Along with showers, April sometimes bring good news. I finished my latest book the week before Easter. As I neared the end it seemed best to change the title from Ginger's House to The Mists of Huron Court to better reflect the story's focus. I am currently working on the first edit of the manuscript.

In the days following the completion of a work in progress, I always feel lost without a set number of pages to write each day. Leaving characters you've lived with for months isn't easy. With The Mists of Huron Court, more so than with previous books, I felt as if my characters still had stories to tell. Within a few days I was asking, "What happens next?" Before long, I had a plot for a new book slowly unfolding.

I'm eager to return to the kind of schedule I adhered to when writing The Mists of Huron Court, and I want to do this before spring planting lures me away from my desk, although I've been planting in containers around the porch and letting the rest of my garden tend to itself.

Lately it's almost been warm enough to sit on my porch. In past years, I bought enough plants to fill the wraparound ledge inside the porch. Now the windows have cut down on the sill space, so I decided to buy a plant stand and use one of the end tables. I won't have so many plants this summer, but that's all right since they don't do well for me inside the house during the winter months. I plan to buy mostly African violets, my favorite indoor plant.

I also ordered a window box to replace the old one. Last summer a few of its pickets broke off, giving it a more-than-distressed look.

  My publisher, Wings ePress, has initiated a new procedure. Instead of releasing a book on a specific month, they are going to have discounted pre-releases that will go on sale later at Createspace at the regular price.

I haven't tried the new system yet, although I plan to as I've seen a few books I'd like to pre-order on the new Wings home page. That address, by the way, is http://www.books-by-wings-epress.com

My friend and critique partner, Suzanne Hurley, has a new book in her Samantha Barclay mystery series, Guilt, to be released soon. I've read Guilt and can whole-heartedly recommended it. Ms. Hurley's characters are so well drawn they seem like real people, and the plot moves at a rapid pace as Sam tries to prove the innocence of a man who has confessed to murder. This book had me guessing all the way through the end which is truly one of the most outstanding scenes Ms. Hurley has ever written.

The quality of my leisure reading has been hit and miss lately. I tend to judge a book by how eager I am to resume reading it. A genuine five star book like Rhys Bowen's Time of Fog and Fire found me snatching time from household chores to read. For a run-of-the-mill book, I wait till evening.

My latest discovers are The Secret Portrait and The Murder Hole by Lilian Stewart Carl, featuring investigative reporter, Jean Fairbairn, and Scottish detective, Alisdair Cameron who must be one of the most alluring heroes since Heathcliff. These books bring modern Scotland to brilliant life with its brilliant scenery, festivals, history and legends. They contain a dollop of romance, along with a larger helping of the supernatural.

It took me a while to get used to the author's literate style, but now I'm hooked and looking for a third book in the series.

March came in like a lion, as I recall, and went out like a lion. If not exactly roaring, not bleating either. There's talk of April snow. It's not quite time for summer dreams yet, but we're getting closer.

Until May,

Dorothy