Monday-Monday Weathering the heatwave

Hello and welcome to Monday-Monday. I have news!

My publisher has put THE GREEN-EYED DOLL on sale for .99. Download from Amazon or Barnes & Noble for one week!

But I’m sharing with you the scoop on my really big news. Drum roll please!

Between Tuesday, April 9th and Saturday, April 13, THE LAST EXECUTION will be free! Again, Kindle only.

It’s a great deal, two full length novels for less than a buck!

Have you signed up for my newsletter? I’m planning on no more for four a year with the first one in June. We’ll have news and maybe a prize! Okay, enough business, lets talk about my favorite time of the year.

As spring arrives bringing along with it budding trees, colorful flowers, and plentiful vegetable gardens, I have to wonder. Will our always unpredictable Texas weather provide enough water to keep things flourishing? Will we skip spring and jump straight to summer as we often do, wiping out crops of all varieties and turning our fields into a dry parched wasteland?

As I developed Catherine McCoy, the heroine in THE GREEN-EYED DOLL, Texas was having a record breaking year. Little did I know when the plot started taking shape that summer would be exactly as I was describing in the book.

Weather and setting can provide an additional external conflict to heighten the tension and danger in a story. Catherine had to survive the hottest summer and the longest drought on record. Almost broke, she took what work was available and still didn’t have enough money to fix her car’s air-conditioner when it went on the fritz! To test her determination, tenacity, and will to live, I created a serial killer who intended her to become his next doll.

Since Catherine had to suffer the heat, it seemed only fair the Sheriff Matt Ballard and his deputies do the same while they searched for each missing woman. In addition, a stray homesteaded Matt’s place during this time. A No-Name dog who allowed Matt to feed but not touch him. (How No-Name finally got a name is another post.)

I’ve included a few facts about the summer of 2011. I hope you find them interesting. It’s hard to imagine 70 days with 100-degree heat with temperatures of 105 or 107 and finally 108. Combine those incredible temperatures with the fact we hadn’t had rain since the fall of 2010 and the situation became critical.

                                                                                       

The weather bureau reported over eleven-thousand fires in Texas during 2011 resulting in almost three-  and-a-half million acres burned.

Sometimes good things can come from bad. And the dry lake beds gave Texas back some of its history. Graveyards were found and are now being relocated.

[image error]

 

 

 

 

Have you experienced weather like this? What’s summer like in your neck of the woods?