Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

and a

(I'm taking the rest of the year off and will back on January 4th)

The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow!

IT'S HERE!

Eleven-year-old Fairday Morrow is less than thrilled that her family is moving thousands of miles from civilization to the quiet country town of Ashpot, Connecticut, where she’s absolutely certain she’ll die of boredom.

As if leaving Manhatten and her best friend, Lizzy, the only other member of the elite Detective Mystery Squad, weren’t bad enough, Fairday is stuck living in the infamous Begonia House, a creepy old Victorian with dark passageways, a gigantic dead willow tree, and a mysterious past. 

Before she can even unpack, strange music coming from behind a padlocked door leads Fairday up a spiral staircase and into a secret room, where she finds an ancient mirror, a brass key, and a curious portrait of a red-haired lady. These seemingly unrelated items prove to be the first in a series of clues that takes Fairday, the visiting Lizzy, and their new squad member, Marcus, on an amazing adventure.

Can the members of the Detective Mystery Squad piece together the puzzle before it’s too late? Or will whatever’s causing trouble find Fairday and her friends first? 

Catch the Book Buzz...

"I really enjoyed this book. It was a marvelously done, debut, thriller novel. Ms. Robinson and Ms. Haight are great authors that really pull you into their story. I couldn’t get out until that final sentence. And, by then I wanted more. To say I want a second book is an understatement. The writing style is compelling, and makes me feel as if I was there with Fairday and her friends. I really like the illustrations in the book. They are like the ribbon on a present, or the icing on the cake. I give this book five out of five bookworms!"
~ Erik Weibel/ This Kid Reviews Books  

"Mixing realism and fantasy, Haight and Robinson’s debut opens with 11-year-old Fairday’s move from Manhattan to a small town in Connecticut, where her relentlessly cheerful parents plan to turn a dilapidated Victorian into a bed and breakfast. No sooner has the family arrived than eerie sights and sounds begin to haunt Fairday. The house turns out to hold dark secrets that everybody in town suspects but nobody can explain: a perfect mission for Fairday and her best friend Lizzy’s Detective Mystery Squad (DMS)."
~ Publishers Weekly

"Fifth-grader Fairday Morrow's new home lives up to its spooky reputation, but she and her companions in the Detective Mystery Squad find out why. At Begonia House, strains of bagpipe music issue from behind a padlocked door, grains of sand in an hourglass have stopped falling, and a malevolent weeping willow looms in the backyard. A magic mirror shows an invisible door; a wardrobe hides secrets and a portal. Ruby Begonia vanished more than 50 years ago. Is there also a ghost? Fairday has a new, helpful friend in classmate Marcus, and her best friend Lizzy can visit on weekends to help solve the mystery. What more could readers want?"
~ Kirkus Reviews

(This is me speaking) The illustrations are GREAT!

JessicaHaight is a true New Englander, with a deep desire to be near the ocean and a love of the four seasons. She enjoys drawing while standing up and cultivating magic in her garden. She easily floats away in the pages of a good story and is still waiting for her owl from Hogwarts.

StephanieRobinson lives with her husband in a quiet town, though not as quaint as Ashpot. After teaching fifth grade for almost fifteen years, she is now enjoying her role as a school media specialist. 

Fairday's Blog

Fairdayfiles.com

@DMSfiles

You can win a signed hardcover edition of THE SECRET FILES OF FAIRDAY MORROW by signing up on the Rafflecopoter below. The contest is Open internationally and runs from 11/29-12/24/15 ______________________________________ a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review of The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow, Titles to Write By, The Monday Muse, Being Thankful

The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow by Jessica Haight and Stephanie Robinson is now available HERE.

After waiting to read it for a long while, I received an ARC of this book and was not disappointed.

My review:

Fairday Morrow is not happy about moving with her family from the city to the country. Her best friend Lizzy, and fellow mystery solver, is a whole hour away! But the minute Fairday steps into the old spooky Begonia House her parent's have bought to turn into a guest house, she knows there's a mystery to solved. Plus, it doesn't take her any time to make friends with Marcus, a boy at her new school. When Lizzy comes to visit over a week-end, the three kids are confronted with an evil willow tree, a villainous being they assume is ghost, and a house loaded with secrets. Will they be able to solve the mystery before Fairday's parents discover they've made a HUGE mistake buying the house?

There's lots of spooky action in this middle grade. Fairday, Lizzy, and Marcus each have distinct well formed personalities as does Begonia House. Even Fairday's dog, Auntie Em, is a character. I'm looking forward to reading any further adventures the Detective Mystery Squad may have.

***

Next week, Monday the 14th, I will be one of Jessica and Stephanie's stops on their fabulous tour!

***

"Titles to Write By" is an occasional blog post in which we play with a single word and turn it into, what else, titles! Afterwards the object is to pick one of them and write a little something.

It was Ray Bradbury, in his book ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING, who taught me about making lists of words and turning them into titles. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it.

For no particular reason today's word is: (Well, that's not entirely true. With all the anger, fear, and hate being thrown at us by the media these days, a little COMPASSION would be a good thing.)

The Heart of Compassion

Compassion Comes In All Sizes

How Compassion Saved the World

The Doorway into Compassion

The Life of a Compassionate Mind

After Anger, Compassion

***

The Monday Muse: In which we take one of the above titles and play with it.

After Anger, Compassion

Anger clouded his face, a dark bruised cloud in shades of blue-black purple, streaked with red lightening bolts.

"She makes me so mad..." he said.

"Where is the anger?" I asked.

He pounded his chest with a fist, slapped his head. "Here!"

"So how is she making you so angry when the anger is inside you?"

The darkness on his face seemed to fade every so slightly.

 "Isn't it your own mind making you mad? Isn't it the story you keep telling yourself over and over about how she left you that keeps the anger fueled?"

He looked at me, eyes narrowing.

"Think of a time when you were really very happy," I said.

The hard lines around his eyes softened, the hint of a smile peaked out from behind the dark clouds.

"There," I said. "Who is that? Who is making you happy?"

He looked away from me as if embarrassed. "I am."

"And who is making you mad?"

He shrugged wiping away the first tears of pent up pain. "I am."

"Don't you think it's time you gave yourself a little compassion?"

***
Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful for robins.

Robins aren't true migratory birds, they simply go where the food is. Because of the drought, we haven't seen any for the last four or five years.
Thanks to a wet spring and fall they're back.

What a delight it is to hear their chirping in the trees surrounding our home, to see them flying across the sky by the hundreds.

Welcome back robins!

***

What are you thankful for? Have you read The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow? Care to share a title in the comments? Do any of the titles interest your muse? 

IWSG

Posting first Wednesday of every month YOU can sign up HERE to find out more about the purpose of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh.

Let's give our co-hosts  a warm welcome! 

Sandra Hoover,
Mark Koopmans, 
Doreen McGettigan, 
Megan Morgan, and 
Melodie Campbell! 


In an effort to keep these posts short I will be sharing a quote. Today's quote is from H. H. the 14th Dalai Lama.


Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

Although this quote may not relate to writing, it relates to the community we belong to. If we did not have this community of support where would we be?

Don't we, on some level, care about and even love each other? When someone shares his/her fears and anxieties about their writing, aren't we compassionate? Could this community exist without those two qualities?

Expand these qualities outward towards those with whom you have little or nothing in common and the world will be a better place.

It is, after all, The Golden Rule. Do unto others an as you have them do unto you.