Coming June 18th - Davenport Designs

Former Sheriff's Office detective Ray Davenport now owns the Wood U gift shop on Victoria Square, but it’s his talented younger daughters who steal the show with their displays and packaging designs. The girls believe they can earn money with their window-dressing skills for the other businesses on the Square, but the only merchant who hires them conspires to reap the rewards of their labor without paying a cent. Will they have to swallow their pride and ask Katie Bonner for help to get what’s owed them?

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Get it now!

NOW AVAILABLE! 

  

Katie Bonner’s business in on the line after her friend Jamie is poisoned at her tea shop. First she must locate the mysterious woman he was dining with, and next  she must go undercover at a nearby poker club where Jamie won big a week before. It seems everyone there might have had a motive to rub Jamie out...and if they learn Katie has been lying to them, she might be next!    | Google Play

Read an excerpt of DEAD MAN'S HAND on my website. Just click this link.

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In print:

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books A Million | Indiebound | Book Depository |

Bake this cake!

Angelica's carrot cake recipe was featured in A FATAL CHAPTER, including her recipe for maple buttercream frosting (which is super yummy). Check it out!  

Haven't read the book?  Read it now!

Read an excerpt!

Have you pre-ordered your copy?

Read an excerpt of DEAD MAN'S HAND on my website. Just click this link.

PRE-ORDER NOW!

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The print edition will be available on or before Feb. 5th.

We need a little Christmas ... right this very minute

 I did some more decorating over the weekend. I'm running out of doorknobs and wall space to hang things, so this Santa pillow is now hanging from the welcome sign just inside my front door.  I did the cross stitch back when my hands could take it, and my mother made it into a pillow with a ribbon. I used to hang it on the handle on the handle from the sliding glass door into our enclosed porch, but then my sister-in-law sent us a felted stocking (which is pretty) and it's lived there every holiday season since and Santa got relegated to storage, but I like it and decided to try to find a way to use it.  Mr. L's sister is an extremely talented knitter and makes the best stuff. (I'll have to take pictures to share.)
How is your holiday decorating going?

What's your favorite?

 

Happy Saturday.  Mr. L always teases me because for just about every tune I've ever heard, I have a favorite part. Just a few notes.  I grew up in a musical home. My Dad played the trumpet, and my Mother was a HUGE fan of musicals. I knew all the lyrics to Broadway shows such as West Side Story, Carousel, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, and so many more by the time I hit grammar school. 

When I was a kid, we only had two Christmas albums. One by Andy Williams and one by the Ray Conniff singers.  Is it any wonder that my favorite Christmas song (and 2nd favorite) came from that Ray Conniff album. My absolute FAVORITE Christmas song is Silver Bells. I've heard it from many, many different artists, and no matter who sings it (except for Elvis. *Shudder* I'm NOT an Elvis fa.), I always stop to listen. I should put together a CD of all the various versions I have, I love it so much. (But that would probably drive Mr. L around the bend.)

My second favorite Christmas song was only performed (as far as I've been able to discover)  on that same Ray Conniff album. "Christmas Bride."  (https://www.youtube.com) I got engaged on Christmas Eve, so that song, which I heard when I was just a little girl, had even more importance when it finally happened.

So, what's your favorite Christmas song?
 

Cyber Monday Book Sale at Nook and Smashwords!

 
To celebrate Cyber Monday, TODAY and tomorrow, I'm offering seven of my books at 50% off from Nook and Smashwords. Why these books? Why not? Don't have a Nook? Get the free app. Click this link to get it!  Just use the Coupon Code for either site. (Just copy paste it from this newsletter!)

Sabina Reigns: Nook Coupon Code:  BNPSABINA   |   Smashwords  Coupon Code: TX93T
A Murderous Misconception: Nook Code:  BNPMISCON   |  Smashwords  Code: PD94N
Life On Victoria Square Vol. I: Nook Code:   BNPVSSET    |  Smashwords  Code: HQ69T
Mystical Blythe Code Manor:  Nook Code:  BNPBLYTHE   |  Smashwords  Code: GM96X
Recipes To Die For: Nook Code:    BNPRECIPES   |   Smashwords  Code:  VJ39G
The Best From Swans Nest: Nook Code:  BNPSWANSNEST   |   Smashwords Code: VF33W
Happy Holidays?: Nook Code:   BNPHOLIDAYS     |   Smashwords  Code: KL47K

Happy reading!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Coming February 5th - DEAD MAN'S HAND

 

Katie’s been dealt the Dead Man’s Hand …

 It’s all fun and games when Katie Bonner and her friends play poker for chocolate-covered peanuts, but the very next day Jamie Seifert collapses and dies after visiting Katie’s tearoom on Victoria Square.
 
