Lee Strauss's Blog, page 5
January 20, 2022
This month, I’m doing January.
“This month, I'm doing January. I'm going to get through each day of January.”
I saw this on my Facebook feed somewhere, posted by someone else, and I thought that's exactly how I feel.
One day at a time, face to the wind, anticipating spring and the hope it represents.
January is generally a time of goal-setting and dream-casting, both of which I annually participate in, and this year is no different though recently some of my goals and dreams have changed.
If you've been following my previous blog you'll already know that our daughter had a near-death experience that brought me and Norm back to Canada from where we were snowbirding in Mexico. It's been a month since then, living in a basement suite kindly provided to us by strangers, with no more than what we brought with us in two backpacks each. You would think it would've been a time with space for reflection, but in fact it's been busier than ever.
The good news is our daughter is recovering from her surgery and she was almost ready to go back to work at an optometry office when she came down with covid! Everyone in the house she lives in got it (two of our sons and our son's fiancee), so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully, she had a relatively mild case, probably because she's triple vaxed, and has nearly recovered from it. It's a huge relief to me because her catching covid and not knowing how she'd do with it was a big worry.
Once we knew that Tasia was home and doing better, real life set in, and I started to think about things like real estate and mortgage rates.
Weird, I know.
Where we live, the price of houses has jumped dramatically and I'm thankful we bought when we did, because we'd be priced out of the market in our city now. It's been in the back of my mind to buy out east where our son Joel and his wife Shadi live (if you are part of my Facebook readers group, you'll recognize those names). I told them to take a look, and long story short, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE.
I definitely didn't see that coming.
It's really quite amazing how we got it in this really tight market, and how fast it happened. Buying a house is a lot of busy work which has kept us digging for paperwork and ID and proof of this and that, but it's exciting to buy a house with Joel and Shadi while we still can. Real estate is on the rise there as well.
Personally, I've been doing far too much sitting. Life balance is important to me, and it's been out of whack for some time. Not only am I lacking exercise, I work too much. This is a hazard for self-employed people. You're responsible for all the balls in the air, and over time, the sky gets hard to see. I've known I was overdoing things for some time. Anyone close to me will tell you that I keep saying I'm going to slow things down, but… you know how it is.
Our family emergency put a highlight on this. I dove into my publishing and writing schedule for 2022, twice, to relax the timeline. Even so, there's still two Rosa Reeds and four Ginger Golds coming this year, plus, if all goes well, a Ginger Christmas novella.
Great segue into book news!I thought I would be living in Mexico in January where I could post pictures to promote the upcoming Murder at the Fiesta.
Instead of posting pictures like these:
I'm posting pictures like these:
To celebrate Mexican culture found in Murder at the Fiesta I'm giving away a paperback cover of the 9th Rosa Reed mystery, the Mexican Home Kitchen cookbook and $30 cash!
Enter here! Don't see a button? Click here: https://gleam.io/A0tz3/murder-at-the-...
Don't forget to preorder. Murder at the Fiesta will automatically show up on your kindle on January 25!
Murder's a bash!
When Rosa Reed attends a birthday party in the spring of 1957, the Mexican fiesta turns deadly. It wasn't how Rosa wanted to celebrate with Detective Miguel Belmonte, nor how she hoped to be introduced to his large complicated family.
Before long, Rosa Reed Investigations is on the case. Can Rosa and Miguel find the murderer before some else dies?
And when will Rosa have time to plan a wedding?
Preorder NowDon't see a button? Click here: https://smarturl.it/RR-Fiesta
Keeping with the Mexican theme, my son Levi adopted a mexican rescue. He's off on a Mexican get-away with his work colleagues, so I'm looking after dog. Norm and I are heading back soon to pick up our RV and drive it back, just in time for Joel and Shadi to come to visit in May. It's be the first time we'll have seen each other in the flesh for two and a half years. That's my biggest 2022 dream: to be together with all my kids again.
Ernie's loving his new life in Canada. He's even getting use to the snow!
How about you?
Have you set goals for 2022? Dreamed dreams? Let me know in the comments.
The post This month, I’m doing January. appeared first on Lee Strauss.
January 7, 2022
Hello 2022. I’m hanging on by my fingernails + What’s coming next.
Hello 2022. I'm hanging on by my fingernails.
Last year, I wrote a post titled Hello 2021, I'm cautiously optimistic to meet you
Now that it's over, I can say it's been a heck of a ride.
It started with us moving our then 26-yr old daughter from Vancouver to Kelowna, our home town, into a house that she shares with two of her brothers and a future daughter-in-law. We wouldn't learn until the end of the year just how incredibly important that move was.
