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Free Book: Northern Comfort

I’ve decided my book Northern Comfort needed more readers. So it is free for Kindle readers on Nov. 9 and 10. Here’s the link.

Northern Comfort is one of my Hilltown Books. It’s not a mystery, like my Isabel Long Series, but it is set in the familiar fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts.

This books is about the harsh realities of rural life — the haves and have nots in a small town. It begins with a tragedy and ends with reconciliation and hope. Let me tell you more.

Willi Miller is a single mother trying to raise her young son, who was brain-damaged at birth. They live in a cabin left to them by the loving grandfather who took them in after Junior Miller, the boy’s father, abandoned them. Willi’s situation is a desperate one. But she’s doing the best she can.

In the opening scene, Willi is home from her job cutting hair at a country beauty shop and hanging clothes on a line in her backyard. It’s the worst of winter, cold and dark, but the job has to get done. She doesn’t have a drier because she can’t afford one.

Willi tries to keep Cody close to her as she works. But then tragedy happens when the boy’s sled quickly takes him into the path of a truck driven by Miles Potter. Willi and Miles have known each other since they were kids, but until the moment her son dies, they were separated by their families’ places in town.

How Willi handles this situation demonstrates her resilience and the kindness of those living in her small town, including Miles. Then, there is Junior, who eventually faces his failings as a father.

That’s what Northern Comfort is about. It’s not the stuff for pretty postcards although I do include a lot of the hilltowns’ traditions like maple sugaring and making old-time music.

Here’s how the book starts. 

Willi Miller pinned her best blouse to the rope line, shaking her bare hands to keep the blood moving, as she reached into the broken plastic basket for something else. She should have done this miserable chore before she went to work this morning, but she didn’t have the time. Short and thin-boned like her mother, but yellow-haired like her father, Willi spun around for her boy, who stood a half foot away, staring at the dog whimpering and jerking its chain. “There you are, Cody. Stay near me,” she said.

Her boy, dressed in a one-piece red snowsuit, his mittens packed tightly on his hands, didn’t say a word. He only made noises that sounded like words, and he was seven. His ‘Ma,’ Willi had decided, was exactly as an animal would say it.

Earlier this afternoon, she got Cody at the babysitter’s house, where the van took him after school. Willi was a hairdresser at the Lucky Lady Beauty Shop in nearby Tyler although the running joke among the gals who worked there was it should be called the Unlucky Lady because of the stories the customers told about their men. Cheaters, drunks, and bums, the whole lot of them, it seemed, by their complaints.

The Lucky Lady was busy today with high school girls who wanted their hair curled and piled high for the semi-formal tonight. They were fun customers, so excited about their dates and the big Friday night ahead, she didn’t mind their lousy tips. Willi remembered not that long ago she did the same.

She fed Cody cereal after they got home just to hold him until she made dinner. He ate a few spoonfuls before he began playing with it, making a mess as usual, so she dressed him in his snowsuit and took him outside after she lowered the damper on the wood stove.

Now he walked beneath the hanging laundry toward the dog, named Foxy by her grandfather, who used to own the brown,short-haired, pointy-eared mutt. Willi called to her boy, who moved step by step across the snow, breaking through its icycrust until he sank to the top of his boots. He turned toward his mother. His green eyes peered from beneath the brim of his cap. Yellow snot bubbled from one nostril.

“Yeah, I’m watchin’ you,” Willi said, bending for a towel.

Snow seeped through a crack in her right boot. Cold numbed her toes. She should put duct tape over the brown rubber, but it was her only pair, and it’d look like hell.

“Hey, Cody, where’re you goin’?”

Her boy marched with fast little feet past the junked truck to the back of their house, where his sled, a cheap thing she bought, was propped against the wall. “This is a red sled,” she told Cody in the hardware store.

Her boy uttered a sound that might have been “red” but only she would know. She understood his ways most of the time. He wanted things tick-tock regular when he ate, what he wore.

Her eyes followed her boy, dragging his sled, grunting, toward her. He dropped it at her feet and sat inside. The heels of his boots kicked up and down. “Maaaaa,” he called.

