Would you like my books? I’ll tell you about them, and you can decide.
My mysteries are cozy, leaning toward traditional.
I write about a small, Midwestern town—Endurance—where strong women and their relationships are at the center of my stories. This mystery series features retired teacher Grace Kimball and a detective, TJ Sweeney, who is her former student. In the small town of Endurance, relationships are important, people matter, and the weather is always changing. The stories also utilize local history going back to the 1830s. When it comes to murder, the town has a surprisingly high body count, and each of the books contains events you won’t predict. You’ll find all of those in my Endurance series plus lots of humor.
When I moved to Monmouth, Illinois, I lived on the first floor of a huge 1870 Victorian house. That house and its history are a major setting in both the Endurance mysteries and in A Death at Tippitt Pond. Fictional Judge Charles Lockwood built the fictional house in the 1800s, and its history is dark and contains unexplained deaths. In present-day Endurance, Jeff Maitlin, the local newspaper editor, buys the house to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. I loved that house with its old gas fixtures on the walls, beautifully carved pocket doors, chandeliers, and stained glass windows. I did not like the mice.
My Art Center Mysteries take place in the small town of Apple Grove, and the main character is Jill Madison, who returns to her hometown to run an art center named for her sculptor mother. She has a unique family, and the trilogy embraces themes connected to the deaths of her parents, years earlier, in a car accident. Ideas about family, second chances, and forgiveness are balanced with Jill’s escapades with her best friend Angie who helps lead her into disasters. Quirky characters and humor are threads throughout this mystery series. Oh, and a charming Civil War ghost appears in the last book.
A Death at Tippitt Pond is a standalone mystery that will delight genealogy fans. Beth Russell, a book researcher and amateur genealogist leaves New York City to investigate a strange claim in a small town called Sweet Iron. Not only does she receive the shock of her life, but she also discovers family secrets—and a death at Tippitt Pond—that eventually threaten her own life. Seeking justice, she investigates that death from the early 1970s and encounters unimaginable events that throw her life into the chaos of huge twists and turns. That death at Tippitt Pond changed everything.
Mr. Vonnegut and Me is a creative nonfiction memoir of my teaching life in a high school classroom. It contains fifteen stories of students who came into my life and changed it forever. Filled with humor, sadness, irony, and unbelievable events, it will keep you riveted in your chair. These stories are like potato chips: you can’t just eat/read one. Teachers and future teachers love it, but even non-teachers find it an education in humanity. It’s close to my heart.
Susan