Mostly, 2021 was the year of climate disasters in our province–a dystopian-like heat dome, a multitude of destructive fires and extreme flooding with mudslides and highway outages. We were fortunate that none of it impacted us directly, except that we had to cancel yet another chance to visit with our oldest son Joel and his wife Shadi.
Happily, we purchased an RV and made our first (and last) road trip south to Mexico. As adventurous as the journey was, we realized we like the destination better.
We had lovely plans to spend Christmas with our daughter on the beach in Mexico, but covid put an end to that dream and we canceled her flight.
Then, I got the early morning call that had Norm and I racing back to Canada where we are now, our RV abandoned. If you missed the Facebook posts about our daughter's near-death experience you can read about it here.
She's a cyborg now, but alive and that's the best Christmas present we could've asked for in this situation. We have to rethink a few of our plans going forward, but we're learning to take one day at a time.
Life goes on, and so does a person's need to work. I'm so thankful for a job my husband and I can take anywhere and that earns even while we're distracted with a major health crisis or spending a lot more time in the hospital than we'd like.
Read on for book news ~ plenty is planned for 2022 and I'm excited for what's to come. Don't forget to enter the fun Murder at the Fiesta contest!
We're ending this year exhausted but hopeful.
Wishing you all health and happiness for 2022!
***
We're excited about a four-book B-story arc for the upcoming Ginger Gold releases starting with Murder at the Savoy.
Ginger and Basil have met their nemesis match!
Pre-Order Now
Murder's frightfully unlucky!
Mrs. Ginger Reed, known also as Lady Gold, settles into homelife with her husband Chief Inspector Basil Reed, son Scout and newborn daughter Rosa, but when an opportunity to join a dinner party at the renown Savoy Hotel if offered, she's eager to engage in a carefree night with friends. Some of the guests are troubled when their party's number lands at unlucky thirteen, as death is sure to come to the first person who leaves the table.
Thankfully, the Savoy has an answer to this superstitious dilemma. A small statue of a black cat fondly known as Kaspar is given the empty seat, rounding the number to fourteen.
Unfortunately, in this instance Kaspar didn't fulfil his duties and a murder is committed. The case is tricky and complicated by a recent escape of a prisoner who has a bone to pick with Basil. Are the two seemingly unrelated incidents connected?
Ginger and Basil work together to solve one while avoiding the other, and what can they do about the black cat who crossed their path?
Click here to Pre-Order Murder at the Savoy
Pre-Order Now
Murder's a spectacle!
When Ginger Reed ~ aka Lady Gold ~ and Basil Reed’s son Scout runs away to join the circus, it’s not all fun and games. As a disgruntled teen unhappy at boarding school, Scout intends to work with his cousin Marvin, newly discharged from the navy, as an animal caretaker.
The big top event pleases the crowds, but when a performer dies under suspicious circumstances, Scout finds himself in real, three ring trouble
Click here to Pre-Order Murder at the Circus
*Stay tuned for more to come!*
***
Coming January 25th!
Murder's a bash!
When Rosa Reed attends a birthday party in the spring of 1957, the Mexican fiesta turns deadly. It wasn't how Rosa wanted to celebrate with Detective Miguel Belmonte, nor how she hoped to be introduced to his large complicated family.
Before long, Rosa Reed Investigations is on the case. Can Rosa and Miguel find the murderer before some else dies?
And when will Rosa have time to plan a wedding?
Click here to Pre-Order Murder at the Fiesta
Seeing double is murder!
If one wedding is good, a double wedding is better! Rosa and Miguel agree that walking down the aisle with Bill and Carlotta solves a lot of social and familial problems, but the drama is notched up when a dead body arrives with dessert!
Don’t miss this final installment of a Rosa Reed Mystery series where Rosa finally gets her happily ever after.
Click here to Pre-Order Murder at The Weddings
***
Contest is ending soon!To celebrate the upcoming release of Murder at the Fiesta we're giving away a free physical copy of the book, a Mexican Cookbook and a $30 PayPal Prize!
The post Hello 2022. I’m hanging on by my fingernails + What’s coming next. appeared first on Lee Strauss.
December 26, 2021
When the Heart Stops ~ a Christmas Miracle
A week ago today, just before midnight, my daughter's heart stopped.
For seven minutes.
When I got the call telling me, I felt like my heart had stopped.
So much has happened in one week, I can hardly process it all, so I'm going to use this blog format to help myself do that. For those who don't want all the details, as the title of this post says, we were given a Christmas miracle and our twenty-seven-year-old daughter survived.
