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It's almost officially summer. I have two foxgloves in bloom in my garden and other flowers as well. I planted the foxgloves in honor of my series and have babied them. Of course, Kinder always has to sound the alarm every time my neighbor pulls in or out of her driveway. Recently she barreled into one of them. I hurried to straighten it and gave it a stake for support. So it survived.
Well, you either have a perfect garden or a happy collie. In the first book of my series, Camille voices this sentiment in her own words.
My yard is beautiful now, even though many of the wild ferns have already been crushed, either by Kinder tramping through them or by the yard people taking their lawn mower to the back yard. I've taken some pictures while everything is still more or less intact.
Thanks to Derek Cleary and my landscape company, the front of the house is free of weeds and covered with sweet-smelling reddish mulch. In back it's a different story. There it's survival of the fittest. Fortunately the fittest are perennials like pink coneflowers, bee balm, feverfew, and goldenrod. Along the house's foundation yellow evening primroses are doing a wonderful job of choking out weeds, and the sweet peas are blooming and in one place are growing higher than my window box. They add a lovely dark pink color to the reds and pinks of the geraniums.
I love this season. I love being able to make sun tea outside and sit on my porch with my writing where I am at the moment. I'd rather be here in my home than any place on earth with the possible exception of the farm in Harrisville that provided me with a setting for A Shadow on the Snow.
Well, enough summertime rambling.
Finally I can look forward to the release of The Mists of Huron Court from Wings ePress on the first of July. It seems a long time since I first sent the manuscript to Wings, probably because I'm now immersed in writing the next book in the series, Down a Dark Path.
On a day like today when it's supposed to be ninety degrees and is pretty hot already in the morning, I have to remember that my new book with its biting wind gusts and snow like hail takes place in November. I've enjoyed taking the idea I used in The Mists of Huron Court further. Not that my WIP is a sequel. It can certainly stand on its own as part of the Foxglove Corners mystery series.
I have plans in the works to turn Darkness at Foxglove Corners into an audio book. More about that later.
I've discovered a wonderful new book, first in a series, by Jacquie Rogers, Hot Work in Fry Pan Gulch. Her heroine is Honey Beaulieu, man (bounty) hunter. The second installment should be out in August, and I'll be pre-ordering it. Along with Gothic novels, westerns are my favorite.
I love time travels, too, and recently had the opportunity to read Marja McGraw's Choosing One Moment. This is a time travel-mystery-romance that will whisk you away to the early years of the last century where life was quite different from today with its electronics and hectic pace.
I'm currently reading Prayers the Devil Answers by Sharyn McCrumb. I've read all of her books. In her books, Ms. McCrumb has preserved a simpler way of living in America that is all but lost to today's world.
Another good mystery that's quite different from others I've read is An Unmourned Man by Issy Brooke. This Victorian mystery introduces a remarkable new amateur detective, Lady Cordelia Cornbrook.
A note about my website. You'll find the first chapter of The Mists of Huron Court on My Books page of www.dorothybodoin.com , since many of my readers wanted a return of this feature. Down a Dark Path has passed the halfway mark, so in about a month, its first chapter will be there too.
I hope all of you have the best summer ever and that it stays around for a good long while.
Dorothy |
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