Tag: cozy mysteries

Book review/recommendation: Murder Always Barks Twice by Jennifer Hawkins

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews3 Comments

TITLE: Murder Always Barks Twice

AUTHOR: Jennifer Hawkins

GENRE: Cozy mystery

Murder Always Barks Twice by Jennifer Hawkins follows a tea shop owner in England and her excitable and cute talking Corgi Oliver. Yes. The dog talks.

I was a little leery of the book at first because I don’t usually read cozy mysteries with magical elements (except the Magical Flowe Shop Mysteries by Amanda Flower).

When I realized that only the main character Emma could understand Oliver I liked the idea a little bit better.

The talking dog doesn’t overshadow the story at all. In fact, it seems pretty natural to the entire book which otherwise is completely realistic and doesn’t feature supernatural or magical elements. I think it also helps that the dog talks like you might imagine a dog talks. He’s a smart dog but not too smart. He’s just smart enough to know that there’s certain things he should tell Emma that he’s seen or smelled but not smart enough that he’s the one solving the mysteries.

Everything he wants to say is exciting to him. So he’s not sitting there and talking like a proper gentleman you might say. He’s sort of adorable really.

The supporting characters in the book are plentiful and that can make things a little confusing at times. Sometimes I had to go back and remind myself who someone was. Emma either works with or knows all the characters in some capacity and even though the town is small there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of people who Emma interacted with throughout the book.

I can’t say any of the supporting characters were that memorable to me other than Oliver. The three women she spoke to most all sounded the same to me in my head. They were sort of interchangeable sounding boards for her, even though one was supposed to be her best friend and the others more like co-workers. They offered a way for Emma to work things out clues in her mind but I part of me feels a couple of them could have been removed and the story still could have carried on just as well. At the same time, having a lot of support rallying around the main character was nice as well.

To clarify – just because I thought some of the supporting characters could have been cut out, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the characters. I really liked the co-owner of the tea shop – Angelique – and her daughter Pearl but they weren’t super important to the plot for me, other than when Emma helped find some clues.

Emma’s friend Genny offered even more support but I lost track of what her job actually was — I think she owned a restaurant in town. It wasn’t really important to the plot.

I really enjoyed how this book was built around a festival celebrating author Daphne DuMaurier’s book Rebecca, which was made into a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The plot of that book/movie was skillfully tied into the mystery of this book, adding to the complexity of the plot. I was impressed with how much history the author knew about the DuMaurier and the area she lived in.

After a quick search online I learned there is a literary festival in Fowey, England that is inspired by DeMaurier, who wrote many books besides Rebecca.

Rebecca was, however, her most famous, partially because of the movie version of it.

I felt like the amount of red herrings thrown out in this one was enough to keep me guessing and second-guessing right up until the end. I had figured out the culprit toward the end but I still wanted to be sure and see how the author wrapped up how they committed the crime.

I would definitely read future books by this author.

Fiction Friday: Revisiting Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing – Chapter 1

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings3 Comments

I thought today I would reshare the first chapter of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing for Fiction Friday since I don’t have anything new to share right now.

You can find the full book in paperback on Barnes and Noble and Amazon and in ebook on Amazon. It is also in Kindle Unlimited.

Chapter 1

“Hey, new girl. Grab a notebook and let’s go. We’ve got a one vehicle MVA on Darby Hill.”

Gladwynn Grant heard the voice but when she looked over her shoulder, her new boss had already disappeared back into the hallway.

MVA?

Wait. What did MVA stand for again?

Gladwynn racked her brain, trying to remember the meaning of the acronym.

She fumbled through her top desk drawer for a reporter’s notebook and pen, wincing when the edge of a paper sliced into the skin of her index finger.

The M wasn’t murder, was it?

Mayhem? No, that wasn’t it.

“New girl, come on.”

She looked up, but, once again, he had disappeared.

“Be right there.”

Messy? No. That wasn’t it.

She stood, slammed her knee off the metal drawer of the desk and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Outside the window to her right snow flurries swirled against a dark gray sky.

M was for motor.

The rest came to her as she reached for her winter coat on the back of her chair.

MVA. Motor Vehicle Accident. That was it.

“Chop. Chop.” The editor was standing in the hallway. “This will be good training for you.”

Right. Good training for the job she hadn’t even wanted but needed.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” her mother always said, a line she hated hearing growing up and detested even more as an adult.

Training for her new job in the middle of a snowstorm wasn’t exactly what she’d expected when she’d accepted the job as a reporter at the Brookstone Beacon. She thought she’d be shown the ropes slowly, over time – maybe handed a few lightweight stories to write first. Instead, it was clear she was to be thrown into the deep end right off the bat.

She quickly yanked on her red, 1940s-style coat, flipped up the hood, and shoved the pen and notebook in her large inside pocket. Snatching a pair of red leather gloves off the top of the bare desk, she rushed to follow editor Liam Finley down the dimly lit hallway toward the back door. A gust of frigid wind smacked her in the face as it opened.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she stepped out into the cold.

It took two of her steps to keep up with one of the steps of the man in front of her.

He looked over his shoulder as snow whipped around them. “We’ll take my car. Did you grab a camera?”

“Oh. No. I’ll —”

“Go back and grab one. I’ll meet you up front.”

Darting back through the snow she pulled the hood tight in front of her face, icy flakes still managing to bite at her skin. She was out of breath when she rushed back into the office, weaving through cubicles to retrieve the camera she’d been given the day before. She didn’t make eye contact with her new co-workers as she rushed back out the back door.

“Good luck, newbie,” a man’s voice called after her.

She was even more out of breath by the time she reached the parking lot, the camera clutched against her chest. Snow fell in sheets around her. Opening the passenger door of the tan BMW, she flopped into the front seat, breathing hard as melting snow dripped from her hair into her eyes. The windshield was a blur of white.

Liam shifted the car into gear and yanked it out onto the empty street. “I hope it’s a fatal. We need a centerpiece.”

Wiping snow from her face she looked at her new boss with wide eyes. His unshaven appearance made him look older than he probably was. Dark hair hung long across his forehead, just above dark brown eyes framed by dark, and remarkably long, eyelashes. Small lines creased the skin next to his eyes.

He glanced at her and lifted his shoulder. “What? We don’t have any art for page one.”

“Art?”

He shifted the car into a lower gear as snow piled up on the road. “A photo or graphic for the centerpiece.”

“Centerpiece?”

He sighed. “The main story on the front page. What are they teaching in colleges these days? I thought you’d have learned this stuff at the college newspaper.”

He seemed to have forgotten the part of her interview where she had admitted she hadn’t worked at a college newspaper for almost seven years.

Liam was driving at what she felt was an unsafe speed considering, one, the conditions, and two, the fact they were on their way to an accident caused by those same conditions. He reached over and tapped a couple buttons on the dashboard as the town whipped past them in a blur. Warmth rushed up under her and she let out a small gasp, then realized the seats were heated.

“You okay over there?”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Yep. Totally fine.”

Liam flicked the high beams on. Even though the sun hadn’t set yet, the snow was making it seem darker out. “When we get there, you take the photos and I’ll do the talking. Watch what I do so you’ll know what to do next time.”

She nodded.

Next time.

On her own.

That should be interesting.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking of taking this job. It was nothing like she’d expected.

She’d applied for it after the college had laid her off from her job as a research librarian at the library. She’d needed the money to pay off her college loans, which she was still paying off at the age of 27.

Well, the loans and the cute red convertible she’d bought when she thought the library job was going to be long term.

The ad on the job site had caught her eye, not really because of the job itself, but because of where it was located.

Brookstone, Pennsylvania – where her grandmother lived alone in a massive Victorian house. Two hundred miles away from where she’d grown up with her parents and, more importantly, 200 miles away from Bennett Steele.

“You’re a quiet one, Grant.” Liam’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What’d you do before you came here again?”

Clearly, he had not read her resume at all. She had a feeling all he’d wanted was a warm body to fill the vacancy.

She rubbed her gloved hands together and blew into them. “Library assistant for Brock College. They laid me off a couple of months ago.”

“From librarian to a reporter. This must be cultural shock to you.”

She glanced at him then back at the steadily growing whiter road in front of them. “Yeah, a little. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

She doubted her own words.

In the last week, every idea she’d had of what a reporter actually did had been shattered beyond recognition. Sure, she knew she’d be expected to attend municipal meetings and community gatherings and write a story about them. Now, though, she knew they also expected her to take the photographs, proofread her co-workers’ stories, and sometimes answer the phones at the front desk. Small town newspapers were nothing like the larger ones portrayed in movies and books.

She hadn’t interacted much with Liam yet, other than her brief interview and a brief staff meeting a couple of days ago. She’d already pegged him as someone who lived mainly for his job and wasn’t afraid to push the envelope when it came to succeeding at it, though.

Flashing red and blue lights cut through the fog and snow up ahead. Emergency vehicles were parked in the middle of the road and off to the side, near the guardrails.

Liam smoothly pulled his car behind a black truck with a blue flashing light on top. Through a space between a fire truck and an ambulance, she could see a maroon SUV on its roof and, behind it, a blue sedan dented in the front and partway off the road.

A state police trooper turned as they approached the scene, hands at his waist. “You need to stay back.”

His voice was deep and made Gladwynn, who had never considered herself timid, want to say “Yes, sir” and dash back to Liam’s car.

Liam, however, didn’t seem bothered. He tipped his head in a curt nod. “Of course. My reporter here just needs some photos. She can stand back here to get them. I heard entrapment on the scanner. Can you confirm that?”

The trooper merely held up his hand. “You’ll need to step back, sir. Only emergency responders past this point.”

Liam ignored the trooper and raised his hand to greet one of the firemen walking toward them. “Justin! Hey! How you doing? Bad night out here, huh?”

The firefighter nodded solemnly, and Gladwynn noticed the word “chief” emblazoned on the yellow helmet he was wearing. “It is. I can’t talk now, but call me later and I can give you some details. One injury so far.”

“And I’m sure I can call the barracks later for a report.” Liam smiled at the trooper as he walked around him toward the ambulance. “Right?”

The trooper’s eyes narrowed, jaw tightening, but he didn’t move to stop Liam. “Sure.”

Liam raised an imaginary camera to his eye, making a motion with his finger as if clicking a shutter. Gladwynn took the hint and began taking photographs, glad she’d kept up her photography hobby over the years. When her foot slipped after a few shots, she thought she was going down, but a hand under her elbow steadied her. She looked up at a firefighter with practically translucent blue eyes and a broad, friendly smile.

He let go of her elbow and looked at her feet. “Not the best shoes for this weather.”

His accent was thick. Clearly Irish. What was an Irishman doing in Brookstone?

She glanced at her high-heeled boots. Her grandmother had also commented on their impracticality this morning. “Yeah, I need to start carrying winter boots with me.”

The firefighter winked as he turned to walk away. “It’d be a good idea.”

Liam stood next to the ambulance talking to the fire chief. Radio chatter and the purr of engines served as background noise to the voices of the responders and eventually a call for a backboard. Gladwynn stepped back, lifting the camera to snap a few shots as the firemen kneeled next to the car.

A dark green glove blocked her view. “No photos of victims.”

A different, less friendly, and less attractive, firefighter stood before her with a scowl.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

He turned his back toward her, standing more squarely in front of her as if to get his point across. Lowering the camera, she stepped to her right and looked over the man’s burly right shoulder in time to see Liam walking toward her, hands shoved in his coat pockets.