Our son Levi calls in the early morning hours of December 20, 2021 to tell me our daughter Tasia has suffered a cardiac arrest. Our son Jordan is with him. The two of them along with Tasia and Jordan's fiancé Chelsea live in the same house in Kelowna BC. My husband Norm and I are snow birding in Mexico. I'm thousands of miles away.
In a very fragile moment, Norm and I hold each other and pray, “Lord we trust you with your daughter, no matter what.”
If you've followed my blogs for a while, you might know that Tasia has an autoimmune condition called Scleroderma, a rare disease which causes hardening of the skin and can involve the internal organs. In her case, she has lung involvement, and only 50% capacity.
Unbelievably, the doctors now believe this is a separate heart condition, unrelated to that.
Downstairs, Jordan and Chelsea hear a bang, which they later learned was the sound of Tasia falling to the floor. Upstairs, Levi's new Mexican rescue dog is barking uncharacteristically. Levi thinks it's because Tasia came home with a friend. Now we know the dog, a border collie mix called Ernie, was trying to alert Levi to trouble.
Minutes later, Levi and Jordan see the lights of two ambulances and a fire truck pull into the yard. Levi dashes to Tasia's room to find C.T.~the angel in this story~performing CPR. Jordan rushes upstairs just as the paramedics arrive. They can't see what's happening, but they hear the paramedics say, “no pulse.” Then the sound of the paddles and defibrillator.
Terrified, the boys believe their sister has died.
And they weren't wrong. She was without a heartbeat for seven long minutes, possibly longer one doctor told us. If it weren't for the fact that she was with a friend who knew CPR, who kept his head and called 911, who didn't give up compressing my daughter's chest for what must've felt like forever, this story would have had a very different ending.
Tasia's heart is revived and she's wheeled away on the gurney.
That's when I got the call.
Levi went to the hospital to do the hard work of waiting, texting me every time the doctors came in with news.
It was a very long night.
She's unconscious. She's sedated She's intubated.
But she's alive.
Initially, the doctors theorized that Tasia had had a seizure that had led to cardiac arrest. Her brain health was of immediate concern. Tasia without her delightful, witty, caring, intelligent personality would be its own kind of devastating loss.
But, after a CT scan, an EEG, and an MRI, tests done that night and the next day, there was no sign of brain bleed, swelling, infection or stroke. When they turned off the sedation for brief moments, she responded to commands to squeeze a hand and wiggle toes. After more tests the new theory is she experienced a heart event that initially mimicked a seizure.
In the meantime, back in Mexico, Norm and I are racing to get a PCR test, and packing up our RV to secure it while we're gone, and book a one way ticket home. Sometime, as we're flying over the western coast of North America, Tasia was brought out of sedation. She's awake!
Our sons are with her and I wish I was there, but I'm so happy for the news. She's groggy from the sedation, and “loopy” but still her “sassy” self.
We get into Kelowna after midnight, and drive to the hospital to see her for the first time on the morning of the 22nd.
Tasia is suffering significant short term memory loss, but we're assured that this is normal after intubation and sedation. Later that day she's moved from ICU to CCU, the cardiac intensive care wing.
We're told by one of the cardiac specialists that Tasia's case is causing a lot of excitement on the ward. She's very young to have suffered cardiac arrest and the cause is still inconclusive. Tasia quipped, “I'm an episode of House.”
The primary culprit is Ventricular Fibrillation.
On Christmas Eve, Tasia has a defibrillator inserted. The pamphlet explaining the device assures Tasia that she can resume physical activity like “gardening, playing with grandchildren, and golf.”
Good to know!
Christmas morning, she's released from the hospital.
Talk about a whirlwind week of extreme emotion and rapid turnaround.
Pre op
From nearly losing her life, Tasia now has a built-in paramedic that will shock her heart should she suffer another heart event. She's on new meds to hopefully prevent the need for that to ever happen. Apparently, her heart isn't any worse off than before. Her brain function is undamaged. The worse thing to come from it is she can't drive for six months. (Which is a pain, but hey…)
More than one heart specialist has said that her recovery is REMARKABLE. Most people who suffer an event like this and to this degree don't survive.
“A Christmas miracle,” Tasia said. The doctor nodded. “Yes, a Christmas miracle.”
***
A super huge shout out to the quick response to the paramedics, the incredible doctors and nurses at Kelowna General Hospital who gave our daughter the best care and attention, to the Canadian Health Care System, and to C.T. for playing a huge role in saving our daughter's life. You are all HEROS in our books.
The post When the Heart Stops ~ a Christmas Miracle appeared first on Lee Strauss.