Willi sighed. Cody wouldn’t let up until she gave him a ride. Her boy liked it when she towed him in his sled along the driveway to get the mail. He made happy chirps and flapped his mittens. She wiped her hands on her black jacket, a man’s, too big and open in the front because the zipper was broken. Its bottom swayed against her legs as she walked.

“All right, Cody, but just a little ride.”

She reached for the towrope and pulled Cody in a large circle. His mouth formed a wide, sloppy smile, and he let outgleeful sounds as Willi went slowly, then gained speed. Her feet sank through the snow although the sled glided easily on its surface. She was careful to stay on the flat part of her land, away from the edge of its tabletop, where it plunged onto her neighbor’s property then to one of the town’s main roads below. When she squinted, she could see the Mercy River flowing through its snowy valley like a blue vein on a woman’s wrist.

Round and round Willi towed her son. She slipped on the packed ring of snow, and her straight, yellow hair dropped to her jaw when her knit cap fell. Cody’s head rocked back as he yelped in pleasure. After a while, she stopped, out of breath.

“I gotta finish hanging the clothes before it gets dark. Alright?” she told Cody although she did not expect his answer.

She picked her hat from the snow. The sun was low in the sky, and the dark smudge spreading from the west likely carried more snow. Willi frowned. It would be too much trouble to take the clothes down again. She hated this part of winter, mid-January. It snowed every day, not much, but enough to keep the road crews going with their plows and sanders. Winteralways has a week like this, unsettled weather, the worst of the season, of the year, as far as she was concerned. Often, it happened after the thaw, so that brief warm spell seemed like one cruel joke.

She bent for one of Cody’s shirts. She had to work faster because the clothes were stiffening inside the basket. After she hung them, they would freeze into thin slabs, like shale, and after a day or two, they’ll be dry. If she had any money, she would buy a dryer. She glanced toward her house and saw missing clapboards. She’d fix those, too.

When she was a girl, she used to keep a mental list of what she’d get if she were rich: stuff like pink high heels and a long white coat. None of them seemed practical for a town like Hayward, where half the roads were dirt and fancy things were in other people’s houses. Now she would buy a car that worked without worry and hire a lawyer to make her ex-husband,Junior, pay child support.

Her boy bucked his body while he lay on his belly inside the sled, wailing as if he were wounded. Willi shook her hands and grabbed a pair of jeans from the basket.

“Shit, I hate this life,” she said.

My other Hilltown Books? The Sweet Spot and The Sacred Dog.

Here’s the link again for Northern Comfort.

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Northern Comfort

Bar Scene in Northern Comfort

As I’ve said before, bars are a constant in my adult fiction. Sometimes, as in Northern Comfort, my most recent release, or my Isabel Long Mystery Series, there is more than one. These watering holes always have a purpose in the plot.

For many small rural towns, say a thousand or so people, bars are gathering spots for the locals, and in my novels they are an opportunity to have characters react to one another, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. For Isabel Long, working Friday nights at the Rooster has had more than one benefit — good sources for her investigations and the relationship she developed with its owner, Jack. But for this post I am going to concentrate on the bars in Northern Comfort, which is not part of the series.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent in bars or brewery taprooms, conversing, listening to music, and maybe dancing with my husband. They are also a great place to people watch, a definite hobby of mine. 

One of the books in the mystery series, Working the Beat, is dedicated to Steve and Diane Magargal, the former owners of Liston’s in Worthington, which Hank and I frequented when we lived in that Western Mass. hilltown. The Rooster is not Liston’s, but it certainly inspired it, that and when I tended bar for a long-closed restaurant in the same town.

Unlike the Rooster, the bars in Northern Comfort are more on the seedy side. There’s the Bull’s Eye Tavern in a small New Hampshire town where Junior Miller now lives. Ever the opportunist, Junior lives with the bartender although he suspects their relationship is nearing its end. He will stick it out in her trailer until spring. One night, he gets an important call at the Bull’s Eye concerning news that his young son, who he abandoned, was killed in a sledding accident. (The book takes place prior to cell phones.)

Then there’s the Pine Tree Tavern in Hayward, where Junior used to live and where the accident happened. The Pine Tree has a few significant scenes, like when Willi Miller goes there for the first time at the insistence of her bossy sister, Lorna, and Junior’s encounters with the man who was driving the truck that accidentally killed his son.

