Website and Blog of Debbie De Louise, Author, Retired Librarian, and Cat Lover
Author: Debbie
I'm a retired librarian and the award-winning author of the Cobble Cove, Buttercup Bend, and SOUP THE SUPERNATURAL KITTEN cozy mystery series and other novels, short stories, poems, articles, and a novella. My books include CLOUDY RAINBOW, REASON TO DIE, SEA SCOPE, MEMORY MAKERS, TIME'S RELATIVE, MEOWS AND PURRS, MEMORIES AND MEOWS, A MIXED BAG OF CAT TAILS, and A MYSTERY BOX OF CAT TAILS.
My Cobble Cove cozy mystery series published by Solstice Publishing consist of 6 books: A STONE'S THROW, BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE, WRITTEN IN STONE, LOVE ON THE ROCKS, NO GRAVESTONE UNTURNED, and ROCK A BYE BYE BABY. My standalone short story collection featuring the Cobble Cove characters is SNEAKY'S SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY AND OTHER COBBLE COVE STORIES. My Buttercup Bend series published by Next Chapter Publishing includes THE CASE OF THE CAT CRAZY LADY, THE CASE OF THE PARROT LOVING PROFESSOR, THE CASE OF THE LLAMA RAISING LIBRARIAN, THE CASE OF THE WHALE WATCHING WEDDING PLANNER, THE CASE OF THE REPTILE RESCUING RESCEPTIONIST, and the forthcoming CASE OF THE BULLFIGHTING BUILDER.
I've also written a paranormal romance, CLOUDY RAINBOW, and short stories of various genres published as eBooks and in anthologies published by the Red Penguin Collection. My poetry appears in the Nassau County Voices in Verse and the Bard's Annual. My latest book is SUITCASE STORIES, a collection of mostly mystery short stories. My forthcoming standalone gothic mystery is LOOKING FOR LUCY.
I'm a member of Sisters-in-Crime, International Thriller Writers, and the Cat Writers' Association. I live in South Carolina with my husband, daughter, and 3 cats.
The main character of this novel, Emily, the author of a cozy mystery series, is in trouble. She’s been sick for months with a mysterious illness. Her husband has cheated on her, and they are in the midst of a divorce. Her best friend, Chess, a popular non-fiction self-help author, wants to help her. She suggests a summer away at a villa in Italy. Emily wants to go but becomes hesitant after learning that the villa was the scene of a murder that took place in the 1970’s of a musician who stayed there with his girlfriend and some friends. Despite Emily’s concerns, she takes the trip.
At the villa, Emily researches the murder. She becomes so wrapped up in it that she starts to write another book based on her findings and puts aside the cozy mystery she’s late in submitting to her publisher. When Chess learns what Emily is working on, she offers to co-write the book. Emily doesn’t want her to do that.
As Emily makes further discoveries into that old murder and sees similarities between her and Mari Godwin, the woman whose boyfriend was killed and who wrote a bestselling book after the murder, she believes the book Mari wrote holds a clue to what really happened that summer night at the villa.
Further revelations serve as plot twists to the novel which features flashbacks to the time of the murder. I felt the main plot of this gothic-like tale focused more on the friendship between Emily and Chess and how staying at the villa changes them. Without revealing the ending and the twists, the story kept me intrigued but seemed to lack the punch I expected. I’d still recommend it as a read for those who enjoy books that include flashbacks and eerie settings. I also found the descriptions of the authors and their writing process interesting because I write both cozy mysteries and other genres.