November 27, 2021
Don’t build your house on the sand ~ or at the bottom of a lake?
Such a far cry from my home province of British Columbia which is experiencing a serious weather event with devastating flooding ~ and we thought the summer was bad with its “heat dome” and wide-spread wild fires!
Though the term isn't new, I'd never heard of an “Atmospheric River” before. I don't think I was alone, otherwise people would've been more frightened by the weather warning and wouldn't have travelled on the day a river of water fell from the sky, washing out all the major roadways leading to Vancouver, and killing five people in mudslides.
All the major highways leading to Vancouver and its supply ports had major damage, virtually shutting access to BC's largest city from the rest of the province. The most popular artery, the Coquihalla Highway, is estimated to be closed for months, well into 2022, if not beyond. I just drove the route this summer when I took my daughter to a doctor's appointment there.
Coquihalla Highway/Caroline Mine/BC Ministry of Transportation/Flickr – One of many road washouts.
Though many communities were affected with whole towns being evacuated due to rivers overflowing their banks and even re-routing, the greatest devastation happened in a place called Abbotsford, just outside of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley.
Rising floodwaters surround barns in Abbotsford on Tuesday. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)
Thousands of animals were lost: cattle, hogs, chickens (link). Also mature blueberry farms, and other crops. Though I had lived in Abbotsford for three years, and I knew about all the farming there, I didn't realized that Sumas Prairie was once called Sumas Lake. Check out this link for incredible images.
It used to be a lake.
A hundred years ago, the colonists decided to drain the lake by building dikes and a pump station to reroute the water (it has to go somewhere) and turn it into farmland. It also meant pushing out the First Nation community (Native Canadians) off their land and taking away their livelihood that came from the lake. In this news story, the Sumas First Nations chief shares what happened to his people a hundred years ago (link), And just for the record, this isn't the first time the region has experienced major flooding. It happened in 1894, 1948 and 1990 as well.
1990 flood vs. 2021 flood at Highway 1’s Whatcom interchange in Abbotsford. (BC Archives/City of Abbotsford)
I've driven this highway numerous times, and it's surreal to see it underwater now. And there's two more atmospheric rivers events in the forecast.
Plus the pump is damaged. And it was known that the infrastructure was in need of fortifying (link), but the cost would've been over 400 million dollars, and well, that's a lot of money.
And now the damages are over 1 billion.
Where am I going with this?Honestly, I don't know.
Should we leave nature alone and find better ways to co-exist?
If society was as “woke” in 1920 as it is now, would the lake have been taken away from the First Nation community? Would we have found alternative ways to farm effectively? Perhaps by making use of the lake?
Can we continue to ignore the continuing change in climate, particularly the growing number of extreme weather events?
And the biggest question: what should we do now?
I wish I had the answers. What do you think?
In happier news:Death by Dancing is releasing this week! And I have a new pre-order up.
Though I'm truly thankful to be sitting in my little paradise, my thoughts and prayers are with those who are facing very real struggles. Hang in there, everyone. There is hope.
In the meantime, escape into another world by reading!
The post Don’t build your house on the sand ~ or at the bottom of a lake? appeared first on Lee Strauss.
November 11, 2021
3 Lessons Learned on the Road ~ aka: Live the Life you want to Live
Of course, I'm older than I use to be. That's how it works. If you're still breathing today, you're older than you were yesterday. That's a given. And a bonus. This week is the anniversary of my dear and long time friend Donna's death, so this truth resonates for me more poignantly. Life on this earth is beautiful, adventurous, sometimes scary, and finite.
Missing you, my friend.
Which brings me to number 2:My ten year plan. What a different discussion this is than from when I was in my 30s, 40s and early 50s. In ten years, I'll be married to a 70 year old man! (Lord willing!) We've always lived a life of adventure with a good measure of uncertainty. There were many, many years when we were unable to see what was ahead of us beyond the next three months. We just kept living, trusting, and getting by – sometimes with just enough and sometimes with more than our wildest dreams. And though we're still the adventurous sort, we're starting to crave a simpler, more predictable life.
Long ago, we decided to be snowbirders, and when we bought our RV, we thought we'd be road warriors too, travelling to and fro from one scenic lookout to another. However, after weeks on the road, we realize, at least for us, it is the destination and not the journey. We just want to get to our winter home and settle in with our routines and traditions, and build into our community, much like we do in our summer home. It's a good thing to discover about us, and helps us now as we plan our future. As we look into the next ten years.
The journey DOES have perks.
To see more travel photos of beautiful places, follow me on Instagram(link) or my author Facebook(link) page.
