Merry Christmas, Everybody!

Big Lake Mystery Series Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I hope you are safe, healthy, and with people you love. That’s about the best Christmas gift anybody could ever get.

I gave myself a Christmas present yesterday. I finished Big Lake Parolee, the 27th book in my Big Lake mystery series about a small Arizona mountain town where there is always something going on, and sometimes it can be lethal. The book came in at just under 89,000 words before final editing and proofreading. Hopefully, now that we have Christmas out of the way, Terry can get the last chapters done, and I can send them off to Roberta and Judy. I’m still hoping to get the new book uploaded to Amazon by the end of the year.

As I was frantically working on the book yesterday, Terry was just as frantically working in the kitchen. We are going to Tiffany and Kenny’s house for Christmas, and Tiffany told us it was going to be a Mexican-themed dinner. So Terry made a bunch of tamales as well as a big batch of her delicious green chili pork posole for the occasion. We had some of it for dinner last night, and it was amazing, as always.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of Big Lake Honeymoon, the seventh book in my Big Lake Mystery series. The busy summer season is drawing to a close in the little mountain town of Big Lake, Arizona and the locals are looking forward to a relaxing interlude before the first snowfall brings carloads of skiers to the high country. That all changes when a nearly nude woman rushes into a convenience store in the middle of the night begging for help. She tells Sheriff Jim Weber that her new husband has been murdered and she was taken captive by the mysterious killer, who seems to have disappeared into the thick forests of the White Mountains, touching off a manhunt for a phantom that cannot be found.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other. – Johnny Carson