He nodded his head toward his car and walked past her. She assumed that meant he wanted her to follow him. At this point, she’d rather be at home curled up under a blanket with a book and a cup of blueberry tea sweetened with a healthy helping of honey.

“No fatality, but still good art with that SUV on its hood,” he said as she fell in step with him. “Did you get some good shots?”

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Bart tried to stop you, didn’t he?”

“Well, yes, but I —”

“Big buffoon thinks he can tell us how to do our jobs. Those state police don’t help matters either. They cover all the little towns and townships without a police force. That’s most of the county these days. They act like they are the gatekeepers of all information at any emergency scene we show up to.”

He slid into the driver’s side and slammed the door closed.

She pulled the passenger side door closed gently and blew into her hands again. The gloves were stylish, but definitely not warm. “Does Brookstone still have a police department?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore, no. It was disbanded maybe six years ago, from what I understand. I’ve only been here for four.” He tapped the heater button again. This time Gladwynn was ready. “First lesson, Grant — we work for our readers. It’s our job to get the story, even if you have to push a little to do it. If we have to go through a couple of arrogant volunteer firefighters or cops to do our jobs, then so be it.” He looked at her. “Got it?”

She nodded slowly, wishing she felt the confidence he obviously had.

He took the camera from her and flipped through the photos on the screen. “Not bad. We’ve got at least four good shots.”

Handing the camera back, he backed the car up until he could turn it around and head back toward the office. He held his phone to his ear as he drove, but didn’t slow down, despite the fact even more snow had fallen since they’d arrived on the scene.

“Tom, hey. We’ve got a centerpiece shot for the front. Horizontal, four columns.”

He slid his finger over the end button and tossed the phone into the center console. “We should be able to craft a story together when we get back. I’ll have you contact the state police in about half an hour and see if they have some information for us. You can send me what you find out and I’ll add it to the story.”

He moved the car into the opposite lane, shifted the car into a lower gear, and passed a car moving slowly along the snow-covered highway. Gladwynn gripped the door handle, closed her eyes, and pressed herself back into the seat.

In that moment, wondering if she’d be the next person being pulled from an upside-down vehicle, she desperately missed her previous job where she’d spent most days inside a building, searching the online catalog for books for college students.

What I Read in April and What’s Coming Up in May

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading14 Comments

I am a little late on this one but oh well. Life gets in the way of blogging. Gasp! I know. Shocking. *wink*

But seriously, I forgot that I wanted to write a post about what I read in April and what I “plan” on reading in May last week so I am doing it this week instead.

To explain, I always write what I plan to read in a certain month, but I almost never stick to my list of what I will read, as you can see if you ever look back on blog posts where I have shared what I plan to read.

First up, what I read in April:

The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts by Lilian Jackson Braun

I offered a longer review of this on the blog yesterday. You can find that HERE.

The short version, though, is that I liked this book and it became one of my favorites of the series for the different version of Jim Qwilleran, the fact they were investigating the death of a close friend (which made me sad) and just the humor offered between Qwill and a child and then Qwill and his girlfriend Polly’s new kitten.

The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene

Oh Nancy Drew, I do love you.

Even though so much of these books are completely unbelievable and silly. I can’t help reading them, though, because even with some silly plot points mixed in, the overall plots actually do hold up and are interesting. The books are like fluffy Angel Food Cake. They just melt in  your mouth – a quick and sweet treat that makes you roll your eyes and giggle and then reach for another one.

This one involved a mystery at an inn (obviously, by the title), Nancy’s identity being stolen, and missing jewels. And as always Carson Drew, Nancy’s father, gave her permission to chase after dangerous people and be nearly killed as long as she was “careful.”

A Troubling Case of Murder on the Menu by Donna Doyle

I shared a review of this one last week. It was cute and sweet without much bite or plot at all. And that was just fine with me. Sometimes we need something like that. The book was only about 100 pages and I’m sure I will read others in this cute and short series.

For a shortened version of the plot: a retired, older woman, decides to start blogging as a  hobby to fill her days now that her husband has passed away. In the process of visiting restaurants to blog about them she stumbles onto a dead body. Emily Cherry is a cute main character and her supporting characters include curious cat Rosemary and her overprotective family and a good friend, Anita.

Night Falls on Predicament Avenue by Jaime Jo Wright

I did not like this book. Let’s just get that out of the way. I liked parts of it and it moved along fast to start with.

Then it got repetitive.

The main character lives in an inn that is known to be haunted and has a history of death. There is a cemetery behind the old Victorian-house that houses the inn. Her sister was found dead near the inn. She is surrounded by death and constantly feels like the bony fingers of death are strangling her (we are told this at the beginning and end of almost every chapter after all) and her life is sad and hopeless because of her sister’s death. She has become almost a recluse. We are reminded of all these things about ten to twenty times throughout the book – in case we forgot the other ten or twenty times it was mentioned.

This is a dual timeline book so there is a mystery in the past and that got a little weird for me because the girl in the past seemed to be falling in love with a married man or a murderer or … who even knows at some points which is the good part of the mystery.

I might  have been able to push a 3.5 stars out for this one if it hadn’t been for the sick and twisted ending that made me want to throw up and gave me the ickiest feeling.

All of this might not have bothered me so much if it wasn’t for the book being promoted as Christian Fiction. I got scolded by a reader for having a long kiss but this book was demented and that same reader gushed over it. Christian readers can be really, really weird at times. Kissing bad. Demented murder and assault good. Ha. Ha. Weird, right?

The Divine Proverb of Streusel by Sara Brunsvold

This book was about a woman (Nikki) who finds out her father has cheated on her mother and is divorcing her and sort of has a mental breakdown.

Her entire foundation of what her family was and what love means is shaken. She is engaged to a man and worries the same could happen to their relationship one day. She takes off to her late grandmother’s house a couple of states away and stays with her uncle who she barely knows to try to find herself. Her uncle (who is her dad’s brother) is in the process of cleaning out his mother’s house. She finds an old cookbook filled with recipes but also wisdom and begins cooking her grandmother’s recipes as a way to distract herself. In the process she begins to learn about her family, including the difficult relationship that her father had with his father.

The bottom line is that I enjoyed this one and it had me thinking about it a couple days later even.

I will have a full review of it up tomorrow.

Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O’Connor

This book follows the story of an Irish family who lost their parents a year before and are working hard to keep the family bistro/café running. The story is told from the perspective of Shioban O’Sullivan, the older sister who was going to go to college but couldn’t when her parents died and she was left to care for her siblings. While they are all trying to adjust to life without their parents, she walks downstairs one morning and finds a dead body in the bistro.

Shioban already has feelings for the Guarda (which is essentially a town cop in Ireland) and things get awkward when she decides she has to help solve the murder after her brother is accused.

I really enjoyed this one, which is the first in a series. The characters are either hilarious, sweet, or obnoxious in a good way and the Irish sense of humor is one I can relate to. There was some swearing in this one but no graphic violence or sex at all.

The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes

I read this middle-grade book in March and then read it again with Little Miss. The book is about Jane Moffat, the middle child in the Moffat family. She is a little girl who is being raised with her three other siblings by her mom. Her father has passed away.

The book begins with Jane deciding she would like to be introduced to people as The Middle Moffat. She meets the oldest inhabitant in town that day and a friendship forms when she slips and calls herself the Mysterious Middle Moffat. The oldest inhabitant is a 99-year-old Civil War veteran and thinks it is so funny that she calls herself mysterious and even when she tries to explain that she misspoke (she’d actually been trying to think of additional titles to add to the Middle Moffat) he continues to call her mysterious.

Each time he sees her he taps his nose and calls her mysterious. Jane, in turn, becomes concerned that something might happen to the man before he turns 100 and begins to try to protect him, including spending a day with him one day when it is really foggy because she is concerned he will walk out into the fog and be injured.

Each chapter is a type of story of it’s own, but there are always a few aspects that carry over, including the interactions with the oldest inhabitant.

We ended up reading this book around the same time as the solar eclipse and it worked out perfectly because there is also a chapter about Jane trying to see the solar eclipse with her friend Nancy. We also read a chapter about Jane having friend problems with Nancy around the same time Little Miss was having some issues with her friends.

There was only one chapter we didn’t like as much as felt like it dragged a bit.

I hope to read the other books in this series soon.

Coming up in May

I am already reading two books: Apple Cider Slaying by Julie Anne Lindsey and Operation Rescue by Kari Trumbo.

Apple Cider Slaying is a cozy mystery.

I don’t know that I really want to read Operation Rescue, to be honest, but I agreed to read it to review for Clean Fiction Magazine so it may surprise me and become one I like. It is a Christian Fiction book about a rehab center for people who have been rescued from human trafficking and I think there is going to be some romance mixed in between staff at the rehab center – not with any of the victims who are there for healing, thankfully.

I am reading The Secret Garden with Little Miss and we will finish it this month because we are more than halfway through it already.

I also plan to read The Mysterious Affair of Styles by Agatha Christie. It is the first Hercule Poirot book.

I don’t know if I will get to other books this month since I am a slow reader and am also listening to Around the World in 80 Days on Audible with The Boy but other books, I have on my list this month or next are:

Lost Coast Literary by Ellie Alexander

The Deeds of the Deceitful by Ellery Adams and Tina Radcliffe

Death At A Scottish Christmas by Lucy Connelly

The Women of Wyntons by Donna Mumma

The Real James Herriott by Jim Wight

And

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Right before I published this, though, Little Miss and I went to the library and I picked up The Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski and Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes so those two will probably get bumped in front of some of those in the above list.

How was your reading in April and do you have ideas of what you will read in May or will you just figure it out as you go (which is what I will probably do in the end because I am such a mood reader).

Sunday Bookends: a little outing and a book sale

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings23 Comments




It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

My husband has been running every day this week for either work or a play he was rehearsing for but he still wanted to go to lunch and a used book sale 45 minutes away from us. We spent the morning and part of the afternoon doing that and I came home with a large stack of books, some children’s books, and some cozy mysteries. Today they had a $ 5-a-bag sale so we filled up two bags.

Little Miss picked out four for me but I rejected the one because I am not a huge fan of the author.

I told her I liked the cover very much though and thanked her.

Little Miss picked out several books with animals on them.

The Husband picked out a number of books, including two he had been looking for other places.

Today we will go see The Husband in his play. They are performing The War of The Worlds radio drama.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently:

Right now I am reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodges Burnett, The Proverb of the Divine Streusel by Sara Brunsvold, and at night I’m reading a cute, short cozy mystery called A Troubling Case of Murder on the Menu by Donna Doyle.

Just Finished:

This past week I finished Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O’Connor and Nightfall on Predicament Avenue by Jaime Jo Wright.

I hated Wright’s book by the end and will not be endorsing it in the future.

I liked Murder in an Irish Village and purchased a couple of other books in the series on the Kindle.

Soon/eventually to be read:

The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene

Death At A Scottish Christmas by Lucy Connelly

Murder Always Barks Twice by Jennifer Hawkins

What everyone else is reading:

Little Miss and I are reading The Middle Moffat at bedtime.

The Boy is reading Horus Rising and The Pearl by John Steinbeck.