And finally, #3.I love Scout! Our motorhome is everything we were looking for in an RV, checking all our boxes. It's interesting to meet other people living this lifestyle ~ everyone has a different idea of what home on the road looks like. And I love that there are so many choices.
The RVs in our caravan. Missing is a Leisure Way van.
We are living the dream. At least the dream we set out to live. My motto is: Make the life you want to live.
Part of the dream is that we get to work on the road. It's one of the great things technology has given us ~ the ability to be digital nomads. While travelling, I've completed a first draft of Murder at the Fiesta and the final draft of Death by Dancing ~ both available for PREORDER, and published the 1920s Coloring Book with my son Joel. Norm's even doing a bit of music producing!
Redefining the “home” studio!
In Book News:Starting the plotting and planning process for the next 4 Ginger Gold books coming to you in 2022! Norm and I will be working on these together and have great ideas for each individual book plus an over-arching subplot. Basil will have a stronger presence and you'll discover more about his history as a crime fighter. The first book, Murder at the Savoy, is already up on preorder.
The preorders:November 30: Death by Dancing(link), a Higgins & Hawke mystery #4
January 25: Murder at the Fiesta(link), a Rosa Reed mystery #9
May 31 (probably earlier): Murder at the Savoy(link), a Ginger Gold mystery #18
New Releases:Don't miss out on the 1920s Coloring Book(link). Makes a great and unique gift!
Murder at Mallowan Court(link), a Ginger Gold mystery #17
What's Next?If you're following this in real time, we are at an RV park in La Penita, where that beautiful photo of the pool was taken, right on the beach. Comment if you want the website info. Next month we'll get to the town that we've decided will be our winter home. More on that later!
How about you? Are you living the life you want to live?The post 3 Lessons Learned on the Road ~ aka: Live the Life you want to Live appeared first on Lee Strauss.
October 28, 2021
Introducing Illustrator Joel Strauss, my co-creator of the 1920s Coloring Book
Joel Strauss is my eldest son, oldest child of four. He's always been a consummate artist especially with music, and most recently he's jumped into visual art using watercolor as his medium. We're starting a store called Vintage Is You where we'll sell apparel and home decor featuring his vintage-themed artwork. The store isn't live yet but you can leave your email at VintageIsYou.com to be sure to be notified when it is. We've been really busy with the 1920s Coloring Book and now that its release day is almost here, we're going to focus on the store.
Speaking of the coloring book, don't miss the contest where you can win a copy, a package of colored pencils, and a print of Joel's art!
https://gleam.io/2h321/1920s-fashion-coloring-book
It's been a pleasure working with my son on these projects. You might know him as my assistant Joel Matthew on Facebook. I love that we can work together as see our vision for art and books come together.
This is from a Vintage Is You blog written by Joel:
It all started with Frank
It didn’t strike me as ‘music for your grandparents’
I still remember hearing ‘Strangers In the Night’ for the first time. I was barely 20, and up to that point almost all the music I ingested was contemporary Indie and Alternative Rock. (Oh, and Bob Dylan)
Another student let me listen to her playlist. Then I heard that booming voice in ‘Strangerrrrs In the Niggght’ and I was stopped cold in my tracks. A profound projection of old jazz vocal. Blue notes.
There was something old about it, sure, but it didn’t strike me as ‘music for your grandparents.’ It sounded both old and new at once, as if I could experience history in the here-and-now. A time where automobiles were still new, where people spent more time outside, where branded clothing hadn’t yet permeated all of fashion, where music emphasized love and romance.
Whatever it was, I knew that I wanted a piece of it. Maybe I could bring someone of it with me wherever I went.
This was the first big step into my fascination with 20th Century Vintage. I’ve been a musician my whole life, and music is what opened the gates. I began to incorporate classic pop elements into my own songs and albums.
Years later, when I became a visual artist, filling the canvas with these types of motifs was just as exciting. Suddenly, I could allow people experience this world with their eyes too, instead of just their ears. The positive feedback on my visual art has surprised me, and it strongly suggests that there is a community of others to meet and connect with who get just as inspired by nostalgia as I do.
Hey – maybe history doesn’t have to be something that happened 3 generations ago…
Thanks for being on this journey with me!
Visit Joel at joelstrauss.com/art
The post Introducing Illustrator Joel Strauss, my co-creator of the 1920s Coloring Book appeared first on Lee Strauss.
October 14, 2021
RV – Snowbirding newbies. Our big mistake.
I've never imagined myself as an RVer. Though I've always pictured myself living in the tropics during the winter ~ faint-hearted Canadian here ~ that dream involved flying. Which is something my husband, Norm, and I did for three years.
