A Visit to Eyam

Several years ago when I read Geraldine Brooks' novel Year of Wonders and realized that the village the book describes is real, I knew I wanted to visit there. This past March, Denis and I hopped in the rental car and made our way into the heart of Derbyshire and the Peak District to Eyam (rhymes with "team"), the Plague Village.

To make a long story short, a plague-infected bolt of cloth made its way to Eyam, and when people began to get sick, the villagers decided to do an extraordinary thing: they quarantined themselves and the village from the rest of the world in hopes that the deadly disease would not spread. Many of the villagers died.

As Denis and I made the turn from a major road onto the secondary one that would take us to the village, I began to feel as if time were flowing backwards. The secondary road was narrow and wound through hills and thick patches of trees. The further we went, I could see that-- at least from this direction-- it would be fairly simple to post a guard or two to prevent others from going on to the village. The ancient narrow streets of Eyam were tricky to navigate with all the cars parked along the side, but Denis easily found the way to the large parking lot at the top of a hill. This was a good parking lot indeed because there was a large building housing public restrooms right on site. Following the travel advice of a dear friend ("Never pass up the opportunity to pee") we checked out the restrooms, and then headed on into the village. As usual, the sky was a leaden grey, and the knife-edged wind was blowing straight from Russia. I turned up my coat collar, hunched my shoulders, and followed Denis. The first building was right across the road from the parking lot: the Eyam Museum.

The Eyam Museum

One of the first things we noticed about the museum was its weathervane, a Millennium gift from the Eyam Village Society. With its history, the weathervane is rather fitting, don't you think?

Eyam Museum's "rat vane"

Prominently displayed on the wall of the museum was a map of the village, which Denis and I used to get our bearings. It's such a beautiful piece of art and information that I was quite pleased to see that I could buy a copy at the Eyam Hall gift shop. (Yes, you can click on any of the photos to see them in larger sizes in a new window!)

Eyam map, view 1

Eyam map, view 2

Denis doesn't have two bad knees that try to lock up in freezing cold, so as I carefully made my way down the steep street (yes, Eyam is built on hills), the most I got to see of my beloved was his back for this part of our sightseeing.

Denis motoring down the streets of Eyam

And of course there were other reasons why I was being a slowpoke-- like stopping to photograph houses all made of local stone.

Home in Eyam made of the local stone

One of the things that always amuses me is that, in so many of the ancient villages of England, the front doors of the houses open right out onto the street. I've always been afraid that this American would forget one day, open the door, and walk right out into the path of a car. Yikes!

Street in Eyam

Eyam Post Office

In no time at all, at least to this particular nosy parker, it seemed that we rounded a corner and were looking right at the back courtyard of Eyam Hall. The National Trust banners threw me for a loop because all of the reading I'd done on the place said nothing about the Trust. When we went inside the Hall, we discovered that this was the very first day that Eyam Hall was open as a National Trust property.

Facing the back courtyard of Eyam Hall

To the left, Eyam Hall. To the right, a nice-looking home called The Brick House because it's the only building in Eyam that's made of brick instead of the local stone. It was formerly the Stag Inn and is right across the street from the front of Eyam Hall. Take a look and see if you have the same problem I do with the house being called The Brick House!

Around the corner is The Brick House

Here's a look at the rather gloomy-looking Eyam Hall....

Eyam Hall

With that stone wall surrounding it and just from its overall appearance, Eyam Hall looks more like an asylum than a family home, but let's take a look inside!

Eyam Hall dining room and fellow tourist

Eyam Hall-- the old kitchen, view 1

Old kitchen, view 2, with box mangle and stone sink

Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey, anyone?

Dollhouse

View of the nursery

One of the bedrooms

The "family room"

Right across the street from the Hall is the Brick House and a small open area where, in centuries past, farmers' wives would bring fresh produce to sell. It's also where the stocks are for any of the village miscreants. I wonder if they had benches centuries ago, too, so villagers could sit at their leisure and pelt those in the stocks with leftover fruit and veg?

