(Go to my website for signup information at http://www.billiewilliams.com)

Billie Williams Mystery Book Club January 2011

A great gift for the Holidays -a gift that keeps on giving - a book or membership in the club.

Print Book Club: $22 per month. Sign up with be through PayPal - if you do not have Pay Pal it is free and easy to sign up and the safest way to make purchases on the internet.  
For more information - or a different choice please email me. Please put Book Club in the Subject line.

Thanks
Includes:
1. Autographed copy of the current month's book
2. Bookmark/and/or Post card of the book cover
3. Reader's Guide (Questions for you to answer as you read the book)
4. A live teleclass with the author at the end of each month where you can ask questions
about the book, about writing, about the author, or whatever you choose.
5. Once a month drawing for an autographed cover flat of the book, mug, t-shirt, cap and
other items as appropriate such as Cook Books, Special Reports and more.
6. Club Newsletter (PDF Format)
7. If you develop a local chapter of Billie Williams Mystery Bookclub, I can ship the books to one address  - saving everyone hassle and you'll receive a special bonus for doing that. Email me if you set up a readers group and give me the details.

8. The first 25 members to join the print book club will also get a free copy of The Capricorn Goat - a mystery suspense novel.

E-book Club: $10 per month
Include extras:
1. Readers Guides,
2. Teleclass or online chats with you - or your local book club  chapter where I can answer
your questions, we can talk about the current book or whatever else is on your mind.
3. Book Marks to download and print out,
4. Book Club Newsletter (PDF format)
5. Short short stories to download and more...

As special premiums, for contests or names drawn at random: Cookbooks, t-shirts, caps,
mugs, and more as available for certain books.

Book List in the order they will be delivered:
1.        Knapsack Secrets (Rock Soup story and recipe)
2.        Small Town Secrets (cookbook premium)
3.        Ancient Secrets
4.        Skull Music
5.        Ghost Music of Vaudeville
6.        Death by Candlelight (How to Make Your Own Candles booklet)
7.        Candlelight and Shadows
8.        The Pink Lady Slipper
9.        Bed and Breakfast Murders (Cookbook)
10.        Diamonds, Death and Deceit
11.        Tracker (Bloodhound facts booklet)
12.        Watch For the Raven (Native American Recipes)

**Sign up with be through PayPal - if you do not have Pay Pal, it is free and easy to sign up and the safest way to make purchases on the internet.  For more information - or a different choice please email me. Please put Book Club in the Subject line. Thanks

                       Zodiac Series to begin January 2012
1.        Capricorn Goat (January Flannel)
2.        Fin, Fur and Fatal (February England)
3.        Money Isn't Everything (Mary March)
4.        Tracker (April Shauers)
5.        Cauldron (Tiffany Tarus)
6.        Antique Armor (June Fabrizio)
7.        July Heat (Judy July)
8.        August:
9.        September:
10.        October:
11.        November:
12.        December:

Sure enough, Christmas will be here before we know it. And the memories of Christmases past flood in.

            My mother loved the Christmas season, the fresh cut tree, strings and strings of colored lights, and the food. Every year before Thanksgiving she had baked a number of fruit cakes and they were soaking in brandy in tin containers, wrapped in her dish towels. Regardless of all the jokes about fruit cake, I can still taste Mom's and they were GOOD! Some years, depending on how often she added brandy, they might have been a little stout, but soooo good. She was devoted to those fruit cakes. We learned how devoted one year, when she had been extremely busy at work and made fruit cakes on Christmas Eve. No one had the courage to tell her that they weren't her best effort.

            My sister and I had bedrooms upstairs. One Christmas Eve as we lay in bed, too excited to sleep, we really did hear bells jingle faintly outside. Of course, no one believed us, but until my sister made her transition just a few years ago, we both spoke of that often. Still positive we heard bells jingling. Whatever it was, real or imagined; we went downstairs very, very early Christmas morning. There, under our huge tree, was the doll house we had longed for. It was filled with the most exquisite miniature furniture. Our father had spent untold hours making the chairs, tables, dressers, beds, and a sofa---all we needed for our house.

            We lived in a small town, Eagle, Colorado. The population back then was probably around 500 and that included outlying ranches. Every year, just a few nights before Christmas, the town sponsored Santa Claus. He came around to each house in town, on a horse-drawn sleigh if we had snow and on someone's flat bed truck if not. He always had an orange, a peppermint candy cane, and a little bag of hard candies. It was always fun to try and figure out who had been Santa that year. Sometimes it was the plumber, sometimes the man who owned the local dairy, or maybe the man who had a gas station and coal delivery service. They were all three 'portly' and could do a deep 'Ho-ho-ho".

            My most memorable Christmas was when Mom cremated the turkey. One of the traditions was that neighbors would go out around noon to visit others homes in the neighborhood. There was always eggnog, punch for the kids, and all sorts of cookies and other goodies. This particular Christmas, my parents stayed longer than they should have and of course, we were with them. When we finally went home, because our grandparents and a couple of bachelor uncles were coming...disaster! My father opened the front door and smoke billowed out. He rushed to the kitchen, coughing and choking. Mom had forgotten to turn the oven down after she heated it. What to do? The grandmothers, granddad, Uncle Jesse and Skeet were coming. Remember, I said we lived in a small town. Mom, ever resourceful, called the woman who owned the local general store. Yes, Teresa had a couple of roasting hens. My mother flew out the door, into the family Chevy and up the street to pick up Teresa while we opened all doors and windows. So, dinner was late that year. We didn't care, we were all together.