RE-LOCATE? IT'S EASY - POINT AND CLICK

I didn’t have much to do last weekend so I bought a house. Eventually, I mentioned it to my husband. “This online shopping has gotten out of hand,” he complained. “First it was just vitamins and batteries then it mushroomed into shorts and sheets and gnomes (don’t ask) and now you’ve bought a house? Where will it end?” With the house, probably, seeing as I failed to allow for the fact that the funds for it, coming out of an IRA account, will cost us half again in taxes. And because this means that not only do I have to de-clutter/repair/clean the house we’ve lived in for thirty-six years, we now have to move. Yikes. My mandate, dictated by age, infirmity and a desire to hang out with some of my grandchildren, was to find a ranch-style house in a neighborhood near one of my adult children. The closest potential neighborhood was five-and-a-half hours by car (long-distance move, i.e. leaving behind dear friends) and the house in question turns out to have a steep staircase from the lower-level garage to the first and only floor of the house. Oh, yeah. There’s a steep stairway to the basement, too, and another to the front door. Because of it’s yellow siding and red shutters, I have named it the Overripe Banana. Banana for short. “Why did you buy a house with stairs?” The not unnatural question came from my mother, who is ninety-eight. “Because Emily liked it.” “Why did you buy that house?” This question came from son number one, Adam. “Because Emily liked it and I liked it.” “Why did you buy any house online?” This from son number two, Ben. “Because Emily liked it and I just needed to land the plane on some aspect of my chaotic life.” He seemed to understand. “You are gonna love this house,” said Emily, my daughter, who intends to purchase a house a mile away from the Banana. “I knew it the moment I walked in.” She’d called me on Facetime to show me how much I would love this house that I’ve never seen in a town where I’ve never been. “It’s got a great kitchen and a sun porch. And it’s small. You won’t have to bring the ironing board.” I admitted those were selling points. I failed to ask whether it had a bathtub. Or even bathrooms. Or (gasp) air conditioning. “And it’s got a big basement,” daughter continued. “Plenty of room for your books.” For the record, I have never lived in a house with a basement and I usually associate that part of the house with The Tell Tale Heart. I always think there will be a body in the wall. Part of the explanation is my natural competitiveness. This is a quality that has seldom served me well. Hours after I’d facetimed the Banana, someone else made an offer on it. It was a good offer, too, and if I wanted it, I had to act fast. And generously. My excellent realtor (she really is) and I decided we’d have to go well beyond the asking price to have any chance of winning. Naturally, I gave her carte blanche. I like to win. Twenty-four hours later I found I was the owner presumptive of the Banana. Would my furniture fit into the small rooms? Would my books? Would I, as an alum and third generation fan of the University of Michigan be happy in Buckeye country? Could I survive in this cute neighborhood with its ratio of 2 to 1 Republicans? What about the patched Midwest roads? What about the drinking water that comes from Lake Erie? What about my local newspaper? What about my lifelong friends??? Belatedly I asked Emily, the only blood relative who has actually seen the house, other questions. “Is there a sidewalk? You know I like a sidewalk. You know, for my bigwheel.” “No sidewalk,” she reported. “But there isn’t much traffic. You should be able to play in the street.” “What about a dog fence?” “Er, no. But you can put an invisible fence in the backyard.” I caught a quick mental image of Toby’s fat little body leaping into the air from an electrical shock each time he sauntered outside. “It’s a great school district, mom. And the library’s across the street.” I thought about the hundreds, probably thousands of dollars I’d spent buying books from Amazon during the last ten years. Maybe the house would pay for itself. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t happen before my 60-day grace period ran out and I had to pay those pesky IRA taxes. `

THEY'VE GOT MY NUMBER

You’d think we were a nation of spies with all our passcodes and usernames and unlisted cell phone numbers. I’ll admit that (even with tons of caffeine) my memory is somewhat impaired by my advanced years or maybe it’s just laziness. In any case, I can’t believe how hard it is to get ahold of someone. For one thing, as mentioned, cell phones are unlisted. For another, there’s no longer a phonebook with anything except commercial numbers in it. And then there’s the annoying practice of using words to remind you of an enterprise. Word-numbers like 206-647-8262, which translates to 206-Nirvana or 1-800-Got Junk. I always avoid calling letters but several weeks ago, looking for advice about my mom, I needed to contact a nurse’s help station at St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor and the number listed was a word. Something like 734-NURSESS. I dialed away, hoping I wouldn’t get an automated message and thinking about my questions and then, lo and behold, a person picked up the phone. A woman. “Hello,” she said, sounding as if she didn’t mean it. “Oh, hi,” I said, brightly. “I’m trying to find out whether my mom needs a biopsy in order to have radiation.” A brief pause. “Who is this?” I explained. Over explained. I was the daughter, calling from out of town, didn’t want to risk a lung collapse, blah, blah, blah. More silence and then “Who gave you this number?” By now I was wondering whether I’d accidentally called a Southeast Michigan branch of the CIA or some other secret agency. “Uh, I think it was Stacy Somebody. I think she’s a social worker.” “Huh,” the voice said, disapproval dripping from the single syllable. “That’s happened before. The number is only one digit off from ours.” “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, still thinking it was weird she hadn’t given me a department or a name. “Who did I call?” “The hospital morgue.” Let me go on to say her name was Mary and we chatted for a few minutes. I told her I was interested in morgues because of writing mystery stories and she told me she was interested in the Upper Peninsula. So we talked about snow and death for a few minutes and at the end of the conversation she invited me to drop in when I was in town. “Just to visit,” she added, hastily. “Not to stay.” In spite of the pleasant encounter, I still don’t like word phone numbers. But just for fun I tried to convert my number to a word and I came up with 703-SVU-OINK. If you call it, expect me to respond with a suspicious “Who is this?”