Katie’s business in on the line and she needs to prove Jamie wasn’t poisoned at Tealicious. Her first order of business is to locate the mysterious woman he was dining with, and her next step is to go undercover at a nearby poker club where Jamie won big just a week before. It seems everyone there might have had a motive to rub Jamie out...and if they learn Katie has been lying to them, she might be next! 

PRE-ORDER NOW!

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The print edition will be available on or before Feb. 5th.

A lovely lunch

 

Happy Sunday! When you're skipping a meal (every day for months on end. It's called intermittent fasting), you start to become obsessed with food. (Starting?) I start planning lunch the minute I open my eyes in the morning (and sometimes that's at 3:30. I'm really BAD at sleeping). Since my brother gave us some croissants, I've been salivating more than Pavlov's dog. 

Ideally, I'd love it with chicken salad, but...egg salad is almost as good. (With minced celery and chopped olives--and LOTS of mayo. I've found the best olive oil mayo is actually Walmart's Great Value brand. Costs less than the big brands and tastes better. Has almost half the calories of regular mayo, too. Commercial over.) I have just enough lettuce to put on the croissant, too. (Boy, have I been nursing this head of lettuce.)

 We're having fried rice (with ham click the link for the recipe) for supper tonight. (I love it because you can make it ahead.)

What's on your menu today?

It's the little things ...

 

Thanks to Covid-19, we're getting in the holiday mood a little early this year. 

 My brother and his wife bought a pop-up trailer three years ago. Since then, they've upgraded twice to other "towables," (see how I've got the lingo down?). They have become real fans of camping (mostly at parks and campgrounds). They love the camaraderie and they have several other families they hang out with.

I saw the little camper in a catalog that came wayyyyy back in August. I bought it in early October, and it's been sitting in my entryway ever since. (Let me assure you, I was totally able to sweep around it.) I didn't want to wait until Christmas to give it to them, but this morning my brother went to the Public Market and dropped off some cider donuts and croissants for Mr. L, and wonderful cinnamon scones for me. As we put up our Christmas lights yesterday and are getting in the holiday mood, and I didn't know when I'd next see my brother, I gave him the box (with batteries) this morning. (We both had our masks on!)

I'm pretty sure he rolled his eyes when they opened the box, but the sister-in-law was thrilled! (After all, she was the one who wanted to start camping.)

Knowing she loves it, made my day.  I think it's been sold out, but you can buy something similar from the same company here.

What's going to make your day?

Ready for something different...

Today is National Pieorgi Day and Mr. L will be having them for lunch. Buffalo has a big "Polish" population. Mr. L's mother was a first generation American of Polish descent and made all kinds of great Polish dishes.

I'm on the fence about pierogi. I like potatoes, but I'm not a big cheese fan. We've tried as many versions of Mrs. T's pierogi as we could find and I absolutely LOVED the jalapeño kind, but then we couldn't get them again. Mr. L will eat them just boiled, but I like them fried with onions.

I'm sure my character, Jeff Resnick (from the Jeff Resnick Mysteries) has eaten his share of pieorgi, but he's never mentioned it to me.

Are you a pieorgi fan and if so, what's your favorite kind?

P.S. Don't these pieorgis look fabulous?

If you want my bucks, don't insult me

 Nothing says "hire me" like a sales pitch that starts out "your website is crap." Really, NOTHING. I can't tell you how many of these pitches I get in a week. Most of them from other countries (you can tell by the names of the (I assume) men who sign the emails).

Okay, maybe my site isn't as sophisticated as say ... Barbara Freethy (romance author) or Mary Kay Andrews, but then I'm pretty sure they don't update them, either. They've got the bucks to hire someone. Me? I'm running on a shoestring. My goal was to have a site easy to maintain so that I didn't have to wait for an update. My first website designer was also a writer (like my current one), but she only did updates once a week. She had enough clients that sometimes it took as long as three weeks for her to get around to fixing whatever was broken. And if you wanted a site where she DIDN'T make the updates (where I had to pay for every tiny change), then she charged you three times as much to set it up. Uh...needless to say we parted ways.