Passport to Spy: A Kat Lawson Mystery by Nancy Cole Silverman
About Passport to Spy
Passport to Spy: A Kat Lawson Mystery Historical Mystery 2nd in Series Setting – Germany Level Best Books (June 6, 2023) Print length : 268 pages Digital ASIN : B0BXCGY2Y5
After losing her job as an investigative reporter for The Phoenix Gazette, Kat Lawson has a new gig. The FBI has asked her to work undercover as a reporter for Travel International to cover Munich, Germany’s festive holiday scene—an excuse to get close to Hans von Hausmann, a very charismatic and popular museum curator suspected of hiding a cache of stolen masterpieces believed to be part of the World’s Largest Art Heist. The job comes with lots of perks: airfare, travel expenses, the opportunity to see the world…and for a seasoned reporter like Kat, nothing she can’t handle. But, when a trusted source is found dead, Kat realizes the tables have been turned. Armed with evidence that will expose a cache of artwork stolen from museums and the homes of wealthy Jews during the 2nd World War, Kat must find a way to avoid being caught by the German Polizie, who have enough evidence to charge her with murder, and those who want her dead to keep their hidden treasures forever secret. The hunter has become the hunted; now, Kat has a target on her back.
GUEST POST
The Story Behind the Story
As a young woman, I lived in a small medieval Bavarian town near Munich, Germany. I was an Air Force wife in the early 70s, a little more than twenty-five years after the war had ended. Most of the Germans I met were maybe just a few years younger than me, and those older, anxious to look forward and not back at a time that had reflected the worst of their country. At the time, I remember being asked by my then-husband’s commanding officer if I might join a group of wives to host a luncheon for some local women who wanted to practice their English. It turned into a regular monthly coffee klatch—one of the highlights of my years there—with six or seven German housewives who liked to bake. We’d meet monthly at one of their homes, usually apartments, or when the weather prevailed, for a garden party at one of the community gardens. It was always delicious. And fattening! I don’t think there’s such a thing as a low-fat German dessert. Everything was made with real butter and lots and lots of cream. There was no way I could get away with just sampling each woman’s cake. It might have been an international incident if I did. Instead, I ate a healthy portion of each, and in addition to the desserts, drank lots of black coffee splashed with schnapps and finished off with an eier liqueur, German eggnog, that had I been wearing socks, would have knocked them off.
I left Germany in 1976. I had learned enough shopper’s-Deutsch to navigate my way around medieval villages, where early on, I had managed to find some porcelain factories that set up their kilns inside barns to make ends meet. I even bought a porcelain chandelier that once hung above a cow stall and, to this day, hangs in my mother’s apartment. My travels allowed me to start a shopper’s newsletter for military wives looking to buy gifts like hand-carved wooden nativity scenes, nutcrackers, candies, and Christmas ornaments while visiting places off the beaten path that tourists might not know about.
My experience in Europe opened my eyes not only to a country of beautiful lakes, mountains, and people but of secrets that, until years later, I had no idea existed. It wasn’t until 2012, nearly thirty-seven years after I had left Germany, that I heard a story about a routine customs check at the Swiss border, a border I had passed through many times, that would lead to the discovery of 1500 hidden works of art in a Munich apartment. Blocks from my old stomping grounds.
And thus began my research…
Passport to Spy is based on the life of Hildebrand Gurlitt, a once-successful museum curator who had worked with the Nazis to destroy what Hitler considered to be degenerative art while looting masterpieces and the homes of wealthy Jews and some of Europe’s best museums.
After the war, Gurlitt argued that he only did what he needed to survive and had helped save art that would have otherwise been destroyed. However, records—and the Germans did keep a detailed accounting—show that the sale of such art was used to help finance the Third Reich. And what the Nazis didn’t sell, destroy or secure for what was to be the Fuhrer’s Museum, Gurlitt took for himself.
As the war dragged on and the Allied bombing increased, the Nazis hid their treasures in mountain caves, salt mines, and castles like Neuschwanstein.
All might have been lost and forgotten were it not for groups like the Monuments Men, who attempted to return what today art historians call The World’s Largest Art Heist.
At the war’s end, Gurlitt avoided prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, claiming he was one-quarter Jewish and a victim of Nazi persecution. But rather than walk away, Gurlitt had one final trick up his sleeve and a lot of moxie. He tracked down the allies’ collection center where those works of art—some Gurlitt had stolen and others part of the Nazi’s cache—were being housed, and with a stack of forged papers, approached those in charge and claimed the art in question belonged to his family. Shockingly, he was allowed to truck hundreds of stolen masterpieces away.