To increase the drama, I purposely made the clientale at both taverns to be on the rough and tumble side, and strictly for townies. Snowmobiles, pickups, and junks filled the parking lot. 

Here’s the scene from the Bull’s Eye when Junior gets that call from Lorna.

“Hey, Lorna, that really you?” he said into the phone. “How the hell are you?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me all right. I finally tracked you down.”

He strained to hear Lorna’s voice over the noise. “Track me down. What for? Your sister put you up to this? This about money again?”

Lorna was silent. “No, it’s not about money. It’s about Cody. He was in an accident.” She paused. “Cody died, Junior. Yesterday.”

Junior held the phone tighter to his ear. “What’d you say? You gotta speak up. It’s so damn loud in this bar.”

“Your boy died in an accident yesterday.”

“What’d you say, Lorna? I still can’t hear you.”

Junior felt a heavy hand on his back. One of the guys from the lumberyard tried to get his attention. The man grinned beneath his beard.

He heard Lorna say, “Junior, you listening to me?”

Junior put his hand over the receiver. “Hey, buddy, not now. I’m on this call.” He was back on the phone. “Start over.”

Now, Lorna was practically yelling into the receiver. “Cody. Cody’s dead.”

His voice matched hers. “What do you mean Cody’s dead? What the hell happened?”

Sherrie and the guys around him stared. He didn’t care.

“He was on a sled,” Lorna said. “He got away from Willi and he slid down that hill behind her house and at the bottom he crashed into a truck.” Another pause. “The doctor said he died right away. He didn’t suffer.”

Junior gripped the phone. The news slammed him like that guy’s hand. He closed his eyes. “Lorna, tell me. Who was driving the truck?”

“Miles. Miles Potter.”

“That asshole didn’t do somethin’ to keep outta my boy’s way?”

“The cops say it wasn’t his fault.”

Junior tried to swallow. “Not his fault?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Sure.”

“You gonna come to his funeral? It’s Monday. The whole town’s gonna be there.”

“Funeral.”

Junior’s heart revved like the engine of his snowmobile. He listened to Lorna talk about the funeral plans. “You don’t have to worry about money ’cause the funeral home’s doin’ everything for free,” she said. “The pastor helped work that out. The old ladies at the church are taking care of the food for the reception afterward.”

He heard half the words Lorna said.

“How she doin’?”

“How do you think Willi’s doin’? She’s taking it really hard. I’m staying with her.”

Junior tried to remember the last time he saw Willi and their boy. Maybe it was around Christmas after the old man died. She made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Neither did the boy. It got real easy to forget he ever knew them.

“Okay.”

“You gonna come to the funeral or not?” Her voice had a sharp edge.

“When is it?”

“I told you Monday. In the afternoon.”

“I gotta tell my boss. I’ll call Pop.” He glanced up at Sherrie. She was pouring beer into a pitcher for a waitress. “Lorna, I need to ask you somethin’.”

“What?”

“How old was Cody?”

“You dunno? Shit, Junior, he was seven.”

ABOUT THE IMAGE ABOVE: That’s the full cover for Northern Comfort, which will be available in paperback very soon.

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Northern Comfort

Northern Comfort: Junior Miller tries to do right

I will admit Junior Miller is a hard character to like — at first. In my latest novel, Northern Comfort, he’s the ultimate deadbeat dad, abandoning his wife, Willi, and their disabled son to a life of poverty in the hilltowns without a second thought. But when Cody dies in a tragic accident, Junior is forced to face his shortcomings. 

Junior can’t even remember how old his son was or the last time he saw him. He hadn’t paid a dime and was relieved Willi had stopped begging him for money. At the boy’s funeral, he ducks out early from the receiving line.

But as this story unfolds, Junior attempts to do the right thing although it’s a significant struggle finding one that matters. 

Junior did love Willi when he married her. But his idea of married life fell apart when he realized his son, who was brain-damaged at birth, would not be the boy he wanted. All he wanted was a boy to play ball and do the things normal kids do. He wanted a wife who loved him first. He gripped the steering wheel and rattled it hard. That wasn’t asking too much, was it?