I found Jo (my current designer) because I someone I knew had a site done by her. I wasn't that impressed, but I looked at Jo's portfolio anyway and realized that she had probably given the author exactly what she wanted. (Her books were set in a swamp--that's what she got.) I wanted something that said "cozy" and Jo gave it to me. And if I have a problem, she almost always answers within an hour of my email, and often doesn't charge me. She's wonderful and I'm happy to call her my friend. (We hung out at a Ninc writers conference several years ago. It was great to have a friend there.) If you're ever looking for a website designer, Glass Slipper WebDesign is the place you should go.

Anyway, maybe you'll go and check out my website. There are lots of hidden pages (links to the maps of Victoria Square and Lotus Bay), Breakfast at Blythe Cove Manor, etc. Fun things you can find if you just explore a little bit. (Same with my Lorna site.) Here's a link.

http://www.lorrainebartlett.com

So, have you gotten a sales pitch where the person giving it starts out with an insult?

Happy Book Day to Gayle Leeson

Happy Book Day to my Victoria Square co-author, Gayle Leeson. Check out her latest Down South Cafe Mystery, Fruit Baskets and Holiday Caskets on sale now. (Don't worry, the Amazon paperback edition will be arriving in a couple of days--you can order from Barnes & Noble now!)

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Apple Books
Barnes & Noble

A Deadly Deletion

YAY! It's been almost six months since I got a call from my agent telling me that Berkley was interested in at least two more Booktown Mysteries. But then the pandemic hit and everything went on hold. But I'm happy to announce that I signed the contract yesterday. Whew! What a relief. I've been working on the book for more than a month now and while I knew how the cliffhanger would be solved, and I knew who the new victim would be, I was shocked by some of the other things that have already happened. I only have four complete chapters written, but I moved ahead and have written at least 20 partial scenes and now I'm starting to connect them. I pretty much know where the story is going, and it's great that it's finally starting to gel. (It usually takes another 10,000 words before that happens.)

Even though the contract was (very, very) late, they've already had a cover conference. My editor is a doll and he let me have input (which a lot of authors don't get). He made some suggestions and let me choose. I think it will be super cute.

So, what do you think?

Saving Kathy's House

As most of you know, I write the Lotus Bay Mysteries (and not often enough). When I started the series, I based it on a real place.

Over about a decade, I'd watched what I began to call "Kathy's house" (the basis for Swans Nest Inn) fall into disrepair. It made me sad. It made me want to write about rescuing it. Of course, I needed a BIGGER house to act as the inn, so... I just added more rooms. A lot more rooms--and a taller attic. (I figure Swans Nest Inn is at least double the size of "Kathy's house.") The grass was never cut (the picture above was taken in early spring), and it just got shabbier and shabbier. And then one day, the dreaded RED X went up. That meant, if it caught on fire, it wasn't safe for firefighters to enter.  (Ruh-roh!)

Then, two years ago, a FOR SALE sign went up. Yay! Someone was going to save Kathy's house.  Only nothing happened for quite a while. In fact, there's also a commercial building on the lot, and the new owner worked on it before the house. It was finished last summer and looks quite nice. They finally painted (or stained) the house last fall. I was surprised he choose charcoal gray. (Not my choice.) But the house was finally starting to get some love.

The house is by no means finished. And where I took it from four apartments back to a home, the new owner is taking the home and making it a duplex. It looks quite a bit different, but actually very nice.

How do I know about all this?  I met the new owner last week. He's a surveyor and was surveying a cottage near ours. Our neighbor works with him and as I was packing the car, I was called over to speak to him. Not only had our neighbor read the Lotus Bay Mysteries, but he'd loaned the books to the surveyor and his wife. I told him I'd added a big porch, and apparently it's in the works, although I'm not sure if it'll be in the front or the back of the house.

It was so nice to hear about the love and care that's going into the restoration. (You can't see it, but there's a lovely picnic area to the left.)

Don't you just love happy endings?

Welcome to the pool

Yesterday we opened our pool for the summer. It's always a potentially frightening event.  Will the water be clear or murky?  Will the bottom be full of dead worms who wiggled their way under the cover, fell in the water and drown? And...how's that liner doing?

We were relieved that upon peeling back the cover that the water was sparkling clear. (Whew!)

Last week, while poking around in our basement looking for something else, I came across a plastic yellow duck.

Hmm. Where did that come from?  Neither Mr. L nor I remember ever buying this duck. Did someone give it to us?  Was it conjured up by rubbing a lamp and asking a genie for a wish? Who knows! But it's now in our pool, floating around and looking a little lonely. Should I try to find her a friend? Many friends?  Where would I find it/them?

