My Blog

Take a look at this fun and glow-in-the-dark spooky wreath I created for Halloween! With purple lights, with ghosts and tombstones...

If you like to learn about history, Little Buffalo State Park is the place to visit.

When you want to go to a mystery author event that is done well - Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop is the place to go!

My first time being an author on a panel was at this year's Murder As You Like It mystery conference.

So...we all know that email inboxes are one of the things that gets cluttered up with junk and we end up trashing a lot of them anyways from either irrelevance or out of frustration. But what if there were emails that delivered good news and brought smiles to our faces? Sign up for my monthly newsletter (meaning that you receive only ONE email from me a month) and get a promo code to take 10% off your first order at my Etsy Store. The promo code will come in the Thank-You ema

Like cozy mysteries, garden gnomes, werewolves and more? Check out my review on Better Gnomes and Gardens to see if its the read for you.

We have come here together this month, in order to celebrate the honorable art of gardening, miniature sized. In this blog post, I have a few things to note on the impact of miniature gardens, and their fairy counterparts. In the words of author Sarah Rose, cited from her novel entitled For All the Tea in China, "a gardener is an artist: His canvas is land; his medium, plants." This statement is part of a larger paragraph in describing the man deemed the best plant hunter in

Looking back at last year's Malice Domestic 34 and how much I am excited for this year's! It was a great weekend of meeting authors and chatting with readers near Bethesda MD and I can't wait to see what this one has in store, Malice Domestic 35 . To start off, it was the first time I had ever been in a conference hotel, let alone a five star one. The place was MASSIVE! I clocked that it took me four minutes to get from our hotel room to the designated vendor's room while pow

Being as how this month of March is National Crafting Month, I wanted to post about something that dealt with paper, glue, sayings, and...

Have you ever wished to have a really cool way to hang your sunglasses up? Are those boring hooks depressing to look at in the morning?...

Whether it be for Christmas, Anniversaries, Easter, or Birthdays, up-cycling something for a gift is a budget friendly way to give your...

Where to begin? How about we turntable back two generations and find a family owned record shop in the middle of Cedar River, a small town just a stone’s throw away from Austin, Texas? Now, we skip over a few decades and find ourselves in present day Cedar River, where the three Jessup sisters are reviving their family’s lost business that had since succumbed to online music streaming and digital downloads. With the past becoming the ‘cool’ thing once again, everyone in town

This novel will take you for a ride into the world of horses and vets in Ireland with a colloquial feel that breathes life into the scenes. If I had to describe this book in one sentence, it would be this: A trinity celtic knot of a mystery with two families and the damaging secret that has woven their pasts and futures together in an inescapable journey. While the setting fits in with one of Carlene O’Connor’s typical cozies, No Strangers Here is fashioned more along the lin

October 1st was not just the official beginning to the "Spooky" month, but is was also the day for The Chocolate Town Book Festival held in the sweetest place on Earth, Hershey PA. This event had fifty authors representing romance, children, horror, mystery, and more. Originally, it was supposed to be an outdoor event. However, the weather had other plans with the remnants of Hurricane Ian bringing rain to our area. Don't get me wrong, I love the rain, but we were glad that t

This is the second year I have attended the PA Tea Festival and it was a tea-rrific experience. There were so many different samplings of tea for everyone to partake in, music to keep the upbeat vibes humming along, and many vendors from near and far with lots of goodies to sell. The annual PA Tea Festival takes place in the month of September and is hosted by The Rosemary House and Sweet Remembrances, located in the town of Mechanicsburg. From all over, people come to talk,

CALLING ALL MOVIE QUOTERS, HUMOROUS READERS, AND COZY MYSTERY LOVERS! This delightful tale, set in the sleepy town of Apple Springs, centers around a middle-aged priest named Hope Taylor as she begins life anew in the Episcopalian parish of Faith Chapel. The day begins with such high hopes, haha-pun intended, for the beginning of her new job working under Father Christopher, when an Elvis gnome plants a shinier on her face and she literally stumbles onto a dead body in the c

Have you ever read a short story before? They are stories that range between 5,000 and 10,000 words. But really, it just has to be over 1,000 to enter into this classification. If it is under 500 words, it is considered flash fiction and that is another story (ha-ha). The story you are about to read is 2,000 words exactly. Enjoy! The cold breeze wrapped around Sophia. Her eyes were glued to the seven golden flowers that were laid in front of her father’s headstone. Seven fo

There is a small mystery bookshop located across the street from a cornfield. It's name is the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and I have contributed a few book reviews to their quarterly newsletter. Here is my book review on The Lincoln Deception by David O. Stewart. Warning: This book will most likely lead to hand cramping and sleep deprivation due to its addictive nature and inability to be put down. The year is 1900, and it has been thirty five years since one of America

Have you ever read a short story before? They are stories that range between 5,000 and 10,000 words. But really, it just has to be over 1,000 to enter into this classification. If it is under 500 words, it is considered flash fiction and that is another story (ha-ha). The story you are about to read is just under 2,000 words. Enjoy! “Arnold’s body stiffened with paralyzing fear. Blood was creeping its way through the water in his direction as he watched with sheer panic in

There is a small mystery bookshop located across the street from a cornfield. It's name is the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and I have contributed a few book reviews to their quarterly newsletter. Here is my book review on TInderbox: Soldier of Indira by Lou Diamond Phillips. This story was a delight to read and I thoroughly enjoyed the book from cover to cover. It follows the story of Everson, an Indiran soldier who has been left for dead by his people after defeat at the

There is a small mystery bookshop located across the street from a cornfield. It's name is the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and I have contributed a few book reviews to their quarterly newsletter. Here is my book review on Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris. Twelve years ago, Finn and Layla were driving back home to England, from skiing in Megève, and pulled off at a picnic area on the side of the road. It was around 1:30 in the morning, and Finn had to use the toilet. He told La

There is a small mystery bookshop located across the street from a cornfield. It's name is the Mechanicsburg Mystery Bookshop and I have contributed a few book reviews to their quarterly newsletter. Here is my book review on An Exquisite Corpse by Helen A. Harrison. The story takes place during World War II and revolves around a tightly knit artist community that call themselves Surrealists. They escaped France as the German occupation began through patrons such as Peggy Gug

I had seen some candle luminaries advertised in a mailing and decided to see what in-store options were available. After much searching...

The amazing combinations achieved through the use of alcohol inks are endless! Check out my video above for more information on my Craft...