I created a little complication in that Willi is the daughter of the widowed woman Junior’s father married, so technically Junior is her stepbrother although they were adults when their parents got together. That scenario creates another dimension in this family scenario.

After he deserts his family, Junior spends most of his free time in a bar with the women he meets there. He lives in New Hampshire with a woman who’s the bartender at the local watering hole although that relationship is destined for a short life.

As Junior spends more time back home, his guilt inspires him to find a way to make it up to Willi. He comes up with a scheme to get money — suing the man who was driving the truck that Cody’s sled hit. Willi won’t have anything to do with it or him.

Of course, Junior has a lousy role model in his father, Joe, a despicable character with no redeeming qualities. That’s what makes Junior Miller’s transformation, although imperfect, gratifying.

Is he based on anyone? No, Junior Miller is a product of my imagination.

In this scene, Junior shows up at Willi’s house on his snowmobile. Willi, who is outside with her dog, Foxy, has been ignoring his phone calls.

Junior waited beside his snowmobile. Willi recalled the few times he came here to see Cody when Pa was still alive. Her grandfather sat in his recliner, giving Junior a close watch while Cody hid behind the chair. She and Junior quickly ran out of things to talk about. He rubbed his face and yawned before he left a half-hour later.

Willi stopped in front of her ex-husband. She crossed her arms. “What was it you wanted to tell me?” 

Junior cleared his throat.

“When I saw that picture of our boy, I realized how much he looked like me.” He stopped. “I was a real lousy father to him. I know it now.” He lowered his head briefly. “Do you remember how happy I was when he was born? Believe me, I was. When we found out about him not being right, I just couldn’t handle it.” His voice trailed off. “I stopped thinking about him and you. I was wrong, all wrong.”

Willi wrapped her coat, so it closed around her. She was chilled now that she wasn’t moving. “You’re a little late, aren’t you?”

Junior shifted from one boot to another. “Shit, Willi, I just wanna make it up to you.”

“Is that so?”

She glared at Junior. She remembered how she and Cody used to eat spaghetti with margarine for supper while he was out chasing women. If it hadn’t been for Pa, she didn’t know what she would’ve done.

“I wanna show you somethin’,” she told Junior.

Willi marched around the side shed and toward the backyard. The snow reached her boot tops, but she kept going until she got to the clothesline. Junior was behind her.

“Stop right here,” she said.

Willi used her hand to guide Junior’s line of vision over the hill’s steep edge. It snowed since the accident, but she still could make out where her feet sank as she tried to catch her boy. Her prints formed a dotted seam, which made it seem as if the earth could split easily along that line. 

“See that?”

Junior squinted at her pointed finger. “What am I lookin’ at?”

“That’s where it happened. That’s where Cody died. How do you think you’re gonna make that up to me?”

Willi sobbed loudly, and she didn’t care if Junior saw or heard her. His hands were stretched out, palms up, as if he were surrendering. Junior said her name as he came closer, but Willi took a swing, catching him on his face in one solid shot that made him grunt. She collapsed, sobbing and pounding the snow with her fists. Junior came close again, but this time she didn’t resist. She let him help her to her feet and use his arm to guide her into the house. 

The dog charged the door, threatening to bite Junior. Willi told the animal to stay as she walked toward the couch.

“Here, let me get your coat,” Junior said, and she stood passively as he slipped the bulky black cloth off her and threw it on a chair. “You gonna be okay?”

She didn’t answer, but lay back on the couch. Her eyes fluttered. 

“I think so.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I feel so tired. Just leave.”

“Right, I have to get somewhere.”

“Then, go.”

Junior got up to feed wood into Willi’s stove. He brought more from the shed, stacking the logs near the stove, now hot enough to turn down. He stood in the living room. His eyes traveled the room. She knew he was staring at Cody’s things.

“Willi, listen to me. I wanna pay the money I owe you. Just tell me how much.”

She watched him with sleepy eyes. 

“It was never just the money. We needed you.”

Junior exhaled deeply and mumbled, “yeah,” as he went for the door. 

LINK: Here’s the link for Kindle readers to buy Northern Comfort. Only $2.99. Paperback readers will have to be a little patient but that version is coming soon.