Since the pool was looking pretty spiffy, I decided to make a video using it as a background. What do you think? (I like the bird tweeting in the background.)


So, yup, if you'be been waiting for the paperback of A KILLER EDITION, it'll be available on June 30th.

 Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million | Chapters/Indigo | Indiebound 

 Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)

Give Sabina A Chance

It's only been 15 years in the making.

Back in the day (which means before I was published in novel-length), I experimented with several different genres. I started out with hard-boiled suspense (the Jeff Resnick series), cozy mystery (the Victoria Square Mysteries) and women's fiction.

Sabina Reigns started out as women's fiction, but then I wrote three chapters as a cozy mystery (for a contest, where it didn't even place), and then went back to women's fiction. But then I got contracts for Booktown and Victoria Square from Berkley Books and the Sabina manuscript went back under the bed. But I never forgot her.

This winter, when I was between projects, Sabina came out from under the bed and I spent two months rewriting it. I've come a long way in 15 years and so Sabina and her cohorts have a much deeper, more sobering story to tell. But there're still some elements of fun as Sabina makes her journey from housewife to successful entrepreneur. It's also a story about mothers and daughters and how those relationships change.

The book will be available in print and ebook on September 4th. (The print edition isn't yet available to pre-order, but if you read ebooks, it can be pre-ordered now.)

Sabina Reigns Miller had it all: a wealthy husband, a beautiful home, a daughter at a great college. Without warning seven words blow the bottom off her world. "I've met someone else-and she's pregnant." Her husband of twenty years wants a divorce so he can move his mistress into their former residence. Although Sabina loses her comfortable life, she refuses to fall on her face. Her ex-husband's girlfriend may be living in their house, but Sabina has interior design skills and a bucket of dreams.
Can she rebound from the unexpected change, stick to her principles, help out a friend, and find someone to love again?
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Will you give Sabina Reigns a chance?

Saying Good-Bye to a Reader

Last week, I got a note from a reader of my Booktown Mysteries. She wrote:  "I can't bring myself to read on. In every good series there are twists and turns, good & bad,,but killing off (SPOILER) has broken my heart."

A writer never wants to hear that a reader has given up on her work. (Yeah, ouch!) But despite losing this reader, there is a silver lining to this dark cloud.

I'm sorry she feels that way ... but you know, the fact that I was able to make her care so much about that character means I succeeded as a writer.  I brought life to that character. He meant something to her, something that will stay with her for a while. But that also means that she cared more for him than you do for Tricia, Angelica and the rest of the Booktown characters, and that makes me sad.

I'm also sad to know how she isn't interested in how the characters will survive this turn of events. 

I'd hate for her to miss the next book in the series. I wrote that book while my mother was in hospice dying. It kept me going when I felt like I'd lost everything. How I ever wrote such a fun book during that terrible time still amazes me.

Of course, there're more hard times ahead for Tricia and the other Booktown characters because that's what storytelling is all about: conflict. When there's no conflict, there's no story.

I thanked her for reading the first x-number of Booktown Mysteries, and I invited her to check out the other six series I write under my real names. I'm pretty sure she won't give them a chance, but that's her decision. When I write a book, the most important thing I consider is characterization, even over plot. Apparently, that's what keeps readers coming back for more. 

Have you ever given up on a series in the middle? If so, why?

Summer with the good and the bad

Just about everyone around the world has had their lives impacted by Covid-19. Here's my list of things that we won't be doing or having done.

• No flowers: we usually go to the local nursery and buy flowers for our urns.
• Nobody to clean the house every two weeks.
• No one to help me in the garden
• Not so much meat for supper
• No interacting with friends and family
• No trips to the ice cream place
• No yard sales (oh, boy--for a thrifter, that's a BIGGIE)

But then there have been some good things, too.

• Our pansies from last year self-seeded, so we do have some flowers after all
• I  baked bread for the first time
• I've been baking quick breads (to use for Mr. L's breakfasts)
• We've been doing more jigsaw puzzles (well, mostly ones we've done before)
• We're still able to patronize our favorite restaurant via takeout
• I've been able to stay on my diet despite bread and quick breads (15 lbs down) 
• I've finished two books and a short story and started another two books
• I've got everything I need to repaint my kitchen cabinets 
• Curbside pick-ups & home deliveries
• The mail still comes 6 days a week

So while this won't be the summer we all wanted, maybe it can still be a good summer.  How will you make your summer special?