Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 178

Wicked Wednesday: Mother May I?

Edith here, on a month of five Wednesdays in May. Who played “Mother May I?” with neighborhood kids out on the front (or back) lawn? I did, for one. Remember? The “mother” faced the group and gave commands: Take two giant steps forward, or tiptoe five tiny steps, or any other kind of forward movement. The child or group of children have to do that, but first they have to ask “Mother May I?” If they don’t, they have to go back to the start. The goal is to reach Mother first and become the new one.

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So let’s talk about other outdoor childhood games we played! Favorites? Not so favorites? In groups vs. individually?

Jessie: I loved Two Square. I had a knack for putting a spin on the ball and sending it out of the opposite square in such a way that it was really tough to reach it. I spent many happy recess hours playing it.

Barb: I saw my cousin last fall and she reminded me of the hours, and hours, and hours

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Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

we spent playing jacks on our grandparents front porch in Sea Girt, New Jersey. I had forgotten all about it, but the minute she said it, I remembered the summer we all played jacks. My manual dexterity is horrendous, as my typing proves, so it was probably good exercise for me, but why was I attracted to it in the first place?

Liz: I loved hopscotch! I remember drawing the squares in everyone’s driveway – mine, my grandparents, friends’ houses. It was probably the only thing I played where I didn’t hurt myself. I also liked playing volleyball in my backyard – my father put up a net and left it there most of the summer so we could play whenever we wanted. I had fun with it until one day I sort of forgot it was there, and I was running through the yard and literally ran into it. I had a giant cut right across my nose for weeks. I wasn’t so fond of volleyball after that, and my new favorite outdoor game became reading…

Sherry: Red light, Green light — Statues — jacks — so many fun games. But a favorite of mine was an after dark game called Jailbreak. One person was it and everyone went to hide. If you got caught you had to sit on a designated front porch. While the person who was it tried to round everyone else up someone would sneak back to release the prisoners yelling jailbreak and the whole thing would start all over again.

Edith: Sherry reminds me of those summer evenings playing outside after dinner with the neighborhood kids until we got called in, sweaty and tired, for a bath and bed. We also had a tether ball in the back yard, with the pole in cement. I could whack that thing for hours. Wind it all the way up one way, let it unroll on its own and whack it the other way.  We also jump roped a lot with friends and sometimes used two ropes. Was that called Double Dutch? Oh, and roller skating in the patio and on the driveway, with the metal kind of skates that clipped onto your shoes and you tightened them with a hex key.

Julie: Sherry’s game sounds like it could be good fun at a mystery conference! I liked four square (must be like two square but with four people). I also enjoyed croquet. We made up our own rules, and had a course that wasn’t up to code, but it was always a ton of fun. But honestly, my favorite outdoor game was reading.

Readers: What were your favorite games to play outdoors? Have you taught them to the next generation, or the next?

I Just Can’t Talk to You

by Barb, in Boothbay Harbor on a gorgeous spring day (finally)

I’ve noticed lately that many of my relationships are defined by technology preferences–both my own and those of the people I communicate with.

[image error]I am an e-mail person–pure and simple. I’ve written before on the blog about how much I hate the phone. Phone calls require synchronous communication–both people have to be on at the same time for meaningful information to be transferred–which means it interrupts whatever you are doing when the call happens, and I hate to be interrupted. I accept that this is a personality quirk. I hate sudden changes of plan, too. I have the whatever the opposite of ADD is. Also, I hate that when you’re talking on the phone, you can’t see the other person’s face and judge it for comprehension, attention, acceptance and so on.

So I hate the phone. And unfortunately, has caused many of my relationships with my phone-preferring friends to drift away. I’ve stayed closest to the distant people in my life who prefer my main mode of communication.

[image error]To me, e-mail was a miracle. It doesn’t have to be synchronous and, as a writerly person, I have time to craft my message. The pressure is off in all kinds of ways. When we first got e-mail, there was quite a long period, over a decade, when it could only be used for internal communication at work. It was a huge improvement over copying memos and sticking them in people’s physical mailboxes, and later a great way to communicate with far-flung colleagues. Then, miracle of miracles, e-mail moved outside the company so we could communicate with customers, suppliers, investors. Fantastic! My social use of e-mail increased on a pace with my use of it at work.

