This summer-like-no-other is rapidly slipping away. The purple coneflowers in my yard are fading, but the goldenrods' bright color is glorious. Some of the leaves in my linden trees are turning yellow. Most days are still hot, but there's a different feel in the air.
I'm ready to welcome autumn.
I've more or less adjusted to life during the pandemic since there is no alternative. New summer dresses hang in my closet waiting for another season. I no longer choose my own groceries which leads to some interesting items in my pantry. So far I've only left my house for haircuts and to take my collie to the vet. A trip to the corner drug store will classify as an outing. And there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for our poor beleaguered world.
But the summer has brought good things as well. My blue merle collie, Layla, my best friend and inspiration, received a clean bill of health from her vet and the all-clear to go for walks and even runs. Readers seem to enjoy my Christmas-themed book, The Dog Who Ran with the Sleigh, and another Foxglove Corners Mystery, In the Greenwood He Was Slain, is on the way for December 1st. I have a new work-in-progress, So Long at the Park, with over a hundred pages written.
In an early chapter of So Long at the Park Jennet speaks of impossible-to-solve mysteries and longs for a simple murder case with plenty of suspects and clues.
What she has is certainly not simple. In a crowded event at a local park, a collie is stolen from her ex-pen and switched with another while her owner and several other people are nearby. Nobody saw anything untoward, but the collie Rainbow has vanished. Into the thin air, or so it seems.
Meanwhile the school year is drawing to an end, and Jennet finds herself embroiled in a controversial conflict involving a student.
Like my heroine, I, too, long for an easy mystery, someday, but this is the one my heart gave me. I have no doubt I'll figure out a satisfactory ending.
Besides writing, reading, etc. other people's work has been a lifeline for me during this lockdown. I'm reading Julia Spencer-Fleming's series featuring Clare Fergusson, a Presbyterian priest, and Russ van Alstyne, a police chief. I'm beginning the last in the nine-book series.
I was delighted to find a new Rhys Bowen "Royal Spyness" mystery titled The Last Mrs. Summers recently. Lady Georgiana's adventures keep getting better and better. I also read the first book of two new series: Patricia Marcantonio's Felicity Carroll and the Perilous Pursuit and Kasey Stockton's The Jewels of Halstead Manor.
Laurien Berenson's Howloween Murder will be next on my list.
I hope you all stay well and happy as the seasons change and maybe, we hope, bring better times.
Dorothy
