I was your typical author wannabe, wanting to write the great American novel, but never quite getting around to it. Instead, I spent forty years reading novels and dreaming about writing one of my own.

Then one day, my niece shared her story with me. It was called The Bookshop Mystery.  It was loaded with mystery and magic and hidden spaces. So I made a proposal to Laura to team up. Embellishing Laura's plot, we dreamed up some extra characters added some new scenes and worked on dialogue to bring the characters to life.

And it all happened over the internet because Laura lived in Illinois and I lived in the Dominican Republic. First Laura would write a chapter and e-mail it to me, then I would write one and e-mail it to Laura. The chapters weren't always sequential. If one of us was inspired to write a particular chapter, she wrote it. We worried about putting it all together later. But each chapter provided inspiration to continue.

I currently lives in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with her husband, William Brands. She have two children in the Peace Corps, one in Thiland and the other in the Republic of Georgia .

I also review middle grade fiction. I began this endeavor a few months ago. What an adventure that has been! I never cease to be amazed at the variety of talented books and authors out there.

Acorn Mysteries
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Middle Grade Fiction Finders, Mining the Net for Good, Low Priced Kids E-reads
This is a blog where I post my reviews.