The winner of
Lorna Seilstad's book, Making Waves, which I'm loving, is Anne Payne.
Don't forget to enter
Trish Perry's giveaway of The Perfect Blend.
DeAnna Julie Dodson is the author of
In Honor Bound,
By Love Redeemed and
To Grace Surrendered, a trilogy of historical romance novels set in medieval times, and
Letters in the Attic, an Annie’s Attic Mystery. She has always been a lover of storytelling, whether on the page, the screen or the stage, and has a keen interest in history from the Middle Ages to the present.
She graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas and lives quite happily with her four cats in North Texas. She loves to quilt, cross stitch and watch hockey.
You can find DeAnna online at her website
www.deannajuliedodson.com and her
blog.
Letters in the Attic
Up in her grandmother’s attic in Stony Point, Maine, Annie Dawson finds a stack of old letters from her childhood friend Susan Morris. Annie remembers Susan fondly and would like to get back in touch, but nobody seems to know what’s become of her. Her friends at The Hook and Needle Club aren’t much help either. All they remember is that Susan left town more than twenty years ago to marry a very wealthy man, but none of them is quite sure who he was. And Annie can find no record of any marriage.
The more Annie searches, the more she begins to wonder if something has happened to Susan. Something bad.
Here's an excerpt of Letters in the Attic:
Annie stepped out of the library door, took a deep breath and then scurried across Oak Lane to The Cup and Saucer. The lunch crowd was gone, and Annie was glad to see that her favorite corner table was empty.
Peggy looked up from the counter where she was refilling salt shakers. “Hi, Annie. What’ll it be?”
“Coffee to start with. I don’t know what I want to eat yet, but I’m starved.”
It took just a minute for Peggy to bring her a steaming cup and a little pitcher of cream. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. It is.” Annie sighed. “Some people just have it rough, you know.”
“Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”
Peggy gave her a menu and a wry grin, and Annie answered with one of her own.
“I know, but some people get a lot of trouble all at once.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Susan Morris, the one we were talking about at the club meeting. I’ve been over at the library doing some research. Mary Beth was right about her parents being killed in a car wreck, and I found out that the aunt she was living with in New York died not very long before that.”
“That’s too bad.” Peggy leaned against the other side of the booth. “And she was just out of college then? What a shame. What about that rich guy? Did you find out anything about him?”
“I haven’t found any marriage records for Susan yet. So far, Prince Charming is still a complete mystery.”
“Did somebody say Prince Charming?” A lanky guy in a policeman’s uniform got up from his stool at the lunch counter and sauntered over to Annie’s table. “Are you looking for me, ma’am?”
Peggy pursed her lips. “Oh, go sit down and drink your coffee, Roy, and let the adults talk.”
“Now, that’s no way to treat your elders, Peg. Why don’t you introduce me to your friend here? Not that everybody in Stony Point hasn’t heard of pretty Annie Dawson.”
Annie didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed. She settled for skeptical. “Have they?”
“Yes, indeed.”
Peggy snorted. “This is Roy Hamilton. Obviously one of Stony Point’s finest.”
“I haven’t seen you around town,” Annie admitted, shaking the hand he offered. “Are you new here?”
“Just hired on. Chief Edwards was down a man when Callahan retired. I was working in Newcastle until a little while ago, but I heard Stony Point was a pretty attractive place to hire on.” He grinned at Annie. “Very attractive, if you ask me.”
Annie refrained from rolling her eyes. “Do you live here in town?”
“I’m renting a beach house on Ocean, just north of Elm.” His grin widened. “I guess that makes us neighbors.”
“You must be at Mr. Cruz’s. The little house with white trim and a porch swing?”
“That’s the one. And, of course, everybody knows about Grey Gables. That’s a big place for one little lady by herself.”
“I don’t live alone.” Annie pretended not to notice the smirk on Peggy’s face.
“You don’t?” Roy’s sandy eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead. “I heard you were a widow.”
Annie smiled sweetly. “I am.”
“And all your family lives back in Texas, right?”
“They do.”
Roy chuckled. “You’ve got a dog.”
“A cat,” Annie admitted. “But she’s the jealous type.”
“Hmmm. Maybe I’ll have to try to win her over with some fresh salmon. We lawmen aren’t allowed to accept bribes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t offer a few.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “I’ll leave that between you and Boots.”
“Of course, if you’d like to–” A beep from the cell phone hooked to his belt drew his attention. “Excuse me a second.”
He walked back over to the counter to take his call, and Peggy shook her head.
“Sorry about that, Annie. He’s just not one to take a hint.”
“Poor guy’s probably just lonely. It’s hard when you’re new in town. I know.”
“I beg your pardon, ladies.” Roy came back to Annie’s table. “I’ve got business to see to, Annie, but I hope, now that we’ve been properly introduced, that I’ll see you again.”
“Stony Point’s a small place.” Annie kept her voice light and impersonal. “So that’s probably pretty likely.”