The Husband is reading … well, I have no idea. He’s been so busy this week I don’t think he’s even had time to read.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I watched Dr. Quinn Medicine Women, To The Manor Born, and yesterday  I watched a marathon of As Time Goes By and then a couple episodes of Mary Berry.

What I’m Writing

I finished Cassie and this week I  hope to write some blog posts and then start Gladwynn Grant’s third book.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening to

I’ve been listening to an audio dramatization of Jane Austen books. Right now I am on Mansfield Park.

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Cards and Scrapbooking Pages I made by My Slices of Life

Joy in Imperfection by Ink Torrents

Words for Wednesday by Mama’s Empty Nest


Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Sunday Bookends: Mystery books, a planned autumn reading list, and still writing book two in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends15 Comments



It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer and Kathyrn at The Book Date.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese Friday. Finally. No, the book is not bad. It is very good, in fact. I just kept putting it aside so I could finish books for other authors or library books.

I’m going to try to not add any more library books to my TBR list right now . . . other than the one I just added: A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales. Ahem.

I started it last night and we will see if I like it. So far I do. The last Regency cozy mystery I picked up from Libby I did NOT enjoy. Hopefully, this one will be better the whole way through this time.

I’ve also started another cozy mystery for a book tour: A New Leash on Life by Kathleen Y’Barbo. It comes out on October 1. I was going to read it slowly since I don’t have to review it until October 30th but I was hooked right away and have been enjoying it. I read another of her books in this series and I did enjoy it but I did not enjoy the ending. It sort of fell apart so I am hoping this one doesn’t. This book is different because it is somewhat like a romance with it being from two points of view – one from the woman and the other from the man – but it is also a mystery.

I am not a huge fan of those types of switches in books when it is first person but it’s not so bad in this book. After writing two or more POVs in all of my books in the Spencer Valley Chronicles, I have now decided I am not a huge fan of more than two of POVs and I really don’t like the back-and-forth POVs in romances as much anymore. I don’t know if I will ever write two POVs again or not, but I definitely don’t plan to write more than two POVs in one book.

Anyhow, back to the books I’m planning to read after the two I just mentioned.

For fall I have a stack of books I’d love to get through:

  • Trouble Shooter by Louise L’Amour
  • The Cat Who Blew The Whistle by Lilian Jackson Braun
    The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun
    A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland
    Sydney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by Jamie Runcie
    Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I’d also like to add a Longmire book to that list because I don’t think I’ve read any Longmire this year so far.

The Boy and I are reading Red Badge of Courage for school so I’ll have to add that to my planned reading list too.

Little Miss and I are reading Gone Away Lake for school and sometimes we are reading it at night too. We are really enjoying it and I’m so glad that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs sent it to us!

What’s Been Occurring

I wrote a bit about what’s been going on in my post yesterday. You can catch up there but the bottom line is: fleas, sick animals recovering, fall weather, and homeschool. There. You’re caught up. *wink*

Photos from Last Week

I didn’t take a ton of photos last week but here are a few and a few from my parents’ anniversary party last week.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I watched two movies with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema: Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Secret World of Arrietty.

The Husband and I watched Song of the Thin Man yesterday after he cooked me dinner for my birthday. My birthday isn’t until Tuesday but he has to attend a meeting that night. It was the last movie in the Thin Man series with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

We also watched a few episodes of Newhart this week.

 By myself I watched part of a documentary about what the Victorian royals wore.

My brother also sent these hilarious videos of real letters being read by celebrities. I was warned that some of them are crude so to be careful.

What I’m Writing

I am working on Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage for a November release and, in case you don’t know, Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, the first book, is out already on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. It will leave Kindle Unlimited on October 8 as I hope to be able to offer it on additional sites for sale. This a cozy mystery series and I really am having fun writing it, even though this week I was almost in tears trying to decide who my murderer is because I didn’t like who I had originally decided it to be.

Yes, I am writing other blog posts but, no, I haven’t finished them because I keep getting distracted by life. Sigh.

What I’m Listening To

This past week we took some time to turn off the TV (where cartoons are mainly played) and listen to some music, including Frank Sinatra and Tim McGraw. I know. What a mix right?!

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage Chapter 2

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, fiction, Fiction FridayLeave a comment

Welcome to the second chapter of Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage, which is the second book in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series. This is a cozy mystery series.

For the last few years I have blogged my books as I write them, sharing a chapter a week for my blog readers. I didn’t do this for the first book in this series, but thought I’d try it with book two. If you want to read book one, you can find ebook and paperback copies here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KSQJXP

If you are new here, I just want to let you know that this is a story that is somewhat a first draft, though I actually read over the chapters a few times before moving forward and before posting them here. There will be typos, errors, wrong names, and plot holes. Just keep that in mind. If you see a typo and you want to tell me about it, please do. I have my books edited and proofread before they publish and still many things are missed. It also doesn’t help when I upload the wrong file for the final book. Sigh.
Anyhow, enjoy book two of the series and if you want to check out my other books you can find links to them HERE.

You can find the first chapter that I shared last week HERE.

If you don’t want to read the book as a serial, you can pre-order it HERE. It releases November 21.

Chapter 2

Gladwynn pulled her gaze from the man standing above her and returned her focus on the task at hand. “No, Vince. I can handle it myself.”

“Or I will do it for her,” Abbie interjected.

Out of the corner of her eye, Gladwynn noticed Abbie’s pursed lips and one raised eyebrow, almost as if she had gone all Mama Bear in an effort to protect Gladwynn from being hit on by some man at the beach.

Vince Giordano wasn’t exactly “some man,” though. Gladwynn had had plenty of interactions with him, one of the last ones being on the back of his ATV when he drove her to see a digging operation on the property of a man who turned out to be very guilty of several crimes.

He’d lifted her onto the back of the ATV in an embarrassing moment and then the embarrassment had continued when she’d fallen in the mud and he’s tried to help wipe the mud off of her. After that he’d definitely been flirting with her so she’d been avoiding him as much as possible since.

Today, Vince was standing above her in a pair of blue shorts, shirtless, with muscular arms folded across a broad and well-toned chest. His dark beard was neatly trimmed and his dark green eyes flashed with amusement.

He shrugged his shoulder. “No problem. Just thought I’d ask.” He tipped his sunglasses down. “Nice to see you again, Gladwynn.” He moved his eyes to Abbie. “Mrs. Mendoza. Good to see you too. You ladies have a nice picnic.”

Abbie wriggled her fingers at him in a wave. “You too, Vince. Buh-bye.” She rolled her eyes as soon as he turned to walk across the beach. “The nerve of him asking you if you wanted him to rub sunblock on your back. I mean there is flirting and then there is outright making a pass at a woman.”

Gladwynn laughed and leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows and stretching her legs out in front of her. “Vince is just – well, Vince. He’s a flirt, sure, but he’s also a good guy. Grandma says he came back home to take care of his mom when she was ill.”

Abbie rubbed lotion on her arms. “He did and he’s a prison guard and the bouncer at the Birchwood Township meetings, but he’s still a man who needs to learn some manners.”

Gladwynn laughed again at her friend’s protectiveness.

She looked out over the beach, noticing that Vince had laid on his stomach on a towel, laying his head on his arms and clearly sunbathing. He propped his chin on his hand and looked at her, grinning.

Her attention was pulled from Vince by a slender woman with honey blond hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun talking aggressively on a cellphone further down the beach. A white stripe stretched diagonally across her black bathing suit, which fit snuggly across her curvy form.

The woman shook her head, said something, placed a hand on her hip, and scowled as she listened to the person on the other end of the phone.

Abbie waved a hand in front of Gladwynn’s face. “Hello. Earth to Gladwynn. What’s got your attention?”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s that woman down there. She’s clearly having an intense conversation with someone and her expressions caught my attention.”

Abbie took a sip from her water bottle. “It’s the storyteller in you. I’m sure you’re imagining all kinds of scenarios about what that phone call is all about.” Her expression changed quickly to recognition. “Oh. That’s Samantha from Willowbrook. She’s the recreational director.”

Gladwynn turned her head to watch the woman again. “Grandma and Doris were just talking about how wonderful she is.”

“She is wonderful,” Abbie said, sliding her sunglasses up to the top of her head. “She doesn’t look like she is having a wonderful conversation, though.”

Samantha gestured into the air and then slapped her hand against her thigh, her face twisted in an angry scowl.

Gladwynn winced. “No. She doesn’t. Hopefully it is just a minor lover’s spat.”

Something about Samantha’s expression, though, told Gladwynn that the conversation was definitely not minor.

After swimming with the kids for an hour, eating lunch for a half hour, and stretching out for a half hour on the blanket under the umbrella, it was time to pack up. Abbie needed to get the children home for dinner, baths, and bedtime and Gladwynn had an appointment at the theater. She’d need a shower to wash off all the sand and a change before then.

Logan had definitely had enough and had to be carried on Isabella’s back to the parking lot. Gladwynn and Abbie followed carrying their bags and several bags full of sand toys, towels, and wet clothes. Gladwynn also carried the cooler and had the swan’s neck hooked over one shoulder.  

“Do ya’ ladies need a bit of help there?”

The thick Northern Irish accent was a clear indication of who was offering assistance. Gladwynn glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “We’re doing okay, but thank you for your offer, Pastor Callahan.”

Luke sighed heavily. “I’ve told you before that we are past the formalities. Call me Luke, Miss Grant.”

His blue eyes sparkled with amusement as he fell in step beside her. She noticed he was as clean shaven – and as handsome — as ever. It was apparent he didn’t allow hair to grow along his jawline even when camping. His blond hair was cut short, as usual, and combed to one side. Once again, he reminded her of a classic 1940’s movie star. It was both of their love for classic movies and jazz music that had led them to an in depth conversation more than once before over the last few months. The first conversation had been in the sunroom at her grandmother’s where Gladwynn had caught Lucinda looking on with a mischievous smirk. That smirk had been brought on by the fact she’d invited Luke home for dinner, obviously hoping the two would hit it off.

“Now, seriously, my dears. Let me have a bag.”

Abbie paused and slid two canvas bags off her shoulders. “I will gladly accept your assistance, pastor. Thank you so much.”

“Yes. Thank you for your help,” Gladwynn added. “How was your camping trip?”

He lifted the bags onto his shoulders and smiled. “Refreshing. Exactly what I needed.”

Gladwynn took in his dark maroon T-shirt and dark blue jeans and realized it was the most casual she’d ever seen him. She was used to seeing him in a button-up dress shirt and khakis, even when he wasn’t behind the pulpit.

He set the bags down when they reached Abbie’s minivan then opened the back hatch and set them inside. He held his hands out for the bags Gladwynn was carrying, setting them down as well.

He did the same for the remaining backs Abbie was carrying, then ruffled Logan’s sand encrusted hair. “Did you have fun, young man?”

Logan nodded sleepily from his position on his sister’s back.

Luke laughed. “You’re going to sleep hard on the way home.”

“God willing,” Abbie said with a small laugh and a gesture toward the sky. “Put in a good word for me, pastor.”

Luke winked. “You know what I always say – I’m no better than you in the sight of God just because of my vocation, but I’m willing to say an extra prayer for the wee one to get a nap.” His gaze drifted across the parking lot. “I should be going, ladies, but I hope you have a good rest of the day.” He leveled a gaze at Gladwynn. “See you in church tomorrow?”

She was again struck by how nearly translucent his blue eyes were. “I’m sure Grandma and I will be there, barring any unforeseen circumstances.”

