Carla Neggers's Blog, page 21
May 11, 2016
Running and Writing
After a couple of weeks away helping my daughter with her new baby, I’m back home in Vermont, writing and running almost every day. My route is greening up with new leaves on the trees and fresh grass, and the flowers of a northern New England May are coming into bloom. We’ll have lilacs before too long! The new layer of cow manure on the fields can be a bit hard to take for a gasping runner, but I’ve learned to cover my mouth.
Sometimes I think about a work in progress when I run. I don’t try to, it just happens. For the most part, though, I listen to a podcast during the first couple of miles of warm-up and then simply tune into my surroundings. The sounds of the river, the stream, the birds, the smells of grass, flowers, mud and, yes, cow manure.
I started running again last year after a long hiatus. In a burst of New Year’s energy and optimism, I’d signed up for the Covered Bridges Half Marathon here in Vermont. It’s held the first Sunday in June and it seemed like a good idea in December. But I couldn’t just show up on race day expecting to run 13.1 miles. So, in January, I started training by running for a minute.
That’s right. A minute.
As a writer, I’m tuned in to the power of incremental progress. A novel starts with Page 1, Chapter 1. Over the next eight weeks, I turned my one minute of running into 30 minutes. Not bad but it still wasn’t 13.1 miles. Next step was to dive into a 12-week novice half-marathon training program. There were setbacks with weather, injuries, illness, ice and heat, but I kept at it right up until race day.
I’d never run a race much less a half-marathon. I had no idea what I was doing but everyone else did! I got through it, finishing without collapsing, my modest goal for the day. In the process of those months, I discovered I love to run. When I hit hurdles with a work-in-progress, I remember how my one minute in mid-January turned into 13.1 miles on June 7. Sometimes we just have to keep going, one step at a time.
Happy reading!
Carla
March 28, 2016
Waiting for spring
I know, technically it’s spring. It just doesn’t feel that way today on our hilltop in northern New England! We have a fire in the woodstove on this damp, chilly day. We love to travel this time of year and have enjoyed wandering through the English Cotswolds and along quiet Irish lanes. The photo with me in my orange Irish coat was taken a couple of years ago on a spring walk on the Iveragh Peninsula on the southwest Irish coast. What a stunning day that was! I swear I remember every step.
I love to let my mind wander as I wander, but best of all is to be fully present, aware of the breeze, the drops of rain on a blossom, the smell of wet grass…all of which nourish this writer’s soul. Below is a photo of the English Cotswolds on one of our spring visits. I can see Oliver York, a recurring eccentric character in my Sharpe & Donovan series, walking past this wall, but I swear I was only thinking about the stunning scenery when I was there. 
Happy spring wherever you are!
March 15, 2016
An Irish walk
I love spring in Ireland, and this walk on the southwest coast is so peaceful and beautiful. Walking is good for my creative soul! 
February 21, 2016
February 16, 2016
The Spring at Moss Hill Character Q & A
THE SPRING AT MOSS HILL
Character Q&A
Here’s a fun Q&A with Kylie Shaw and Russ Colton, the two main characters in my latest Swift River Valley novel. Enjoy! ~Carla
What brought you to Knights Bridge?
Kylie: A friend of mine got a job in Iowa and offered me the use of her country home in Knights Bridge. It was furnished, quiet and I didn’t know anyone and figured I wouldn’t have any distractions. I’m an illustrator, and my career has taken off with the success of a series of children’s books about badgers. I needed and wanted to focus on my work for a few months. Knights Bridge seemed like the perfect choice for an artistic retreat.
Russ: Work. When I got out of the navy, I became a licensed private investigator. I expected to stay in San Diego, but my brother had moved to Hollywood to pursue his dreams. I owe Marty. Long story. He works at a bar, making ends meet, and he introduced me to one of his regulars, a costume designer named Daphne Stewart. Not her real name. That’s Debbie Sanderson. She changed it
after she left Knights Bridge as a young woman. Now she’s going back to give a master class in costume design—another long story—and I’m indulging her sense of drama and checking out the place for security risks.
What’s your favorite book?
Kylie: Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. I’ve read it so many times!
Russ: I learned to enjoy reading while I was in the navy. I can’t say I have a favorite. I read a lot of nonfiction. I started The Three Musketeers on my flight east from LA. Can’t go wrong with a sword fight.