[image error]In a final miraculous step, e-mail appeared on my phone. That formerly loathed device. As a Chief Operating Officer at two higher ed technology companies, Customer Support ultimately reported to me. As you can imagine, our busy season was at the start of the fall semester in the northern hemisphere. From early August when many state college systems in the American south went back to work, through the end of September when the UK universities came online, I was virtually chained to my desk. But when I could follow the long e-mail support threads on my phone to monitor what was going on, I could go anywhere and do anything as long as no real emergency was taking place.

[image error]Alas, as with all technologies, the world has moved on. I know that if I send an evite to a family event, I have to text all my nieces and nephews to GO LOOK AT YOUR E-MAIL, because they never check it. My son, in his mid-thirties, was complaining that the youngest member of his Dungeons and Dragons group, in his early twenties, has asked that they not communicate about dates and places for games via e-mail because he doesn’t know how to use it.

And the number of ways people reach out is a problem for me. Sometimes I have to search all over, through my Facebook private messages, my Facebook fanpage private messages, Twitter and Instragram direct messages, and my Goodreads mailbox, looking for a message from a fan I know I want to get back to. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting fan mail, but it always puts me in mind of Drew Barrymore’s lament in He’s Just Not That Into You:

I have learned to text a fair amount, though I’m not good at keeping my phone by my side at all times, which my family finds mega-frustrating. I’ll adapt. I’ll learn, but I think I’ll always default to technologies that support my personality and don’t fight it.

Readers: What about you? Do you have a preferred mode of communication? What and why? Do you find it hard to keep in touch with people who have different preferences? Spill it all here.

Talking and Silence

Years ago, I had a friend who said she thought in colors. This would have been handy for her, since we were both studying art history, but I never quite understood what she meant. We had different mental languages, because I think in words. I even edit as I go.

Like other Wickeds here, I attended Malice Domestic at the end of April. I don’t go to a lot of conferences—maybe three or four a year—and I’m always amazed that I can spend three days or more talking. To friends, strangers, panelists, my writer idols, wait staff, and just about anybody who is human and breathing (and even some non-humans too).

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Idols! (And yes, I talked to both women.)

Which is in stark contrast to the other ninety percent of my life. I’m a full-time writer, working from home, usually without any other people around, so I spend a significant amount of my time sitting in front of my computer creating stories in my head. I’m sure you all know that any piece of writing takes more than just stringing words together: you have to hear the voices of your characters in your head before you can set their words down on paper/your screen. And then there’s the invisible narrator if you write in the third person, because somebody has to describe things like the scenery, clothes, food and so on, and then you have to have your characters move through all this clutter that you’ve created.

Plus  you have to make each character a distinct individual and differentiate between them all (and don’t even ask about using accents!). To put it simply, it gets pretty noisy in a writer’s head.

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Yes, I talk to cows too. This one’s a neighbor in Ireland.

But that does not mean I work in absolute silence. I talk to my cats (there are three of them, and one or another, or sometimes two, and occasionally three will be sitting on me as I work). In fact, I carry on complete conversations with my cats (no, they don’t answer, although I can usually figure out what they want through their body language, and most often it involves food). I also talk to the neighbors’ cats, and the rare dog that wanders by, and birds, and squirrels, and anything else living that passes through my yard. It seems rude to ignore them, and usually I welcome them.

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An Irish cat — my daughter and I both had a conversation with it.

At Malice I’ve shared a hotel room with the same person for several years now, but I hadn’t realized that she talks to herself too. She’s been published for a long time, but I didn’t think to ask her when she started doing this. I have a feeling there are a lot of us who talk when there’s no one there.

Writers use words. Sometimes we need to try them out, because a spoken word “feels” different than a word you think. We (and the cats) are our own first audience. And for me, at least, it makes a difference.

How about you? Do you think in words? Colors? Musical notes? Even smells? And do you talk when there’s nobody to hear you?

