Hilltown Books

The Sacred Dog is Free Nov. 2-3

Right now, I feel like I’m the mother of several children who all need my attention. Certainly, as the mother of six, I’ve had good practice, but I’m talking about the books I have written. I  decided needs some love from readers. So I am making it free for Kindle readers on Nov. 2-3. Here’s the link.

The Sacred Dog, set in 1984, is not part of my Isabel Long Mystery Series. But I am hoping fans of that series will want to read this one. Afterall, the setting is very familiar — the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. And once again, I try to capture its flavor through the characters I’ve created. I call it one of my Hilltown Books.

I feel I know the area so well from my many years living here and certainly when I was a reporter and then an editor. Of course, that includes stories about personal conflicts and feuds between people who live there, but none so dark as between my book’s two main characters, Frank Hooker and Al Kitchen. 

Frank is an all-around good guy who runs the town of Holden’s only bar, The Sacred Dog. But he has a fault. He hates Al because he blames him for the death of his reckless brother Wes. And Al hates him for the way he’s been treated. Al grew up in one of those rough households with an abusive grandfather and a loyal although faulty grandmother.

If that weren’t enough, there is Verona Hooker, Frank’s ex, who will be returning to town with their daughter — and a secret. 

All is about to come to a reckoning.

The Sacred Dog is fast-paced and as those who have read it already have said, suspenseful. Here I will give you a look on how it starts.

Frank Hooker, tall, broad, and as handsome as an aging cowboy actor, lit a cigarette from the pack he kept beside the bar’s double sink. The rain fell hard, and it had started lightning. The storm, he was certain, would finish off tonight’s softball game at the Rod and Gun Club between the team he backed and Glenburn Sanitation, sponsored by a guy in the next town who pumped out septic systems.

Right now, Frank figured the men were sitting in their pickup trucks and cars, drinking beer, and waiting to see if the weather broke until the ump made the official call. Then, rather than go home to their families and ruin a good night out, they’d head to The Sacred Dog, or The Dog, as the regulars called his bar. Taking a drag of his cigarette, Frank anticipated their early arrival. He made a quick check inside the cooler, satisfied to see it filled with cold bottles of beer.

A pickup truck pulled into the parking lot, its tires grinding into the crushed stone Frank had put in this past spring, and Early Stevens, the only customer in the bar, twisted his head toward the door to see who would be the second. Early, his given name Ernest, had been sitting on his stool since 4:45 that afternoon after he was done hauling the day’s outgoing mail from the Holden Post Office to the one in Butterfield. He drank his usual: a Budweiser with a peppermint schnapps chaser. His topic of discussion today was a story he read in a magazine he found at the toilet in the Holden General Store that claimed the world was going to go to hell in 2000. 

“The way it looks, we’ve got about sixteen years to get ready,” Early said. “What do you think, Frank?”

“I think you should find better readin’ material,” Frank answered.

Minutes later, when Al Kitchen came through the bar’s front door, Early muttered under his breath, “Shit, here comes trouble.”

The muscles around Frank’s mouth tightened as Al lumbered across the room to take a stool one over from Early. Al was all-smiles because he thought maybe he was on decent terms with Frank these days. But Frank stared at him blankly as he stubbed out his smoke. “What’ll it be?” he asked as if this wasn’t Al but someone else in front of him.

“Give me a Bud,” Al said, as he retrieved his wallet.

No tabs for Al. That was one of Frank’s rules. Another was a two-beer limit. Frank came up with the second after Al’s grandma, who raised him, begged to let him have some place to go closer to home, and considering The Sacred Dog was the only bar in town, this was it. For years, Al didn’t have the nerve to show his face in his bar. 

“Two beers. He won’t be stayin’ long at your place if that’s all he gets,” Jenny Kitchen had said. “Besides, what’s the harm in two beers?”

Frank wanted to tell this old lady, who smelled like kerosene, what harm her grandson had already done. Jenny only came up to his chest, but she made her eyes small and defiant when she faced him. He told her if there was a lick of trouble, Al was out for good, and he’d call her and the cops.

Besides, Frank reasoned it was better to keep someone he disliked at close range. Actually, disliked was too soft a word to describe his feelings for the man, considering what happened to his younger brother, Wes. 

The Sacred Dog is free for Kindle Readers only two days: Nov. 2 and 3.

Standard
Hilltown Books, The Sweet Spot

Writing The Sweet Spot with One Hand

A true story: I wrote my novel The Sweet Spot with only one hand. That was twenty years ago, when I was recuperating after getting hit by a car as I walked across the street.

I was in a crosswalk on my way to get coffee before I headed to the newsroom at 7 a.m. The driver claimed he didn’t see me. The impact threw me into the air and broke my collarbone when I fell onto the hood of his car. Something on the hood cut the back of my head. A person sitting outside Starbucks called for an ambulance to take me to the ER.