LIFE and DEATH

I am in Ann Arbor (the town that was named for me) which is not only my hometown but my spiritual home in my spiritual state (note the cozy mystery series - The Bait & Stitch Mysteries - set in the Upper Peninsula. The prequel to accidental detective Hatti Lehtinen's story is set for release on May 1, 2018. Anyway, business aside, I am here because my mother, who is only three years away from her personal centennial, suffered a collapsed lung during a biopsy. She spent a week in the local hospital where two of my children were born and where my father and grandfather died. It is a state-of-the-art facility and they took great care of her. Afterwards, the hospital doc sent her to a care and rehab facility where I (for some reason known only to myself) believed they would keep her for three weeks which would include the time devoted to a short spurt of radiation for lung cancer. Imagine my surprise when I arrived there yesterday to tell her I'd made her a hair appointment and she trumped that with an announcement of her own: "I have news, too. I get to go home on Monday!" "No!" I barked my response in front of one of her dear friends, my husband and my dog. I followed up this graceless moment with fifteen minutes of how it would not be possible for her to come home because my husband, brother, dog and I COULD NOT LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSE with her for three weeks whether she was sick or not. I probably shouldn't be telling this story. I know I sound heartless. But the fact is, my mom smokes. She's smoked for 70 years which is why she has lung cancer and is facing radiation. She has said she will stop smoking but my brother, who has a really good mom-b.s.-detector, doesn't believe her. He's probably right. At the age of 97 she feels she's entitled to live her life as she wishes. But, really, how can we squeeze all these folks into my childhood home? How can I become the non-smoking police? How can I insist that she use a cane/walker/raised toilet seat/grab bar when all she wants to do is play solitaire on the kitchen counter with her long, elegant black-and-gold cigarette holder between her teeth? I can't. What's more, my brother, who is the chef, chauffeur, manager of the house (we had to buy and install a new washing machine), and really the only reason I am still semi-sane, will leave. I will have to cook, chauffeur, assist, nurse, do laundry and monitor the smoking. But I haven't gotten to the funny part. In an effort to talk with a social worker at rehab center I got re-routed to the social work office at the hospital. Someone must have pushed a wrong digit on the number and I got a voice that said, suspiciously, "hello? Who is this?" I explained who I was (no one important) and she said, "huh. What do you want?" We went back and forth for awhile, neither of us really making sense to the other. Finally I laid all the cards on the table. "Look I'm trying to find a social worker or a nurse or a doctor or someone who will strong arm the rehab center to keep my mom there longer. I know it sounds heartless, but you don't know our family. We're like oil and water. We get along fine as long as there are 500 miles between us. We even celebrate Christmas on the phone. You just don't understand. I can't spend three weeks of watching Law and Order re-runs at the pitch of a Nazi siren. I can't spend every waking minute as the cigarette police!" "I could probably help you with that," the voice said. By then I had forgotten who was even talking to. "Do you know who you called," she asked. "The morgue." I told her I wanted to find a social worker who would insist that the rehab center (and Medicare) keep my mother longer. Again, the unidentified voice said, 'huh."

THE COZY MYSTERY or No dogs were harmed in the writing of this book

If the private-eye novels of Dashiell Hammett and others are hard-boiled, then keeping to the egg analogy, the cozy is soft-boiled. Or maybe even poached. It is murder with a light touch in the snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug comfort of a small town. The community, where, like Cheers, everybody knows your name, is the kind of place everybody thinks they would like to live. Maybe it has a town green in the center or a yearly festival that everyone attends. It is Brigadoon with quirky and engaging characters, at least until a body appears under a rose-covered trellis or behind a tree at a Sunday school picnic. The sleuth, nearly always an amateur and a woman like my Hatti Lehtinen, a law school drop-out and recreational knitter who, separated from her husband, has returned to her hometown of Red Jacket on Michigan’s remote Keweenaw Peninsula to run a bait shop. As the organizer of the knitting circle, Hatti is in a perfect position to hear any and all gossip that pertains to the crime. It doesn’t hurt that she knows everyone in town and is related to most of them. Another aspect of the cozy mystery is the juxtaposition of the worst crime known to man in the midst of a group of people who meet on Wednesday nights for potluck and Thursdays for bingo. The perp is never a serial killer. Instead, he is that most intriguing of individuals: a card-carrying member of the community who has gotten himself into a predicament from which he can see no other way out. Cozy mysteries can and do include relationship subplots and introspection. They include twists and turns and red herrings and carefully placed clues designed to help the reader figure out the puzzle. What they do not include are descriptions of blood and guts or the death of a beloved character, especially not of a child. And that brings me to the Cardinal Rule of Cozy Mysteries, as I understand (and approve) it: Never, never, never harm an animal. That bichon that appears in the kitchen in chapter one, had better be healthy and present on the final page. The calico wandering around the garden early in the story had better be curled in front of the fireplace at the end. No creatures can be victims. Not even snakes. And, believe me when I tell you that’s a big concession from me. Mysteries in general and cozies in particular are, I think, appeal to us because, at least between the covers of the book, the wrongdoer is punished, good wins out over evil and dogs live forever. In other words, for once, life makes sense.