Memories of Malice 2018

Five of the Wickeds and two of our accomplices attended the 30th Malice Domestic conference last weekend. Malice celebrates the traditional mystery, and we celebrate alongside hundreds of mystery fans and authors (although we sorely missed Liz and Jane joining us). Here are some of our highlights.

Sheila:  Ann Cleeves and Brenda Blethyn. Need I say more? Delightful and talented women who were gracious to the adoring throngs of fans. I asked and was told that “pet” is a term that applies to both men and women and is regularly used by Geordies (those who live in Northumberland, I understand).

Apart from the miles of walking from one end of the convention hotel to the other, everything went smoothly, and I saw many happy faces, and talked to more people than I can count.

Edith: So many highlights!  The core Wickeds started off with dinner together, minus Liz, alas.

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Jessie and I found our Agatha-nominated books on the special table in the bookstore!

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The Sisters in Crime breakfast is always a wonderful gathering. Those of us present from the Sprint Club – which Ramona DeFelice Long runs every morning – got a group shot in, too.  The sprints get me writing every morning at seven and I am grateful.

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Sprint Leader Ramona DeFelice Long at far right.

The Kensington signing and book giveaway on Saturday was very popular, with an entire box of my books going in under an hour. I had a delightful crew at my banquet table that night, including the Wickeds’ agent, John Talbot, and a bunch of avid fans, plus Map Your Mystery blogger Christine Gentes (standing at far left).

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Sunday was topped off by a fabulous interview between Catriona McPherson, Toastmaster, and Lori Rader-Day (who could do stand-up comedy if she wished), then the Agatha Tea. But I don’t want to monopolize the blog! Next?

[image error]Sherry: One of the highlights for me was introducing Dorothy Cannell and Marcia Adair at the Sisters in Crime Breakfast on Saturday morning. Every year a scholarship is given in Dorothy Cannell’s name to a member of the Guppy chapter of Sisters in Crime so that member can attend Malice Domestic. This year the winner was Marcia. I had a great time getting to know her during the conference. And as I said in my post yesterday it’s just about getting to hang out with members of the crime fiction community be they readers or writers.

Jessie: On Thursday I started out the weekend by spending the day with most of the Sleuths in Time for a plotting and chatting session. They are a fun group of women! Friday evening I had a great time at dinner with the Wickeds own Kim Gray and a host of other friends both old and new.  On Saturday I really loved signing books for some new readers at the Kensington book giveaway! I also had a wonderful time meeting some of the lovely ladies who have already read some of my work at the table I hosted for the Agatha banquet. They were a lively and fun group!

Barb: In the photo below I’m with two members of the Maine Crime Writers, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett and Lea Wait/Cornelia Kidd. Bruce Robert Coffin and Maureen Milliken were also there, though I only saw Maureen once, passing in the long hallways.

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Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett, Lea Wait/Cornelia Kidd, Barbara Ross. No, we did not coordinate our outfits!

I had loads of fun on my panel Murder at the Improv, making up a mystery on the fly from audience suggestions with Sheila Connolly, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Parnell Hall.

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Murder at the Improv with Barbara Ross, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Sheila Connolly and Parnell Hall.

Julie: I am still exhausted from Malice! Favorite parts? Seeing folks, even in passing.  My panel with Sherry, Shari, and Leslie that Sherry talked about yesterday.  Barb and I hosting a really fun table of folks we didn’t know at the banquet. Seeing Catriona McPherson shine as the toastmaster. Edith and Jessie’s excellent panel (with Rhys Bowen, moderated by Harriet Sackler). Breakfast with Jacki York, who we first met when we carried her on a stick a few Malices back. Seeing Annette and Ramona, the sisters de Felice. Meeting people, as always. But the best part? Laughing. What a great group of folks at Malice. SO much laughing!

Malice going friends, what was your favorite part of the weekend?

Ah Malice Domestic

By Sherry — I’m home recovering from the lack of sleep and all the fun at Malice

Malice Domestic is the annual conference for fans of the traditional mystery. The first time I went was in 2003 as fan and hopeful writer. I was amazed by the crime fiction community then and continue to be now. I didn’t know a soul at that first conference. I stood in line at the restaurant for lunch and the woman in front of me turned and asked me to join her and her friend. It turns out that she was the prolific writer Lee Harris.

