Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like These

Okay, whew. Forgive (again) my lack of blogging, but I've been over in Eastern Washington with the in-laws, and, yes, Virginia, there are still houses in America with no wi-fi.

To hit the highlights:

1. Book and Game in Walla Walla is a wonderful store in a wonderful town. It's like a mini University Bookstore, and the location on Main Street, flanked by all kinds of locally-owned, upscale restaurants in historic buildings, can't be beat. Thank you to Ben and Nathan for your help in set-up and for fetching me an Earl Grey, as if I were a VIP. If you're ever in town, we hit up Brasserie Four for dinner (the quiche!) and Olive for dessert. When the guy at Olive rang up my Olympic-sized lemon bar and brownie and cup of milk for $5, I could not believe it.
2. Only 1/3 of the event attendees were related to me (2 out of--gulp!--6), and only 1/3 of the attendees were related to each other (again, 2 out of 6, but not the same 2). However, per capita they bought more books than my last two events. Nice.
3. The next day, my husband's aunt swung by and wanted a copy, although she quailed when she heard there was bad language in it. "But not the F word, right?" she said, hopefully.
4. We saw a gen-u-Ine beaver near Howard Amon Park, not steps from where Cass plays with James' nieces. I should have made that scene more realistic by having one of the nieces step in goose poop.
5. And, final highlight, our return trip in the trusty minivan was epic, thanks to nonstop snow that prevented us coming back the speedy way over Snoqualmie Pass. We resorted to the very long and very scenic detour through the Columbia Gorge where the wind gusts threatened to hurl us into the river, followed by downpours straight out of Dante of rain and hail. Amazing. All that for 10 books!

There must be an easier way to lose money.

However, if there is, I'm not going to explore it yet because my cover designer and I have agreed on a tentative cover for the sequel to MOURNING BECOMES CASSANDRA. The title of the new book? Drumroll, please.....THE LITTLEST DOUBTS! (Without the exclamation point.)

More to follow. For now, though, I think I'd better go lie down.