I had a wonderful time yesterday at the Books In The Woods event in Mentor, Ohio. It was great meeting and chatting with so many readers who are new to my books, as well as, the many authors. One new author, Bella who just turned 14 not only sold out of her books, but gave a reading as well! I’m sure she is off to a wonderful writing career.

Much of the third book in the Tanner family series, It Started With Besse takes place within a few miles of where the event took place. The people I talked to loved hearing how I took locations that they were familiar with and turned them into a mystery with lots of suspense.

I look forward to going back next year.

I can’t believe it’s just one week from now and I’ll be attending this great event in a historical old mansion––the perfect location for a murder mystery or romance novel. I will have all four of my books for sale.  Hope to see you there!!

February flew past in a writing frenzy with WINDSWEPT’s story now taking place on Big Pine Key. What is a key? Why not an Island? By definition, an island is a piece of land surrounded by water. A key is a small low-lying coral reef.

Over the past twenty-six years I spent many winters (and some summer months) at our house on Big Pine Key. I love the diversity the Keys offer to someone who has spent her whole life living in northern Ohio. Well, except for the six years that I lived in Toronto, Ontario, and the winters up there were even more brutal. Living in the Keys, you learn that there are major differences even between mainland Florida. Like not having dirt! If you want to plant something you first need to go to your local garden centers and buy the soil by the bag or have it delivered in a truck, if you are really ambitious. What about digging a hole for that bush, tree or flower––you can’t––you are living on a rock! When I first moved to Big Pine, I thought how wonderful it would be to live on an island surrounded by beaches. Right!! You must drive to Bahia Honda State Park for a sandy beach. Thousands of years ago the Florida Keys were nothing more than coral reefs.

My first year on Big Pine, and wanting to create a tropical oasis, I made my raised flower beds, filled my SUV with bags of soil and bought all the beautiful flowering plants that grow so well in South Florida. My piece of paradise was fenced in, so I didn’t need to worry about the marauding little deer, unless someone left the gate open––which did happen on more than one occasion.  I planted several Hibiscus in shades of pink, yellow and red in soil-filled rings of garden edging.

Bougainvillea bushes were planted in raised beds in the front corners of the fencing to add curb appeal. Over the next couple of weeks, the deer had eaten the Bougainvillea petals that they could reach, the Hibiscus flowers had all disappeared and I walked outside one morning to see a giant iguana sitting on top of the last bush eating the red flowers.

After twenty-six years I got pretty good at gardening on Big Pine, I now have very large and healthy cactus!

It seems like only yesterday when I finished decorating the Christmas tree for the holiday season. Fleeting glimpses into my next book, WINDSWEPT danced around in my head yet I wasn’t ready to commit them to paper, actually my laptop. Festivities with family and friends kept any serious writing at bay, along with the twenty inches of snow that dumped on us the days following Thanksgiving.

The snow continued into January, so did temperatures in the single digits. Four to six inches of snow is typical weather for northeastern Ohio, but that much in the deep south??? The kids looked like they were having a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. That snow and ice created a whole new adventure for the adults who had to figure out how to drive in that stuff. So, I huddled down and began writing.

My research so far has taken me from Mob Bosses of the 1960s to the present-day areas of Traverse City, Michigan and the Florida Keys. I must say that I’m so impressed with the diversity of the Traverse City region that I feel a road trip this summer is in order.

This bit of catch-up has been nice, but I must get back to Windswept. I’m about to throw  Winifred Forrester into another difficult situation.

Were you hoping to attend the Lakeside-Marblehead Lighthouse Festival for your autographed copy of BENT TREE COTTAGE and stuff got in the way? Well, you can still get your personalized copy by submitting your request on my CONTACT form. I will get back to you as quickly as possible.

I had a wonderful time this past Saturday at the Lakeside-Marblehead Lighthouse Festival. A huge THANK YOU goes out to everyone who stopped by my booth and purchased books. Some of you were first timers who purchased copies because the storyline takes place in Marblehead, Port Clinton and Kelleys Island. Many of you who bought the first book in the series last year came back for the next three. And then there were those of you who love the Tanner Series and came to the event just to purchase the book you had been waiting for all year.

If you were hoping to get an autographed copy and couldn’t get to the event, you can fill out the contact form and let me know. I will be happy to send you a personalized copy.

It’s been a long time coming but the latest book in the Tanner family series, BENT TREE COTTAGE, is finally live on Amazon. Other outlets will be available in a day or two. I want to thank everyone who fast-tracked the editing and formatting process so the book could be available by October 1st.