I have talked often about meeting Julie Hennrikus at Malice and how that changed the trajectory of my writing life. I gave Malice a shout out in the acknowledgements of my first book, Tagged for Death. For me Malice is all about connecting with people – seeing old friend and making new ones.

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Here are Jessie and Edith with Rhys Bowen getting their certificates for their Agatha Best Historical nomination.

I don’t get to see the Wickeds very often. While it may seem like we are running over to each other’s houses for tea every other day, the truth is we are spread out all over the place. And poor me – I’m the farthest away. So Malice is one of the three or four times a year that I get to see them.

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Photo by Eleanor Carwood Jones

This year I was on a panel, Murder in New England, with friends Shari Randall and Julie Hennrikus  — how lucky is that? The other panel member was writer Leslie Meier who writes the Lucy Stone mystery series. I confess when I saw her name on the list of panel members I went total fan girl, but managed to maintain my cool on the actual panel.

Some people you only see long enough to give them a quick hug. Others you are lucky enough to sit down with for a chat. And some people you see photos of and wonder how you never managed to glimpse them!

 

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This year my publisher Kensington gave away books. I sat by Debra Goldstein. Her new book, One Taste Too Many, doesn’t come out until December 18, 2018, but she passed out bookmarks. Then she said to each person, “I only have a bookmark, but Sherry has a great book you can get.” Did I mention how generous the crime writing community is? Oh, and Debra’s book is available for pre-order.

Attending the Sisters in Crime breakfast and the New Authors breakfast is always fun but oh so early when you’ve stayed up late so you don’t miss a minute of talking to someone. I keep campaigning for New Authors cocktail parties but no one listens to me. I confess I was a bit late to the New Authors breakfast but got to hear most of the authors. The short interviews are always a lot of fun. Here are just a few of the many wonderful debut authors:

Then there is getting to meet people you’ve only known online. The banquet, the Agatha Awards… Aw, heck, I could go on and on about how wonderful Malice is, but I’m guessing you get the point.

[image error]This year my Malice experience was extended for a bit because author Leslie Budewitz came home with me. We yakked until the wee hours and then got up at 5:30 to get Leslie to the Metro station for her flight home. Boo-hoo – why do you live so far away Leslie? And now it’s all over for another year. I’ve gotten some sleep (including a two hour nap Monday morning) and am now recharged and renewed.

I hope if you’ve never been to Malice that you get to go some day. It’s special. They give out scholarships to people who might not otherwise be able to attend. Here is the contact information: MaliceAngels@comcast.net

Readers: Is there a place you go to see old friends and meet new ones?

 

Wicked Wednesday: May Day Traditions

Edith here, still coming down from Malice!

It’s the merry month of May, Wickeds, and we’re going to play on that word every Wednesday until June. In some places people dance around the May pole on May 1st. In other countries they hold parades to honor workers.

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What are your May Day traditions? Do you Morris dance and drink the sun up? Make a basket of flowers? March in solidarity with the workers of the world? Do you love the new month, the real onset of spring in New England, or dread the allergens it brings? Dish!

Sherry: When I was little my sister and I would make flowers out of Kleenex and rubber bands. We’d put them in baskets made out of construction paper. Then we put them on our neighbors’ doorknobs and ran off. Spring normally starts a bit earlier down here in Northern Virginia but it’s been late this year. But it is stunning in our neighborhood right now with so much in bloom. The picture below is from a week ago. It’s in full bloom now.

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Julie: On the last day of April I was lamenting leaving my gloves at home, so May has always held a special place in my heart. It is the turning of the season. Here in Boston, where we all run on a school schedule to a certain degree, May also means final exams, commencements, and students leaving the city for the summer. The pace slows down (a bit), the gloves are put away for good, and there is a spring in my step.

Liz: I can’t say I ever acknowledged May Day specifically, but May is so special – I mean, spring! I love the warm weather and May always seems to signify turning the corner from a long, cold winter. Especially this year – seriously, I wore my fleecy pants on April 30! But on May 1, the weather did not disappoint.