Under German law, it wasn’t illegal to own stolen art, and Gurlitt believed the spoils of war were indeed his, and upon his death in 1956, the entire collection was passed on to his son, Cornelius Gurlitt. It was Cornelius Gurlitt who attracted the attention of the Swiss/German border police, which ultimately led to the discovery of a hidden cache of stolen art in a Munich apartment.
The story was one I couldn’t stop researching. Gurlitt’s Hoard wasn’t the only cache of hidden treasures found after the war. And the Germans rush to report it. The story was finally reported to the press two years after the initial find.
When I finished my research, I couldn’t help but think back to my time in Germany and wonder how close I might have come to stumbling upon some hidden cache while researching little-known shopping sights. I believe the story picks the writer; in this instance, Gurlitt’s Hoard picked me, and Passport to Spy is a ripped-from-the-headlines attempt on my part to fictionalize the tale while keeping the essence alive.
About Nancy Cole Silverman
Nancy Cole Silverman spent nearly twenty-five years in news and talk radio, beginning her career in college on the talent side as one of the first female voices on the air. Later on the business side in Los Angeles, she retired as one of two female general managers in the nation’s second-largest radio market. After a successful career in the radio industry, Silverman retired to write fiction. Her short stories and crime-focused novels—the Carol Childs and Misty Dawn Mysteries, (Henry Press) are both Los Angeles-based. Her newest series THE NAVIGATOR’S DAUGHTER, (Level Best Books) takes a more international approach. Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a thoroughly pampered standard poodle.
I found this to be an interesting novel about two women, Ann and Miriam, who form a friendship in the 1940’s when they work together as embroiderers for designer, Normal Hartnell, where they are chosen to embroider Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown. Because this is such a special project, they’re asked to keep their work secret.
As Ann and Miriam work together, they discover things about one another that they haven’t been able to share with others. Ann lives with her sister-in-law, now a widow because Ann’s brother was killed in the war. Miriam, who is Jewish, lost her whole family in the war and was imprisoned but survived. The two of them strike up a close relationship and end up living together when Ann’s sister-in-law moves to Canada. But an unfortunate turn of events, causes Ann to move to her sister-in-law’s home after she and Miriam complete the wedding gown.
Years later, during which the two women haven’t been in touch, Ann passes away. She leaves her granddaughter, Heather, a package with her name on it. The package contains a sample embroidery. This causes Heather to question her grandmother’s history because Ann or Nan, as Heather calls her, never talked much about her past. Heather decides to go to England to find out why she was left the embroidery and how it was connected to her grandmother.
I enjoyed the way each woman’s story was told in alternate chapters and the coincidences that Heather discovers as she pursues her grandmother’s past. The main focus of the book was the friendship between Ann and Miriam and what each brought to the other. The information about the wedding gown, embroidery, and the royal palace were also interesting. While the book wasn’t based on real women, Hartnell was the designer commissioned for the gown who had seamstresses and embroiderers working for him.
If you enjoy historical fiction and novels about the royal family told from a different aspect, you’ll like this novel.
How the Murder Crumbles (A Cookie Shop Mystery) by Debra Sennefelder
About How the Murder Crumbles
How the Murder Crumbles (A Cookie Shop Mystery) Cozy Mystery 1st in Series Setting – Connecticut Crooked Lane Books (June 20, 2023) Hardcover : 304 pages ISBN-10 : 1639102809 ISBN-13 : 978-1639102808 Digital ASIN : B0BG13HTC6
Debra Sennefelder whips up cookies and crime in a delicious new cozy series, perfect for fans of Joanne Fluke and Peg Cochran.
Wingate, Connecticut, is famed as one of the top ten shopping destinations in the state, and home to Mallory Monroe’s beloved Cookie Shop—a place where patrons are greeted with the heavenly aroma of freshly baked cookies that are as beautifully decorated as they are insanely delicious.
But things aren’t going so smoothly for Mallory. Her two employees are a disaster in the kitchen, she catches her boyfriend with another woman, and she’s seen having a fierce argument with food blogger Beatrice Wright, who accuses Mallory of stealing her cookie recipe. Then Beatrice turns up dead in her kitchen, flour outlining her body and a bloodied marble rolling pin nearby. Mallory immediately becomes suspect number one, her sales plummet, and she desperately tries to clear her name—but that’s not the only murder the killer is baking up.
