today. It drinks from…

My latest blog post. A great book I read lately.

There are many reasons to choose a novel to read. It may be for purely entertainment, to immerse oneself in an historical time period or a journey into the future. I choose books for all of those reasons and more. I have been thinking recently about how novels can inform about issues of the day, and touch our hearts and minds in ways that non-fiction or a news article cannot do. A good novelist…

Review of The Black Witch by Laurie Forest

I am so overwhelmed by this book! Written for a YA audience, it sends a message of tolerance and understanding of the diverse people inhabiting Earthia. Elloran enters the university and is thrown into contact with the other races that inhabit their world, and whom she has been taught to hate, as they have been taught to hate her, a member of the dominate race, the Gardnerians. As she is forced…

Can You Go Home Again?

Came across these photos and a poem I wrote after my visit back to my home town in Illinois in 2011. A bittersweet journey. A barn built to last one hundred years. Rusty now. But the only farm building left standing. Everything else is corn fields. Hay bales still crowd the loft, a place a mystery and a home for kittens. Everything else is gone. The house, the truck shed, even the pond where…

Review of The Night Watchman

I don’t know where I picked this book up. Probably from my Little Free Library. I cannot praise and recommend it enough. Set in North Dakota in the early 1950s, it takes us into the lives of Native Americans struggling to survive and preserve their traditional beliefs and way of living, while fighting the U.S. government to retain their right to live on the land that has been their home for as…

Came across a poem I wrote ten years ago. It was the year I went back with my brothers to the Illinois farm where we grew up. We have all traveled so far since then, but some elements provide continuity — like water. My Thoughts on Water The pond behind the barn where I caught catfish with Grandma. The fishpond behind her house, filled in when we were still small. Mom so worried that one of…

Bookstores and More Bookstores

In the infamous year of 2020, I had a plan to visit a new bookstore or library each month. January and February went great. In January, I participated in a book festival at McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro, North Carolina. In February, I was in Los Angeles visiting family and visited the Hawthorne Public Library and Skylight Books in Los Angeles. Then, well, we know what happened in March,…

Traveling for Inspiration and Other Things

Most of my inspiration for writing comes when I travel. There is something about being in a new place where I can free my mind from everyday tasks that stimulates my imagination. The idea for my first novel, The Gate House, came about when my husband and I stayed in a bed and breakfast in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. That bed and breakfast became the setting for most of the story. We also…

And a Full Scottish Breakfast

Now that The Gate House is to be re-released, I have been thinking about how that book came to be. I had always enjoyed writing, and had a few small things published, but didn’t take myself seriously as a writer. And like many people, I had it in the back of my mind that I would like to write a book.

I had created the character of Nara, along with her father, in another unfinished story. When…

One of my favorite things to do when I am traveling is to visit grocery stores and food markets. I love looking at the different foods that are available, how they are displayed for purchase, the differences and similarities with foods I am used to at home. I notice differences in grocery stores even in different states within the US. Costco in Anchorage, Alaska is a world unto itself, with its…

Browsing in a Bookstore — Yes! Really!

Is there anything more pleasurable than browsing in a bookstore? I have always loved the feeling of turning my head sideways to look at the books on the shelf in a bookstore or library. And how about this? Half an hour with the bookstore to yourself to browse to your heart’s content, after you put on your mask and gloves of course. 

My favorite used bookstore, Golden Fig Booksin Durham, North…

All my novels in the Nara series, including the newest one, deal in some way with crimes involving art. Hotel Saint Clare refers to the art collection of the hotel owner for whom Nara works after leaving her teaching job. In The Gate House, centuries old pieces, including stained glass windows stolen from local churches, are hidden in the basement of the bed and breakfast where Nara lives with…

A Bookstore a Month

I started out with a grand plan to visit a new bookstore or library each month of 2020. We all know how that worked out.

My bookstore for January was McIntyre’s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a lovely independent bookstore with a huge mystery section. I was even able to participate in an author’s event and have some of my books for sale on the Sisters in Crime table. And I highly recommend the B…

This is a “taste” of what’s to come in my next novel, tentatively titled Sacrifice.

In her first breakfast in Spain, Nara Blake enjoys a chocolate croissant and café con leche for breakfast. Maybe not what super health conscious people would consider a good breakfast, but she is on vacation. Sort of. That’s about the only time I eat chocolate croissants. And meals in Spain are very different…

In my newest novel featuring protagonists Nara Blake and Alex Collier, they work at the Tate Britain, one of the foremost art museums in London. This is a natural and fun setting for me, since I love visiting art museums. I overdid it a bit on my last trip to the Netherlands, and visited four art museums in six days — the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and two in the Hague, Mauritshausand…