What we learned during that time of staying in different hotels and bungalows:We like having our own bed.We like our own stuff.We like accumulating stuff.What we also learned was that our new snowbirding friends (in case you don't know, a snowbird is someone from the cold north who travels to the warmer south in the winter) DROVE from Canada to Mexico every year. It wasn't that we didn't know this was a fact, we'd just never became friends with anyone who did it. These people were adventurous, courageous, and, in most cases, older than us.
If they could do it, why couldn't we?
I admit the whole concept was intimidating. And fascinating. I could live on the beach in my own tiny home with my own bed and my own stuff and have a place to store my stuff.
We'd decided we'd do it in a few years when we were comfortably retired.
Then Covid hit. We were actually in Mexico when the Canadian prime minister made a plea for everyone to come home, and we had to cut our Mexican travel adventures short by five weeks. After a year in isolation (and a loss of a dear friend), we came to the conclusion that we really shouldn't wait to do the things we want. No one knew the future. Seize the day, and all that.
In the spring of 2021 we started looking for an RV. Something that was more than a weekend camper, but not too big either. Neither of us had experience RV driving, so we wanted something manageable to us, yet big enough to be our winter home.
Long story short, on Norm's 60th birthday, we bought Scout, our 2018 Winnebago Intent. Being super newbies, we wanted time to learn the ropes before taking it on the road, and good news! Things were opening up and should be close to normal by the fall!
Yeah, about that.
Anyhoo, we did a couple of weekends boondocking (no hook ups) in a couple of provincial parks, testing out all the systems. Boy we wished we'd figured out how to use the furnace that first night! (Turns out, you just adjust the thermostat, pushing the little level one notch to the left).
There are a LOT of systems in an RV, if you weren't aware. Electrical, propane, water, battery, sewage management, air conditioning, inverters, jacks, furnace, generator, fridge, and propane stove–a steep learning curve. Thank goodness for that owners' manual! We did a longer trip mid-summer, fleeing smoke to clearer northern skies and back again, avoiding forest fires, but not the ash. We learned to hook up electrical and water, and drain the gray and black water tanks. We were ready to snowbird!
Unfortunately, the borders didn't open as we'd hoped.
Fortunately, I'm a dual citizen!! Yay! I could drive the RV across. Only Norm couldn't come with. He'd have to fly and meet me there. Which meant I had to drive this 26′, class A motorhome by myself.
I sweated buckets. Okay, not buckets. But there was sweat involved. I talked myself through every traffic light through my city, across the bridge and down the highway, through town after town, and winding roads along pristine lakes, until I was finally at the border.
No line up at all.
I showed the guard my American ID. He asked me what I was doing, I told him my husband and I were going south for the winter. He said, let me guess, you're American and your husband is Canadian. I said yes, he's flying in to meet me. He said, that's crazy. It doesn't make sense. I said, I agree.
He never asked me for the rapid antigen test I paid 120 dollars for, nor asked me about my health or vaccine status. I admit, this surprised me, with all the fuss and bother about keeping the border closed so Covid from Canada couldn't get into the US.
I drove into Oroville, bought groceries and then pulled into a nearly empty state park where I hooked Scout up by myself for the first time. All in all, I was pretty proud of my accomplishment. I drove another 70 miles south the next day to Bridgeport where I met Norm. He'd flown into Seattle that morning–three airports and two planes–and rented a car, driving five hours to meet me.
Hey, what about that big mistake?The whole concept of snowbirding is to escape winter, but we took the wrong route to do it. We turned left when we should've turned right. Drove south through Utah instead of Nevada, and winter is on our tail. Rain storms in Idaho, bracing wind in Utah. SNOWFALL on the hills. Poor Scout is rattling. We'll get to warmer climes in a few days as we head to Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and into Arizona.
I'm posting pictures, videos and info daily on Facebook and Instagram, so if you want to see more travel proof, be sure to follow me there. I'll add more to this blog about our travels as well.
In Book News:Though I don't have a release in October, I do have a sale coming up next week, so watch for that. And, OMG, so excited about the COLORING BOOK. In time for Christmas, the 1920s Coloring Book will be out on November 2. This is so exciting. Check out this sneak peak!
Isn't this awesome? Illustrations are by artist Joel Strauss. I'm contributing commentary which adds a little background history to the images.
Get your coloring pencils out and plan to relax as you create! I know a few people who'll find this book under the tree.
In the meantime, check out this contest and help spread the word.
>>https://gleam.io/2h321/1920s-fashion-coloring-book<<
PS: there isn't a preorder for this one because preorders aren't available for paperback books.