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Northern Comfort

Sisters Willi and Lorna in Northern Comfort

Willi Miller has a difficult time after her young son dies when his sled slips away from her and into the path of a truck. But fortunately she has her rough-and-tumble younger sister, Lorna, to help her pull through. Willi and Lorna are characters in my new hilltown release, Northern Comfort.

Life hasn’t been easy for Willi. Her childhood was marred by the death of her father, then being raised by her insensitive mother and the abusive man she married. She made a bad choice marrying Junior Miller, who left her and their disabled child. Willi got a break when her kind grandfather took them in and left her his cabin. She did her best by Cody, cutting hair in a country beauty shop.

Then tragedy struck. 

Fortunately, Willi has a tough-as-nails ally in Lorna, who still lives at home and works in a bakery. “Lorna took after Daddy’s side of the family, the Merritts, tall and husky. Willi felt childlike when she stood beside her.” Her relationship with their stepfather, Joe, is vastly different than the one Willi has.

When her sister needs help, Lorna, is there, like a protective guard dog. She accompanies Willi to see her boy’s body for the last time and stands beside Willi at his funeral.. Lorna is the one to call Junior to tell him about his son’s death, tracking him down at a bar. Lorna stays with Willi until she says she can be on her own and even after she is there to help. There are later scenes in the book that show them even having sisterly fun.

I so enjoyed creating Lorna’s character. She reminds me a little of Annette Waters in my Isabel Long Mystery Series. The two of them would have a great time together.

Here’s a scene that shows Lorna’s mettle. The chapter is called No Better Than Us. 

Lorna parked her beat-up Ford near the general store. Willi had stayed home since the funeral five days ago, and now she didn’t want to leave the car. Her clunker didn’t start, the battery drained from sitting so long in the cold. Lorna volunteered to take her. 

Her sister made puffing noises as she leaned inside the car.

“Willi, there’s nothin’ to eat in your house. You can’t just live on the stuff I bring you from the bakery. Come on, get your butt out here.”

Willi peered up at her sister.

“I think it’s time you went back home, Lorna. I can manage now. Really.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. It’s cause of what I said last night about packin’ up Cody’s things. How I said it was too depressin’ to see all of his stuff all over the house. I’m sorry I said it and the other stuff, too.”

Willi winced.

“I know he’s gone, Lorna. I just can’t do it now.” She blinked back tears. “Please, Lorna, I just wanna be left alone.”

Lorna gave her sister a square, hard look.

“I was gettin’ tired of that lumpy bed of yours anyways. And you snore.” She paused. “Now get your ass in the store. We’re here already.”

“Okay, okay, I’m comin’.”

Willi reached into her jacket pocket for a white handkerchief to wipe her eyes. She opened the car door and slowly followed her sister inside.

The store was filled with customers. Some stopped to offer their condolences, but a few stayed away, suspicion playing on their faces.

Lorna saw it, too.

She spun toward a woman, wife to one of the town’s selectmen.

“Did you say somethin’? No? Could’ve sworn you did. My mistake.”

Willi was embarrassed and grateful when the woman went to another aisle. She stood in front of the shelves of canned foods, trying to decide what soup to buy. It was too hard. Lorna dumped one of each kind in her handbasket until Willi got tearful.

“Please, Lorna, that’s enough, please.”

Lorna took the basket from her sister’s hand.

“Shush, I’m only tryin’ to help. Let’s get some milk and cold cuts. Do you need food for that mutt of yours?”

Willi couldn’t keep up with Lorna. The woman had ticked off her sister, and now she was walking and talking fast. Then Lorna was out the door, with three grocery bags in her arms. Willi ran from the store to get to the car before her sister.

“That snotty bitch. Who does she think she is?” Lorna muttered as she dropped the bags on the back seat. “You should see how she is when she comes into the bakery. Talkin’ about that precious son of hers. The architect.” Lorna sneered. “She’s no better than us. Don’t you ever forget it.”

“Oh, Lorna.”

Link: You can find Northern Comfort on Amazon in Kindle version. It’s only $2.99. Paperback readers will have to be a little patient.