Debra Sennefelder has cooked up a perfect recipe—endearing characters, a picture-perfect evocation of small-town life, and a quaint sweets shop. And just when things get a little too comfy, there’s always a murder or two for good measure.
GUEST POST
Where Ideas Come From by Debra Sennefelder
As an author who has published many books, I get many questions about my writing process. But the one that never fails to pique people’s curiosity is: “Where do you get your ideas from?” While that question is a no-brainer for me, what’s truly challenging is knowing which ideas have what it takes to become a full-fledged novel. It’s not just about having a brilliant idea; it’s about having one that can sustain an entire book. Sometimes lightning strikes, and I know right away that I have a gem on my hands – a story that will leave readers glued to the pages. And let me tell you, that’s an indescribable feeling. Fortunately, I experienced that thrill while writing my latest release, HOW THE MURDER CRUMBLES.
Sometimes inspiration strikes out of the blue. I might hear a news story or witness an event that sparks an idea for a story. Other times, finding an idea isn’t quite so straightforward. Finding the perfect concept for the next book could take weeks, if not months.
HOW THE MURDER CRUMBLES is the first of a new series, and writing this book was no easy feat. After all, when you’re starting from scratch, there’s so much to consider – the characters, the setting, the plot, and so on. But with my experience, I knew I had the skills to pull it off. And what made this project extra special was that I teamed up with my agent to dream up the series idea – so you know it’s going to be good!
I knew I wanted to write another culinary themed cozy mystery series, and I wanted it set in Connecticut. The idea of a bakery intrigued me, but it needed to have a twist that made it different from other bakery cozy mysteries. That’s when I stumbled across cookie bouquets and down the rabbit hole of Pinterest and YouTube I went. Not only did I come out of that research session with ideas, but I also came out of it wanting to bake cookies.
Once I knew what my protagonist’s career was, I began brainstorming her character. Next, I developed the secondary characters in the series. Then I turned to plotting the murder. A nickname popped into my head: Queen Bea. I knew she was the murder victim. By the end of that session, I knew all about Bea and what she did to get herself murdered. With that information, I could create the suspects in her murder. It was so much fun.
Looking back on the process, I can see how each idea built on a previous idea to create the story I wanted to write.
I hope this insight into where this author gets her ideas helps you better understand the writer’s brain. Sometimes it can be a scary place, but it’s always entertaining.
About Debra Sennefelder
Debra Sennefelder, the author of the Food Blogger Mystery series, the Resale Boutique Mystery series, and the Cookie Shop mystery series, is an avid reader who reads across a range of genres, but mystery fiction is her obsession. Her interest in people and relationships is channeled into her novels against a backdrop of crime and mystery. When she’s not reading, she enjoys cooking and baking and as a former food blogger, she is constantly taking photographs of her food. Yeah, she’s that person.
Born and raised in New York City, she now lives and writes in Connecticut with her family. She’s worked in pre-hospital care, retail and publishing. Her writing companions are her adorable and slightly spoiled Shih-Tzus, Susie, and Billy.
Interesting story about a female line of witches that features three women from different times: Kate who lives in 2019; Altha who lived in 1619; and Violet who lived in 1942. These women have faced challenges in their lives. Kate is married to an abusive husband; Altha was on trial for practicing witchcraft; and Violet was raped by a relative. They all have an interest in nature from insects to plants. Kate is an entomologist. Escaping from her husband after learning she’s pregnant, Kate goes to her great aunt Violet’s cottage that she inherited. There she discovers secrets that are tied into her family.
I enjoyed this story, although I thought the women-centered viewpoint was overemphasized. However, the twist at the end earned it five starts from me. This is the author’s first book, and I look forward to seeing what she writes next.
After tragedy struck three years earlier, art sleuth Carmen De Luca vowed to never work in the field again. But fifty is too young to fill her days with water aerobics and bingo, so when her former partner calls and begs for her help, Carmen gladly agrees.
