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 →