Tread Softly, Book 2 in the Ghost Shop Series, has been completed and is in the process of being formatted. The cover is ready to go for print and e-book.

Bringing this work to completion took longer than I envisioned. I haven't posted a blog in a considerable amount of time. Life definitely interfered.

My son convinced me to go to Europe in late spring. We had a wonderful trip. 5 days in Paris wasn't enough for me. I had lived there many years ago, and I still love the city as much as I did then. We also toured through Spain, where I had lived for 4 years, revisiting Barcelona, Marbella (where I had spent a summer,) and Granada, so much larger now than I remembered. We finished our trip with a stay in Portugal, visiting the Algarve region before a couple of days in Lisbon. I returned to the U.S. with difficulty focusing on life here. I yearned to be back in Europe again.

Then the vision in my left eye became increasingly foggy. After almost 2 months of peering at the computer screen for what deteriorated to an hour a day, I had a successful laser procedure.

Also during that time, the health of my beloved companion cat, Lilly Bean was deteriorating. She had become chronically ill soon after the pandemic started. Despite my best efforts and excellent care from the veterinary clinic, she passed away in August.

Recovery from both those events was difficult. My writing had slowed dramatically. I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and regain my concentration. Being a member of a critique group meant producing pages on a regular basis. It was the best medicine for the completion of this book.

In its final phases, and with 4 upcoming events, 3 of them in-person, I look forward to Tread Softly's release, and a winter spent writing the 4th book in the Swift/Roberts series (working title Maine Issues,) while I develop a plot (and a title!) for Book 3 of the Ghost Shop series.