He smiled, tipped his head down briefly, and kept his gaze locked on hers as he stepped away. “Until then.” He broke eye contact as he turned.

Gladwynn watched him cross the parking lot and pause next to a small blue car. It wasn’t the car that caught her attention as much as the woman standing next to it. Samantha Mors had one hand on the car door as Luke about a foot in front of her and propped his hand on the roof of the car.

They began talking and Gladwynn found herself trying to interpret their body language. Was their conversation professional or personal?

She pulled her attention from the scene in front of her and started looking for her keys in her bag. What they were talking about was none of her business. Just because her grandmother wanted her to have a stake in Luke’s life didn’t mean she wanted the same. The man was a pastor. He could be talking to Samantha about her spiritual wellness.

As she raised her gaze and began to turn back to her car, she saw Samantha hug Luke and him return the hug. She chewed on her bottom lip. Hugs weren’t usually part of pastoral counseling, were they?

“I thought you weren’t interested in Pastor Luke.”

Abbie’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. “What? I’m not.”

A small smirk pulled at Abbie’s mouth. “Yeah. Okay. If you say so. You just seem a bit invested into whatever is happening over there.”

Gladwynn unlocked her car door, opened the driver’s side door, and set her bag inside. “Not in the least. Looks like you have a way of imagining scenarios yourself, Mendoza. Get those kids home and washed off and we’ll talk later.”

Abbie gave her a quick hug, still sporting an amused smile. “Okay, hon. Thanks for coming and good luck at the theater event. They can be a rowdy bunch, so prepare yourself.”

Gladwynn laughed out loud as she started her car.

Rowdy bunch? They were senior citizens. How rowdy could they be?

***

The disgruntled voice of a man hit Gladwynn as soon she opened the door to the main part of the community center theater.

“Good grief, Marge. I didn’t say I wouldn’t play the part. I just said I didn’t want to.”

A woman, presumably Marge, responded sharply. “Well, if you don’t want to then I don’t know why you would say you’ll do it.”

“I’m playing it because there aren’t many other men in this community who can play it so I’m fine with playing it.”

Gladwynn paused at the top of the aisle and sought out the source of the argument, looking up on the stage, which was fully lit by the house lights.

A woman with tightly curled gray hair, slightly plump, stood facing a tall man with white hair. The woman was holding a script in one hand, a pair of small, wire-rimmed glasses in the other. The man had his hands shoved deep in his khaki pockets, leaning back slightly as if trying to lean away from the woman. The expression on his face didn’t match his stance, instead he looked incredibly bored by it all.  

The woman remained in the same position, looking at the man, swinging her glasses by the earpiece. “Don’t feel obligated. It’s not the end of the world if you can’t do it. We’ll find someone else.”

The man kept his hands in his pockets slightly leaning forward. “Marge! I already said I’ll do it. Now, can I get a copy of the script so I can see how many lines I have?”

“You don’t need a script if you don’t want to do it.”

 Another woman’s voice broke in off stage. “Greg said he’d do it, Marge. Let him do it and let it go.”

Marge let out a resigned sigh. “Fine. Here is a script then. Don’t be late to rehearsals.”

Brookstone post office employee Floyd Simmons walked onto the stage wearing a floppy woman’s hat. “How do I look ladies? Am I the perfect Matthew?”

Several people in the front of the theater laughed and at least one person told him to take the hat off. Gladwynn wondered how Floyd would play Matthew, since she knew the man was hard of hearing and somedays practically had to be shouted out before he could hear the other person. She experienced this firsthand any time she visited the post office where Floyd still worked after 50 years.

Lucinda, standing by a large chest overflowing with fabric and costumes, waved at Gladwynn from the back of the stage. “Over here, sweetie!”  she called, her voice echoing through the empty theater.

The small group of people on the stage all turned toward her to see who Lucinda was beckoning to. Gladwynn tipped her head slightly in a greeting as she made her way down the aisle toward the front of the theater. Several smiles met her as she walked.

A woman who Gladwynn guessed to be somewhere in her mid-60s stepped in front of her as she reached the top of the steps on the side of the stage. Her dark hair with light gray streaks fell in a straight bob to her shoulders, like something from a 1920s film. A dress made of thin, flowing material covered in purple flowers fell to her ankles and wrists.

Her lipstick, a shade of deep lavender, matched the flowers on the dress.

She firmly grasped Gladwynn by the arms and leaned back to look at her.  “Oh, Lucinda, is this the Gladwynn we’ve heard so much about?”

The woman turned to look over her shoulder briefly at Lucinda, who laughed.

“Yes, this is her.”

The woman turned back to Gladwynn. “Oh my. She’s gorgeous.” She slapped her hands to her chest. “You’re gorgeous, love. Just gorgeous!” Her smile stretched the skin along her mouth and bony cheek bones, slightly cracking a thick layer of pale foundation “You definitely have Grant genes in you. You remind me so much of your father.” Her eyes, outlined with thick, black eyeliner, widened. “What a looker he was. My younger sister was just head over heels for him.”

Gladwynn wasn’t sure what to do with the information about the sister’s crush on her father or with the compliments about her looks. She felt warmth spread across her cheeks and chest as she laughed softly. “Thank you. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Emerald.” The woman waved a hand out to one side with a dramatic twirl of her wrist. “My name is Emerald Cappucci. I’m the assistant director of the production.”

She slid a hand to Gladwynn’s upper back and gently pulled her forward. “Come. Let me introduce you to everyone. We’re so very glad you could come. Our director will be here soon. She’s back at her place trying to get rid of a headache she developed after a day in the sun.”

Gladwynn exchanged a perplexed look with her grandmother as Emerald propelled her toward a small group of people gathered on the edge of the stage.

Emerald raised her arms and clapped her hands together twice.  “Everyone! This is Gladwynn Grant. Lucinda’s beautiful granddaughter and the reporter from the Brookstone Beacon. She’s here to write a story about our upcoming production. Everyone welcome her please.”

The small group was made up of a mixture of ages ranging anywhere from Gladwynn’s age to Lucinda’s and maybe older. There were smiles, nods of heads, and ‘hellos’ offered. Gladwynn recognized Floyd, Beatrice Gilbert, Jane Henderson, Louise Barton, Mikey Tyler and Fanny Tanner – all whom her grandmother played Pitch with once a week at the retirement community. She didn’t recognize the other three. Emerald introduced each person, gesturing to them with a dramatic twist of her wrist each time and saying each name with an equally dramatic roll of the r in the names that had them.

Emerald’s eyelids — the edges darkened with clearly fake eyelashes — fluttered as she gestured to the younger woman with long blond hair that fell in large, fluffy curls down to the middle of her back. “Summer Bloomfield is our Anne, of course.” She clasped her hands in front of her and continued to look at Summer as if the woman had fallen from the sky with angels wings attached.

Ah, Summer. The Summer. The Summer who worked at the library and who her grandmother had once told her was dating Luke Callahan. Gladwynn wasn’t sure of their relationship status at this point, especially after seeing Luke with Samantha earlier that day, but it was nice to finally put a face to the name.

The name perfectly fit the woman’s sunny personality too. Her face practically glowed. Her smile revealed two rows of perfectly white, perfectly shaped teeth, and her bright green eyes sparkled under the stage lights as if she were born to be a star.

“So lovely to meet you, Gladwynn!” Summer gushed, stepping forward and clasping both of her hands around Gladwynn’s. “We have heard so much about you and all of it has been wonderful.” She winked. “And not all of it has come from your wonderful grandmother. You have made quite an impression on people in Marson County since arriving.”

A good impression? Or a bad one? And on whom? Who had been talking to Summer about her? Was this a veiled reference to Luke? She wasn’t sure how to take Summer’s statement but since the woman was smiling, she’d take it as a compliment. Unless the woman was subtly suggesting that Gladwynn had made an impression on Luke and she didn’t like it. Her mental analyzing was cut short as a door behind the group slammed open, hitting the wall behind it.

Doris walked briskly through the doorway and to the group. Her cheeks were flushed. “You’re not going to believe who just called me.” She paused to smile at Gladwynn. “Hello, Gladwynn, hon. Glad you made it.”

Emerald laid a hand lightly at the base of her throat. “Tell me it wasn’t Ashley.”

Doris’ brow dipped into a scowl. “It was and she’s flaked out on us just like you said she would. She says she can’t possibly play Diana now because she’s sprained her ankle playing pickleball.”

Emerald tipped her head back and groaned softly, pressing the heel of her hand against her the center of her forehead. “Pickleball. Please! That girl! She’s so dramatic.”

Gladwynn stifled a laugh behind her hand at the irony of the statement coupled with Emerald’s dramatic swooning gesture.

Doris placed her hands on her hips. “Who are we going to find to play Diana on such short notice?”

A murmur rippled through the group.

Marge shrugged, looking sour. “There are only so many young people from the area interested in community theater these days. The pickings are definitely slim.”

“We could place an ad in the newspaper and on the radio,” Franny offered.

Emerald shook her head, wrapping her hand around her chin. “That could take some time and we need to get someone in as soon as possible. We only have two months until opening night.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “Who do we even know who is young, with dark hair, and loves Anne of Green Gables?”

A quiet settled over the group. A couple of them looked at the floor. Others looked at each other and shrugged, then shook their heads.

Then slowly, one by one, starting first with Lucinda, the cast began to look toward Gladwynn, who sensed rather than saw the situation happening. She looked up from the script she’d picked up from the top of a crate to flip through.

She looked at Lucinda who had an amused smirk pulling at one side of her mouth, then back at the group. “Why are you all looking at me?”

Emerald clapped her hands together once. “Oh daaahling!! – you’d be perfect!

Confusion clouded Gladwynn’s expression. “Perfect? For what?”

Emerald held her arms out to her sides. “You could totally play Diana. You’re young. You have dark hair. You’re beautiful. Plus, Lucinda was just telling us the other day how much you love the book.”

Gladwynn narrowed her eyes and looked at Lucinda. “She did, did she?” She shook her head once and held up a finger. “No. No. No. And no. I liked reading Anne of Green Gables. I don’t want to act in a play of it. Never. Ever. No. Not going to happen.”

Lucinda stepped across the stage and placed a hand on each of Gladwynn’s shoulders. She gave her granddaughter her best puppy-eyed dog look. “But don’t you want to make a bunch of old people who are on death’s door happy?”

Gladwynn gasped. “Grandma, really? Emotional manipulation does not become you.”

Louise scoffed from the right side of the stage. “Speak for yourself, Lucinda. I’ve got another decade in me at least.”

Emerald waved her hands in a dramatic rhythm above her head. “Just think about it, dahling, and get back to us, okay? For now, let’s get this interview going. Samantha should breeze in — .” She looked down at the watch on her wrist. “Any minute now.”

Gladwynn shook off the shock of being asked to be in the play and took her notebook and pen out of her bag. She asked Emerald and the actors questions about the production, who would be playing what part, and the show dates and times. Half an hour later she had all she needed for the article. For a photograph she took a few candid photographs of the cast rehearsing their lines and Lucinda and Doris looking through the costumes.

Emerald stood from the chair she’d sat at the front of the stage for the interview and huffed out a breath. “I just can’t understand where Samantha’s got to. She’s never been this late.”

Louise fanned herself with a script. “Has anyone tried to call her?”

Doris raised her cellphone. “I have her number. I’ll give her a call and see what is going on.”