What about you?How do you like to spend your winters? Are you into winter sports? Do you cozy up to a fire and read? Are you traveling south like we are? Let me know in the comments!
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October 7, 2021
Ten Years of Indie Publishing!
CLOCKWISE will forever be a book that's close to my heart. It was the story where I found my voice as a writer and also the book that landed me my first agent, a strong validation at the time. It was also the book, when it failed to sell in traditional circles, that launched me into indie publishing.
The kindle was a new phenomenon back in 2011, and much debated. Over time, ereaders caught on as an acceptable companion to print books, and indie publishers became slowly accepted in the same way indie filmmakers and indie musicians were. We authors now had a choice in how to proceed with our careers, effectively putting control back where it belongs, in the hands of the writers.
In 2011, Indie publishing was in its infant stage and venturing out took a lot of courage. Since that time, many cottage industries have burst on the scene, making the processes infinitely easier, such as Vellum (link) for formatting (LOVE Vellum! Has made formatting, which was super labor intensive, a breeze), Bookfunnel (link) for distributing Advanced Readers Copies (and much more), Bookbrush(link) for making advertising images, to name a few. There's also a plethora of Indie Publishing help and advice, including Mark Dawson's Ads for Authors(link), Chris Fox for Writers(link), Bryan Cohan's Amazon Ad School(link), Sara Rosett's Podcast Wish I'd known Then(link), and plenty of support groups on FB such as 20booksto50k(link).
Before then, the task was difficulty and time consuming and the results not nearly as optimal as they are now. But for those businesses and us, it's a win win. At the time I was writing Clockwise, my daughter and her friends were in that stage of transitioning from children to young women and I had opportunity to observe daily the world of the junior high ecosystem. I also had my own memories of a tortured high school experience. Who among us didn't suffer at some point from crushing on an unattainable hottie? To celebrate my first independently published book and my ten year anniversary as an independent author, I'm giving away FREE ecopies of CLOCKWISE until October 11.
Make sure to grab your copy and tell a friend!
Check out the whole series on Amazon (link)!
Casey Donovan’s hair is too curly, her limbs too long, and she barely fills an A cup. She can throw a ball as well as any boy, but for reasons she wouldn’t dare share, she never tries out for any team. Casey nurses a secret crush on the unattainable Nate Mackenzie.
Nate Mackenzie, super jock and quarterback at Cambridge High, hadn’t even heard of Casey Donovan until the night of the Fall Dance. That was when his buddies dared him to ask her to dance. That was when the craziness started.
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September 16, 2021
Who is Lady Mallowan and what does she have to do with Mallowan Court?
In Murder on Mallowan Court, the fictional street Ginger Gold lives on in South Kensington, is a nod to the mysterious Lady Mallowan.
So, who is Lady Mallowan?Before introducing you to Lady Mallowan, perhaps I should briefly introduce you to her second husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan.
Sir Hollowan was a prominent archaeologist in Britain in the 1940s, 50s and 60s who specialized in ancient Middle Eastern history.
His wife Lady Mallowan joined him for several months each year to assist him with archaeological digs in the desert. Together they dug up ancient Mesopotamian artifacts in places like Iraq, Syria and Egypt. Lady Mallowan did the work of cleaning, classifying and taking pictures of the artifacts they found, along with documenting the sites. She also devised a way to restore ancient ivory figurines using the chemical properties found in cold facial cream! She became an expert at restoring objects and matching pottery fragments, and was much respected by Max's colleagues for her painstaking and skilled work. Many of her findings are now held in the British Museum.
Inspired by these experiences, some very famous novels were written. These include Murder in Mesopotamia, Appointment with Death, Death on the Nile, and Murder on the Orient Express. If you're a fan of Agatha Christie, you might already know that the legendary mystery writer, was also known as Lady Mallowan.
“The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.”
Many of Agatha’s novels feature settings of archaeological sites, and the characters and stories were often were inspired by her own travels to these places and the people she met along the way.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is considered to be one of Agatha Christie's greatest works. As it was published in 1927, the year Murder on Mallowan Court takes place, I knew I had to bring it to Ginger's attention. Astute readers might catch the Easter Egg!
Murder’s afoot!
As Mrs. Ginger Reed~also known as Lady Gold~waits impatiently for the coming of her baby, new neighbours move onto Mallowan Court. The Foote family is very much like Ginger’s own, if not the mirror opposite: Mr. and Mrs. Foote an unhappy couple; Mr. Rothwell an aging, irate patriarch; Miss Charlotte, whom Scout finds to be a tantalizing, if confusing specimen of young ladyhood; along with a similar collection of staff.