See the two benches with the stocks to the right?

The stocks

Not far down the street from Eyam Hall were the plague cottages, each one neatly signed.

The Plague Cottages

One of the Plague Cottage signs

For having so much history occurring within their walls, these cottages look so... commonplace, don't they? And if you're wondering why I'm not showing more photos of them, it's for a very good reason. These cottages are being lived in today, so there was no way on earth I was going to knock on a door or try to zoom in for a look inside a window!

Just past the plague cottages was St. Lawrence's Church (formerly St. Helen's).

St. Lawrence's Church and the War Memorial

8th century Celtic cross

Tomb of Catherine Mompesson, one of the plague victims

When we'd finally had our fill of the bone-chilling cold, we began to walk back through the village, and the sight of all the satellite dishes on the sides of centuries-old cottages made me smile.

Ancient homes with modern conveniences

On the way back to our cottage on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border, we took a wrong turn. Denis let his GPS choose the way to get back on track, and it was an interesting route. Fortunately we didn't meet anyone coming from the opposite direction!

Yikes! Where's the passing lane?

Traveling through the Peak District on a cold, grey day

Little did we know that, two days later, we would see something like this and be snowed in! In fact, it snowed so much in the Peak District that one of the major roads through the area was closed for at least a week.

Russia really didn't have to share her weather....

The ferocious winds scoured most of the snow off the hillsides, but the drifts piled high in many places-- like the farm where we were staying. Not too far away from us they found a man who died, buried in a snowdrift, poor soul.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of Eyam. I don't be doing a travelogue next weekend. Instead an author will be sharing her views of publicizing books, and my travel tales should resume the following week. Have a great weekend, everyone!

The AC's On Weekly Link Round-Up

Did Denis and I turn on the central air conditioning for the two days that it reached 120° (49°C)? No. It wasn't until the humidity started going up, which is always THE sign of monsoon season. Now the house is all closed up-- ugh-- but I'm still enjoying literary afternoons in the pool. I was out in the pool both days when it reached 120°, and I had a buddy with me under the shade of my umbrella: a little hummingbird that was stressed by the heat. It would drink from the pool and then come to perch on the tile edge of the pool-- more than once just an inch or two behind my right shoulder. (Personally I think it was trying to figure out a way to get the top off my huge insulated cup to get at the ice!)

Timothy Hallinan & Patrick Millikin at the Poisoned Pen

A couple of days ago, I had a little female damselfly that sat on my right forearm (my book arm) for over two hours until I was almost too cramped up to move and I had make her move while I swam life back into my limbs. Undeterred, she sat on the edge of the pool till I came back and resumed her perch. Perhaps she's a Camilla Läckberg fan, too?

The damselfly may have been a Läckberg fan, but I am also a Hallinan fan, so when Tim came to The Poisoned Pen this past Wednesday, Denis and I were there for a very enjoyable evening. More of that in a few days! Right now, I have to find those links!

Bookish News & Other Interesting Stuff

• I don't know if you're watching "Under the Dome," but I certainly am. Stephen King responds to the changes that were made in the TV series.
• Why do we yawn, and why is it contagious? It may be for a different reason that you were taught....
• Why people become Facebook fans.
• Having a bigger desk can make you more dishonest. Okaaaaaaaaaay....
• Think nicotine is a relatively recent bad habit? Think again!
• At the recent American Library Association conference, Jaron Lanier told librarians why information shouldn't be free.
• Two-thirds of shoppers admit to using bookshops as showrooms. (I started to take the moral high ground in this until I remembered doing this at the Waterstone's in Cambridge. Oops!)
• The Chicago Sun-Times drops regular book coverage. Some will see this as further indication that books are doomed. I don't. I think people are finding other ways to learn about the books they want to read... like book blogs perhaps?
• We here in Arizona are still reeling from the deaths of 19 of our very best firefighters. Here are the top ten facts you need to know about the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
• Have you heard about LibraryReads?
• A very good article about my favorite bookstore, The Poisoned Pen.
• Very interesting infographic about readers around the world. The U.S. comes in at #23.