Gladwynn grabbed Lucinda by the arm as Doris stepped outside through the backdoor behind the stage and steered the woman toward stage left. “What was with them asking me to be in the play? And who was the lady yelling at that man when I first came in?”

Lucinda smiled. “You just happened to be here at the wrong time, my dear. They probably would have jumped on any warm body who came in the door to play that part, but Emerald is right. You are perfect for the role. As for Marge Dickinson, that’s just how she is. Pushy and demanding. She means well though and she gets things done. She’s in charge of our casting, I suppose you would say. She’s in charge of whatever she wants to be in charge of. She and Emerald butt heads all the time. Both women like to have control.”

Gladwynn sighed. “Grandma, to be perfect for an acting role you have to have done some acting. I never have and don’t have any interest. I read books and write for a small town newspaper. Neither of those things qualify me to participate in one of the most extroverted activities there is.”

Lucinda handed her a script. “Just take this home. Look over it, and see what you think. Diana isn’t in the play as much as she is in the book. Plus, we’re weeding out a few scenes for time. Our actors can only stand so long before the bunions start chaffing or the varicose veins start popping.”

The back door opened, and Doris walked back inside. “It’s going straight to voicemail. I think I’ll head back to Willowbrook and see how she’s doing. I know she’s been taking sleeping pills for her insomnia, but I wouldn’t think she would taken them for a nap.” She picked up her purse from a small table at the back of the stage, then paused and snapped her fingers. “Oh wait! I can’t drive over. I left my car at the shop. Bill dropped me off.”

Gladwynn lifted her keys from her bag. “I can give you a lift. I was planning to head back to the house anyhow.”

“That will work,” Doris said as she slid her purse strap over her shoulder. “Then Sam can give me a lift back here.”

A warm breeze ruffled Gladwynn’s hair as she stepped onto the sidewalk and slid her sunglasses on. Doris sighed next to her. “My goodness it’s gorgeous out today. I’m so glad that humid weather we’ve been having finally let up.”

Gladwynn couldn’t help but agree. She was not a fan of weather that made her feel like she was walking in a sauna. Her hair wasn’t either. Today would be a perfect day to put down the roof of the convertible that she’d bought when she thought her research librarian job at the college was going to be more permanent than it turned out to be. Doris probably wouldn’t enjoy that full force wind in her face or hair, so she opted to keep the roof up, though.

She pulled the car out onto Main Street. “Doris, am I right in assuming that Samantha has her own place in the retirement community?”

“Yes. She has her own condo. It’s part of her salary package. She gets a place to stay and they get a full-time recreational director and all around go-to person. People go to her with their concerns and worries more than they do the community manager.”

“And who is the manager?”

“Eileen Bristol. She’s been here about four years. No one is really sure how she got the job. She’s not very nice and looks like she ate a jar of sour pickles. There are some who have questioned who she slept with to get her job, but no one can imagine who’d want to do such a thing considering how miserable she is.” Doris slapped the tips of her fingers over her mouth. “Excuse me. That was gossip. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Gladwynn patted her knee. “It’s okay, Doris. We all slip up from time to time. I know you didn’t mean to be malicious.”

The retirement community was only about half a mile from the theater. Doris pointed out Samantha’s condo and Gladwynn pulled her car into a parking space next to the car she’d seen at the lake earlier.

“You go on and head to work,” Doris said as she stepped out of the car. “Samantha can give me a ride back to the theater.”

“Okay, then. Have a good day, Doris.”

“You too. Don’t work too hard.”

Gladwynn’s cellphone rang as Doris closed the passenger side door. A small smile pulled at Gladwynn’s mouth as she answered it.

“Hey, sis.”

Gladwynn dropped her voice into a lower octave. “Hey, bro.”

“You at work?”

“Nope. It will probably change soon since a reporter left, but for now I have weekends off.”

Caelen laughed on the other end of the phone. “Enjoy it while you can, right?”

“Right. What’s up with you?”

“Thought I should call in and get the real story about how you’re doing. You know how Mom and Dad are. They tend to be a bit –”

“Dramatic, I know.”

She knew Caelen had decided not to spend  his summer break from college at home this year. Instead, he’d gotten a job at a construction company in Michigan. She also knew their dad wasn’t too happy about his decision. He’d planned on Caelen working at the law office during the summer. William Grant was definitely planning on his son joining the firm after college. After a few revealing conversations with Caelen, she had feeling that was not going to be happening.

“Heard Dad’s going to drop in on you in a few days.”

Gladwynn winced. “Yeah. Not sure how I got that honor.”

“You didn’t move far enough away like the rest of us. So, how are you doing?”

“Pretty good.”

“You’re liking your job?”

“It’s growing on me.”

“How’s Grandma?”

“Crazy as ever.”

“And her new boyfriend?”

“She says he isn’t her boyfriend, but he’s doing well.”

Caelen laughed. “Is it weird to see her with someone other than Grandpa?”

Gladwynn flipped the visor down and looked at her hair in the mirror. She moved a couple of stray strands off her forehead. “It was at first but Jacob’s a great guy. Super sweet. He’s got the sweetest dog he brings with him sometimes. He has lunch or dinner with us a few times a week.”

She heard the sound of cars behind him as he spoke. “You think they’ll get married?”

Gladwynn made a face at her reflection. “I don’t know about that, yet. Maybe? I’m not sure I’m ready for that, to be honest, and I don’t think she is either. She’s enjoying his companionship, though.” There was a pause in the conversation and she wondered if he had another reason for calling other than checking up on her. “So, what’s up with you, anyhow? How’s the new job?”

“It’s okay, I guess.”

There was another pause. She cleared her throat. “You still don’t want to be a lawyer, do you?”

Caelen let out a breath. “No. Not at all.”

“And you haven’t told Dad, have you?”

Another breath. “No.”

Gladwynn let out a brief breath herself. “Well, I hope you’re not calling me to ask me to tell him because I’m not going to. He already isn’t very happy with me. At this point, his youngest offspring are a great disappointment to him.”

Caelen snorted in disgust. “Which makes no sense. We’re allowed to have our own lives. He and Mom both need to accept that. I mean, it wasn’t your fault you got laid off and you took a chance and reinvented yourself. I think that’s cool.”

Gladwynn closed the mirror on the visor at the same moment Doris rushed out of the condo door looking over her shoulder, a terrified expression on her face. The woman stopped, turned back toward the door, and clasped her hands over her mouth, shaking her head slowly, her eyes closed.

Gladwynn reached for the door handle and opened it quickly. “Uh, Caelen. I need to go.”

“I thought you said you had the day off.”

 “I do, but something is going on.”

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but I’m very worried that someone else isn’t. I’ll call you back later.”

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Chapter 3

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday5 Comments

Guys! Gals! I am excited! I have finished my revisions of the full novel of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing and I’m sending it out to beta readers and then will have ARC copies ready to go by June. Do you want to get in on reading the full book early? You can sign up to read an advanced copy (and hopefully review it if you like it) here:

To celebrate finishing my revisions (but not my corrections because it has to go to the editors still), I thought I’d share chapter 3 of the book.

You can find the previous chapters here and here.

As usual, there could be typos in this chapter since I still have to send it to my editors.

Let me know what you think in the comments if you want to!

Chapter 3

Glawynn woke with a start the next morning, heart pounding.

A horrible grinding noise had jolted her from a dream. It stopped almost as quickly as it started and now she wondered if it had been part of the dream, which she could remember very little of. There’d been a court jester and a young Frank Sinatra. The rest had faded into oblivion.

 The room she was looking at reminded her of something someone might see on the set of a Regency film. She let out a breath, blowing hair out of her face, and struggled to remember where she was.

A solemn woman with her hair high on her head in a tight bun scowled at her from a gold-framed picture on the wall above a full-length mirror opposite her. To the woman’s right, there was a full-bearded man wearing a Quaker-style hat staring at her from out of another framed picture. Both photographs were black and white.

It was all coming back to her now.

Grandma’s house in Brookstone. Her home for the foreseeable future.

She winced as she moved her legs, stinging pain shuddering through the bottom of her feet, reminding her of her stupid decision to wear high-heeled boots to work.

Downstairs the noise that had woken her up had started up again. Some kind of grinding and squealing, like maybe a cat caught in a woodchipper.

What was her grandmother doing?

Or maybe it wasn’t her grandmother. She hadn’t actually seen her grandmother when she’d come home last night. Lucinda’s bedroom door had been closed.  Gladwynn had tiptoed past it and crawled into bed without even changing into her pajamas.

Now fully awake, she tossed the thick quilt off her and reached for the flashlight next to the bed, weighing it in her hand.

Yeah, that would work if there was a chainsaw-wielding maniac downstairs instead of her spunky grandmother.

She inched her way into the hallway then slowly to the top of the stairs, ancestors watching her with stoic stares from ornate and vintage frames along the flower-wallpapered walls.

Making her way down the wooden staircase that dated sometime in the early 1900s, one hand on a banister, she winced as the grinding noise grew louder. It was clear now that the sound was coming from the kitchen.

Amidst the grinding, she could hear Dean Martin crooning away and just as loud, Lucinda’s voice joining in.

Gladwynn set the flashlight on a small table sitting against the wall next to the staircase under a framed image of the Grant coat of arms that a great-uncle twice removed, or something had brought back from a trip to Scotland.

She paused to look through the kitchen doorway, unable to keep from smiling at the sight of Lucinda wearing a silky, bright pink bathrobe, her back to the doorway. Her light gray hair was swept back in a messy bun and her plump hips swayed from side to side as she sang while pouring something bright green from a blender into tall glasses.

Gladwynn stepped up into the doorway. Lucinda looked over her shoulder, smiled, and belted out the end of the song, before flicking off the CD player.

“Hey there, girl! There you are! You were passed right out when I got home. That must have been some crazy second day.”

When she got home? Where had her grandmother been last night at 8 p.m. if not curled up in bed asleep?

Gladwynn flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Yeah. It was a little crazy.”

“Different than library work, huh?”

 “That’s an understatement. It’s like walking from Brigadoon into Saigon.”

Lucinda set a glass of the green concoction in front of Gladwynn and winked. “Glad to hear you referencing a classic movie we used to watch together.”

Gladwynn smirked. “Brigadoon or Platoon?”

“Very funny, kid.” Lucinda winked. “You know we never watched Brigadoon together.” She sat at the table across from her granddaughter, taking a sip from the glass. She smacked her lips. “Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff.”

She sighed and folded her arms on top of the table. “It’s been nice having you here, you know. I’d honestly been considering moving to Willowbrook before you called. This place is too big for one person.”

Gladwynn studied the green substance with suspicion. “You? In a retirement community?”

Lucinda shrugged. “I’m there enough as it is and almost all my friends are there now so it probably wouldn’t be a huge adjustment. Plus, it’s not easy for this old lady to take care of this big house anymore.”

“What were you going to do with the house?”

“Sell it, probably.”

She couldn’t be serious. This house had been in the family for over a hundred years. “Why? Wouldn’t dad or mom or Aunt Margaret or Uncle Doug and Aunt Harriet have wanted it?”

Lucinda shrugged again and took a swig from her glass.

“None of them are interested in keeping up this old place. They’ve all got their own lives and responsibilities. Your siblings and cousins are too wrapped up in their own worlds to care about it either.” She smirked. “Except for Trudy. I overheard her at Christmas last year tell her friend, or whatever he is, that she would love to turn this house into a bed and breakfast one day.”

