This week I’m hosting Julie Cannon with Twang, Veronica Heley with Murder in Mind, and Paula Mowery with The Blessing Seer (no giveaway). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (September 2nd) evening.
Ellie Quick from Murder in Mind by Veronica Heley speaking about her life:
I suppose the most interesting thing about me is that many people think I really am like the woman who writes my stories. They say I look like her, and dress like her and I don’t drive, either. She does have some of my skills, such as gardening and cooking; but only in an amateur way. However, I do share her curiosity about things and people and, like me, she does try to act as a Christian in a secular world.
For fun I eat a piece of chocolate and a piece of fudge together. And yes, I know I ought to do something about my weight.
I put off dealing with the new technology. I do have a mobile phone but I only use it in emergencies, and I have never mastered the art of texting or finding out weather reports or sending emails on it.
I’m afraid that one day everyone will find out that I’m a bit of a fraud, fronting my charity when I’ve no financial skills. I didn’t ask for wealth. It was left to me, and so I put it into a trust fund without really understanding how it works. It’s all very well for people to say that mine is the spirit behind the fund, and I do employ people like my ex-son-in-law to run the day to day business for me, but it’s my responsibility to see that it works to benefit as many deserving people and causes as possible. In the present economic climate it’s even more important to get things right. I do worry about that.
I’m in a very pleasant place at the moment, with a loving husband and staff of whom I am very fond. On the other hand, my ambitious, headstrong daughter Diana has always been a source of worry with her schemes for getting rich quick and her amoral attitude to life. She is so like her father, my first husband . . . Oh dear. I have to be strong and refuse to let her bully me but I must admit to dreading what she may get up to next.
I have a tendency to take on too much, especially when I notice something odd is happening in the community, or someone asks for my help. I really have quite enough to do what with husband and family, friends and the affairs of the trust fund, but one more request to help someone out and I find myself falling behind with important tasks such as attending to business letters and going to my grandson’s football matches.
I don’t have all that much time to read a daily paper, but I do like the local Gazette on Fridays, because it has all the neighbourhood news. I borrow books from the library, choosing something fairly light from women writers such as Maeve Binchy; she’s so good about people trying to do their best in difficult circumstances. There’s so much hardship and trouble in real life that I don’t want to read anything really depressing.
If I could change one thing about myself, I’d learn to be better at coping with the modern technology, and how to read a balance sheet. Oh, and I’d lose a few pounds in weight.
I didn’t choose to have a cat – my first husband didn’t like them – but Midge moved in on me and is now part of the family. He’s a marauding ginger tom with a formidable personality and is supposed to be a good judge of character. As far as that goes, I think he just works out who’ll feed him on demand!
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a chat with St Luke. What an amazing life he had, racketing around the Mediterranean with St Paul, visiting Jesus’s mother, Mary, to hear all about His childhood, and recording the spread of Christianity. What a man!