I  ♥  Lists

• The best short story writers of all time.  
• The ultimate literary calendar.
• How 8 famous writers chose their pen names.
• The wedding photos of 16 famous authors.
• 50 great books that will change your life.

Book Candy

• A look at some reading nooks.

Time for me to take my tall cold drink and some books out to the pool. I wonder which reading buddy will be joining me today?  Don't forget to stop by next weekend when I'll have a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure!

The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan

First Line: Irwin Dressler crossed one eye-agonizing plaid leg over the other, leaned back on a white leather couch half the width of the Queen Mary, and said, "Junior, I'm disappointed in you."

It doesn't make one bit of difference that Irwin Dressler-- the mob boss who's been in charge of Hollywood for decades-- is in his nineties. When he tells you to show up for a meeting, you show up (and quake in your boots wondering what you've done to displease him). That's exactly what Junior Bender does. Dressler doesn't waste much time in telling Junior why he's displeased. As far as Dressler is concerned, Junior has one heck of a franchise that he's not making the most of. What franchise? Junior solves crimes for crooks-- and is still alive when the cases are solved. Dressler thinks this franchise has so much potential that he has an investigation that he wants Junior to carry out for him.

Seventy years ago Dolores La Marr was a breathtakingly beautiful movie starlet who was just about to hit the big time when her career was ruined and she disappeared from sight. Dressler thinks La Marr was set up and wants Junior to dig around and find the information needed to prove it. Junior thinks most of the people involved in this crime have long since gone to a lengthy screening in that movie theater in the sky, so there's not much point in investigating. Except for one small detail: Irwin Dressler wants him to do it.  It's not long at all before Junior learns that very deadly things indeed can be hiding under rocks that haven't been touched for seventy years.

In the Author's Note at the back of this book, Hallinan admits, "Writing this book was almost illegally enjoyable. I can only hope it's fun to read, too." It is, as have the other two books in the Junior Bender series. Junior Bender may be a thief, but he's got better morals than most other humans on the planet, he's smart, and his sense of humor will have you laughing time after time. In The Fame Thief, Hallinan gets to dabble in the scandal-ridden glamor of Hollywood, and even if you haven't paid any attention to that city's history, the star power of this part of the story is more than enough to draw you in.

Once you're drawn in, those pages are going to continue to turn because of the bizarre parade of characters that Junior meets during his investigation and because of the situations he gets himself into. (And then there's the matter of trying to put all those puzzle pieces together yourself.) Hallinan is one of the few writers I know who can make me roar with laughter on one page and have me gasping in shock on the next. It has a lot to do with Junior Bender's voice. Even though Junior wishes his name had "a little more swash and a few buckles," his voice with its intelligence, compassion, and bred-in-the-bone irreverent humor lures me in each and every time.

Timothy Hallinan's Junior Bender books are so much fun to read that they're almost illegal. I only hope that there are many more to come.

The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan

ISBN: 9781616952808

Soho Crime © 2013

Hardcover, 336 pages

Private Investigator, #3 Junior Bender

Rating: A

Source: the publicist

A Murder in Passing by Mark de Castrique

First Line: "So, where are we going?"

It's a legitimate question. The Blackman and Robertson Detective Agency of Asheville, North Carolina has no clients, and the inactivity is driving Sam Blackman nuts. So crazy that he grudgingly agrees to join his business partner and lover Nakayla Robertson on a mushroom hunt on the historic site of The Kingdom of the Happy Land, a freed-slave commune. His search for fungi leads to the discovery of a body, but since The Kingdom of the Happy Land straddles the North Carolina - South Carolina border, the case isn't his and law enforcement tells him in no uncertain terms to keep his hands off.

