 A Letter to my ReadersMany have probably guessed that I delight in the Christmas holidays from the fading strains of the last Thanksgiving hymn to the rousing chorus of "Auld Lang Syne." (And I'd "fa-la-la" even longer if I hadn't been brought up to believe it's bad luck to leave up your tree until New Year's.) Imagine my excitement last year when I was able to take advantage of a trip to the Big Apple itself the first week in December to celebrate the publication of "Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed" with several signings in the city and to visit over lunch with my editor, Hope Dellon, my agent, Laura Langlie, and her publicist, Tooraj Kavoussi. Accompanied by our daughter, Amy, I took in two seasonal productions on Broadway and let myself be swept away by the sights, sounds, crowds and the breath-taking cold. What a fantastic way to begin the season and launch the seventh in the Augusta Goodnight series, set - of course - in Stone's Throw, S.C., during Christmastime! In the fifth of the Augusta mysteries, "Too Late for Angels," the angel, along with readers, is introduced to the small town of Stone's Throw when she comes to share a home with Lucy Nan Pilgrim. Set in mid-autumn, the book ends a few weeks before Christmas, and I think it appropriate that we leave Augusta, Lucy Nan, and the Thursday Morning Literary Society (that now meets on Monday afternoons) during a favorite season of Augusta's and of mine. Although I don't plan to keep writing the series, it comforts me to know I can visit this special angel and her friends any time I like. Not only does she continue to work her celestial magic in Stone's Throw, but she lives in my heart as well. All I have to do is close my eyes, think blue, and inhale the aroma of strawberry muffins! Look for the paperback edition of "Hark! the Herald Angel Screamed" from Worldwide Library in the fall of 2010. This leads me to some exciting news. I have just completed the manuscript for the first in a new series set in Elderberry, Georgia, during the years of World War II. "Miss Dimple Disappears," featuring eccentric first-grade teacher, Dimple Kilpatrick, is due for publication in the fall of 2010, and I hope you'll come to feel as at home with the warm and offbeat characters within its pages as you were with the angel series. (All, as you might expect, are not as they seem!) In it you'll meet many of Miss Dimple's fellow faculty members who live at Phoebe Fenwick's rooming house; young teachers, Charlie Carr and her friend, Annie Gardner, who find romance in the tumult of war; Charlie's widowed mother, Jo, and her adventurous Aunt Lou, who, among others, volunteer at a nearby ordnance plant where munitions are made. When reliable Miss Dimple disappears, the small town of Elderberry is stunned and distressed. Eight-year-old Willie Elrod claims she was kidnapped by spies, but then Willie sees spies around every corner. A note, written on Miss Dimple's familiar purple flowered paper, explains that she had to leave suddenly to care for an ailing sister, but Phoebe's longtime cook, Odessa, swears the missing teacher had once confided to her that her only sister died in childhood. Meanwhile, war escalates in Europe and the Pacific, Americans deal with shortages, sacrifice and loss, and Miss Dimple's friends in Elderberry sense a growing threat that is somehow connected to her disappearance. In writing this book, I have come to know and admire the esteemed Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, who, on her early morning walks, collects unsightly litter with the point of her umbrella, bakes nutritious (but rather unappetizing) "Victory" muffins, and wears purple in memory of a lost love. But there is more to Miss Dimple than one might suspect, and in this first book in the series, I hope the reader will get a rare glimpse, as I have, of Miss Dimple's benevolent heart. Earlier last year, Bella Rosa Books brought out in trade paper two of my favorite stand-alone mysteries, "Cry at Dusk" and "Final Curtain," formerly published in hardcover. I was pleased to have the latter on hand to sign at the South Carolina Book Festival in Columbia the last of February where I took part in three panels and enjoyed myself (probably more than I should have) on the dance floor. I have just begun work on the second in the Miss Dimple series, "Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause," to be published by St. Martin's in 2011, and can't wait to see which corner my fascinating title character will turn next! Listed below are a few previous "Letter to Readers". Back to the top |