Yet after their first assignment – the recovery of a rare medieval prayer book from an eccentric collector living in rural France – goes horribly wrong, Carmen ends up in the crosshairs of both the local police and a murderer!
With her target dead and the stolen book missing, she and her partner will have to pull out all of the stops to sleuth out the true killer’s identity – before their stay in France becomes permanent.
Introducing Carmen De Luca, an art sleuth with a nose for mystery and the job of locating valuable artwork stolen from museums around the world. If you love strong and resourceful heroines, puzzling mysteries, and a dash of art history, pick up Collecting Can Be Murder now!
Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries:
Book One: Collecting Can Be Murder
Book Two: A Statue To Die For
More adventures coming soon!
These mysteries contain no graphic violence, sex, or strong language.
GUEST POST
Creating a New, Fictional World
By Jennifer S. Alderson
Starting a new series is an exciting adventure because anything is possible. Yet, it is
also a daunting task for the same reason!
After releasing my nineth novel in the Travel Can Be Murder series, it was time to
start on a new idea that had been niggling in the back of my brain for months, but I
hadn’t yet worked up the courage to try writing it.
The biggest obstacle was that I wanted to write this series in first person – something
that terrified me immensely. First person means everything is told from the narrator’s
perspective, which makes it quite restricting to plot and write in comparison to third
person. Yet it can be a delight to read – if the author does it right.
The impetus to create a new, fictional world, was being invited to write a short story
for an anthology entitled, A Bookworm of a Suspect. It took several tries before I
finally found Carmen’s voice, but I now quite enjoy writing from her first-person
perspective!
The resulting story, A Book To Die For, inspired the characters and plotlines for the
Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries. While I had a solid idea of what Carmen did
for a living, I still had to flush out the kinds of assignments she would be given, as
well as the supporting cast of characters and types of settings she would be visiting.
ChoosingtheRightSettings
The settings of the novels in my Travel Can Be Murder series and Zelda Richardson
Mysteries were important to the storylines, and the locations often influenced the
kinds of murder mysteries my protagonists had to solve. Because travel is important
to me, I want to make certain that the setting is also meaningful in this new series,
even if the specific location is no longer as important to the storyline or plot.
So the next task I had, was deciding how to infuse these books with travel, in a
different way than I had previously done. Which is why I decided to have the settings
in Carmen’s books be restricted to “fancy places” members of high society enjoyed
gathering in – luxurious chateaus, villas, castles, museums, and yachts, for example.
Carmen does share information with the reader about where she is at, but the focus
is not on traveling around the city or country, but on a specific location or two. Not to
say that my art sleuth does not hit the road now and again!
In book one, she is inside of a French villa for the entire novel, which makes it the
least travel-oriented of the novels. Yet in book two, A Statue to Die For, she is on a
boat sailing up the Belgian Coast and makes a stop in Antwerp. So she is also
sharing her perspective on locations not central to any of the books in my other two
series. Books three and four will take readers to lesser-known locations in the
Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy.
LightonArtHistory
The choice to make Carmen an art sleuth, instead of a plain ole’ detective, has to do
with my personal love of art and culture! It gives me an excuse to learn something
new about an object or artist, as well as share my passion for art with readers.
However, I had already written four art mysteries and didn’t want to rehash the same
kind of storylines. The Zelda Richardson books are quite heavy on art history, which
is why I chose to make the Carmen books lighter qua tone and level of historical
information relayed to the reader.
This also helped to simplify the research needed for each of the Carmen mysteries.
For the Zelda books, I spent six to nine months researching plot lines
because those mysteries are tied to the missing artwork’s history.
For the Carmen books, the missing object’s history is not necessarily connected to
the mystery central to the story. Which meant I only needed a few weeks to find a
great painting, sculpture, rare book, or other cultural treasure that is either truly
missing, or could be. For example, in book one, Collecting Can Be Murder, Carmen
is searching for a rare illuminated manuscript – the Avron Book of Hours – that does
not really exist. However, the art historical information Carmen relays to readers in
the book about these ancient prayer books origins, contents, and history, is.