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Northern Comfort

Meet Miles and Junior of Northern Comfort

My new book, Northern Comfort, starts with a tragedy — a child’s sled sends him into the path of a truck despite his mother’s attempts to stop him. For this post, I wanted to write about the two men most impacted by this tragedy. One is Miles Potter, who was driving the truck. The other is Junior Miller, who abandoned little Cody and his mother, Willi Miller.

Both men are natives in the hilltown of Hayward, but their backgrounds are so different. The same is true for the lives they lead. Let me explain.

Miles Potter could be described as a man of means and opportunity. His educated parents had high hopes for him, but college didn’t work out. When he returned home, he found work with a carpenter, Linwood Staples, who became his mentor. Working with his hands was more to his liking. Now on his own, he usually works on high-end homes. He and Willi may have been in the same class in school, but until this accident she was just another person living in the same town.

Junior Miller’s divorced parents had no ambitions for him. He loved Willi enough to marry her, but after their boy was born brain-damaged, he didn’t put any effort into their homelife. Then after he left Willi, he didn’t bother paying any child support after the first year or even be a part of his child’s life. When the book starts, Junior has a rather aimless life, driving truck for a lumberyard and crashing at his current girlfriend’s mobile home in New Hampshire.

But all of this changes that wintry day.

At the start, Miles does the right thing, leaving money for Willi and going to Cody’s funeral. But after Linwood advised him to think deeper, Miles tries to give more meaningful support. Eventually, he finds he and Willi have more in common than just this tragic accident.

Junior has a bigger challenge because of the longtime neglect of his responsibilities. His ideas of reparation at the start have little meaning to Willi, not surprising given the lousy role model his own father provided. It takes him longer to face his failings and make amends that have meaning to Willi.

These are two of the characters in Northern Comfort. As I do for all my novels, I create characters that feel real to me. I hope that’s true for you.

In this scene, Miles and Junior have a confrontation at the Bull’s Eye, the local watering hole. Junior is there with his brother, Mike.

Miles lurched forward as a hand slapped him on the back so hard his chest hit the edge of the Pine Tree’s bar.

A man’s voice said, “Hey, there, buddy, how you doin’?”

He looked into the face of Junior, who took the stool beside his. Junior’s brother Mike sat on the other side, grinning like he’d won big at cards and couldn’t wait to tell somebody. Both were high or drunk or both.

Now was the reckoning, and Miles was unsure how to proceed. It didn’t matter what he said or did, he was going to get it. Mike was heavier than Miles. He carried the weight of someone who liked booze and greasy food. Junior was short and always trying to make up for it.

Miles put down his bottle. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. He wasn’t fooled. 

Mike’s friendly comment was definitely fake. But Junior? Yeah, he, too, but he’d cut him a break. 

“I’m sorry, Junior, about what happened to Cody.”

Junior fingered the front of Miles’s shirt. “You mean hitting him with your truck?”

“That’s not the way it happened. I tried to save him.”

Junior glanced toward Mike. “That so?”

Miles nodded solemnly, but Junior snorted. “I know what you’re thinkin’, Miles. I’ve got brass balls pickin’ on you ’cause I didn’t give more to that boy or Willi. He was my blood, and I loved his mother when he was born.” Junior brought his face closer and gave Miles’s shirt a tight twist. “And another thing. I don’t want you bothering Willi no more. She’s been through enough.”

“Get your hands off me, Junior.” His voice stayed calm, although his heart had a steady pound. “If you wanna keep this going, let’s take it outside. What’s it gonna be? The both of you?”

Junior loosened his fingers.

Miles stared at one brother, then the other. When Mike made a snorting laugh, Miles gave him a quick, light shot on the shoulder. Both brothers got to their feet. He stood, too.

“I’m gonna say it again, asshole,” Junior said. “Stay away from Willi.”

Miles drew his eyes tight. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“You’ll listen to me if you know what’s good for you,” Junior said before he and his brother moved to another part of the bar.

Miles drank face forward. He focused on the mirror behind the three shelves of booze. Junior and Mike sat far from the mirror’s reach, but by now he didn’t care. The two brothers wouldn’t be back. They had made their point.

He finished the beer, and although he would have liked another, he fished for a buck in the front pocket of his jeans and flattened it on the bar’s top. He made a slow but straight path to the door.

Curious? Here’s the link for Northern Comfort.

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