On the Road Again!

     After a long, hot, slow summer, Never a Sinner came out to good reviews, and all the work is done for A Place Apart for its November first release.  Great covers on both books which capture Teddy Billodeaux's joy of life, and the isolation of Jacob Day, a damaged veteran to wants nothing more than to be left alone on his deserted island which is suddenly claimed by a socialite also seeking solitude.  Sparks fly!  I've also made a start on The Heart of a Sinner, Annie Billodeaux's story, but must put it aside to satisfy my wanderlust again.
     I am off to Iceland shortly to tour the island and bathe in the Blue Lagoon and other hot springs. When I return home, I have a week's break before going to St. Louis to see the ancient mounds of Cahokia and eat good barbecue. The question recently came up as to whether I plan to site a book in Iceland.  Probably not, but I never know.  When I started writing Sister of a Sinner last year, I had no idea that my brief cruise to Cozumel and my tour of the ruins there would come to play a part in Xochi Billodeaux's story, but that is where her kidnappers take her.  Sister only came out this spring, again to good reviews, but I don't want to spoil the story for you, so no more on that. A trip to Wisconsin provided Alix Lindstrom with a home state, though it doesn't figure heavily in the story. A spring visit to Minneapolis might give me another. It is quite a vibrant, multi-ethnic city, not bland and white at all.
      I finally got the courage to write A Place Apart several years after a visit to Maine.  When out of my comfort zone of south Louisiana, I always fear getting the details wrong, but favor Road Scholar for my tours. They are dubbed Learning Adventures, and you do learn! I save reams of information they give me for future use. In Place Apart, I recreate a sloop ride on Penobscot Bay early in the book and spin off on a legend I heard there--besides eating lots of lobster, one of my favorite foods. Although a man of education and many talents, Jacob Day chooses the hard life of a lobster fisherman to avoid others. The title came from a quote I heard at the Island Institute, founded to preserve the way of life on the many coastal islands, places apart indeed. It is my first book based entirely on one of my trips. I yearn to write one about western Ireland where I went a couple of years ago, but again, the devil is in the details.
      On my Road Scholar tours, I also meet so many interesting people like a Navajo code talker, sadly now deceased, the first woman to run the Iditarod in Alaska (she lost badly but did finish the grueling race), a shaman with a sense of humor, and many glib-tongued Irish men.  My traveling companions are equally interesting, folks who have worked with NASA, a nurse who who served in World War II, people who are so talented they can learn to play a penny whistle overnight or write an limerick in minutes to amuse the group. Any of these are worthy of a book of their own.
     So, off I go again.  Undoubtedly, I will fill my Facebook page with tales of Iceland in the next month. I'm counting on my daughter, an excellent photographer, to supply the pictures. See you later!