I hope I’ve made you curious about Carmen De Luca’s adventures and hope you’ll
join her on a mission or two!
About Jennifer S. Alderson
Jennifer S. Alderson was born in San Francisco, grew up in Seattle, and currently lives in Amsterdam. After traveling extensively around Asia, Oceania, and Central America, she lived in Darwin, Australia, before finally settling in the Netherlands.
Jennifer’s love of travel, art, and culture inspires her award-winning Zelda Richardson Mystery series, her Travel Can Be Murder Cozy Mysteries, and her Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries. Her background in journalism, multimedia development, and art history enriches her novels.
When not writing, she can be found perusing a museum, biking around Amsterdam, or enjoying a coffee along the canal while planning her next research trip.
Broadway: A Charlotte Smart Mystery by Stan Charnofsky
About Broadway
Broadway: A Charlotte Smart Mystery Cozy Mystery 3rd in Series Setting – New York, Broadway Theatre District, and Times Square Hawkshaw Press (April 13, 2023) Paperback : 248 pages ISBN-10 : 195722407X ISBN-13 : 978-1957224077 Digital ASIN : B0C2HX23KX
Charlotte Smart is back, and New York may never be the same again!
After helping to solve murder mysteries in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 70-year-old Charlotte Smart is summoned to The Big Apple by an actor brother, Broadway, whose beautiful fashion model sister, Brooklyn, was pushed down a flight of stairs.
Charlotte, who insists she is not a police-woman, is set up in a posh hotel in Times Square, and teams with a big-city detective. It’s a heady and stirring challenge.
Is Charlotte ready for this tough new adventure?
About Stan Charnofsky
STAN CHARNOFSKY is a retired professor of psychology at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), where he taught for more than fifty years. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to his work at CSUN, Stan also writes books, and it could be said that his life reads like one. Before teaching, in the 1950s Stan signed with the New York Yankees where he played in their farm system for six years. He later managed teams in Edmonton and St. Petersburg. Later still, Stan worked as the assistant coach at USC under the famous Rod Dedeaux, who was voted College Baseball Coach of the Century. Stan also served as head coach at CSUN from 1962-1966, with one championship team. He was the founding director of the Educational Opportunities Program at CSUN (then known as Valley State College). Stan was inducted into the CSUN Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016. This was followed, in 2018, by his induction into the USC Baseball Alumni Hall of Fame. Stan is the former President (and a current board member) of the National Association for Humanistic Psychology. In 2016, Stan received the Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN. And of course, Stan writes books. His numerous publications include When Women Leave Men: How Men Feel, How Men Heal (New World Library) and The Deceived Society (Trafford). Stan resides in Northridge, California.
Copper Waters: A New Zealand Cottage Mystery (Annalisse Series) by Marlene Bell
About Copper Waters
Copper Waters: A New Zealand Cottage Mystery (Annalisse Series) Cozy Mystery 4th in Series Setting – New Zealand – South Island Ewephoric Publishing (October 7, 2022) Paperback : 342 pages ISBN-10 : 0999539493 ISBN-13 : 978-0999539491 Digital Print Length : 280 pages ASIN : B0BL42NBFY
A rural New Zealand vacation turns poisonous.
Antiquities expert Annalisse Drury and tycoon Alec Zavos are at an impasse in their relationship when Alec refuses to clear up a paternity issue with an ex-lover.
Frustrated with his avoidance when their future is at stake, Annalisse accepts an invitation from an acquaintance to fly to New Zealand—hoping to escape the recent turbulence in her life.
But even Annalisse’s cottage idyll on the family sheep farm isn’t immune to intrigue.
Alec sends a mutual friend and detective, Bill Drake, to follow her, and a local resident who accompanies them from the Christchurch airport dies mysteriously soon after. A second violent death finds Annalisse and Bill at odds with the official investigations.
The local police want to close both cases as quickly as possible—without unearthing the town’s dirty secrets.
As she and Bill pursue their own leads at serious cost, the dual mysteries force Annalisse to question everything she thought she knew about family ties, politics, and the art of small-town betrayal.