Barb: I have vague memories of wearing a wreath of dried flowers around my head and doing a complicated dance around the maypole when I was in grade school. But mostly, the cold war dominated my childhood and the Russians had claimed May Day as their own with big military parades. The Russians were our enemies back in those olden days, (hey, wait a minute…), so that put a damper on celebrations here.

Edith: As children we also made baskets of flowers on May Day, but I don’t recall what we did with them. One memorable May Day in graduate school (1980, perhaps?) I showed up with the Morris dancers and started celebrating by drinking the sun up. I loved the the men dancing with bells on their ankles, the spirit of bringing back the fecundity of spring, but I don’t remember the rest of the day! I must have slept it off.

Readers: Talk about what you do, or did, on May Day.

Celebrating Five Years of the Wicked Cozy Blog

Thank you, Wicked readers, for being with us for five years! Okay, so maybe you haven’t been with us all five years (here’s a link to our very first blog which, unsurprisingly, didn’t have any comments), but we are so glad you found us and are part of our writing adventures. When we started out we had three published books between us. Since then each of us has had at least one Agatha Award nomination.

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This is the very first picture we uploaded to our website. It’s still on our about page.

It’s been so lovely to swap stories with our readers and learn about you through your comments. We’ve had so many fantastic guests along the way. We consider them and all of you, part of our Wicked family. We’ve been lucky enough to meet some of you at conferences, but the rest of you we meet here.

During the first few weeks of the blog we interviewed each other so readers could get to know us. Wickeds, how has your life changed since we first started the blog five years ago?

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This is a picture from the Seascape Writers Retreat where so many of us met.

Jessie: How quickly the time has passed! Five years ago I had one book in print through a small regional press. Since then I have published three Sugar Grove books, two Change of Fortune books and one Beryl and Edwina mystery with two more at least on the way. I’ve had my first novel published by a company in Germany, enjoyed the pleasure of having a book released as an audio version and have been nominated for two Agatha awards.

Most importantly, I have come to find my confidence as a writer, to trust my own voice on and off the page and to be more grateful than I ever could say to have been supported in pursuing my dreams by my blog mates as well as all of our readers! Thanks so very much everyone! Click here to read the first Wicked interview with me.

Sherry: When we first started the blog I had just gotten the contract for the first three Sarah Winston Garage Sale mysteries. Now I’m writing the eighth book, then the ninth, and will be starting a new series. I never dreamed I’d be so lucky. I didn’t realize how much publishing a book would change my life. I’ve met and made so many wonderful friends in the writing and reading community. The best part has been doing it with the Wickeds and our accomplices. Each of you bring a unique perspective to life and have enriched mine. Click here to read the first Wicked interview with me. Thank you for celebrating with us!

Here are the first book covers we uploaded:

 

Julie: When we started the blog, I was the only Wicked without a contract. Since then, I’ve signed three contracts for three separate series. More than that, I’ve gotten to know the other Wickeds, and consider each and every one of them a dear friend. As much as I love to celebrate my own successes, there has been such joy celebrating all of their successes as well. I have no doubt that this journey would not be as much fun without Barb, Sherry, Edith, Liz, and Jessie. I also love that Sheila, Kim, and Jane are part of this blog, as are the dozens of guests we’ve hosted over the years. Writing is solitary, being an author requires community. This is one heck of a community, Thank you, dear readers, for being part of it. Click here to read the first Wicked interview with me.

Edith: So many changes! When we started the blog I had one book out – Speaking of Murder, written as Tace Baker, from a small press – and my first Local Foods mystery, A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die was about to release in June. My mom, who taught me through example to love reading mysteries, had died the month before without ever reading one of my novels.

Now? Five books featuring organic farmer Cam Flaherty are out in the world. The second Tace Baker book. Three Quaker Midwife Mysteries, with two (or more) to come. And four Country Store Mysteries, written as Maddie Day, with at least five more in the future! I’ve been nominated for five Agatha Awards, had ten short stories published, and won awards. Mostly, I’ve had the company of these wicked awesome women to keep me company, make me laugh, and provide comfort. And I’ve gotten to know so many devoted mystery readers and fans, on this blog and elsewhere. Thank you for keeping us in business, and for sharing what our stories mean to you. Click here to read the first Wicked interview with me.