My injuries could have been much worse. I am grateful for that.

I missed work for a week. I was a copy editor then for a daily newspaper. When I returned, I got good at typing with one hand. The heavy-duty meds and ice helped. Plus Hank, who worked at a job site in the valley, drove me back and forth to work until I mended enough to drive.

And that’s when I started The Sweet Spot, which has been the novel’s name all along. I set it in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, where I lived then. It is also the favored setting for most of my books. The small town of Conwell is pure fiction, but I feel I made it believable enough that I could plunk it in the middle of Worthington, where we lived, Chesterfield and Cummington.

The year is 1978. No cell phones or email. No home computers. The Vietnam War ended officially three years earlier.

The characters are locals, except for one important newcomer.

I set the stage with softball and baseball games, a Fourth of July parade, a general store, a swimming hole, and raucous nights at a local bar.

Emotions get high. As I learned as a resident and reporter, things can get mighty personal in a small town. In this case, Edie St. Claire, one of the main characters, messes up big time. Most in Conwell won’t let her forget it.

Her father is a crusty so-and-so who runs the town dump. Her wisecracking aunt is as fiery as her dyed red hair. Both live next to Edie and her young daughter on a dead-end dirt road.

Edie is an “I gotta go” kind of woman, pretty and direct, but she holds onto an old sadness: the death of her husband in Vietnam. She tries to ease her grief with his married brother, Walker.

But when the affair comes to a tragic end, Edie does her best to survive the blame with the help of her rough-sawn family and a badly scarred man who has arrived for his fresh start.

I remember coming home and letting the words flow one after the other. I don’t know where they and this story came from, but there it was 80,000 words a few months later. To this day, I have not written a novel that fast.

I also got quite good at typing with only my right hand.

I sent the manuscript to my then-agent. His suggestion: start from the middle. After I reworked the novel that way, he pitched it to two publishing houses. Both editors took a pass. One of them died the next day in surgery. Another true story.

Slow forward ten years later. I reread The Sweet Spot. I loved it enough to rewrite it. I went back to my original beginning and added more dialogue thanks to the encouragement of my then-agent. But alas he couldn’t sell it either. My pitches to other agents and indie houses after I let him go were unsuccessful.

So I published it myself. I felt it was too good a novel to keep in my computer. Here’s the link for The Sweet Spot if you want to find out yourself. And thank you if you do.

Standard
Hilltown Books

Get The Sweet Spot for Free

Before Isabel Long, I created Edie St. Claire, the lead character in my novel, The Sweet Spot. Edie gives readers a different take on the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts that inspire me to write — and certainly someone Isabel would have come across while solving her mysteries.

And for two days — Feb. 17 and 18 — the Kindle version is free on Amazon. Here’s the link: The Sweet Spot

I call The Sweet Spot the first in my Hilltown Books. The other two are: The Sacred Dog and Northern Comfort.

For me, writing The Sweet Spot was a labor of love since I typed the first draft with only one hand. It was summer 2004, and I was recuperating from injuries after getting hit by a car as I walked across the street. (The driver claimed he didn’t see me in the crosswalk.)

I remember coming home from work and letting the words flow one after the other. I was focused and 80,000 words later, the book was done. Two agents tried to sell it, and eventually I gave up and published it myself. I felt it was too good a book to stay in my laptop.

So what’s The Sweet Spot about?

The year is 1978. The Vietnam War ended officially three years earlier. Edie St. Claire and her family — the Sweets — have lived in the hilltowns for generations, but they are not one of those well-heeled families. Her father, a crotchety old character, runs the town dump. Her fiery aunt, who lives next door, has no brakes on her opinions or mouth.

Edie still grieves for her husband, Gil, who was killed in Vietnam eight years earlier. I don’t blame her. Gil was a great guy. They were high school sweethearts who married young. They would have had a wonderful future together, except he pulled a low number during the 1969 lottery and had to go to war.

When The Sweet Spot starts, Edie raises the young daughter Gil never met. She does her best, working for her in-laws in the town’s only store. Still, she knows how to have a good time, whether its playing softball — the banter among her teammates is a lot of fun — or hanging out at the local watering hole, the Do-Si-Do Bar. These are simply ways for her to escape her grief.

Edie also tries to ease her pain via an affair with Gil’s married brother, Walker, but when that ends tragically, she attempts to survive the blame with the help of her family and a badly scarred stranger who arrived for his fresh start.

Those who have read the Isabel Long Mystery Series — thank you — will find a different tone in The Sweet Spot. Edie is a lively character, but she makes mistakes and pays dearly for them. But I sure love her determination. I hope you do, too.

Now go get that book.

Standard