When Marsha Montgomery comes to Blackman and Robertson wanting the firm's expertise in solving the theft of a rifle and photograph from her mother's house in 1967, Sam smells a set-up. The photo was taken by a renowned photographer in 1932 and shows Marsha's mother, grandmother and great-grandmother on the site of The Kingdom of the Happy Land. Soon thereafter Marsha's 85-year-old grandmother is charged with murder, and Sam has business for his detective agency.

In this fourth outing of Iraqi war veteran Sam Blackman and his partner Nakayla Robertson, Mark de Castrique has done another exemplary job in wrapping a bit of North Carolina history inside an intriguing mystery. The history in this case involves the end of the Civil War and a group of freed slaves looking for a new home. In South Carolina this group was told by other former slaves of a place where mountains stretched for mile after uninhabited mile, a place where freed slaves might be able to find a small piece of land for a home. The group traveled there, and The Kingdom of the Happy Land was born. This bittersweet taste of history blends nicely into a tale of secrets and murder.

The author's characters blend quite nicely into the tale as well. De Castrique's characters are always a strong point in any book he writes (along with a delicious sense of humor that rears its head from time to time). Having lost a leg in Iraq, Sam makes a point of visiting the local veterans' hospital to spend time with patients and to drop off needed items. In A Murder in Passing, he befriends a particularly troubled vet and becomes his mentor, laying the groundwork for a job and housing and getting the young man on the road to a happier life-- and into the mystery.

In reading this book, it's not that difficult to see who must be responsible all those years ago of murdering the man whose remains Blackman found. The problem lies in how it all was accomplished, and de Castrique deals with it in his usual skillful manner. Intriguing plot, characters that draw you right into the story and make you care about them, good pacing... all this combined with humor and subtlety. It probably has as much to do with my upbringing as it does de Castrique's subtlety, but I didn't realize the title of the book had more than one meaning until I'd almost finished it. I look forward to the day when all people can read the title of A Murder in Passing and not see its quiet subtext.

A Murder in Passing by Mark de Castrique

ISBN: 9781464201516

Poisoned Pen Press © 2013

Paperback, 250 pages

Private Investigator, #4 Sam Blackman mystery

Rating: A-

Source: NetGalley

@ The Poisoned Pen with Author Linda Castillo

On June 25, Denis and I arrived at The Poisoned Pen early-- as usual-- and ran into two very familiar faces. The four of us have shown up to so many of the same author events that we're beginning to make plans to attend next year's Tucson Festival of Books together.

They both raised their eyebrows at our attire. I was dressed in black, and I just smiled and said, "I felt like Johnny Cash today." (Cash being known as The Man in Black.) They both looked at Denis's bright Hawaiian print shirt and said, "Okay... then who's he? Don Ho?" We enjoyed chatting at the back of bookstore, but in no time at all, Linda Castillo, author of the Kate Burkholder mystery series, made her appearance.

"Even my cover letter got rejected."

Linda Castillo wrote her first book at the age of 13, and the plot involved two young girls running away from home on their Appaloosa horses. She found this first-ever book years later while rounding up items to take to Goodwill-- all the words contained in an eighth grade spiral notebook complete with a smudged hand print.

Linda was born and raised in Ohio and later moved to the Dallas, Texas area to work in the regional offices of Domino's Pizza. In 1988 her writing became serious, and she wrote four books in a twelve-year period that were rejected by everyone she submitted them to. Once she even wrote a very nice cover letter to a publishing house, asking for their guidelines for submission. The publishing house sent a rejection letter in reply to her query.

In 1999, Castillo began writing books for Harlequin Intrigue, but when Harlequin wanted her to stop killing people and to write less suspense and more relationships, Linda knew she was writing in the wrong genre.  Since those early rejections, she's written twenty-seven books with three different publishers.

Killer Fan Mail

In 2002, Linda began receiving fan mail from a man on trial for bludgeoning his wife to death while four of the five children were in the house. It seems this "gentleman" thought Linda would be the best choice to write his story. 