Yeah, that sounded like Gladwynn’s cousin Trudy. She scoffed. “She would have abandoned that idea as soon as she realized it would require her to actually do work.”

Lucinda revealed a faint smile over the rim of her glass.

Gladwynn twirled the glass slowly in her hands and made a face. “What is this stuff anyhow?”

“It’s a green smoothie. All the rage and very good for you.”

Gladwynn sniffed the glass and set it down again. “Green things aren’t really something I eat. Or drink. Ever. But especially in the morning.”

Lucinda lifted an eyebrow. “Being healthy doesn’t interest you? Well, then, by all means go ahead and pour yourself some cereal that resembles cardboard or throw some heart attack-causing butter on a piece of inflammation-inducing toast and toss a piece of cholesterol-raising pig in the frying pan.”

Gladwynn stood. “Don’t mind if I do. Bacon sounds amazing right now. Also, I think it is the butter that raises cholesterol and the pork that can lead to the heart attack. Not sure about that, though, since I really don’t care.”

She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her as she walked to the fridge, but the woman luckily changed the subject. “So, how did your first couple of days go?”

Gladwynn shrugged. “They were okay. The job is just different than I expected.” She slapped a pack of bacon on the counter. “I caught a couple of the staff gossiping about me yesterday. I don’t think they like me very much.”

Lucinda turned fully in the chair to look at her. “Gladwynn, are you listening to yourself? You’re not in high school. ‘They don’t like me.’ ‘They were talking about me.’ Who cares! You don’t have to be best friends with these people. It’s a job. Work the job and come home. You young people today are too stuck on thinking you have to like your job or the people you work with. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about making money to pay your bills and put food on the table.”

The bacon sizzled in the pan. “I know, Grandma, but it would be nice if my co-workers at least liked me.”

“Did your co-workers at your last job like you?”

“Well, yeah, but we were all similar. A bunch of weirdos spending half of our lives with our noses in a book.”

Lucinda chuckled. “You’re so much like your dad. That boy always had a book in his hands.”

Gladwynn tensed at the comparison. She was nothing like William Alexander Grant or her mother, Penelope Fitzwalter-Grant, which was probably why she was always butting heads with them.

Lucinda picked up Gladwynn’s glass and poured half of the mixture into her own glass. “I’m going to the community center tonight to play Pitch. You want to come along?”

“No, my shift starts at three today. I have to go to a meeting with one of the other reporters.”

“Oh, yeah, which meeting?”

“Some little township about half an hour away. Beachwood or something.”

Lucinda finished the smoothie in her glass. “Oh, Birchwood. Good luck with that. Those people are always arguing.”

“About what?”

“About anything and everything. Sometimes it’s about zoning, and sometimes about the shape of the roads. Sometimes someone looked at someone else funny. Who even knows. Lately, the paper had been writing about some beef going on with the volunteer fire department and the township board or a resident of something. I don’t know. I really don’t have time to read the paper these days.” She put her glass in the sink. “I certainly don’t envy you, young lady. Now, before you go, I’ll need you to help me pick out my outfit for tonight. It’s so wonderful having someone here that can help me choose.”

“What about Doris?”

“I love Doris, honey, but you know she has no taste. No taste in music. No taste in men and definitely no taste in clothes.”

Gladwynn shook her head, placing a couple slices of cooked bacon onto a plate. “Now, Grandma, is that any way to speak about your best friend? And her husband for that matter? Bill is a good guy.”

“Doris isn’t my best friend. She’s just a friend. My best friend was your grandfather and he’s not here anymore.”

Gladwynn flipped a piece of bacon. “So, Doris will have to do.”

Lucinda sighed. “Yes, I guess so. She is a very good friend so she can be my almost best friend. As for Bill – well, that’s another conversation for another day.” She snatched a piece of bacon off the plate. “Now you finish that bit of smoothie I left for you. It’s good for you. I’ve got to get to the post office and then I’m heading up to the Y for a swim. I’m going to swing by Judy’s Market on the way home. Can I get you anything?”

“Grandma, don’t you ever slow down? I want to know how your date went last night. More importantly, I want to know who it was with.”

Lucinda bumped her hip into Gladwynn’s and winked. “There will be plenty of time for that conversation, little lady.” She took another bite of the piece of bacon. “You just get yourself some food and relax until you have to go to work.”

Heading toward the doorway, Lucinda started to hum another Dean Martin tune.

Gladwynn placed a hand to her hip and scowled at Lucinda’s retreating form. “I thought you said bacon wasn’t healthy.”

Lucinda glanced over her shoulder waving the bacon above her head. “It isn’t but it sure does taste good.”

After she finished her breakfast and her grandmother had left to run her errands, Gladwynn made her way to her grandfather’s office, which was also a library with floor-to-ceiling cherrywood bookcases built into the walls.

Little had been changed in the room since Sidney William Grant had passed away six years ago. The top of his mahogany desk had been cleared of papers, but family photos still remained.  Rows of books from a variety of eras filled the bookshelves and oil paintings of scenes from the area along with various photographs from his 50 years as a minister lined the walls.

Gladwynn paused and breathed in deeply. She was amazed the room still smelled so much like her grandfather’s aftershave. It was as if the day he died her grandmother had closed up the room to lock in all the smells and memories of him. It was clear, though, that Lucinda, or someone else, had been in the room since then by the lack of dust on the desk and shelves.

She sat in her grandfather’s chair and rubbed her hands along the black leather of the armrests. An old-style radio she’d been told was her grandfather’s when he was young sat across the room on a small table. It was probably built in the early 1950s, maybe earlier. She remembered sitting on her grandfather’s lap as a child in this office, listening to the oldies radio station.

The songs from the 1940s and 1950s had always been her favorite. She still listened to them when driving in her car or while reading.

Though there was a time that sitting in this office had made her feel sad and acutely aware of her loss, she felt an odd sense of joy and peace sitting here today, grateful for the memories of him.

She stood and looked at the books on the shelves, choosing one her grandfather had read to her when she’d used to visit in the summer.

The Hobbit.

She sat back at the desk with it and opened it, the crack of the spine sending a delightful shiver up her spine. She’d always loved the hand-drawn illustrations inside.

An hour later she looked up at the clock and yawned. She didn’t want to leave the refuge of the room, but she should probably get a shower and start putting her clothes away in the wardrobe in her room, something she hadn’t yet done since moving in last week. She laughed softly, thinking of the first time she’d stayed in that room as a young child and how she’d felt all the way to the back of that wardrobe to see if it felt cold as if it might really be a portal to Narnia, which she had been reading about at the time.

Walking back toward the staircase, she marveled, once again, at the size of the house. To get to the main staircase to go upstairs she walked past two parlors, a living room, a sunroom that included a mini library filled with her grandmother’s classic book collection, a dining room that was bigger than her first apartment, and a full-size bathroom. Inside the living room was a stone fireplace her grandfather had built.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms, a room that used to be a nursery but was now a den, two porch balconies outside two of the rooms, a full bathroom that Lucinda had installed a hot tub in three years ago, and an attic on the third floor.

Outside, massive granite stairs with grapevine mortar sidewalls lead up to a wrap-around porch and porte-cochere that led to a three-car garage at the side of the house, at the end of the drive, that had once been a carriage house.

The home, built in 1894, had originally belonged to her grandfather’s grandfather, a prestigious county lawyer and then judge. The woodwork inside was original and Gladwynn ran her hand along it as she walked to her room at the end of the long hallway, which was lit by lanterns that resembled those from the early 1900s but had actually been installed in the 1960s.

This home had always fit her personality more than the modern two-story house she’d grown up in with her parents, two older sisters, and older brother in upstate New York.  

Unlike her older sisters she’d somehow never felt like a modern girl. Instead, deep down she felt as if she’d been meant for a different decade. She had even set aside modern clothing for more vintage outfits since high school.

“You’re a girl with an old name and an even older soul,” Lucinda had once told her as they sat on the metal bench in the middle of her grandmother’s overflowing flower garden.

Gladwynn heard her cell phone ringing as she reached the end of the hall. She took her time getting to it, knowing who it would be.

She glanced at his name on the lock screen, pushed the call to voicemail, and once again questioned why she hadn’t yet blocked his number, knowing deep down it was because she hated leaving anything unresolved. Someday she’d have to resolve that situation, but for now, she was going to enjoy a long bath before work.



Sunday Bookends: A spring outing, reading mysteries, and new glasses for the youngest

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends9 Comments



It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing, and some weeks I share what I am listening to.



What’s Been Occurring

I did not share a Saturday After Chat post yesterday because I was out of the house both Friday and Saturday and did not have time to write one.

On Tuesday last week, we traveled to a town near us to pick glasses up for Little Miss and The Boy. Yes, Little Miss is now like the rest of us in the family and has glasses. I don’t really like that she’s had to get them at such a young age, but if she can see better, that’s great.

I wanted to blame too much device usage on her need at such a young age, but then I remembered that I was only a couple of years older when I got glasses, and I didn’t have devices back then. I did a lot of close work with sketching and reading but I did not have a phone or Kindle or anything else that might cause me to be near-sighted. I suppose it is simply bad genetics once again.

Luckily, she looks absolutely adorable in glasses.

The Boy looks absolutely adorable in glasses too, but he doesn’t pose for photos anymore.

The Husband would probably pose but his glasses are old so I didn’t take a photo of them.

After we picked up the glasses we went to the local library for a gathering with the local homeschool group. It was a lot of fun and nice to finally meet other homeschooling parents. I had met a few of them at the end of February but several of the children were sick that week. We missed the next couple of meet-ups because of Little Miss’s dental procedure, weather, and Little Miss getting sick one week.

During this meetup, they had a birthday theme and exchanged gifts between the children to help encourage them to get to know each other. This didn’t really work as much with the teenagers who simply looked at the floor while they handled each other gifts, but it was a good idea.

One of the members brought their pet pig and then there were birthday party type games (Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, and a pinata). Little Miss had a blast but by the end she told me she was all socialized out and wanted to go home and not talk to people for the next five months.

Yes, she is very similar to me.

After interacting with other people I need a downtime of not talking to anyone or going anywhere for at least a day, if not more.

On Friday, Little Miss and I grocery shopped, which I hate doing but it went well, even though I had to have our van looked at by an exhaust specialist before we went because we have a hole in our exhaust and then grocery shop. I actually very much dread going to the grocery store. My weird health issues seem to kick in during those visits. My legs get weak, my head feels odd, and my lower back hurts by the time I get halfway around the store.

I prayed all the way to the store, though, calling on Jesus’ many names – Elohim, Adonai, and Jehovah Jireh, my provider. I rebuked anything coming against me and by the time I left the mechanic to head to Aldi, I felt so much better. I was able to get all of our shopping done and when I went home I even carried in all of the groceries, something I’m usually too tired to do.

In full disclosure, I did take a l’theanine before I left. It is a natural supplement to help with relaxation but there is no way it had time to kick in and not only that, it does not give me energy or take away the vertigo I experience in stores or in fluorescent lights. Only God can do that. Don’t be afraid to ask him for help in even the smallest situations in your life.

Yesterday we visited a comic shop as a family for Free Comic Book Day.

We traveled about an hour to get to the comic shop, visiting a town near us that we had not visited before. It was full of old houses that dated back to the early to mid 1800s. I honestly felt like I was in an old neighborhood in Philadelphia or something.

