My husband and I have been watching a television program called “Property Brothers”. This program was originally produced for HGTV. That may tell you something right there. While we have found it interesting, even funny at times, I’ve also found it quite irritating and it can very quickly make my blood boil.
The premise of the show for those not familiar with it is this: A pair of twin brothers, one a realtor, one a construction guy, pick a couple that are looking for their ‘dream home’. They ask the couple what are their ‘must haves’, and the (realtor) twin proceeds to show them a home for sale that has every single thing on their list. Everything. You guessed it. The price tag is too high, usually by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Next scene you have the couple looking hang-dog and unhappy while the twin brothers convince them that all they need is to broaden their search into the realm of the ‘fixer-upper’. Continue reading Remodel or Restore →
My current WIP features many of the same characters you met in Unkindness Of Ravens. We will be watching as Madeline Abbott enters into more danger and intrigue with the northern California coast mansion she inherits from her parents. What she doesn’t know is there is a great deal of outside interest in this property. There are tales told of hidden gold, a missing old and valuable document and possibly…pirate booty?
When she gets into a jam, and she surely will, will she call on her friend (possibly more than a friend ) Detective Scott Cooper? How will Madeline get out of the fix she finds herself in: suspected of murder… Continue reading My WIP (Work In Progress), Working Title: Black Oaks, Gate 6 →
In my book ‘Unkindness of Ravens’, my character Madeline (Dean) Abbott inherited an historic property on the northern California coast called Black Oaks. Her parents bought the property years before, with plans to restore it just as they did their family home, Raven’s Nest.
In my current work in progress (WIP) the characters’ stories have moved forward and Madeline now faces restoring Black Oaks alone. She also faces challenges to her very right to the property itself, murder and mayhem!
In the WIP, we learn the historic mansion Black Oaks was built by Orrick Fitzhugh back in the late 1880s. It was based on a beautiful home he saw in Massachusetts called Kragsyde. At this point fiction melds delightfully with history, because Kragsyde was a home that did actually exist from 1885 until it was razed in 1929. It was built by George Nixon Black Jr., a wealthy heir to a Boston real estate fortune. Continue reading Recreating An Historic Home →
Announcing a new novel by E.D. Degenfelder.
Unkindness of Ravens – a mystery involving an historic mansion, a family fortune, and personal betrayal.
A one hundred twenty-five year old mansion, family secrets, family friends that may not be friends…
Madeline Dean feels her life is hopeless.
She loves everything old… buildings, homes, furniture. She runs Pacific Northwest Designs in Eugene, Oregon, a business in which she restores old homes. But the business is struggling. Her estranged and highly volatile husband wants to come back and try the marriage again. She thinks these problems are insurmountable. Until her mother is brutally murdered in the family’s historic nineteenth century mansion outside Los Gatos, CA.
Continue reading Unkindness of Ravens Published ! →
Mystery author E.D. Degenfelder
eddegenfeldercom 