Linda has a difference of opinion about that, but didn't say anything about it until the man was convicted and sent to prison to serve a life sentence. You can read more about it on Linda's website.

"An Amish Murder"

Lifetime Television made a movie called "An Amish Murder" based on Linda's book Sworn to Silence, and Linda thinks they did a decent job. Neve Campbell portrayed Kate Burkholder in this movie, and she was five months pregnant at the time. It became a running joke during filming to ask, "What are we going to have Neve carry today?" (To hide her baby bump.)

Neve will not portray Kate Burkholder in any future filming, but they are working on a series of four to six episodes that may be shown on TNT or CBS. (In case you're wondering, Linda most definitely does not like Amish reality TV shows.)

Castillo has gone back to Ohio Amish country to do research for her books. She's spoken to an Amish wife and mother (who had her last baby at the age of 47) who spoke to Linda in a nice but admonishing tone about the books. The father in a second Amish family is in a book club at his local library, and he loves the books. Reactions among the sect aren't always favorable, however. An Amish man in Wisconsin was so offended by Linda's book, Breaking Silence, that he burned it.

George & Missy

In 2004, Linda Castillo found herself writing 8-10 hours per day, seven days per week. On Valentine's Day, she bought her Appaloosa named George, and George became her sole outlet from the world of words. She went on to buy a second Appaloosa named Missy. Missy has a future as a barrel racing horse, "but right now they're both out of shape," Linda admitted.

"I shot a ...."

Linda is a graduate of two citizens police academies in Plano and Allen, Texas. She's gone on ride-alongs with both male and female police officers, and she prefers the graveyard shift because "all the crazies come out at midnight."

She's also gone through the "Shoot No Shoot" scenarios in which an instructor sets up a high risk, high tension crime scene, goes out to hand the participant a gun. The participant then kicks open the door, has a split second to assess the situation and then defuse it.

Linda's Shoot No Shoot scenario? She kicked open the door to a women's restroom. A woman was on the floor. A man was straddling the woman, holding something in his hand above her. Linda took a look, and fired her weapon.

"I shot a cop," she said. The thing that the man was holding above the woman was a badge.

(If you're still a bit hazy on Shoot No Shoot, do any of you happen to remember one of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies called Magnum Force? That has some important scenes concerning these training and assessment exercises.)

Right after this, Linda mentioned that her editor insisted that she tone down Kate Burkholder's drinking in the books. (Thank you!) All during the interview, I'd noticed a petite, dark-haired woman sitting in front of me who was intent on Linda's every word. When Linda mentioned her editor's advice, the woman nodded vigorously. Come to find out, the woman in the front row was a retired New York City police officer. She was in Brooklyn's first class of female cops to have the exact same job as the men. "I'm 5 foot 2, and back then I didn't even weigh 100 pounds," she said. "If I went out acting like the big hard guy, I would've been dead in five minutes. Go out and relax with the guys, yes. But we have to use our brains because we don't have the brawn."

Her Last Breath

Available Now!

Linda first got the idea for the opening of her latest book, Her Last Breath, by traveling down a narrow, curvy road lined with overhanging trees. She soon came up behind an Amish horse and buggy. It wasn't long until a line of vehicles formed behind the buggy, and four cars behind Linda was a very impatient man in a little red sports car. With no concern for the safety of himself or others, he pulled out to pass, cursing loudly, his horn blaring, speeding around the curve. 

(For those of you who have yet to read the latest Kate Burkholder mystery, I have to say that the beginning of that book is mind-blowingly good.)

Not much was said about this latest book because it's so difficult to do so and not give away major plot points.  Linda did mention the fact that the Amish are beginning to experience genetic problems. They do not marry outside their faith, and this greatly limits the gene pool. This does figure into Her Last Breath.

Castillo corresponds with a woman who is no longer Amish. When Linda asked her what the best part of being Amish was, the woman told her, "The closeness of the families."