EXCERPT
“Nothing’s sinking in.” I pass the note to Alec and prepare myself. “Would you mind reading it aloud?”
“She and Ethan traveled together.” He gazes at me.
“Okay, we’d considered that.”
“Kate has business to conclude in New Zealand before she returns to New York. She asks me not to mention this to you until she arrives in the States but didn’t give a reason. Kate says she’ll meet you in person when she’s ready.”
“Seriously? Where does she plan to live? With me in Greenwich? The Goshen farm could be sold by now. Does she mention Jeremy finding her another place?”
Alec scans the page randomly. “No, she didn’t.”
I scratch my scalp and shake my head. “Then my sheep station trip to New Zealand is perfect timing. I have to leave now and see if I can catch her before she skips out. Ethan must know where Kate is. If it’s all the same, we’ll hang on to the tickets for our April trip, and I’ll buy my own way for this flight.” Tugging at my sweatshirt with clammy hands, I take the note from Alec and sail it into the flames, watching paper crinkle and burn on the log.
He steps forward, his chiseled profile gawking at the fire in disbelief.
“Were you ever going to tell me about Kate’s message?” A sob chokes my windpipe. “If it weren’t for Ethan’s invite, I doubt that we’d be talking about Kate.”
“Babe, I thought by staying neutral…” He twists his lips and looks at his shoes. “Seeing your reaction now; it was a mistake not to tell you.”
“That totally blows.” I ball my hands into fists. “More like you were afraid that I’d run down there to find her.” I’m mad enough to send smoke signals, so I take slower, calming breaths.
“If I’d told you… Yeah, I worried you’d run off. The ordeal in Italy, then Peter Gregory terrorizing you, and Helga has had barely enough time to settle around here. Your safety doesn’t include encouraging you to hop on a plane to another country so soon after a trauma like that. Waiting for Kate’s return felt right to me. At some point, I hope you’ll see things from my side. Kate put me in the middle, but it’s you I worry about.”
Willing myself to relax, I take his hand to get him to focus on me instead of the floor. “I know that.”
Peter Gregory, an old coworker from my past job at another gallery, is responsible for a young woman’s murder in Lecce, near the Mediterranean Sea on Italy’s eastern shore. Alec and I went to Southern Italy for a working vacation that spun us into solving more than one homicide in order for Alec to sell his dad’s Signorile Corporation, a sports car company.
“After a shower, I’ll give your mom a call from the car on the way home. I might have trouble getting a flight out on the spur of the moment, but if I do, I hope you’ll help me.”
“Anna, we should discuss this.” He catches my wrist. “I’d like to go along. Say the word, and I’m on that plane with you. Allow what’s happened with Kate to simmer. You might feel differently in the morning.”
Grasping Kate’s locket beneath my shirt, I slide the chain over my head and cup Alec’s hand, dropping the necklace there.
“Hold on to my locket while I’m gone. It’s the most precious thing I own. That way, you’ll know I’m coming back to you.” On my tiptoes, our salty kiss calls a loneliness— In a flash, two people are about to have a hemisphere drifting between them from outside influences that want to manipulate us. “Gen will be here to see Noah in a few hours, and you have him until Sunday. Let me go, Alec, and please wait for me at Brookehaven. I have to make this trip by myself. If there’s the slightest chance that Kate’s with Ethan or he knows where she is, I have to go. I’ve already lost precious time.” I start for the drawing room doors and remember something left undone. “Oh, and sorry for the sticky mess in your stable office.”
In a dead run, I’m biting a quivering lip. On the way to Alec’s bedroom suite, I send Chase a text to hold Ethan’s box and note for me at the gallery. True to form, Kate shoves us all out of our comfort zones, where I’m certain to find a disaster waiting for me to book a ticket to New Zealand in a mad rush.
About Marlene M. Bell
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Marlene M. Bell is an eclectic mystery writer, artist, photographer, and she raises sheep on a ranch in wooded East Texas with her husband, Gregg.
