Did he just scare the hiccups right out of me? Gladwynn books are back on Kindle Unlimited and Gladwynn book four update
Throughout my childhood and teenage years my family and I would visit my mom’s side of the family in Jacksonville, N.C. for Christmas at my grandmother and aunt’s house.
One day when I was about 18 or so, my parents told me we were going to drive a couple hours west to see my mom’s aunt and uncle and cousins in a little town called Farmville.
I had never met this part of the family before so I didn’t know what to think of them. The house was full of chatter as soon as we arrived. Chatter and offers of food.
“Y’all come on in here and get yourself some food,” Cousin Joyce said from the kitchen.
Conversations began to take the path they usually do in Mom’s family — several of them being held at once all at the same time, back and forth between each other. I did my best to keep track. The conversations were mainly between my grandmother, mom, aunt Dianne, Cousin Joyce, Cousin Janet and Aunt Mattie.
Uncle Ray — full name Ashley Ray Waignwright (isn’t the quentissintial Southern name?!), a short man with very little hair, wearing a pair of small, wire-rimmed glasses, and looking a bit somber, was sitting in a little rocking chair. He was participating in some of the conversations but not much. Mainly he was observing.
At some point I developed the hiccups. They were painful and wouldn’t stop.
Mom suggested I drink some water. Aunt Dianne said a spoonful of sugar. Someone else suggested holding my breath.
Uncle Ray narrowed his eyes.
“Heard what you been saying about me, girl.”
I was startled. Was he looking at me? I looked behind me. There was no one there. It had to be me he was talking to.
“I—I’m sorry?”
He frowned. “You. I heard what you been saying about me.”
“I-I – know I haven’t said anything.”
Mom hadn’t mentioned her uncle Ray was going senile but this conversation was getting weirder by the moment.
“You sure did,” he said. “You know it and I know it so you just need to apologize.”
“I—I .. but…”
His grim expression didn’t crack. “Where those hiccups gone?”
“What? What do you mean?”
A small smile tipped the corner of his mouth upward. “Your hiccups. They’re gone, aren’t they?”
I dragged in a ragged breath and let it out again.
The rest of the conversations had stopped during this exchange and I heard my mom laugh.
It was beginning to hit me now.
“He got you, didn’t he?” Mom asked.
Uncle Ray was smiling more now. Yes, he’d got me, and the panic I’d felt at thinking he thought I’d said something awful about him had been enough to stop the hiccups
These days I have to figure out other ways to get rid of hiccups if I have them.
How do you get rid of hiccups?
An announcement
I really am never sure how I want to market or sell my books so for a couple of months I had them “wide” or on all sites for purchase. My books can be purchased in paperback on Amazon or Barnes and Noble but right now I have my ebooks only on Amazon and in their Kindle Unlimited program.
So you can purchase the ebook there or read it through Kindle Unlimited.
I am not a huge fan of the way Amazon does things when it comes to paying indie authors or the way they make their program exclusive, but dealing with one site for my books is the easiest thing for me during this season of my life.
Writing update
I am currently brainstorming and beginning to map out book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mystery series.
The title of the book will be Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.
I am also working on a Biblical short story/novella (haven’t decided which yet) and will have news about that later on in the spring.
Another exciting announcement is that my daughter and I will be reviving our journal business. We will be offering simple journals with front covers designed by my 10-year-old daughter and me for both children and adults on Barnes and Noble.
Stay tuned for more news about that. We are excited.
We are also excited to start designing bookmarks to be sold at Redbubble. I will update on that later in the month.
I’ve been blogging a lot at my main blog www.lisahoweler.com.
Some recent posts:
Sunday Bookends: Warmer weather and my socially introverted family
Sunday Bookends: Grandma Ruth, Middle Earth, and Middle Grade March
This is a year of new things and adjustments so I hope you will stick with me while I figure it all out.