When asked if she wrote "by the seat of her pants" or if she was a plotter, Linda told us all that she definitely uses outlines in her writing process-- and she's about 250 pages into writing the next book in the Burkholder series. She also had some reading recommendations for us: Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterson and Paul Doiron's Massacre Pond.

It was hard to believe that time was up. Once again The Poisoned Pen had set the stage for an enjoyable evening with a very talented writer!

A Fair to Die For by Radine Trees Nehring

First Line: Carrie clicked "Play." Neil Diamond began singing to her about Sweet Caroline, and she increased the volume on her CD player to wall-shaking level.

Like me, Carrie McCrite finds cleaning and cooking much easier tasks when singing and dancing to loud music. (I do try not to dance and chop veggies at the same time, just so you know.) Her husband Henry calls to tell her his meeting is running over and that he's going to be late. Before Carrie has time to digest that piece of news, the phone rings again. This time it's a woman claiming to be her cousin. Trouble is, Carrie was told that she did indeed have a cousin... who died when she was a child. She can't help but wonder-- if the woman is her cousin-- why it took so long for her to get in touch, and just what is it that she wants? 

When Carrie and Henry begin helping their friend Shirley at the War Eagle Craft Fair, she becomes increasingly concerned over her "Cousin" Edie's strange behavior. Then a vendor disappears, there are rumors of some sort of drug connection in the Arkansas Ozarks, and Carrie finds herself in mortal danger.

This is the first book I've read in Nehring's Something to Die For series, and I enjoyed it a lot. The author told just enough backstory to prevent any confusion on my part-- and just enough to make me want to go back and read the previous books. Not being familiar with the Arkansas Ozarks, I appreciated how Nehring seamlessly wove information about the area into her book.

What I enjoyed most, however, was the story and the characterizations. Carrie is a strong, intelligent, funny woman whose faith is an elemental part of her being. I also loved the characters of Carrie's husband, Henry, and her best friend, Shirley, although there just wasn't enough of those two in the book. (I think that's where reading previous books in the series is going to come into play!) A Fair to Die For is most definitely Carrie's show, and the mystery she's been given to solve is a puzzling one. I was able to piece together enough clues to know whodunit, but the answers to why and how didn't become clear till the end of the book.

Nehring knows how to make a reader's heart beat faster, too. I'm not going to give away one of the very best parts of the book, but suffice it to say, at one point Carrie's life definitely hangs in the balance, and I loved reading how she kept herself together in order to figure out what she had to do.

Now that I've sampled the Something to Die For series, I have a strong suspicion that I'll be coming back for more!

A Fair to Die For by Radine Trees Nehring

ISBN: 9781610091220

Dark Oak Mysteries © 2012

Paperback, 244 pages

Cozy Mystery, #7 Something to Die For mystery

Rating: B

Source: publicist 

Are You Yolo, Fomo, or Jomo?

You Are YOLO

Your personal motto can best be described as YOLO: 'You Only Live Once' You believe in living large and taking risks. You don't want to regret what you didn't do in life. You have a great attitude, and you live consciously. You don't want to waste a single moment or day. Unlike how most people imagine YOLO, you aren't a reckless partier. You just live life on your terms. You are open and eager to experience new things. You often get others to consider new possibilities. You're the type who may change the world without even trying to. Just by being you, you inspire others and create greatness.

Are You Yolo, Fomo, or Jomo?

Scene of the Crime with Author Radine Trees Nehring!

This week you and I have an opportunity to become better acquainted with yet another of the fine authors at Oak Tree Press. Radine Trees Nehring lives in the Arkansas Ozarks and-- among many other things-- has written seven books in the Something to Die For mystery series which feature Carrie McCrite, a woman who just so happens to live in the very same area. Stop by tomorrow for my review of the latest in her series, A Fair to Die For.