Sheila’s first blog post was on July 1, 2013. She’s been on the first Monday of the month ever since. Click here to read her first post.

Liz: When we first started the blog, we were racing to get it launched in time for my first book, Kneading to Die. It’s been such a wild ride since then! In five years, I’ve had six Pawsitively Organic books published, with the seventh coming out this year, and started my new Cat Cafe Mystery Series as Cate Conte. This blog has been a life-changer for me, too – being able to share these experiences with five amazing friends has been one of the high points of this career. And meeting and interacting with all the readers – priceless. Thank you for coming along for the ride with us! Click here to read the first Wicked interview with me.

Our first guest was Connie Archer on June 13, 2013. Click here to read the interview.

Barb: When we first started the blog, Clammed Up, the first book in the Maine Clambake Mystery series, wasn’t out yet. That would come in September. Since then, there have been six books and a novella, with a seventh book, Steamed Open, and a second novella collection, Yule Log Murder coming this year. During the initial period when we started the blog, my granddaughter was born and my mother died, so it has very much been the circle of life for me over the last five years. Click here to read the first Wicked interview with me.

Kim joined us on January 21, 2014. Click here to read her first post.

Jane Haertel joined us on February 6, 2015. Click here to read her first post.

Readers: How has your life changed in past five years?

Guest: Beth Kanell

Edith here, en route back from Malice Domestic and so very happy to welcome fellow New England Sister in Crime Beth Kanell as a guest on the blog. Beth has a new crossover Young Adult historical mystery out – and by crossover, I mean everyone should read it!

[image error]I was luck enough to read an early copy and enthusiastically offered an endorsement: “Beth Kanell’s The Long Shadow is a beautifully written novel addressing themes of family, friendship, and the fight to end slavery in 1850s Vermont. Readers are transported back to that time of ceaseless women’s work in the kitchen and men making the decisions. Protagonist and narrator Alice keenly feels the injustice of her own life and that of slaves being pursued as they travel north toward freedom, and does whatever is in her power to change the status quo. Adults and teens alike will savor this well-researched tale of a teenage girl, her best friend, and their  black friend Sarah, who still isn’t safe from bounty hunters even in the snow-covered villages of Vermont.” Take it away, Beth!

Risk and Loss

Writing at the young adult (YA) edge of mystery keeps me asking myself questions about secrets, about risk, and about violence. Our contemporary young adults are exposed daily to terrifying amounts of could-be-us news, from school shootings to drug issues to “ordinary” death by drinking alcohol. Sometimes it feels unfair to burden these, as well as adult readers, with even one more death.

But the gift of a novel is that the meaning of a death can shine, in ways that are harder to see in daily life. In giving this to readers, I hope — and I think many other mystery authors do, too — that there will be an overlap in the heart, to ease some of the pain each of us encounters. More than ever, that’s the case for my fourth “history-hinged” Vermont mystery, The Long Shadow.

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Danville, Vermont, the location Beth borrowed for fictional North Upton

For Alice Sanborn of North Upton, Vermont, life in 1850 has been pretty easy so far. Sure, her mother relies on Alice for full participation in the challenges of pre-Civil War homemaking, and Alice also helps with some farm chores. But her school is nearby and friendly, plus she has her best friend Jerushah across the road and another close friend they both care about, Sarah, whose family is still enslaved in the far-away South. The worst Alice deals with is the town drunk trying to paw her outside the tavern.

Until danger comes to her own village in the form of a bounty hunter whose presence seems to threaten Sarah — spinning Alice and Jerushah, with the handsome and mysterious Solomon McBride, into a risky adventure of their own.

There are three deaths in The Long Shadow. The first is a family tragedy, but not an uncommon one for 1850, and Alice’s “growing-up task” is to face the sorrow involved and do what she can to ease the burdens of her brother and his wife. But the second has terrifying ramifications for Alice’s family, and the third will shape the rest of her life as she steps forward into the responsibilities of anti-slavery Vermont.