The kids and The Husband went into the comic book store and I wandered down the street, admiring the old buildings and beautiful churches.

There was a Little Free Library at one of the churches in the town with the comic book store and I found what I think is a cozy mystery. I replaced it with a book that was in the van.

After our visit there we stopped at a GameStop store for The Boy and visited a park/playground  afterward.

It was a nice day, especially since we finally had a sunny, warm day for the first time all week and also because the views were so nice.

I am trying to talk my dad and son in building me a little library that I can install across the street from our house. I think it would be fun for people who are walking or driving by to see and know that they can find good books in.

What I/we’ve been Reading

While I was not a huge fan of M.C. Beaton’s writing style, I couldn’t help reading through Death of a Poisoned Pen, which is a Hamish Macbeth Mystery. I gave up at one point and said I couldn’t put up with her choppy writing any longer, but I needed to know what happened so I went back to the book and finished it Friday night. This was a later book in the series so maybe it wasn’t even written by M.C. Beaton by then. Maybe ghost writers wrote it like they do James Patterson’s books.

Now that I have finished that book I am free to focus on Fellowship of the Ring, which I have a goal to finish before the end of May but will probably finish earlier. I need The Boy to finish it before the end of May as well because I would like him to write a review of it and Huckleberry Finn before our meeting with our homeschool evaluator.

I am also reading a cozy mystery by Amanda Flower, a new-to-me author. The book is called Flowers and Foul Play. It is a Magic Garden Mystery so there is a bit of magic mixed in.

Little Miss has been reading a collection of Charlie books to me. Charlie was Ree Drummond’s (The Pioneer Woman’s) dog and there was a series of I Can Read books written about him. I found the collection at a library sale, and she’s been reading a chapter or two of the books to me before bed. Then I read from The Miss Piggle-Wiggle Treasury to her but I am telling you, I am ready for that book to be over. The stories really do drag a bit and I find the solutions this woman has to common childhood quirks a little irritating. It was written in the 1950s when children weren’t supposed to be imaginative, I suppose because the latest story had a mother trying to figure out how to get her son to stop daydreaming and dragging his feet and instead hurry up and do what he is told.

Little Miss likes the stories though, so I push through for her sake. I can’t wait until we can move on to something else, though. The book is due back this week, but, sadly, I can renew it again.

On our trip yesterday, Little Miss read an entire Imagination Station book by herself – they are about 80-100 pages long and around 12 chapters. They are books produced by Focus on the Family through the Adventures in Odyssey series.

The Husband is reading Peril at End House by Agatha Christie.

What We watched/are Watching

We watched a lot of Newhart this past week and I watched Holiday with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, which I loved.

Little Miss and I watched some Mary Berry.

I actually did not watch a lot this past week because I was either revising my book or reading a book.


What I’m Writing

I am in the revision process for Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing so I worked on that a lot this week.

On the blog I shared:

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Rose Fairbanks: Living In the Overflow

https://rosefairbanks.com/2023/05/01/music-monday-living-in-the-overflow/comment-page-1/#comment-19638

Mama’s Empty Nest: Words for Wednesday, Just Like Mom

https://mamasemptynest.wordpress.com/2023/04/26/words-for-wednesday-just-like-mom/


Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Fiction Friday: Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing Excerpt

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn fiction, Fiction Friday11 Comments

Okay, guy, seriously, I actually thought I was going to only show paid subscribers to my newsletter chapters of my new book — like I was famous or something.

Please, have a good laugh with me.

What was I thinking?

I’m just a mom writing books mainly for fun and tossing them up on Kindle and Amazon. I am not someone people are going to pay a monthly subscription to read and that is totally okay. I am not there yet and may never be. All good.

It doesn’t bother me. All that being said, though, if you want regular updates on my writing (like twice a month updates), you can sign up for my Substack newsletter and you might want to do it now to enter a giveaway I am running. The giveaway is for a book called Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz.

You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to enter the giveaway. Honestly? I don’t think I’m going to offer paid subscriptions right now. What do I have to offer that someone would pay regularly for? Nothing — yet anyhow. *wink*

You can sign up for my Substack account and find out about the newsletter here:

https://lisarhoweler.substack.com/p/april-newsletter-a-giveaway-book

And now, if you’d like a sneak peek of Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, you can find it here today in this post. Without further ado – the first chapter of my next book. Will I share more? I don’t know yet. We shall see. *wink*



Chapter 1

“Hey new girl. Grab a notebook and let’s go. We’ve got a one vehicle MVA on Darby Hill.”

Gladwynn Grant heard the voice but when she looked over her shoulder her new boss had already disappeared back into the hallway.

MVA?

Wait. What did MVA stand for again?

Gladwynn Grant racked her brain, trying to remember the meaning of the acronym.

The M wasn’t murder, was it?

Mayhem?

She fumbled through her top desk drawer for a reporter’s notebook and pen, wincing when the edge of a paper sliced into the skin of her index finger.

“New girl, come on.”

She looked, but, once again, he disappeared.

“Be right there.”

Messy? No. That wasn’t it.

She stood, slammed her knee off the metal drawer of the desk and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Outside the window to her right, snow flurries swirled against a dark gray sky.

It came to her as she reached for her winter coat on the back of her chair.

M was for motor.

MVA. Motor Vehicle Accident. That was it.

“Chop. Chop. This will be good training for you.”

Right. Good training for the job she hadn’t even wanted but needed since she’d been laid off from her last job.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” her mother always said, a line she hated hearing growing up and hated even more as an adult.

Training for her new job in the middle of a snowstorm on a rural highway at dusk wasn’t exactly what she’d expected when she’d accepted the job as a reporter at the Brookville Beacon. She thought she’d be shown the ropes slowly, overtime – maybe handed a few lightweight stories to write first. Instead, it was clear she was to be thrown into the fire right off the bat.

She quickly yanked on her coat, a red vintage-style one she’d found at a thrift shop a couple of years ago, flipped up the hood, and shoved the pen and notebook in the large inside pocket. Snatching a pair of red leather gloves off the top of the bare desk, she rushed to follow editor Liam Finley down the dimly lit hallway toward the back door. A gust of frigid wind smacked her in the face as it opened.

She hoped rushing outside in raging snowstorms wouldn’t be something she’d have to do often.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she stepped out into the cold.

She took two steps at a time to keep up with the long strides of the man in front of her.

He looked over his shoulder as snow whipped around them. “We’ll take my car. Did you grab a camera?”

“Oh. No. I’ll —”

“Go back and grab one. I’ll meet you up front.”

Darting back through the snow she pulled the hood tight in front of her face, icy flakes still managing to bite at her skin. She was out of breath when she rushed back into the office, weaving through the cubicles to retrieve the camera she’d been given the day before. She didn’t make eye contact with her co-workers as she rushed back out the back door.

“Good luck, newbie,” a man’s voice called after her.

She was even more out of breath by the time she reached the parking lot, the camera clutched against her chest. Snow fell in sheets around her. Opening the passenger door of the tan BMW she flopped into the front seat, breathing hard as melting snow dripped from her hair into her eyes. The windshield was a blur of white.

Liam shifted the car into gear and yanked it out onto the empty street. “I hope it’s a fatal. We need a centerpiece.”

Wiping snow from her face she looked at her new boss with wide eyes. His unshaven appearance made him look older than he probably was. Dark hair hung long across his forehead, just above dark brown eyes framed by dark, and remarkably long, eyelashes. Small lines creased the skin next to his eyes.

He glanced at her and lifted a shoulder. “What? We don’t have any art for page one.”

“Art?”

He shifted the car into a lower gear as snow piled up on the road. “A photo or graphic for the centerpiece.”

“Centerpiece?”

He sighed. “The main story on the front page. What are they teaching in colleges these days? I thought you’d have learned this stuff at the college newspaper.”

He seemed to have forgotten she hadn’t worked at a college newspaper for almost seven years at this point.

Liam was driving at what she felt was an unsafe speed considering the conditions and the fact they were on their way to an accident caused by those same conditions. He reached over and tapped a couple buttons on the dashboard. Warmth rushed up under her and she let out a small gasp, then realized the seats were heated. She hadn’t picked that feature when she’d purchased her car two years ago.

“You okay over there?”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Yep. Totally fine.”

Liam flicked the high beams on. Even though the sun hadn’t set yet, the snow was making it seem darker out. “When we get there, you take the photos and I’ll do the talking. Watch what I do so you’ll know what to do next time.”

She nodded.

Next time.

On her own.

That should be interesting.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking taking this job. It was nothing like she’d expected.

She’d applied for it after the college had laid her off from her job at the library. She’d needed the money to pay off her college loans.

Well, that and the cute red Miata she’d bought when she thought the library job was going to be long term. Good thing she hadn’t opted for the heated seats.

The ad on the job site had caught her eye, not really because of the job itself, but because of where it was located.

Brookville, Pennsylvania – where her grandmother lived alone in a massive Victorian house. Two hundred miles away from where she’d grown up with her parents and, more importantly, 200 miles away from Bennett Steele.

“You’re a quiet one, Grant.” Liam’s voice broke through her thoughts. “What’d you do before you came here again?”

Clearly, he had not read her resume at all. She had a feeling all he’d wanted was a warm body to fill the vacancy.

She rubbed her gloved hands together and blew into them. “Library assistant for Brock College. They laid me off a couple months ago.”

“From librarian to a reporter. This must be cultural shock to you.”

She glanced at him then back at the steadily whiter road in front of them. “Yeah, a little. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

She doubted her own words.

In the last week every idea she’d had of what a reporter actually did had been shattered beyond recognition. Sure, she knew she’d be expected to attend municipal meetings and community gatherings and write a story about them, but now she knew she was also expected to take the photographs, proof her co-workers stories, and sometimes answer the phones at the front desk if the receptionist needed to leave for lunch or to pick up her kids from school. Smalltown newspapers were nothing like the larger ones portrayed in movies and books.

She hadn’t interacted much with Liam yet, other than her brief interview and a brief staff meeting the day before, but she’d already pegged him as someone who lived mainly for his job and wasn’t afraid to push the envelope when it came to succeeding at it.

Flashing red and blue lights cut through the fog and snow up ahead. Emergency vehicles were parked in the middle of the road and off to the side near the guardrails.

Liam smoothly pulled his car behind a black truck with a blue flashing light on top. Through a space between a fire truck and an ambulance she could see a bright red car on its roof and behind it a blue SUV dented in the front and part way off the road.

A state trooper turned as they approached the scene, hands at his waist. “You need to stay back.”

His voice was deep and made Gladwynn, who had never considered herself timid, want to say “yes, sir” and dash back to Liam’s car.

Liam, however, didn’t seem bothered. He tipped his head in a curt nod. “Of course. My reporter here just needs some photos. She can stand back here to get them. Can you provide a few details on the accident? I heard entrapment on the scanner. Can you confirm that?”

The trooper merely held up his hand. “You’ll need to step back there, sir. Only emergency responders past this point.”

Liam ignored the trooper and raised his hand to greet one of the firemen walking toward them. “Justin! Hey! How you doing? Bad night out here, huh?”

The firefighter nodded solemnly, and Gladwynn noticed the word chief emblazoned on the yellow helmet on his head. “It is. I can’t talk now but call me later and I can give you some details. One injury so far.”

