June is a glorious month in so many places. We’ve spent many June weeks on the southwest Irish coast, and, of course, at home in New England. Both are wonderful! I’m typing on our deck overlooking the woods, with pots of herbs and dahlias, a slight breeze, blue sky…and a pesky fly I hope will move on.

I’m deep into Stone Bridges, my next Swift River Valley novel. I saw concepts for the cover last week and my agent, editor and I all loved the same one, but they others were great, too. We’re continuing with the tweaked direction started with The River House. So inviting, much like my fictional little New England town itself. I’m always so impressed with my publisher’s art department. Can’t wait to see the final and show it to you.

We visited my mother this weekend at the family homestead. Her peonies are in bloom but I didn’t get any photos. I did get photos of daisies on our walk in the woods, and a lady slipper we saw on the side of the path. As a kid, I loved going out into the woods to search for lady slippers. No wonder the first novel I ever submitted to an agent was called The Venus Shoe, another term for lady slipper. It wasn’t the first I sold but it was close. It’s now available again in eBook. The Knotted Skein and The Uneven Score are two other early romantic suspense novels also now in eBook. (I’m working on a print version. The original print editions are very hard to find, and there’s no audio version at this time.)

Time to get back to writing. The fly did move on!