A cover reveal for a new book, memories of an Irish friend, and spring arrives
Here we are already in mid-March and actually, as I am writing this it is officially the first day of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, it will be the day after once I finish the newsletter and send it out to you all.
My newsletters will usually be a monthly thing. I know I sent one about a week ago to share about a giveaway, but that won’t be the norm.
I do most of my rambling on my blog (www.lisahoweler.com).
I am very excited for spring, even though my sinuses are dreading it since I have developed seasonal allergies since growing older, sadly.
A little allergy medicine, though, and I am fine to enjoy the blooming flowers and I am truly looking forward to them blooming. Our trees and grass have been brown and yellow for too long.
A few flowers are already blooming in my neighbor’s yard. The crocuses came up along with the stalks for the daffodils, which I hope will be up within a few days.
I sat down to take a few photos of the flowers and my pets decided they needed to get in on the photo too. They are two of the cutest photo bombers.
Every year in March, mainly because of St. Patrick’s Day, I find myself thinking about my late friend Rev. Reynolds.
I thought I’d share a story with you today that I posted on my blog first in 2019 before I share my writing update. This is part of the blog post that I posted.
I pulled into the driveway of a little house that looked as if it had been lifted out of Northern Ireland and dropped, unscathed, into the hills of Pennsylvania. The ceilings were low, the windows were small and cute and the stone fireplace had been built by hand.
On one side of the house was a cow pasture and on the other a tiny, century-old cemetery with a sign on the metal gate that read “Enter At Your Own Risk.”
I blew my nose as I parked and began to rehearse what I would say to the elderly Irishman inside, determined to not let him talk me into staying for tea. I did not want tea. I wanted to go home, lay down and fall asleep after a long day of work at the local weekly newspaper and catching a cold that had only gotten worse as the day went on.
I would simply tell Rev. Charles Reynolds, the aforementioned Irishman, that I was too ill to come in, but would stop again another day when I was feeling better.
The door swung open and a man with blond-white hair, glasses slipping down his nose, stood there in a button up dress shirt and a pair of dress pants, his traditional garb for as long as I had known him; as if he had just returned from church.
“Hello, Rev. Reynolds, I’m sorry I can’t stay long, but I seem to have a cold and I don’t want to get you and Maud sick,” I steeled my resolve to not be swayed by his Celtic charm.
“Come, come. Have a cup of tea,” his Irish brogue was thick. “Maude, put the kettle on. We’ll have some tea and Lisa will feel better.”
“But I -”
“Come. Come.”
He was already walking away from me, gesturing for me to close the door.
Maude, his gray-haired wife, had dutifully shuffled into the kitchen, off to the left of the front door, and placed the kettle on the stove.
“Yes, Paddy.” She nodded curtly at her husband, like a soldier to a superior.
Her tone hovered somewhere between affection and sarcasm.
I sat at the kitchen table and waited for the whistle of the kettle as cookies, crackers, plates, tea cups, a bowl of sugar cubes and cream was placed on the table before me. water was poured into a teapot filled with loose tea and steam rose as it was poured into my cup and bits of the leaves settled at the bottom.
Rev. Reynolds leaned over the table and added a cube of sugar to my cup. Two, round white horse pills pills showed up next.
“There now. That will be just what you need. Tea and vitamin c.”
Rev. Reynolds’ had a doctorate but sometimes he seemed to forget it was in theology.
The dainty tea cup covered in blue patterns was warm in my hand and clinked against the plate when I set it down. Being served tea this way was a far cry from tea at my house, served in a mug with a tea bag after pulling it from the microwave.
If you would like to read the rest of the post, you can do so at the link below:
I definitely miss Rev. Reynolds and his wife Maud now that they have passed on. The photo is a picture that was taken of him in Northern Ireland, where he was born and raised.
Writing Update
I’m deep into writing the first draft of a cozy mystery called Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing.
The tentative release date for the book is mid or late June 2023.
I’m excited to give all of you - my newsletter subscribers - a sneak peek at what the book is about and a sneak peek at the cover.
DESCRIPTION:
After being laid off from her job as a librarian at a small college, Gladwynn Grant isn’t sure what her next step in life is. When a job as a small town newspaper reporter opens up in the town her grandmother Lucinda Grant lives in, she decides to take it to get away from a lot of things – Bennett for one.
Lucinda has been living alone since Gladwynn’s grandfather passed away six years ago and she isn’t a take-it-easy, rock-on-your-front-porch kind of grandma. She’s always on the go and lately, she’s been on the go with a man who Gladwynn doesn’t know.
Gladwynn thought Brookville was a small, quiet town, but within a few days of being there, she has to rethink that notion. Someone has cut the bank loan officer’s brakes, threatening letters are being sent, and memories of a bank robbery from the 1970s has everyone looking at the cold case again.
And what, if anything, will Gladwynn uncover about her new hometown and her grandmother’s new male friend?
Find out in Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing, the first in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries.
You can find my other books, which are not cozy mysteries, at the links below.
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Are you a reader of cozy mysteries or just mysteries in general? I’d love to know and I’d love to know a little about you – what you are reading, watching, and what’s been going on in your life.