Cover for Murder by the Book

Don't you just LOVE it???? It is unquestionably my favorite cover so far. I love that my name is prominent but not 10 feet tall. If possible - I am now even more excited!!!!

Okay so I changed my mind

Instead of doing 'Clue' type game for the contest, I decided to do one where we follow Miss Eugenia around the world - guessing all her locations and - ultimately - her final destination. I think it will be fun and maybe a little simpler and at this stage in my life - simple is good. Especially if it's still fun!!!

My palsy is greatly improved. I can blink (and my left eye stays closed when I want it to instead of slowly drifting back open the way it did before). The only time it's noticeable is when I smile. If this rate of improvement continues I should be pretty much back to normal by 4 weeks - which is exactly what they predicted in the Emergency Room when I went with it originally. So we're all good there. Plus - no more kidney stones - so we're REAL good in that area.

I don't have a cover for Murder by the Book yet - but just based on the title page from the typeset manuscript - it's going to be GREAT!!! I'm so excited.

Affliction, Submission, Milestone

We'll start with the affliction - I have a temporary (I pray) case of Bell's Palsy. It started about a week and a half ago when I woke up on Sunday morning and my tongue was numb (I thought I'd burned it). By Tuesday the entire left side of my face wouldn't work. I couldn't blink my eye down and I couldn't raise my lips up. If I kept my face perfectly still it wasn't too noticeable (unless you realized that my one eye wasn't blinking) but when I had to talk or - the worst - SMILE - it was very obvious. Since I wasn't in pain and had no other physical complaints, I didn't think I was having a stroke. I looked up the symptoms online and felt pretty sure it was a temporary palsy of some kind. I called my doctor and they agreed but said to go to the ER just in case. I did't want to leave work so I waited until Butch got home that evening and he took me. They did an MRI and said I would be fine eventually. It was a very strange experience. I'm not vain - or I didn't think I was - but having something wrong with my face and continually having to explain to everyone I meet why my eye doesn't blink and my lips don't move on one side was tedious. It really made made me think how difficult it is for people who have conditions or deformities that cause others to stare (even if they aren't being unkind). I take a lot for granted. And it was kind of a wake up call physically. I've gained a lot of weight over the past year or two and never even think about exercising. When I first realized that something was wrong and had to consider the possibility of stroke - I wished fervently that I'd been taking better care of myself. So now I'm rededicating myself to healthy eating (prayers please). And even though I was warned that it can take up to a YEAR to fully recover from the palsy - I am already noticing improvment. I still can't blink my left eye and my upper lip hangs down on the left side. But my lower jaw is working again along with my lower lip. So I can talk and eat much more easily. If I can just learn not to smile...

Now on to the Submission. I returned the final edit of Murder by the Book to the best editor in the world, Kirk Shaw, at Covenant yesterday. Now it's being typeset and then he'll send me that version for one last glance before it goes to the printer. I hope and pray that I didn't make any glaring errors this time. It was such a fun book to write and I'm really anxious to hear from readers about it. I'm also so thankful that it's going to come out this fall. That was truly a miracle. Time and financial constraints are going to prevent me from making a visit out west to 'introduce' the new book this fall - which is sad and disappointing. But I'm working hard to think of ways I can make the release exciting anyway. What I've come up with is a contest combined with a Murder Mystery Game (similar to Clue and the Murder Mystery Dinner Covenant used to do in the good old days). I'm thinking it will be something like the Twelve Days of Mystery (since Murder seems so harsh and un holidayish...) I'll use characters from all my books and create a little scenario. Then I'll give clues every day for 12 days and at the end I'll let people email me their guesses for a limited lenghth of time (like a day). Everyone who correctly solves the mystery gets their name put in a 'hat' for a drawing. I think we can do the drawing sort of semi-live using my blog or Facebook or both (with my kids as cyber-reporters) so participants can read along and see who wins. I think that will be fun and I hope it will generate some interest. The grand prize will be a basket (or box or something) that will contain not only some of my books, but other Covenant products and candy, etc. Other prizes will be copies of my new book. I'll post a picture of it on my website (I'm planning to do a whole page just about the contest and game). It's not up yet - but I promise it will be by October 1st when the book comes out (hopefully before). And I'm going to start presales on Murder by the Book on Sept 1st. I have a fun idea about that too (but this post is getting too long so I'll save that for later).

Finally - the milestone. On Monday Butch and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. It's crazy to think that it's been that long ago that he and I began this incredible journey. When we started out - both 21 and completely clueless - we had a lot of dreams and plans. Butch wanted to be a lawyer or a veternarian. I wanted to write books and have 10 kids. We assumed we'd live in the Decatur area near our family. Instead he's a UPS man and we live in Birmingham. I do write books and although I didn't make it to 10 - I have EIGHT of the greatest kids in the history of the world!!!! (Not to mention 3 great son in laws and 1 great daughter in law - and the grandkids - well there just aren't words to describe how fabulous they are). Life has not always been easy (that's an understatement - it's never been easy - sometimes it's more manageable than others). So looking back I see things we could have (maybe should have) done differently so that the present could be better or easier or at least more what I had expected to be my future when I was that 21 year old girl. But the funny thing is that even though there are things I wish were different - if given the chance I wouldn't change a single thing - just because I'm afraid that one different decision (even for the better) might change where I am right now and I couldn't risk it. So we'll take what we've learned from the first 30 years together and work on making the next 30 even better.