How would you describe a perfect first date?
Kylie: I’ve had some terrible first dates. Only dates, as it turned out. A Red Sox game, for instance. I left early! I enjoy baseball, but for a first date, I prefer a candlelit dinner, champagne and a quiet, romantic setting.
Russ: One that leads to a second date. I guess that’s not a great answer. I like to do something that suits the woman I’m seeing but doesn’t make me squirm. I probably wouldn’t do well at a harpsichord concert. A picnic and a walk on the beach would be good. No pressure, just a fun time.
Where were you on your 18th birthday?
Kylie: My younger sister, Lila, and I spent the day in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts. Lila already knew she would follow in our father’s footsteps and become a veterinarian, but she also knew I wanted to be an artist and indulged me. She loved any painting depicting animals. I think that visit helped inspire my badger family.
Russ: My father took me on a scenic helicopter ride over Sedona. He loved flying. Afterward Marty, my older brother, took me out for burritos at this dive he knew in Phoenix. He had all these plans even then. It was a good day.
For more details about The Spring at Moss Hill , please click here. Thanks!
February 12, 2016
Inspiration behind The Spring at Moss Hill
Most of my stories start with one or more characters, and with The Spring at Moss Hill, I could see Kylie Shaw, as a relative newcomer to little Knights Bridge, deliberately keeping a low profile even as she falls in love with her adopted New England town. She expected her stay there to be temporary. She’s an illustrator of children’s books and rented a house for an “artistic retreat.” I’ve done that myself as a writer, although never for several months as Kylie does! I stayed in a cottage on the southwest Irish coast for three weeks—no car, even!—and while Kylie has her own reasons for her retreat, mine gave me insights into some of the benefits and the hazards. Unlike Kylie, of course, I was married with two grown children.
Enter Russ Colton, a private investigator from Southern California who is both an attraction and a threat to Kylie as she figures out what’s next in her life. She has a secret—she’s the illustrator and author of a series of popular children’s books about a family of badgers in a town not unlike Knights Bridge. Russ borrows a loft-style apartment at the renovated mill where Kylie has moved while she sorts out her life. Being from small-town New England myself, I am familiar with mills like the fictional one at Moss Hill, built in the mid-nineteenth century as a straw-hat factory. One of our favorite renovated mills is Simon Pearce, which produces hand-blown glass and has a restaurant on the Ottauquechee River near us in Vermont. It was great fun creating my own old mill with its own unique history.
Most of all, The Spring at Moss Hill belongs to the characters—Kylie, Russ and the people of little Knights Bridge.
Happy reading!
Carla
February 1, 2016
THE SPRING AT MOSS HILL
First Time in Print
MIRA Books
Mass Market
On Sale Now
A Swift River Valley Novel
Order:
– Amazon
– Indigo
– Kobo
– iBooks
New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers returns to charming Swift River Valley, where spring is the time for fresh starts and new beginnings…
Kylie Shaw has found a home and a quiet place to work as an illustrator of children’s books in little Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. No one seems to know her here—and she likes it that way. She carefully guards her privacy in the refurbished nineteenth-century hat factory where she has a loft. And then California private investigator Russ Colton moves in.
Russ is in Knights Bridge to keep his client and friend, eccentric Hollywood costume designer Daphne Stewart, out of trouble. Keeping tabs on Daphne while she considers starting a small children’s theater in town doesn’t seem like a tough job until he runs into Kylie. Her opposition to converting part of the old hat factory into a theater is a challenge. But his bigger challenge is getting Kylie to let loose a little…like the adventurous characters she depicts in her work.
Kylie and Russ have more in common than they or anyone else would ever expect. They’re both looking for a place to belong, and if they’re able to let go of past mistakes and learn to trust again, they just might find what they need in Knights Bridge…and each other.
“Neggers is back with another episode in her quintessential New England series, where her masterful attention to detail, conversational dialogue and past-character catchup expertly draw readers into her potent mix of romance, mystery and small-town drama.” —Top Pick! RT Book Reviews
Read Excerpt
“What do you think a private investigator would want me to stock in his fridge and pantry?”
The provocative question came from Ruby O’Dunn, up front by the cash register at the Swift River Country Store, a fixture in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts, for at least a century. Ruby was speaking to Christopher Sloan, a local firefighter. Kylie Shaw, out of sight in the wine section, had spotted them coming into the store. Now she wished she’d been paying closer attention to their conversation. Private investigator? What private investigator?
