Blog
Take two characters: From Back Home at Firefly Lake to The Blue Castle (& a giveaway too)
This week, I celebrated the first birthday of Back Home at Firefly Lake, the third book in my Firefly Lake series—books that blend contemporary romance with women's fiction and take place in a small Vermont town. As part of this celebration, I've written a guest...
Home is where you make it
From tea in my favourite mug to so much more, I'm a homebody. After many moves and other travel, I draw strength and comfort from living in a place where my roots run deep, and in a home where I'm surrounded by pictures, furniture, china, and family memories going...
New hope and Colouring The World Orange
Orange is not my colour. At best, it makes me look sallow. At worst, ill. Yet, this month (dubbed NERVember by the International Pain Foundation), I’m taking pride in wearing orange to raise awareness of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS, also known as Reflex...
Quilts for a cause
I don’t sew, knit, crochet, embroider or do any of the other handicrafts at which women on both sides of my family tree excelled. In junior high home economics, sewing was painful for both me and my long-suffering mother. Mom made many of her own clothes and was...
Disconnected from a connected world
If you follow me on social media, you know that I was unexpectedly offline for most of last week when work to lay underground fiber optic cables cut existing cables that deliver landline phone and internet service to my home. As someone who is almost always connected...
Back to the barre
For most of my adult life, a pair of worn ballet slippers has lurked at the back of my wardrobe—a poignant reminder of something that was important to me as a book and dance-loving child and teen, but that I'd lost sight of as the years slipped by. Those shoes might...
Lessons from my daughter
English Rose celebrated her fifteenth birthday earlier this month. Although it seems like yesterday she marked that milestone first birthday, my 'baby girl' is becoming a young woman and, more and more, I glimpse the person who will soon be not only my daughter but...
Reading habits
One of my Facebook friends, cozy mystery author Lena Gregory, recently posted a question about reading habits, asking "how many books do you read on average?" She also noted that while she "used to read between three and five books a week," these days, her reading...
Going on a road trip
When I think about summer (and especially during a long, cold Canadian winter), one of the first things to come to mind is the road trip. Growing up, summer road trips were a highlight of my year. With my parents and the family dog too, I crisscrossed Canada and...
Photo by Robin Spencer, Spencer Studio