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Elizabeth, from Small Adventures of a Little Quaker Girl, 1857-1872, by Rebecca Nicholson Taylor (a cousin of Beth Kanell’s)

To spin this story and handle the moral disaster of enslavement, and the late response of many Americans to the nation’s abiding “sin,” demands adherence to history’s truths. So I spend a lot of time in research, looking for the conditions of African Americans in Vermont at the time, and the complications of country life: How fast can a horse pull a laden sleigh in a blizzard? How far? Which official handles murder charges? With how much authority?

Also, because in Vermont – as in many other places – the leadership of early anti-slavery thinking often came from Quakers (hello, Edith Maxwell!), the role of the farm and Quakers at Rokeby in North Ferrisburgh, Vermont, comes into the background of The Long Shadow. It will come to the foreground in later books in this “Wind of Freedom” series!

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Photo also from Small Adventures of a Little Quaker Girl.

But first, let’s watch Alice begin to pry open the mysteries that surround her, as she buries her brother’s secret and asks her friend Jerushah, while Sarah listens:

“Did you know there is a doorway in your cellar?”

She frowned in puzzlement. “Do you mean the doorway to where Papa keeps the extra barrels of cider? Back behind the stairs?”

“No, another one. I noticed it last week, and there is one in our cellar, too. I think they may connect underground. Can we test them?”

Jerushah flashed a look over my shoulder. “Mama is coming back inside. I can hear her in the passageway. Hush. We’ll find a way later, after your sugaring-off. It’s all too busy now.”

Sarah agreed excitedly while placing a hand to her mouth.

The tunnel that the girls will explore, and later use in desperation, also appeared in my 2011 adventure The Secret Room, also set in North Upton but more than 160 years later – “today.” To make it easy for you to read The Secret Room, I’m giving away 10 copies (softcover) to the first 10 readers who request it, with their U.S. mailing address, at BethPoet at gmail dot com. I’m hoping to hear from you soon!

Readers: What do you know about the Underground Railroad? As an adult, do you read YA mysteries? If so, why? If not, why not?[image error]

Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont, with a mountain at her back and a river at her feet. She writes mysteries, poems, and book reviews, and digs into Vermont history to frame her “history-hinged” adventure mysteries: The Long Shadow, The Darkness Under the Water, The Secret Room, and Cold Midnight. She shares her research and writing process at BethKanell.blogspot.com. Her mystery reviews are at KingdomBks.blogspot.com. She’s a member of both Sisters in Crime and the National Book Critics Circle, and can’t resist reading more mysteries.

 

 

Cover Reveal!

Liz here! Since the gang is at Malice and I’m not (boo hoo) I figured I’d have a little fun on my own. I wanted to give you all a sneak peek at the new cover for Murder, She Meowed!

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What do you all think? Would love to hear your feedback in the comments.

Welcome Guest Lena Gregory

[image error]Welcome, Lena Gregory! Lena is giving away a copy of Clairvoyant and Present Danger to someone who leaves a comment. Here’s a bit about the book:

Whoever said that dead men tell no tales has never met Cass Donnovan…

Cass has always relied on her abilities to guide her, but after communications with a ghost land her in the middle of a murder investigation, she has to wonder if her gifts are really more a curse.

Cass knows she is meant to help track down the killer–much to the chagrin of local law enforcement–when the apparition leads her to a dead body on the beach near her psychic shop, Mystical Musings. But the police are not the only ones who wish Cass would stick to reading palms. Someone is trying to scare her off, and it will take all her powers of premonition to catch the killer before Cass herself becomes the next victim…

Thank you to the Wicked Cozy Authors and Sherry Harris for inviting me to guest blog today. I’m so excited to be here and visit with all of you!

Whether or not ghosts are real is a huge debate in my house. My husband doesn’t believe in anything “otherworldly,” and my daughter and I are firm believers. Have you ever had a brush with the paranormal? And encounter you couldn’t quite explain away, no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself there was a logical explanation? I’ve had several over the years, but I’ll only share a couple.

I have three kids, and not one of them slept through the night, so I can only assume it’s something I did wrong. Of course, neither my husband nor I sleep through the night either, so I guess it’s no surprise.