The fourth book in the Tanner family series has Travis Tanner purchasing Bent Tree Cottage, located on Kelleys Island in Ohio, out from under the grasps of Uncle Sam. Owning the “cottage”, believed to be haunted by the residents of Kelleys Island, has been his boyhood dream. Now Travis and his cousin Nick begin the monumental task of bringing the huge house back to life after being closed-up for forty years. Meanwhile, his wife, Olivia Bentley Tanner, head of McLeod and Morrison, a company that builds ships for the Department of the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia, must keep herself and twin sons safe from enemy agents who will stop at nothing to retrieve the latest files on HELIOSmm-88, a newly developed tracking and monitoring device that will give our Navy unimaginable abilities over our enemies. The secrets held within the walls of Bent Tree Cottage bring the Civil War and today’s espionage crashing together on Kelleys Island.

After a year away from blogging it feels good to be back in the groove and focused on the completion of my current book, BENT TREE COTTAGE.

It’s been a rough two years. My partner of twenty-six years was diagnosed with lung cancer. Unfortunately, by the time he realized something was wrong it was stage four. My writing ceased as my head was filled with him and his care––Bent Tree Cottage was not going to meet the publication date of mid 2023. After his passing in April of last year and legal details completed, I packed up our two Yorkies, Hemingway (Hemi) and Peluche (Teddy) and headed down to our house on Big Pine Key, Florida. Big Pine Key is the home of the small Key Deer, and Hemi and Teddy love watching, and barking, at the little guys that roam freely around the island.

Florida in June and July is not the ideal time for an extended visit with temperatures in the mid to high 80s day and night. However, it was just what I needed to get my life back on track. While exploring parts of the island that I had not seen in twenty-six years of owning the house, the little voice in my head directed me to a street I had never noticed and at the dead end was a lovely gate with a FOR SALE sign. My curiosity took over and I sat there in the middle of the road and GOOGLED the address.

It turned out to be a fabulous “old school” estate built in the early 1960s. It was situated on ocean-front property, very private and on a street named Winifred. Well, it happened––by the time I got back home a new story was in my head. It’s called WINDSWEPT and my character’s name is Winifred.

I spent the next month driving to remote areas of the island, talking to the locals, and buying every book I could find on the history of the Florida Keys, especially the southern keys and Key West. I look forward to my future blogs and letting you in on my findings.

September rolled into October and it was time to prepare for the Retired Racehorse Project’s, Thoroughbred Makeover at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. After getting the okay from my cardiologist, I rented a large cargo van and loaded up the CANTER booth and all of our merchandise including Teddy’s gear (it’s amazing how much equipment a five pound dog needs for a week). On October 11^th Teddy and I headed south for the five and a half hour trip.

As the Executive Director for both CANTER Ohio and CANTER Kentucky (Communication Alliance to Network Thoroughbred Ex-Racehorses), I’ve been attending the makeover, and manning the booth, every year since 2015 (except for 2020 when it was cancelled due to COVID). It was after 6:00pm by the time the booth was set up and ready for opening day and I was hungry and tired. Since I stay at the same Fairfield Inn every year, I know all the local eateries and had decided to swing by KFC for takeout. To my surprise, the tall sign was there and the building but the parking lot was empty and so was the restaurant. I found that to be the case with several places that were no longer in business and finally settled for McDonalds. Teddy and I checked into the hotel, getting the same room we’d had in 2019 because it was close to the back door where I park the van. Teddy crashed while I scarfed down a burger and fries then unloaded what seemed like a mountain of our stuff (mostly his).

By the third day most of the other vendors knew Teddy by name and always gave him a warm greeting, apparently I was invisible. He spent the days in his stroller or on my lap and I have to say he brought a lot of customers to our booth. The weather turned cold and we sold out of jackets, sweatshirts and hoodies . . . Teddy wore his Polo jacket. The drop in temperature didn’t help my arthritic knee and by the time Sunday rolled around I could barely climb into the van. My marathon patio-building project, lasting two months during the summer, had me lifting heavy pavers and bags of sand and now my knee was protesting. After dismantling the booth and loading the van I feared I couldn’t struggle with my knee, even one more time, so with a full tank of gas I drove straight through without stopping for potty breaks. Teddy was sound asleep in his car seat before we got off the grounds of the Kentucky Horse Park. We arrived home at midnight, I slid down from my seat and only took out of the van what Teddy and I needed for the night. Next year, I’m nixing the van unless I get a new knee!

What happened to my summer? Oh, yeah . . . it was derailed by Lyme disease and by all accounts it wasn’t giving up yet. Two months after the deer tick did its damage, my energy level was continuing to rise but my short-term memory and recall were still not showing improvement. Fortunately, my brain didn’t need to be fully functional for me to enjoy my new writing garden––even if I wasn’t writing. A Paper Key is a story that takes place during the Christmas holiday season and needed to be edited and ready to publish by the beginning of November. It would take my Fairy Godmother to make that happen, so I accepted the realization that the book would have to wait a year. The Humming birds had left to begin their long trek down to Mexico or South America and my favorite butterfly had disappeared. I enjoyed hours spent drinking in those special scents of fall as the leaves turned their vibrant colors and slowly began to fall around me.