TJ Wilde Trilogy · Duxbridge Mysteries · Jennifer McCaffrey Mysteries
Author of the TJ Wilde Trilogy, Duxbridge and the Jennifer Cozy Mysteries
A few days a go, I was watering the new plantings and saw the most unusual bee over in the echinacea garden. From afar I thought it was a big bumble bee. Instead, it was actually this bee:
That’s a Red-Belted Bumble Bee. I had never seen anything like it before and did some research: Bombus Rufocinctus/Red-Belted Bumble Bee.
I didn’t have my phone handy, so was disappointed I wouldn’t get a photo. But wait!
Location, location, location. As important in fiction as it is in real estate.
So I had SoWa. I had Long Island just off Boston Harbor. I had a unique Cuban gallery that participated in a Cuban artist exchange program. All that was left was a quick trip to Cuba. Once I had the locations, the artists’ community, and the historical context I needed to craft TJ’s Boston world, then the mysteries began to unfold.
Before she even unpacks, TJ finds new friends in SoWa, thanks to an abandoned kitten, and is quickly thrust into another mystery, thanks to a break-in and a missing gallerist. A Cuban art gallery, with a Cuban exchange program, and an abandoned hospital on a mostly abandoned island, offer a tangled web of intrigue. And she still needs to navigate her new job, along with suddenly becoming responsible for a rambunctious kitten, all while actively avoiding Colby’s many texts.
I had other plans for Monday Menu, but the weekend was just miserably hot, so I refused to cook anything. Instead, let’s revisit the quick and easy potato salad.
I added grilled onions to my most recent batch.
Previous recipe:
This is a family favorite, so time to repost.
I really like this recipe. So quick and easy. You can use any electric pressure cooker for these results.
There is something about this couch that does not allow the dogs to snooze with any dignity. All three end up contorted in one way or another when they get that coveted spot.
Boston is one of my favorite cities and my home for many years. Underway was born, not of my adventures there, but a week of new and unexpected adventures not long after I published Run Aground. My friend and I were driving around, exploring possible locations for Underway, when we came across the SoWa (South Washington) Art District. We stepped into the world I’d envisioned, yet didn’t know existed.
There TJ could find her new home, new work and maybe a new life.
Another day, exploring our old stomping grounds, I point out across the water and ask, “are those the islands you used to camp out on as a kid?” She tells me no, that the island where the old hospital is, that was in use for various things until the bridge to the island was demolished.
After I got over the shock of never having realized that after decades of walking the beach across from it, I knew it would have a starring role in the book.
Underway opens in Boston, where TJ feels most at home. Back to where she was happy. Back to where she could heal from all that had come before. It also had the advantage of steady employment and a loft apartment. Oh, and her best friend in the world.
But of course, it could not be that easy, could it?
Colby: I’m not giving up on us. XO