Anyway, one night, when my middle guy, Nicky, was around a year and a half old, he just would not go to sleep. I was so exhausted I couldn’t keep my eyes open another minute, and I was afraid to bring him in my bed for fear he’d fall down the stairs if he got up and wandered, which he did even then, so I crawled into the crib with him and closed my eyes.

The next think I knew, someone was shaking my shoulder. Startled, I opened my eyes and looked up, fully expecting to find my husband standing over me wondering what in the world was going on, but there was no one there. I was absolutely positive a hand had gripped my shoulder and shaken me, so I sat up and looked around the room, figuring either my husband or my ten-year-old daughter had tried to wake me then walked away when I didn’t respond.

When I looked down, I didn’t see Nicky. Terrified, I jumped up and found him tangled in the blanket. I quickly unwrapped the blanket from his head. His face was beet red, and he was breathing hard but, thankfully, he was okay. It might have ended much differently if something hadn’t nudged me awake that morning. When I finally calmed down enough to get up, my husband and daughter were both still asleep and hadn’t been up to wake me.

To this day, sixteen years later, I still get chills and hug my son whenever that memory surfaces.

On a lighter note, I used to teach dance for a living, until Nicky was about three. I’d always brought my kids to the studio with me while I was teaching, but he couldn’t handle the noise. The kids talking and laughing, the music blasting, tap shoes hitting the wood floor, all proved to be too much for him. He would always want to be in my arms with his hands over his ears.

Within the year, he was diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. He needed physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech, so I gave up teaching and started cleaning houses to give me the flexibility necessary to bring him to therapy five days a week.

One of the houses I took was a beautiful, old house on the bay. The view was gorgeous, as was the house, which was built in the 1800s. One of the first times I went in to clean, I put the garbage pail back in the bathroom beside the shower. Then I realized there was an old stain beneath the pipe under the sink where the pail had been. I figured it must leak sometimes and put the pail back under it. When I returned a few minutes later, the pail was beside the shower again.

That freaked me out a little, but I figured maybe I’d left the floor a little wet and it slid over a couple of feet, or maybe I’d meant to put it under the pipe but then forgot to actually do it. So, I made sure the floor was dry and put it back. The next time I looked in the bathroom, it was back beside the shower. Needless to say, that’s where it stayed that time.

Every time I returned to the house after that day, I put the pail under the pipe and it stayed where it was.

Then, one day, I was in the basement doing laundry when there was a weird sort of scratchy, tapping sound. It was coming from the ceiling rafters in the basement beneath the foyer. It definitely freaked me out, but I finally decided it must be mice or something, and I filed the incident away to use in a book somewhere down the line—which I haven’t yet but still intend to.

When the homeowner asked how everything was going and if I was finding everything okay, I told her everything was fine, but I thought the house was haunted, and I sort of laughed.

She laughed too and asked me what had happened.

I told her about the garbage pail, but not the tapping, since I’d already explained that to myself.

She then told me the house definitely was haunted, and what was now the foyer was originally a bedroom, and someone died in there. She also said they often here a strange knocking sound in the foyer.

The existence of the unexplainable has always fascinated me. Is there truly a world beyond our own that sometimes overlaps with ours? Or are we just creatures with extremely vivid imaginations?

Cass Donovan, from Death at First Sight, Occult and Battery, and Clairvoyant and Present Danger makes a living delving into that world, “contacting” the dead. At least, that’s what her customers think. She thinks she’s just very intuitive. What do you think?

Readers: Have you ever had a brush with the paranormal? For a chance to win a copy of Clairvoyant and Present Danger, leave a comment and let me know!

Bio:

[image error]Lena Gregory is the author of the Bay Island Psychic Mystery series, Death at First Sight, Occult and Battery, and Clairvoyant and Present Danger, which take place on a small island between the north and south forks of Long Island, New York, and the All-Day Breakfast Café Mystery series, Scone Cold Killer, Murder Made to Order, and Cold Brew Killing, which are set on the outskirts of Florida’s Ocala National Forest.

Lena Grew up in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, where she still lives with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. When she was growing up, she spent many lazy afternoons on the beach, in the yard, anywhere she could find to curl up with a good book. She loves reading as much now as she did then, but she now enjoys the added pleasure of creating her own stories.

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