Harking back to a walking trip I made to France back in April 2015. The walk took us over a section of The Camino, also known as one of many routes European pilgrims and penitents took to Santiago de Compostela, where Saint James is allegedly buried and where he allegedly performed miracles for supplicants. This…
Welcome to the Land of the Standing Up Rocks, aka the Chiricahua National Monument, a collection of standing stones worn by wind and weather into weird and wonderful shapes. Those mountains in the distance are the Dragoon Mountains, where the Chiricahua Apache leader Cochise’s Stronghold is. He died there and his people rode their horses…
I took this panorama standing on top of a dune at the far end of the loop that goes into White Sands National Park. It is one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever been and I wished I’d brought one of those big green trash bags with me. Read on. You know that cheap…
Still on the road, researching the second Harvey Girl novel, this was spotted in the parking lot of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A purple Subaru Forester, ladies and gentlemen. Plus…it’s irridescent. Inside the IPCC there is a cafe where they serve the most delicious Indian taco you will ever eat…
This is how research works for writers. Pay attention, writers. (Literally and figuratively.) In preparation for writing The Harvey Girl, I read a bunch of books to do with Gilded Age America and the American Southwest in the 1890s, which must perforce include reading about Mexico during that same time. One very useful book was…
Photos from my October 2024 research trip in northwestern New Mexico. The Harvey House in Belen, New Mexico, which was the model for the Montaña Roja Harvey House in The Harvey Girl. The restoration has been beautifully done and they’re still serving Fred Harvey recipes in a little cafe in the back. One of the…
What’s wrong with this picture? A question I asked my editor, but only after I had made a thermal mug on Zazzle with it. Sigh…However, FYI, I will be giving that away to some lucky fan at the Poisoned Pen on February 28, 2026. It is definitely and will forever be unique. The promotional “asset”…
More The Harvey Girl goodies today–bookmarks!!! As with the sticker sheet I told you about last week, there will be bookmarks included in I don’t yet know how many signed first editions. Keep your fingers crossed Head of Zeus printed a ton of them! (So you know, I’m keeping one for myself, as I never…
More photos from my trip to the Harvey House in Belen, New Mexico. This is what you see when you walk in the front door. They made the carpet especially to show visitors what the counter of the lunchroom looked like. The dark gray areas are the counter and the stools. (The dining room was…
Okay, so this is fun– The lovely and talented Emily Briggs of HoZ Marketing has created a sticker sheet for The Harvey Girl! One will be included in the first I-don’t-know-how-many-copies yet of the signed first edition sold by the Poisoned Pen, so if you want one (I do) you better put your order in…
