It’s a tradition in our family to invite people who are alone on Thanksgiving to our family feast. The origins of our hospitality go back to when Ken and I were first married... Ken was a graduate student and we lived in Connecticut at the time. After classes on Wednesday afternoon we packed the car and set off for my grandmother’s house in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. The rest of my … [Read more...]

The "novella" is an interesting literary type, isn't it?  I became fascinated with novellas last year, when I was preparing to try my hand at writing one.  In time, that effort became Love in the Details (which just released).  Yippee! Even though novellas have a long history -- they were first written in Europe around 1350 during the Renaissance -- I'm guessing that most of us are much more … [Read more...]

Did you know that tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world (besides water)? Nope—I didn’t either. Even though I write novels set in tea-centric England, I confess I am a tea novice and drink more coffee than tea (shhh! :)). But I do enjoy drinking tea in comfortable solitude now and then, or at social gatherings. And lately I’ve been learning more about this quintessentially British … [Read more...]

Do you know that song? If so, the line that comes next tells you my definition of a very, very, very fine house. "With two cats in the yard..." For much of our marriage, we've had at least one cat in the house, and one memorable summer, we had eleven cats in the yard (life used to be so hard!) thanks to two batches of kittens our stray mama cat, Biscuit, gifted us with as a thank-you for taking … [Read more...]