I've had a request for an updated book list

Haggerty Series -
Hearts in Hiding
Until Proven Guilty
Above Suspicion
Silenced
Copycat
Poison
Double Cross
Christmas in Haggerty
Backtrack
Spirit of Christmas
Murder by the Book (coming in October)

Duty Series -
Hazardous Duty
Above and Beyond
Code of Honor

Eureka Series -
Never Look Back
Don't Close Your Eyes
Foul Play

For a little synopsis about each one - check out the "My Books" page on my website
www.betsybrannongreen.net

Question about Code of Honor

I've had a couple of people ask me a question about Code of Honor and since I don't know exactly how to reply to a comment - I decided to post about it.

The question is - how could Chad Allen be dead at the end of Book 2 (Above and Beyond) and then become a major player in Book 3 (Code of Honor).

The answer is - He wasn't really dead - just very bad off. They thought he was dead when Ferrante took his 'body' as he left the McLaughlin's mountain. But then he recovered. This was not spelled out and I'm sorry for the confusion. It's not my first mistake and I'm sure it won't be my last!

Did I mention that Murder by the Book is coming out in OCTOBER???

Most Excellent News!!!!!!!

You know the news must indeed be excellent since I am posting twice in the same day after not posting at all for like a month!!!! And it is very excellent news! My wonderful editor, Kirk Shaw, emailed me today but before I can tell you the good news - I have to give you the backstory (Butch hates this part of my storytelling process).

I have been working on the new Haggerty book, Murder by the Book, for almost a year. I meant to have it done by the end of last year. When that didn't happen, I told myself I'd have it finished by the end of January, then February, then, well you get the idea. Life kept getting in the way and I finally emailed it in to Kirk much later than I intended. I was really hoping for a fall release - but knew that because of my tardy submission it would be a miracle if the book came out before next year. Sure enough, when Kirk gave me the good news that the book had been accepted for publication - he also gave me the bad news that it wouldn't come out until January 2010.

This was bad for several reasons. A January release means that you miss the entire Christmas buying season - which is the best book-buying market of the year. And even though I do write books for the fun of it - my family depends on the royalty checks that I receive in February and August. The February check reflects sales from the previous July through December. A January release would mean that the proceeds from the sale of the new book wouldn't make it to me until August of 2010. And that's a long time from now. But the MAIN problem was that readers wouldn't have access to the new book until January.

So, today Kirk emailed me with the miraculous news that they were able to work Murder by the Book (possibly by another name - I haven't heard for sure about the title yet) into the fall lineup and it will be released in October 2009!!!!! Which eliminates all of the above mentioned concerns.

Like I said, excellent news!!!!

Mother of the Bride

Well, now three of my four daughters are married. I won't say that I've given them away - since I'm still holding on for dear life - but I have watched them enter into a different stage of their lives, where I will be on the fringes instead of a central character. We have been blessed with three good sons-in-law and I'm thankful for that. But a part of me still aches for those little girls that my three brides used to be. Thank goodness for grandchildren. They do ease the pain associated with watching my children grow up.

It was a wild few weeks around here, getting ready for the wedding. We don't have a huge house but were having lots of out-of-town guests. I'm not the world's best housekeeper and Butch isn't a handyman. So there were lots of little projects and a whole lot of cleaning that needed to be done before everyone arrived. I went a little crazy with paint - I even painted two floors - and finally Butch suggested that the dishes in the sink might be more of a priority than painting baseboards...

We moved Clay and Andy out of Emily's old room (which I longingly call the guest room although it never really will be). Cathy cleaned it spotless for Josh and Laura. Then we moved all of Grace's stuff to her apartment and set up a second twin bed in the room she's been staying in since last August when she returned home from Provo (in our house setting up a bed means stacking the appropriate number of wheat boxes and topping them with a mattress). I couldn't find the other twin dust ruffle - which covers the boxes - so I made one (again getting off the straight and narrow path that leads to a clean, orderly house).

Finally we had Grace's room set up for her and her former roommate, Hillary, who came from Provo for the wedding. We made Emily a bed on the floor in my room and put the boys on the couches in the den. Later Clay asked if anyone had seen his bag. I asked if he meant the garbage bag that had been sitting in the den. He said that was the one and that it was full of all his clothes. Since he was now a man without a country - he had put all his clothes in the bag so he would have access to them. I thought this was funny but Andy said, "Actually, that's a pretty good idea. I don't know where any of my clothes are now." We had left his folded clothes in his drawers but had moved his hang up clothes to the closet in Grace's room (where he and Clay will stay now that all the company is gone). In the process he lost track of his belt and never did find it until after the wedding. We were looking at some snapshots taken of the wedding party and Andy shook his head and said, "I don't look good in any of those pictures without my belt." Poor Andy.

Hillary left on Sunday (Andy took her to the airport right after he finished giving a talk in Sacrament Meeting). Laura, Josh and Harrison left on Tuesday morning and my niece, Ruth-Anne, left on Tuesday night.

So, today I'm a bundle of emotions. Relief mixed with grief. Happiness mixed with sadness. Trying to count my blessings and forget about the things I wish were different.