“He’s from Beverly Hills,” Chris said. “I’d start with that.”
“He works for a Beverly Hills law firm. I don’t know if he’s actually from Beverly Hills.”
“Close enough.”
“It’d almost be easier if we were having him stay with my mother. She’s got a fully stocked kitchen.”
“She also has goats.”
“Don’t get me started. I cleaned out their stalls this morning. It’s bedlam at her place. Even staying there a few days would be a lot to ask. Moss Hill is a much better choice.”
Kylie held tight to a bottle of expensive champagne.
Moss Hill?
Moss Hill was a former nineteenth-century hat factory that had undergone extensive renovations and opened in March, with offices, meeting space and residences. She’d moved into one of its four loft-style apartments five weeks ago. So far, she was the only tenant. She accepted that the other three apartments wouldn’t stay empty, but she hadn’t ever—not once—imagined a private investigator moving in, even temporarily.
She missed what Chris said in response to Ruby. Ruby went on about wild mushrooms, artisan cheese and artichokes, but Chris finally told her to focus on basics. “Put a six-pack in the fridge,” he said. “It’ll be fine.”
Ruby muttered something Kylie couldn’t make out, and Chris left, apparently with a six-pack of his own.
Kylie placed the champagne in her basket. She’d promised herself she would take time to celebrate once the daffodils were in bloom, and they were definitely in bloom. The last time she’d come up for air and tried to celebrate had been in August. She’d ended up at a Red Sox game with a negative, burned-out carpenter who complained for seven innings. She’d been relieved when the game didn’t go into extra innings and had told him she’d had a call from her sister, a veterinary student at Tufts, to get out of going back to Knights Bridge with him. Before that, she’d split a bottle of wine with a condescending sculptor in Paris, celebrating her first children’s book as both author and illustrator. These little children’s drawings you do are sweet, Kylie, but… He’d shrugged, leaving her to imagine the rest of what he was pretending to be too polite to say. She couldn’t make a living as an illustrator, they weren’t real art, they weren’t any good, anyone could do it. It had been that kind of but.
She headed to the cash register with her basket. She could always have her champagne alone on her balcony and toast the stars and the moon, with gratitude.
Maybe invite the Beverly Hills PI.
That’d be the day. She didn’t plan to do anything to invite his scrutiny.
Ruby was lifting a basket off a stack by the register. Kylie had met all four O’Dunn sisters around town—the country store, the library, the town offices where their mother worked—but didn’t know any of them well. She’d moved to Knights Bridge last summer and kept telling herself she wanted to get to know people there, but so far, they remained acquaintances, not friends. Ruby and Ava, fraternal twins and the youngest O’Dunns, were theater graduate students, Ava in New York, Ruby in Boston. A natural redhead like her three sisters, Ruby had dyed her hair plum-black and tied it back with a bright pink scarf. She wore a long black skirt, a white T-shirt and a denim jacket, with black boots and no jewelry.
“Oh, Kylie, hi,” Ruby said. “I didn’t see you back there.”
“I couldn’t resist the wine sale.”
“Ah. Champagne, I see. Excellent. Did you hear Chris Sloan and me talking just now? A private investigator will be here from California tomorrow. He’ll be staying in the apartment across the hall from you.”
“What’s he investigating?”
“One of his clients is giving a master class at Moss Hill next Saturday,” Ruby said. “Daphne Stewart—she has roots in town.”
“She was here last September for the vintage fashion show at the library,” Kylie said. “Hollywood costume designer. I remember.”
“Did you go?”
“No, I didn’t.” She’d been fiddling with a project ahead of hitting the Send button. Work was always her excuse for not being more social. “I heard it was a great success.”
“The fashion show raised a lot of money for the library and the historical society.” Ruby hooked her basket on one arm. “Daphne’s a character. Russ Colton—the private investigator arriving tomorrow—is making sure everything’s set for her arrival. It’ll be Moss Hill’s first public event. You should come, Kylie. You’ll be right there.”
“Thanks. I’ll give it some thought.”
Ruby held up her basket. “I need to fill this up. I should get moving. Good to see you.”
“You, too,” Kylie said, but Ruby had spotted someone she knew and taken off down the canned-goods aisle.