“Us being neighbors and all.” Roy took his mirrored sunglasses from his shirt pocket. “If you ever need anything, you come see me. Thanks for the coffee, Peg.”
He handed Peggy a folded bill and went out the front door. Annie watched as he took long strides across Main Street towards the Town Hall.
“Well, he’s not shy.”
“Just a nuisance more than anything else.” Peggy made a sour face. “He’s always asking for his ‘Police Discount.’ Hardy-har-har.” Peggy unfolded the bill, brightening when she saw it was a five. “But he does tip well.”
Annie chuckled, and Peggy pocketed the money.
“Anyway, back to what we were talking about earlier, I’ve been asking just about everybody I’ve seen if they know anything about Susan Morris, but nobody seems to remember much about her. Sorry. I really would have thought you’d find something about her marriage.”
Annie sighed. “That’s where I hit a brick wall. Nothing on any Susan Morris getting married to anyone anywhere in the State of Maine anytime between nineteen-eighty-five and two-thousand-five. Absolutely nothing.”
“Hmmmm. I guess it’s possible she was married somewhere out of state.”
“I guess so.” Annie took a sip of coffee. “That proverbial haystack just got a lot bigger. Are you sure you never heard anything about this man she was supposed to be married to?”
“Me? I was way too young to pay any attention to that kind of thing back then. Maybe Mary Beth will have thought of his name by the time you see her next.”
“Or that shoe company he had. It was shoes, right?”
“That’s what she said.”
Annie bit her lip. “I guess I could search for Maine shoe manufacturers and see what I come up with.”
“But if she wasn’t married in the state, maybe he didn’t live here either. His company could have been in Virginia or New York or Timbuktu.”
Annie propped her chin on her hand. “Yeah, I know.”
“Hey, I forgot.” Peggy tapped the tabletop with one bright pink nail. “I have some good news for you. I asked Wally about the other guy, the handyman. His name is Tom Maxwell and Wally says he’d do you a good job if you’re in a hurry to start on your bathroom.”
“Actually, I’d really rather have Wally do it. I know the kind of work he does, and that way it helps you out, too. But Mary Beth sounds like she doesn’t want to wait much longer to get her basement organized. I’m sure she’d like the referral.”
“I appreciate you wanting to hire Wally. I would like to see us get a little ahead for once.”
“It’s pure selfishness on my part. He did such a nice job on my kitchen, I don’t want to use anyone else.” Smiling, Annie handed the menu back to Peggy. “I hope you still have that shrimp chowder you had on your special today. I need something to warm me up.”
“Coming right up.”
***
The chowder was delicious, a hearty cream base packed with shrimp, bacon and potatoes, and things looked a little bit brighter by the time Annie pulled up in front of Grey Gables.
Alice waived from the front porch of the carriage house and then scurried over to the car. “Find out anything?”
“You’re just as bad as Peggy. Come in out of the cold and I’ll tell you about it.” Annie unlocked her front door and picked up the stack of mail lying just inside. “I have some chicken and veggies in the crock pot if you want to eat later on.”
“That sounds a lot better than the leftover pasta I was going to have. Don’t mind if I do.”
There was a patter of paws on the stairs and then Boots hurried into the room, rubbing against Annie’s legs to make her demands plainly known.
“All right. All right. You first.” Annie handed Alice the obituary about Susan’s aunt. “That’s all I found out. Pretty much the end of the story as far as tracking Susan through her. Be right back.”
When she returned from feeding the cat, Alice returned the article to her.
“End of story all right. I’m sorry.”
“Now I just have to figure out how to track Susan down through her marriage in forty-nine other states.”
“Don’t forget the territories, the District of Columbia and all the foreign countries in the world.”
“Great. Thanks.” Annie sat on the couch beside Alice and started shuffling through the mail. “Bills, bills and bills, it looks like. What did you decide about the harvest banquet?”
“It’s the pumpkin bread again.” Alice sighed dramatically. “My public demands it.”
“You know you could always–” Annie frowned at the envelope she held. “I wonder what this is. It couldn’t have come in the mail. There isn’t an address.”
Alice shrugged. “Maybe somebody brought it by. What’s in it?”
“Let’s see.”
Annie slit open the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper, half smiling as she looked at it. The letters were cut from the newspaper the way they did in old gangster movies. It had to be a joke, right?
There was concern in Alice’s eyes. “What is it?”
Annie let her read the message for herself.
FORGET ABOUT SUSAN AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
You can purchase
Letters in the Attic from Amazon:
DeAnna is giving away a copy of
Letters in the Attic. To be entered in the book giveaway, leave a comment by Monday, October 4th and check back on Tuesday, October 5th to see if you've won.
You can enter twice--once on this post and once on tomorrow's interview with DeAnna. If you want to guarantee that you're notified if you win, then leave your email address in the comment, otherwise, you can just check back and email me through the button in my sidebar.
**Annoying little disclaimer: This giveaway is open only to U.S. addresses. By clicking on the Amazon link above or in the sidebar, and purchasing, I will receive a very small percentage of the sale.
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