Radine Trees Nehring

By the time you're finished reading this interview, I know you'll want to learn more about this talented writer and her books, so I've rustled up a few links:

Radine's website

Radine's blog

Radine on Facebook

Radine on Goodreads

More on Radine's books

Save these links for later because it's time for the good stuff-- the interview!

What was the very first book you remember reading and loving? What makes that book so special?

There were many books in my early life. . . and I still own and treasure a couple my mom read to me.  Among the first books I remember reading (and re-reading) to myself is Inez Irwin's Maida series. Motherless Maida is the daughter of a very wealthy Wall Street tycoon. In the first novel she is recovering from surgery that has enabled her to walk for the first time, but is listless and seems bored. On a trip to Boston she shows interest in a small shop, and her father buys it for her so she can be a shop keeper!  Maida's Little Shop was published in (I learn online now) 1910, but of course I didn't read it until many years later.  I think what fascinated me about this series was reading about a girl whose father could buy her anything she wanted (and often did), but she remained unspoiled and had many adventures throughout the series, which included friends who also benefited from her father's wealth.  Perhaps the series would seem silly now, and Maida saccharin, but I sure loved it.  It offered a dream world I could spend time in during a sometimes difficult childhood.

Outside of your writing and all associated commitments, what do you like to do in your free time?

Gosh, that's easy. READ!  Second choice, hike in the natural world.

If I were to visit your hometown, where would you recommend that I go? (I like seeing and doing things that aren't in all the guide books.)   

Whitaker Point

My husband and I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for many years and, then and now, the city parks would be my first places to recommend for pleasure. However, for the past 25 years we have lived on 23 acres in the Arkansas Ozarks we named "Spring Hollow." Our love for this place is what inspired my early writing as a mature adult. Eventually many of my magazine features and essays about people and the natural world of the Ozarks became my first book, the non-fiction Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow. So, today, this week, I would recommend a visit to our place at Spring Hollow where you could enjoy peaceful contemplation on my thinking bench overlooking our spring and the valley creek, and hike through woods and open areas to view the wildflowers and (in winter) Frost Flowers.

You have total control over casting a movie based on your life. Which actor would you cast as you? 

Doris Day

OOOO, may I have Doris Day? Sorry, not that familiar with today's stars and, truth be told, in the past and now, Doris Day would probably be more like me than most.

Who is your favorite recurring character in crime fiction?

Dare I say the female star in my "To Die For" series, Carrie McCrite? Maybe I need to explain. I know her so very well, know her foibles and strengths, and find her a great companion and friend. Yes, I am in touch with reality enough to know she isn't real, but then, I'd have to like her, wouldn't I since I spend more time with her than any other female human in fiction or reality? Second choice? Deborah Knott in Margaret Maron's series.

If you could have in your possession one signed first edition of any book in the world, which book would that be? Why that particular book?  

Gutenberg Bible

A Gutenberg Bible. I do read the Bible daily, and this beginning star in the crown of book publishing would sure be a treasure, though I suspect I wouldn't dare turn the pages because of its obvious age and probable fragility!  Doubt there would be any author autographs, so I'd be most grateful to have an unsigned first edition.

How did you celebrate when you first heard you were to be published? What did you do the first time you saw one of your books on a shelf in a bookstore?

Oh, golly. More an inner bubbling joy and exultation than any loud outburst. And always the feeling: "Is this Radine Trees Nehring really ME?"  My mother didn't live long enough to see any of my published books, but another joy for me was her pride when my first essay "Where Hummingbirds Matter" was published. That gave her such pleasure.

You've just received a $100 gift card to the bookstore of your choice. Which bookstore are you making a bee-line for?

Reading at Trolley Line Books © Kay Mathews

Trolley Line Books, an independent bookstore on historic Walnut Avenue in Rogers, Arkansas. For the owners, Myra and Pat Moran,  books are a passion, and they are delightful and admired friends. They feature Arkansas authors and also antiquarian books.

Available Now!

Thank you so much, Radine. It was a pleasure to be able to get to know you a little better.

May your book sales do nothing but increase!