The sudden passing of a Foote family member is determined to be unsuspicious, but something about this strange family doesn’t sit right with Ginger.
When the doctor banishes Ginger to her bed to await the coming birth, she has to depend on the information brought to her by her good friend and former sister-in-law, Felicia, the new Lady Davenport-Witt.
Can the two ladies solve the crime before the baby comes?
New ReleaseComing September 21!
Preorder and get it first!
Preorder Now Can't see the button? Click here: https://smarturl.it/Mallowan
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September 9, 2021
Dance Marathons of the 1930s were savage entertainment.
As I continue working on edits for Death by Dancing, it continues to amaze me that this kind of savage entertainment existed in modern times. Today I got a letter back from my editor, and to quote her, “–that whole thing with the dance marathons is fascinating. I had no idea. That's quite disturbing – what utter insanity! It's so crazy I wouldn't believe it if somebody just made it up for a story! But as it's historic fact… One of those “Truth is stranger than fiction” things, for sure. A bit of a cross between the Roman Colosseum and reality TV shows like Survivor–“
I'm hoping to release Death by Dancing this November, December at the latest. It's been nice hanging out with Haley and Samantha again.
This interest piece went out with my newsletter, but if you missed that, here it is again.Dance Marathons of the Great DepressionFads and TrendsIn all of the fads and trends we have witnessed over the last century, few compare in sadness of spectacle to the dance marathons (also called walkathons) of the great depression era. Originating in the early 1920s during the jazz age, the dance marathon was in many ways an extension of the human endurance competitions that were so in vogue at the time. Stunts like bicycle races that lasted for days and flagpole sittings were all part of the landscape in the days before television as people sought to put the previous decade of the great war and Spanish flu behind them.
Crash of '29After the great crash of ’29 and the ensuing poverty, many people became even more desperate for cheap entertainment. Enter the spectacle of the dance marathon, or as they were sometimes called ‘corn and callous carnivals’.
When I first started researching dance marathons of the great depression era for an upcoming Higgins and Hawke novel, I had in my mind an event that would last maybe two-three days at the most. I thought it was something that was perhaps staged on a particularly long evening or even a weekend; like a telethon or a track-and-field meet. I also imagined they took place in small towns in the Midwest, where people had less to do on a weekend.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. In reality, dance marathons routinely went for literally thousands of hours over the course of two to three months and were held in cities with populations of over 50,000 all across the United States. Many of them had up to one hundred fifty couples registered. There were ten-to-fifteen-minute breaks every hour and meals provided for the contestants, although they had to keep moving their feet while they ate.
During the depths of the depression, many contestants entered simply because it meant good food and a roof over their head for as long as they could stay on their feet. Even if they didn’t win the grand prize, (often a whopping one thousand dollars), at least they wouldn’t starve.
The Dance Marathon CelebrityOver time, many of the events started taking on even grander ideas, such as running derbies, to further weed out the struggling contestants. These races often resembled death marches with exhausted competitors collapsing and being dragged off the floor.
Promoters often invited celebrities to make an appearance and hosted theme nights. Newspapers were invited to write pieces on the backstories of contestants. This happened particularly as the number of couples thinned out towards the end and the general public became more and more infatuated with their favourite participants. As a result, many of the contestants became minor celebrities. Radio coverage was extremely popular, drawing tens of thousands of listeners every night. Polite society at the time regarded this as repugnant and voyeuristic, while many others thought it was a good way to spend 25 cents for a chance to sit in the stands for an evening. To organizers, a successful event was one that made a lot of money and resulted in no arrests.
In Death by Dancing we’ll learn how Haley Higgins views the whole affair. There’s another murder to solve and a killer to bring to justice.
Death’s a jig!A Dance Marathon in the North End of Boston in 1932 turns deadly at midnight. Samantha Hawke had entered as an insider reporter for the Boston Daily Record, and quite honestly, as a single mother during the depression, could use the extra cash. She has it better than most, rooming with Dr. Haley Higgins, the city’s new Chief Medical Examiner, but she hates the financial imbalance between them, and wants to do her part.
When Haley Higgins arrives on the scene, she's surprised to find the dead woman is the widow of a man whose body still lay in the cold cabinets of her morgue. She has reasons to believe the man’s death wasn’t natural, and now, with his wife having succumbed to the same symptoms, her convictions of foul play are stronger than ever.
Sam and Haley work together to determine which contestants in the dancing contest had means, motive, and opportunity. And most of all, how to keep the killer from striking again.
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