Independent publisher of award-winning books by Kelly Brakenhoff
One of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip was walking the Camino de San José. The pilgrimage follows a series of stations across the desert, each one reflecting on a different moment in the life of St. Joseph. Our group had spent several mornings walking stretches of the route, stopping along the way to read reflections from a guidebook written by Fr. Daniel Brandenburg called The Way of St. Joseph.
By the time we were divided into work teams, Dave was sent outside with the painting crew and I joined a few others inside a small stucco house belonging to a young mother I’ll call Carmen. She’s eighteen and lives there with her younger brother, her three-year-old daughter Rosa, and another baby girl due any day
After twenty-eight hours of travel, reroutes, missed flights, a cheap hotel, and maybe four hours of sleep, we finally arrived in Monterrey, Mexico. I would love to say we stepped off the plane refreshed and ready for our mission trip. That would be a lie.
The trip was supposed to be simple.
A quick flight from Lincoln to Chicago, then on to Monterrey, Mexico to begin a weekend mission trip. Our church friends were already heading south. Warm sun, desert hikes, and a few days of service were waiting for us. Instead, the day became a masterclass in missed connections.
Even though I write and read a lot of cozy mysteries where the villains are more “small-town scandal” than world-domination evil, my personal TV and reading tastes sometimes wander into darker territory.
If you live in Illinois in the winter and someone offers you a trip to sunny Arizona, you say yes. Immediately. No questions asked.
That’s exactly what recently divorced Rosi Laruee thought she was doing — heading to Tucson Valley to “help” her parents after her dad’s knee surgery. Fresh air. Sunshine. A little reset on life.
Friends, I feel like the last mystery reader on Earth who hasn’t picked up The Thursday Murder Club until now. With the movie out (yes, it is a Netflix production) and every publisher using it as the comparison title for anything remotely cozy, quirky, or British, I figured it was finally time to see what all the fuss was about.
When I picked The Faculty Lounge for an October read-along, I hadn’t cracked the spine yet. I figured we’d all try a literary experiment together and see what happened. The verdict? Somewhere between “This is alarmingly accurate” and “Surely no real school is this dramatic… right?”
Author Joanne Guidoccio shares mermaid wisdom, an excerpt from her holiday story Hippie Mermaid, and links to explore more of her fiction.
Read more about Homecoming Homicide through a thoughtful review, a behind-the-scenes guest post about the parrot who stole the show, and an author interview that digs into my writing process and what’s next for Cassandra Sato.
