Another book-yippee!

My college roommate recently got in touch with me to say she was reading my book. She even sent me a picture to prove it, and consented to let me use it on my blog. So here is the former Kathy Gosselink, now Kathy VanCorbet , Pella, Iowa’s most beautiful and talented Tulip Queen. She dressed with more taste than any college coed I’ve ever met. And from the picture, you can tell she still has that pizzazz. We did not know each other before we were assigned the same dorm room as freshmen in college. While I was not a fan of tulips before I met her, I came to appreciate them, and a good thing, too. Our room was usually filled with them each spring.

This week I was offered a contract for Dumpster Dying. It will be released by Oak Tree Press sometime in the fall. I’m very excited about the book because it is set in my second home, Okeechobee County, Florida where I spend my winters. Here’s a short synopsis of it:

Although set in Florida, Dumpster Dying is not just another story about sunny beaches and bikini-clad beauties. In it, Florida natives collide with winter visitors in murderous, yet often humorous ways.

Emily Rhodes, the new bartender at the Big Lake Country Club in rural Florida, lifts the lid of the club’s dumpster one night to discover the dead body of the wealthiest rancher in the county. The authorities are certain they have the killer since evidence at the scene points to Emily’s friend and boss, Clara, but Emily has doubts. She believes Clara is hiding a secret involving the dead man’s family, but unraveling how Clara and the rancher’s lives are intertwined competes with Emily’s own problems.

Emily’s life partner has recently died, and the only will she can locate leaves everything to his ex-wife. Despite the grief she feels over her partner’s death and the money problems it has created for her, Emily sets out to identify the rancher’s killer. She must outwit a vengeful widow, fend off the advances of the man she believes to be the murderer, get to know an adult daughter she’s never met, and flee a fire bearing down on the drought-ridden pastures and swamps of her adopted community. Suddenly, the golden years of retirement seem more like pot metal to Emily.

Imagine Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum surrounded by alligators while a herd of stampeding cattle close in on her.

Emily will join my more serious-minded protagonist, Hera Knightsbridge, on my blog and my website. It’ll be great to have these gals each with her unique personality add to the mix of beer, food, alligators, cowboys, and brewers on the site and blog. You’ll notice the changes on the website beginning the end of the summer. I’m sure Fred will enjoy yet another feisty female joining us on the blog. That will probably mean he’ll have to do something outrageous just to get attention.

Happy Fourth of July, however you choose to celebrate. Of course, I recommend doing what my former college roommate is doing in the picture above—reading a great book!