Marlene’s Annalisse series boasts numerous honors including the Independent Press Award for Best Mystery (Spent Identity,) and FAPA— Florida Author’s President’s Gold Award for two other installments, (Stolen Obsession and Scattered Legacy.) Her mysteries with a touch of romantic suspense are found at her websites or at online retail outlets.
She also offers the first of her children’s picture books, Mia and Nattie: One Great Team! Based on true events from the Bell’s ranch. The simple text and illustrations are a touching tribute of compassion and love between a little girl and her lamb.
The main character, Cussy Mary Carter, also known as “Bluet,” lives in Troublesome Creek, Kentucky in 1936. She is one of the last of a line of blue-skinned people who existed then. This well-researched book follows Cussy as she joins the Pack Horse Librarians to deliver books and reading material throughout the town. Her father, a coal miner and widower, wants her to find a husband and uses a courting candle to attract one. Unfortunately, the man who asks for her hand abuses her and dies during a fit of anger. Because her husband was influential in the town, her “pa” makes a deal with the doctor who comes to their home to hide the body. In exchange, he allows the doctor to examine and test Cussy hoping to find out the cause of Cussy’s blue color and to correct it.
When the cause is determined to be a genetic condition and the doctor treats Cussy with a cure that makes her white, the medicine makes her sick and only lasts a day for each dose. Her father wants her to stop taking it, but she refuses, believing that it will change people’s opinion of her and that the side effects will resolve in time.
As Cussy continues her work bringing books to the townsfolk on her mule, she is pleased when people greet her and look forward to her arrival. Most of the people she serves are sickly and very poor. A young boy who she becomes close to dies from starvation despite her attempts to bring him what little food she can manage.
Two women in charge of the library project consider her “colored” and treat her as below them even when she takes the medicine that makes her white. Besides her book patrons and father, the only other person who views her as an equal is a newcomer to town named Jackson Lovett.
After a young woman, one of her book patrons, dies following childbirth and asks her to take the baby, Cussy discovers that her father has been killed in a mining accident. The day he left, he lit another courting candle. Lovett is the man who responds to it, declares his love for Cussy, and asks her to marry him even though she no longer takes the medicine for her skin condition and has a baby daughter.
On her wedding day, after the ceremony, the sheriff and a group of his supporters put Lovett in jail for marrying Cussy because of a law banning interracial marriages. The doctor tries to persuade them that Cussy is white but suffers a genetic condition that makes her skin appear blue.
The book doesn’t have the happiest of endings and is a sad story, which is why I didn’t give it 5 stars. Readers who enjoy less depressing tales might not find it to their taste. However, it’s an interesting novel based on true historical facts, and the author has written a sequel called The Book Woman’s Daughter.
It’s been a crazy May. We celebrated my birthday and my husband’s, the one-year anniversary of the loss of my Stripey cat, had a garage sale at our house, and found a new home in South Carolina.
I wrote a blog post from Stripey’s point of view up on Rainbow Bridge about the year he’s been away from us. You can read it here: https://wp.me/p7XcB0-1il.
Our garage sale was a lot of work, but we were able to get rid of many of our items that we hope found a good new home.
We recently came home from a second house-hunting trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, but also visited South Carolina where we found a home at the Edgewater Community that features a golf course, lake, clubhouses, a pool, and 70 activities a month arranged by an activity director. They are also opening a restaurant by the golf course. While we aren’t as close to stores and other places, the home prices are reasonable, and we’re an hour from Charlotte. My daughter will have an apartment upstairs, and we’ll finally have more than one bathroom and a dining room. We will also have a screened-in porch for the cats, an office for my husband, and a sitting room for me.
We’re still going to be on Long Island for a bit because they’re building our home which takes approximately 9-11 months. This is our lot.
My book news is that I’ve finished and submitted my third Buttercup Bend cozy mystery, The Case of the Llama Raising Librarian, to my publisher. I’m still waiting on the cover and an editor, but I hope the book will be published this summer.
My June newsletter will be out before Memorial Day. New subscribers are eligible for special giveaways. You can subscribe at https://debbiedelouise.com.
Ruff Drafts 