Kylie set her basket on the counter.
A private investigator and a respected, longtime Hollywood costume designer on their way to town—to Moss Hill.
Just what I need.
She held back a groan. If she couldn’t fake excitement, best to be neutral.
She unloaded her groceries. In addition to the champagne, she’d picked up plain yogurt, cheddar cheese, flax-seed bread, coffee and mixed spring greens, all local to her quiet part of New England, west of Boston.
After paying for her groceries, she stepped outside. The beautiful April afternoon greeted her like a warm smile from a friend. She took in the quaint, picturesque village center. She was standing on Main Street, opposite the common, an oval-shaped green surrounded by classic houses, the library, churches, the town hall and a handful of small businesses. The long winter had released its grip. The grass was green, the trees were leafing out, and daffodils were in bloom. She had been working nonstop for weeks—months—and getting out into the warm spring air felt remarkably good, almost as if she’d come to life herself.
She noticed dark-haired, broad-shouldered Christopher Sloan farther down Main Street. He was the fifth of the six Sloan siblings, with four older brothers. She couldn’t imagine having five brothers. She didn’t have any brothers. The O’Dunns and the Sloans and other families had lived in Knights Bridge for decades, even for generations. Ruby and Chris had grown up together. That created bonds and a familiarity that Kylie couldn’t pretend to have in her adopted town.
Or want.
Not now at least.
She arranged her groceries in her bike bags, aware of a vague uneasiness about the arrival of a private investigator at Moss Hill. It wasn’t just that she wasn’t thrilled about it. She’d worked hard not to draw attention to herself during her months in Knights Bridge.
But it would all work out, she told herself as she climbed on to her bike. She had champagne, food and coffee. If she so much as sensed this Russ Colton was going to cause trouble for her, she could hide out in her apartment for days, content in her world of evil villains, handsome princes and daring princesses.
Moss Hill was quiet even for a Saturday afternoon. Kylie’s mud-spattered Mini was the only vehicle in the parking lot, so new it didn’t have a single pit or pothole. She could feel the ten-mile round-trip ride in her thighs as she jumped off her bike. She’d relished the slight breeze and the fresh scents of spring in the air on this warmest day of the year so far.
She grabbed her groceries out of her bike bags and gave them a quick check. Somehow she’d managed not to break or spill anything. She started to slip her phone into her jacket pocket but saw she had a voice mail.
Her sister, Lila, three years younger, still hard at work as a veterinary student in Boston. Also still a chronic worrier who was convinced her only sibling was turning into a recluse.
Kylie listened to the message, smiling at its predictability. “I hope you’re not answering because you’re off having a great time with friends. Call back whenever. Just saying hi.”
Lila had known at four that she wanted to be a veterinarian like their father. She’d never wavered. Kylie had always been more interested in drawing pictures of the animals that came in and out of the Shaw clinic than in operating on them.
She hadn’t been out with friends. She’d missed her sister’s call because she’d turned off her phone while she was on her bike.
She’d call Lila back later.
Kylie left her bike on the rack by the front entrance and followed a breezeway to the residential building, the smaller of the two brick-faced structures that formed the mill, or at least what remained of its original complex. Built in 1860 to capitalize on the burgeoning market for palm-leaf straw hats, the renovated mill was situated on a small river on the outskirts of town. Its namesake rose up across the road.
Moss Hill was one of the many knobs and hills that formed the uplands that had helped make the region attractive as a source of drinking water for metropolitan Boston. The bowl-shaped Swift River Valley had caught the eye of engineers and politicians, and the massive Quabbin Reservoir was created in the decades prior to World War II. Four small towns were disincorporated, their populations relocated, their homes and businesses razed, their graves and monuments moved, and Windsor Dam and Goodnough Dike were built, blocking the flow of three branches of the Swift River and Beaver Brook and, through the 1940s, allowing the valley to flood.
Even before Quabbin, the mill had been in decline, little realistic hope for its future. Straw hats had been going out of fashion, and by 1930, the mill stopped producing them. Subsequent owners hadn’t succeeded with alternative businesses. Eventually, the old buildings were boarded up and abandoned. A few years ago, a local architect and his business partners had bought the property and begun the painstaking process of demolition, renovation and refurbishment.
