The Sweet Spot went live nine days ago, and I am grateful to those who have shown interest in my new novel. My own paperbacks arrived at the post office late last week. There’s something about a book in hand, especially one you’ve written.

I’ve been visiting our local bookstores — yes, Taos still has them — to request they carry The Sweet Spot.

Thank you to Rick Smith at Brodsky Bookshop for adding The Sweet Spot to its inventory. (He even had a check for selling Peace, Love, and You Know What. I told him I felt rich that day, much to his amusement.)

Brodsky is delightfully jammed with used books and locally written books. He had the first signed copies of John Nichols’ My Heart Belongs to Nature.

Of course, a visit to Brodsky is not complete without an exchange with its orange cat, Willy, named for the character Willy Loman. That day he was hugging the portable heater. Yes, that’s him above.

My second visit was to Op. Cit. Books at the John Dunne Shops. Besides dropping off books, I arranged to have a reading Saturday, March 25 at 2 p.m. Thank you very much, Betty.

I have a couple of more places to visit.

And in the spirit of keeping things moving, today I finished the first draft of Isabel Long, a mystery I began this fall. This is my first stab at a mystery, and I will admit I enjoy the genre. Isabel Long weighs in at 73,000 words.

Here is a very brief synopsis. Twenty-nine years ago, a  woman went missing in her little town. Newly out of work as a newspaper editor, Isabel Long decides on her own to solve the mystery. (She also gets a part-time job at the local bar called the Rooster.) Yes, the setting is the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. The characters are, well, interesting characters. It even took me a while to figure out who dunnit.

So I quietly raise my mug of tea in hurrah and then plan to get back to the novel’s beginning. I have a ways to go before I finish this mystery.

Don’t live in Taos and you want to buy my novel? Here you go on Amazon: The Sweet Spot paperback and The Sweet Spot Kindle

I am pleased that Kindle version is ranked at 1,715 in Literary Women’s Fiction.

And if you enjoy the book, I would love a review. Thank you all.