Second Chances

Mr Big: What would you come back as?
Carrie: Someone who knew better.


Hi! My name is Annie Holloway and I didn’t write SEX IN THE CITY (unfortunately) but my first Triskelion book EYE OF THE TIGER LILY is all about fear, mistakes and second chances.

Second chances. I’m a big fan. A huge fan. They’re the safety net for our mistakes and if we’re smart, like Carrie Bradshaw, we come back with a little more wisdom.

I especially like the concept in romance. I mean there’s nothing as exciting as a brand-new, deoderant-fresh infatuation but there’s something eternal about the resurrection of an apparently dead relationship. It’s not easy but when it works, it’s as if fate has taken a hand.

When I was very young (well, okay, youngish) I was engaged for about five minutes. Nearly four years after my fiancé jumped ship we bumped into one another in a revolving door and decided to get married. A friend quite rightly warned my husband-to-be that the road back would be long and he’d “have to carry a lot of water.”
Thirty years later, he’s carted enough water to fill Lake Michigan.
You can see why I like second chances.

In my upcoming book, THAT VOODOO THAT YOU DO, a story of magic and mayhem in a small Virginia town, the hero’s long-held goal is to reconcile with his beautiful ex-wife, but just when he’s about to make that happen, a ghoulish crime throws him into the path of an energetic, impulsive, duty-obsessed elf with whom he shares a powerful chemistry and he has a tough choice to make.

EYE OF THE TIGER LILY, released by Triskelion in December, 2006, is the story of Molly Whitecloud, a young Indian woman who loved Eden, Maine’s golden boy, Cameron Outlaw. When Molly got pregnant, though, she chose the safety of the reservation by marrying an old family friend.
Molly miscarried and though she divorced, became a respectable midwife and a tribal activist, she never forgot Cam. More than a decade later she discovers that Cam and his late wife once used the services of a local fertility clinic and, when the story starts, Molly is in the midst of robbing the clinic’s sperm bank.
There’s always a devil to pay. A murder at the reservation’s casino prompts Molly to pose as a hooker in order to investigate. Her first “customer” turns out someone more dangerous to her than the killer. Cam Outlaw, grimly determined to protect Molly for old times sake, is set to marry someone else. The old sparks ignite but Cam is wary of the girl he once named Tiger Lily.
And Molly, well, she’s harboring two secrets and a guilty conscience. Will Cam be able to forgive her? Will she be able to forgive herself? Will Cam’s fiancée and Molly’s ex-husband get together? Will the murderer get caught? Is it possible to make love in total silence between a sofa and a wall?
Will there be a second chance of happiness for Tiger Lily?

To find the book, click here.
To leave me a comment or have a chat write me at annyost1@verizon.net

Here is an excerpt from EYE OF THE TIGER LILY.


Chapter One
Molly Whitecloud squeezed her eyes to block out the stark overhead light in the treatment room. A burning sensation crawled up the back of her throat. She knew it couldn’t be morning sickness. Not yet. Even if the procedure had worked she’d only been pregnant for about seventeen minutes.
She carefully lifted herself off the table, shed the paper gown, tugged on her bluejeans and pulled her apple-red sweater over her head freeing her thick, black braid in the process. She knew she looked like the same old Molly, the self-appointed guardian angel to the Blackbird Indian Reservation. But she wasn’t the same. This morning she’d let her halo slip and now she’d have to wait to see whether her big gamble would succeed. She prayed it would. She prayed she’d get to welcome Cameron Outlaw’s baby during the Sowing Moon.
Molly’s lips formed a grim line. She didn’t want to think about her former lover’s reaction to her use of his sperm-on-ice. Cam Outlaw might have turned into a buttoned-down banker during their years apart but Molly knew those pinstripes masked a lion’s heart and the passion that went with it. She thought of the deadly rapids under the frozen Eden River. That was Cam.
And Molly had just drilled a hole in the ice.
She walked out of Boston’s Spotswood Fertility Clinic and into the brilliant autumn morning, climbed into her ancient Jeep Wrangler and headed for home. She’d traded love for security thirteen years ago. It was too late now for love but fate had presented her with a second chance at motherhood. She had no regrets. She couldn’t afford to have any regrets.