Kylie took the industrial-style stairs to the second floor. In addition to its four apartments, the building included a well-equipped exercise room, lounge and lower-level parking and storage. Although she’d grown up in the western exurbs of Boston, she’d never heard of Knights Bridge until a friend, an art professor recently hired by the University of Iowa, had told her about her country house. You need a place to work for a few months, and I need a renter until I figure out what to do.
Kylie had only meant to stay in Knights Bridge three months—long enough to catch up on work and clear her head. But three months had turned into six, then eight, and when her friend decided to sell the house because Iowa was just too far away, she had taken a look at Moss Hill.
She’d been captivated by the transformation of the old mill and had surprised herself when she fell in love with her second-floor loft-style apartment. She’d loved the house she’d been renting, too. Charming, quiet and romantic, it had cried out for kids, dogs, chickens—a family.
She unlocked her door and went inside, relaxing now that she was back in her space. She set her groceries on the counter in the kitchen area. She was only a little more than a month into living here, but the open layout suited her. Tall ceilings, arched floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river, brick and white-painted walls and gleaming wood floors combined old and new, the specialty, she’d come to learn, of the owner and architect, Mark Flanagan. He’d thought of everything to make the space comfortable, contemporary and efficient. His wife, who worked at a local sawmill owned by her family, had helped with the finishing touches.
Since her previous rental had come furnished, Kylie had been scrambling to get things pulled together for this place. A buttery-leather sectional had been delivered a week ago, and she’d finally given up a ratty futon she’d dragged out of her parents’ basement and bought a decent bed, queen-size with washed-linen sheets. She hated scratchy sheets.
She’d brought her worktable with her. She’d made it herself in college out of a finished birch-wood door on trestles, and it had gone with her almost everywhere since then. Not Paris or London; she’d left it in storage then.
She put the champagne in the refrigerator. She needed something concrete to celebrate before she opened it. It didn’t have to be big, but it had to be more than daffodils being in bloom. That felt forced.
Because it is forced, she thought.
She put away the rest of her groceries and flopped on the couch, tugging the clip out of her hair, which, despite being pulled back, was tangled from her bike ride. It was pale blond and past her shoulders, and she kept promising herself she would get to a hair salon. She was okay with a pair of scissors and could manage a quick trim, but she wasn’t a pro.
Too restless to sit for long, she got to her feet, yanking off the lightweight jacket she’d worn into town. She kicked off her shoes and walked in her stocking feet to her worktable. She’d been working on Little Red Riding Hood for only a few days. It was the third in a series of fairy tales she was illustrating. She’d finished Hansel and Gretel and Sleeping Beauty.
She knew it would take some effort to get her into the world of a clever wolf, a dark forest and an adventurous girl with a picnic basket.
Kylie sank onto her chair, feeling unsettled, strangely out of her element. Had she made a mistake moving here?
But she knew she hadn’t. As fantastic as it was, the house she’d rented had made her think about what she didn’t have. This place worked fine, given her solitary ways and her bad luck with men.
Read an exclusive THE SPRING AT MOSS HILL Character Q&A!
Read an exclusive Landmarks of the Swift River Valley
Learn about inspiration behind THE SPRING AT MOSS HILL in this exclusive A Letter from Carla Neggers.
Don’t Miss the rest of the Swift River Valley Series!
eNovella original
Series Book #1
Series Book #2
Series Book #3
Series Book #4
Series Book #5
In SECRETS OF THE LOST SUMMER, the first book in CARLA NEGGERS’ contemporary Swift River Valley Series, the New York Times bestselling author takes readers home—to the New England Swift River Valley of her youth.
An engaging contemporary romance.”—Publishers Weekly
Neggers captures readers’ attention with her usual flair and brilliance and gives us a romance, a mystery and a lesson in history. She also presents breathtaking views of a real New England past and present, characters who stay with us long after we close the book and more than one romance. Her story will engage readers all the way through.” —RT BOOK REVIEWS, Top Pick!
January 26, 2016
The Spring at Moss Hill is here!
Today is “pub day” for The Spring at Moss Hill, the latest in the Swift River Valley series. It’s now in stores — in print, e-book and audio. Many thanks to readers who preordered the book. I’ve released three short extras on my website that tell a bit about the story behind the story. Click here to read them. I hope you enjoy these short insights into Kylie Shaw and Russ Colton and little Knights Bridge, and I especially hope you enjoy The Spring at Moss Hill!