“And I’m sure I can call the barracks later for a report?” Liam smiled at the trooper as he walked around him toward the ambulance.

The trooper’s eyes narrowed, jaw tightening, but he didn’t move to stop Liam. “Sure.”

Liam raised an imaginary camera to his eye. Glawynn nodded and began taking photographs, glad she’d kept up her photography hobby over the years. When her foot slipped after a few shots, she thought she was going down but a hand under her elbow steadied her. She looked up at a firefighter with bright blue eyes and a broad, friendly smile.

He let go of her elbow and looked at her feet. “Not the best shoes for this weather.”

His accent was thick. Clearly Irish. What was an Irishmen doing in Brookville?

She glanced at her high-heeled boots. Her grandmother had said the same thing. “Yeah, I need to start carrying winter boots with me.”

The firefighter winked as he turned to walk away. “It’d be a good idea.”

Liam stood next to the ambulance talking to another firefighter. Radio chatter and the purr of engines served as background noise to the voices of the responders and eventually a call for a backboard. Gladwynn stepped back, lifting the Cannon to snap a few shots as the firemen kneeled next to the car.

A dark green glove blocked her view. “No photos of victims.”

A different, less friendly, and less attractive, firefighter stood before her with a scowl.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”

He turned his back toward her, standing more squarely in front of her as if to get his point across. Lowering the camera, she stepped to her right and looked over his shoulder in time to see Liam walking toward her, hands shoved in his coat pockets.

He nodded his head toward his car and walked past her. She assumed that meant he wanted her to follow her. At this point she’d rather be at home curled up under a blanket with a book and a cup of blueberry tea sweetened with a healthy helping of honey.

“No fatality but still good art with that car on its hood,” he said as she fell in step with him. “Did you get some good shots?”

“Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Bart tried to stop you, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I —”

“Big buffoon thinks he can tell us how to do our jobs. Those state police don’t help matters either. They cover all the little towns and townships without a police force, which is most of the county these days, and act like they are the gatekeepers of all information at an emergency scene.”

He slid into the driver side and slammed the door closed.

She pulled the passenger side door closed gently and blew into her hands again. The gloves were stylish, but definitely not warm. “Does Brookville still have a police department?”

He nodded. “A small one, yes. A chief and two officers. They handle mainly small crimes like break ins or jaywalking right in town. The staties get called in for everything else.” He leaned over and ran his fingers over the heater buttons again. This time Gladwynn was ready. “First, lesson, Grant. We work for our readers. It’s our job to get the story, even if you have to push a little to do it. If we have to go through a couple arrogant volunteer fire fighters or cops to do our jobs, then so be it.” He looked at her. “Got it?”

She nodded slowly, wishing she felt the confidence he obviously had.

He took the camera from her and flipped through the photos on the screen. “Not bad. We’ve got at least four good shots.”

Handing the camera back, he backed the car up until he could turn it around and head back toward the office. He held his phone to his ear as he drove, but didn’t slow down, despite the fact even more snow had fallen since they’d arrived on scene.

“Ed, hey. We’ve got a centerpiece shot for the front. Horizontal, four columns.”

He slid his finger over the end button and tossed the phone into the center console. “We should be able to craft a story together when we get back. I’ll have you contact the state police in about half an hour and see if they have some information for us. You can send me what you find out and I’ll add it to the story.”

He moved the car into the opposite lane, shifted the car into a higher gear and passed a car moving slowly along the snow-covered highway. Gladwynn gripped the door handle and pressed herself back into the seat.  In that moment, wondering if she’d be the next person being pulled from an upside down vehicle, she desperately missed her previous job where she’d spent most days inside a building, searching the online catalogue for books for college students.

Her legs threatened to give out from under her when she stepped out of the BMW and made her way to the office.

Pulling her gloves off she flopped into the black padded office chair sitting in front of a computer on a gray counter acting as a desk within the restricting confines of a cubicle with light-red walls.

Hushed voices hummed on the other side of cubicle, an occasional laugh filtering through.

“Do you think she wears her hair like that all the time?”

“You mean the 1940s quaff? What year does she think it is anyhow?”

“Quaff? Where did you even get that word?”

“I have no idea. I probably read it in a book somewhere.”

“You read books?”

“Stuff it, Dibble.”

“What? I thought all you had time for was walking the old ball and chain’s dogs.”

“Rick isn’t my ball and chain. He’s –”

“Just a friend. I know. That’s what you say anyhow.”

The ring of a phone interrupted the banter. Gladwynn touched a hand to her hair.

Quaff? First off, that word didn’t mean what that woman thought it meant. The word the woman had been looking for was coif. Second, Gladwynn had been wearing her hair this way for years. She thought it was unique, something that harkened back to the 40s or 50s, two decades she could imagine herself living in. It was a style that was actually coming back in in the college town she’d been living in.

A ding notified her she had a text message and a look at the lock screen made her forget about how she’d been being talked about behind her back.

“Glad, love: Won’t be home for din. Have a date. There’s a casserole in the fridge. Love, Gram.”

A date?

Gladwynn couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

She really shouldn’t be surprised that Lucinda Florence Grant had a date at the age of 70. The woman had always been full of spunk.

While Gladwynn ’s grandfather had been the love of Lucinda’s life, the chance for Lucinda to find new love, of a different kind, was one even he would have welcomed.

Gladwynn looked at the small clock on the wall above her cubicle. Two more hours and her shift would be over. She couldn’t wait. A small pain had started pulsating behind her right eye on the drive back and hadn’t let up yet. Her feet were also begging for a break from her impractical boots.

“Hey, new girl. Where’s the card for your camera? I need that photo.”

A man with dark-rimmed glasses, dark hair and eyes and a round face appeared around the edge her cubicle.

Liam had introduced him the day before as Tom Fitzgerald, the photography expert, layout person and all around tech guy. She jumped slightly at the unexpected sound of his voice.

“Sheesh. You’re a little jumpy aren’t you?”

She opened the compartment for the camera card with shaky hands and handed it to him. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry about that.”

He grinned as he took the card. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the craziness around here pretty quick.”

He disappeared again and she was left in silence, other than the click of fingers on keyboards drifting from the other cubicles in the office.

Above her, a fluorescent light blared white-blue light onto her and made her wish she had a pair of sunglasses. In front of her, a phone that looked like it belonged in a museum made her question if she’d walked into a time warp by moving to this town.

She dialed the number Liam had given her for the state police barracks, summoning up the confidence she’d possessed in her job at the library.

“State Police Brookville, Corporal Baxter speaking.”

The woman’s voice was stern and void of any friendliness.

“Yes, hello. I’m looking for a –” Gladwynn shuffled hurriedly through her notes for the name of the officer at the scene of the accident. “Officer Kinney to ask about an accident on Route 88 tonight.”

“Trooper.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is the state police. Their titles are troopers not officer.” Corporal Baxter put strong emphasis on the words “not” and “officer”.

Gladwynn took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Excuse me. Is Trooper Kinney in?”

“He is not.”

“Will he be in later so I can ask him a few questions about the – “

“His shift ended ten minutes ago. He’ll be back tomorrow around 2.”

“Oh. Okay, well, is there anyone else I could ask about the accident?”

“We’ll send a brief out when the investigation is complete.”

“Oh. Well, th—”

The click was loud in Gladwynn ’s ear and she held the phone back from her head with a wince.

“New girl. What’s the verdict? You have some info from the staties for me?”

Was it normal for everyone in this office to simply appear out of nowhere around the wall of her cubicle? And did any of them know her real name?

She turned in her chair to face Liam. “No. They said the trooper had left for the day and would be back tomorrow.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “Typical.” He handed her a slip of paper. “I figured that would happen so here’s the fire chief’s number. His name is Justin. Give him a call and see what details he can give you, then come in my office and will hammer this out together.”

He disappeared again.

The fire chief wasn’t home, according to a woman who Gladwynn guessed to be his wife. Gladwynn gave the woman the number taped to the ancient telephone and turned her attention to the police briefs Liam had assigned her to work on earlier in the day. Most of them seemed routine – a couple drinking and driving arrests, a few minor car accidents, but then there was one that made her snort a quick laugh.

Subject arrested driving a John Deere lawn mower along Drew Avenue. When pulled over, the officer noticed a strong odor of alcohol emanating from the subject. Subject was asked to step off the lawn mower and subsequently failed a sobriety test. Subject stated his license had been suspended for DUI two months earlier. Subject relayed he was on his way to the Iron Horse for what he called a nightcap.

Time of arrest: 10 a.m.

She’d visited her grandparents in Brookville many times over the years, even spending a couple summers with them. She’d met characters during those visits who very well could have been the individual involved in this particular incident.

Nestled in mountains which were actually hills by the official definition, Brookville was tiny, with a population of maybe 6,000. Scattered around it were small villages of populations of anywhere from 50 to 100 people, spreading out until farmland ran into a bigger town 30 miles away with a population of 10,000. The Brookville Beacon was named after the town, but its coverage area encompassed the entire county.

The town she’d grown up in in New York had been four times the size of Brookville, but still had some small town elements as well. Nothing like Brookville, though, where it wasn’t uncommon to see a farmer driving a tractor down Main Street on his way to a fellow relative’s farm.

Half an hour later the phone rang and the man on the other end introduced himself as Justin Dreward, the Brookville Fire Chief.

“So, you’re the new girl?”

At this point she should just legally change her name to New Girl.

“Gladwynn Grant, yes.”

“Gwendolyn? What a nice name. You related to Granny Grant?”

Gladwynn laughed. “If you mean Lucinda Grant, then, yes, I am. She’s my grandmother. But my name is actually Gladwynn.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Your grandmother was my sixth grade teacher. Everyone thought she was mean, but she was the best teacher I ever had. Helped me with my reading when no one else did. I never held it against her that she put me in the corner that one day. I deserved it.”

“I deserved it when she did it to me too.”

It was Justin’s turn to laugh. “Okay, so details on the accident, right?”

“Yep, if there are any you can give me.”

“I can give you a few, but the main report will come from the state police. They are the main investigators on scene. I can tell you that it happened around 5:30. It was one vehicle going at a high rate of speed in slushy conditions. It went off the road, hit an embankment and flipped onto its roof. One occupant, the driver. She had to be cut out of the car. I don’t have any details on her condition, and I’m not allowed to give out names.”

“That’s fine. That will give me a little to go on at least. More than the state police.”

Justin snorted. “Yeah. That’s true most of the time. They’re pretty hard to get any information from. A lot of good guys but they do live up to that nickname of Gray Gods sometimes.”

“Okay, well thank you Mr. – “

Justin laughed. “Don’t call me mister anything. I’m just Justin. About the accident, though — I don’t know if it was just the weather. Ellory said something as they were loading her into the ambulance about her brakes not working.”

“Ellory?”

“Ellory Banks. She’s the manager of Citizens Bank downtown and on every board and in every organization you can imagine. Hey, wait. Don’t put her name in there unless you get it from the staties.  Identification of victims can’t come from emergency responders. State and federal laws and all that. You know what? You’d better keep that whole brake thing off the record too. She hit her head pretty hard and her brother is a local mechanic. He might take offense to that since he probably does all the work on her car.”

Gladwynn wrote Ellory’s name down, circled it and wrote “off the record” next to it.

She thanked Justin again, hung up, and took her notepad with her to Liam’s office for a crash course on how to write a news story.