How exciting it is to report that 1000 people put in their names for “Death of a Dyer”. Goodreads selected the winners and the books have all gone out. Happy Reading.
Tag Archives: murder mysteries
Goodreads Giveaway
Last call for the giveaway of my second book, “Death of a Dyer
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The giveaway ends Sunday night. In “Death of a Dyer”, Rees goes home to Dugard. He is trying to mend fences with David, his son. Lydia has accompanied him as well, as a housekeeper. Both have baggage from previous relationships and are hesitant to begin again.
Rees is home for only a short while when he is asked to look into the death of Nate Bowditch, Rees’s boyhood friend. A weaver like Rees, Nate has become a dyer. This is a time before the coal tar dyes. Besides indigo and cochineal, most of the dyes used in Dugard would have been natural dyes: some madder, black walnut, butternut and so on. And both indigo and cochineal were very expensive.
I had a lot of fun with this book since I got to include tons of stuff about dyeing and weaving.
Devil’s Cold Dish
I am happy and so excited to announce that I have received the cover for the new Will Rees mystery – A Devil’s Cold Dish. The graphics arts department at Minotaur is so good. In my opinion, they have scored with every single cover.
Will and Lydia Rees return to Dugard after their adventures in Salem and find themselves in new trouble. Not only is Will accused of murder but Lydia finds her own life in danger.
Coming June, 2016
Osterhout Library
I had a great talk on Saturday at this very fine and interesting library. It is in a converted church and has stained glass and those wonderful pointed windows. The staff was both warm and gracious (they made a cake with the cover of my first book on it!) and I had a great turn out.
The Orkneys
Our final stop, before sailing to London and flying out to home, was Kirkwall. It is in the Orkneys. We were told that the Orkneys do not want to separate from Great Britain but remain. That, of course, is not the common view in Scotland. The National Party just had a vote to leave and enter the EU as a separate country. The vote failed but who knows what will happen next time?
Anyway, ruins here make even the Iron Age farm seem relatively recent. There are standing stones, similar to Stonehenge.
Like Stonehenge, they line up to the solar equinox. There are a lot of speculations about the purpose of the stones but no one really knows.
We also saw ruins that date to 3000 BC. (Is the US a young country or what?) Trash was used in the walls to insulate inside. Plus, just like the ruins in Crete, there were indoor toilets. What happened that this little luxury went extinct and had to be reinvented in modern times?
It is thought that the sea was further away then; again no one is sure. But the water is coming in now and threatening the excavation. The people who lived here ate fish and other things from the sea. No one is sure what happened to these people although there is another settlement nearby and one of the theories is that they moved.
The land upon which these ruins were found has belonged to the same family for generations. Incredible.
It was very cold and windy. We did not hit warm weather until we reached London. And, as with the other places we visited, there were a lot of sheep.
For all my fellow librarians, here is the Orkney Library. I was told this is the oldest Carnegie in the world. Something that amazed me. I thought all the Carnegies were in the U. S. The Orkney Library looks like it has been added to several times.
Next time: some random thoughts.
Talks
During these past few weeks, since I’ve gotten home from Scandinavia, I have had a number of talks at various places. This past Monday night, I spoke at the Woods Hole Library in Cape Cog. As usual, I enjoyed myself greatly and had a lot of wonderful questions.
Next up: the Wilkes Barre Library in Pa.
Witches – Salem and more
I ‘ve had a couple of questions about my most recent book, Death in Salem. Why didn’t I fully explore the witchcraft angle? Well, as I’ve said in earlier posts, Salem by 1797, was a very cosmopolitan city. It was not only the sixth largest, one of the most diverse (with the first East Indian immigrant populations in the US) but it was also the wealthiest. Salem’s witchcraft past was more an embarrassment.
House of one of the judges.
The witchcraft spell has never completely left Salem, however. On one of our tours, the guide was the descendent of one of the accused witches. Reminders of this past abound.
Graveyard includes memorials to those that were executed.
Although Salem became something other – a huge center of shipping and trading, however, the belief in witchcraft did not fade. In an earlier blog I wrote about trials that continued, right up to one in Russia in 1999.
And I wonder what is behind these accusations? Belief? Greed, malice, revenge? Hatred of women. With Gamer gate and all of the Internet attacks on women we certainly cannot discount that as a motive.
Christianity certainly plays a part.I think most of us are familiar with the quote from the Bible about not suffering a witch to live. During the middle ages and right up to modern times this has been used to execute any number of innocent people, primarily women.
I will blog in the future about my research into witchcraft and goddesses – I think the two are tied. I decided, that since I did not explore witchcraft and the psychologies behind it in Death in Salem, I would do so in the next book. That book, titled The Devil”s Cold Dish, will be coming out next year. Spoiler alert: it does not take place in Salem.
Spring gardening
This is a funny year. I always find surprises, partly because many plants reseed themselves. Tomatoes is one. Random plants come up all over the garden and I can never bear to pull them, which may be one reason I end up with 11 plants.
Two tomato plants came up here along with what looks like squash. And in the background it looks like cabbage even though the package said broccoli. There are four broccolis in front of the cabbage, planted too close.
This year is odd as well. I have flowers on my peas, because they went in late (snow on the ground) and flowers on the tomatoes (begun in the house). Tomatoes and peas at the same time?
And finally, just something nice. My weigela – I just missed a butterfly on it. I love spring!
Musings on car colors
My husband and I took a trip over the weekend to visit a friend (a friend that I have had for forty years!). When we drove down 95 I noticed that it was a sea of black, white and silver cars. There were a few burgundy SUVs but from a distance, just like the dark blue and dark green, they looked black. I love seeing the bright red cars. mostly Pickups, that look like bright red tomatoes riding down the road.
Finally, on 85 South, I saw a robin’s egg blue VW beetle and a copper colored KIA.
Where are the rest of the colors? My first car was a Chevy Malibu. It was a beautiful creamy yellow. (In 1973. Can you believe it?) If you go further back, to the time of the movie American Graffiti, the cars were all kinds of colors: Pink, light blue, yellow. I’d like to see royal blue and emerald green, bright red like the pickups, and taxicab yellow
I say, stand up for colorful cars!
Gardening – and insects
I spent a lot of time this past weekend working in the garden: putting in string beans as well as taking out a lot of the winter-killed plants. (Yes, out of 12 roses, I have only 4 left.) The vegetable garden in enclosed by a fence, and most of the larger yard is fenced to keep out the deer. I coated my gardening pants with off (Deet variety) but I still got bitten by mosquitoes and black flies. Welts all over my ears and neck. But my husband, who was mowing in the front, and unfenced yard, got a tick. And the dog and my grandson (who spends hours running around the yard ‘with the doggy’) both got ticks.
It is the season. Be careful out there.