Thursday, January 30, 2025

What We’re Writing: Lucy’s Got a Cover!



LUCY BURDETTE: So much happening in my writing life right now! Last week, I completed reviewing the page proofs for the 15th Key West food critic mystery, THE MANGO MURDERS. That will be out on August 12! I have the finished cover—isn’t she gorgeous? I’m so lucky to have those artists working on my books. Meanwhile I’m writing like mad on #16. (Yes, I buried that lede—there is now almost a contract for two more books in the series.) But most fun of all, The Friends of the Key West Library are hosting one of my favorite crime fiction writers this weekend: Ann Cleeves. We will perform her murder mystery for libraries on Saturday, and she’ll be the guest of honor at our author talk and gala on Monday. I don’t expect to get much else done!

Setting all that excitement aside for a moment, today I’ll share a snippet from The Mango Murders. One of the subplots in this installment is the celebration of Miss Gloria’s 85th birthday over the period of a week. (Here’s a bit from a former post about that party.) Hayley Snow grows worried when her friend doesn’t show up for the opening event and goes to the cemetery (where Miss Gloria gives tours) to track her down. This scene gave me a chance to think about the meaning of the big birthday from the perspective of two characters—Miss Gloria herself and Hayley. The cemetery that lies in the center of the town is chock full of wonderful history and atmosphere, so I love setting scenes in that space.



The cemetery was a big space right in the middle of Old Town. It was laid out in a giant grid, identified with street names, and contained the resting places of many Key West residents, along with elaborate family crypts and various celebrity graves with oddball inscriptions. “I told you I was sick,” was a very popular destination, along with “I’m just resting my eyes” and “I always dreamed of owning a small place in Key West.” There were more serious gravesites too, of course, including the section devoted to the victims of the U.S.S. Maine, and a trove of local eccentrics and heroes. A tall, black metal fence surrounded the cemetery so it could be locked up at night, leaving only iguanas and chickens as company for the dead.

I hurried down the biggest street, headed toward the Jewish section of cemetery that I knew my friend favored as a place to sit and think. She liked the idea of visitors leaving stones on a grave, as she thought it must remind the inhabitants they weren’t forgotten or alone.

Minutes later, I spotted her perched on a concrete bench under a big gumbo limbo tree. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to gather myself so I wouldn’t appear like a worried and hovering mother. She looked sad, and that made me feel glad I had come.

I sat beside her on the bench and tucked my arm around her shoulders. “I got a little concerned about you because we’re due at Salute in an hour or so. I hope you don’t mind that I came to give you a ride home.”

She looked at me, seemingly puzzled, her expression a million miles away.

“I thought you might have been hit by a car or one of those crazy people drinking beer in golf carts with the right-hand turn signal permanently on.” That was a joke she loved to tell about how some tourists behaved on our island.

Miss Gloria smiled briefly and patted my knee. “We can’t really know when our time is up, can we?” she said in a wistful voice. “I don’t think mine is anytime soon. Though with a murder or a freak accident, those are impossible to predict.” She paused and I suppressed the urge to fill the silence. She needed to talk, and I needed to listen. “The one thing I don’t like about getting older is remembering and missing all the friends and relations who’ve passed before me. I love my life and my new friends, but I miss the old ones too.”

“Of course you would, that seems only natural.” She had a melancholy look on her face that I’d rarely seen. I wondered if she was thinking about her husband, Frank. He’d been gone for many years, but they’d had a happy marriage full of adventure and love, and I knew how much she still missed him.

LUCY again: How do you feel about time spent in cemeteries—I don’t mean in a permanent way, but rather, visiting?

(Of course, The Mango Murders is available for pre-orders now...)


107 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this, Lucy . . . it makes me feel a bit sad for Miss Gloria, sitting in the cemetery missing friends and family who have passed away, but it's the kind of pondering I'd think would be part of her thoughts on being eighty-five . . . . I'm looking forward to reading this book!
    Cemeteries are interesting places to visit, places of contemplation . . . .

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  2. What a poignant scene, Lucy. I was a little worried about Miss Gloria's puzzled look - I'd hate for her to develop dementia.

    I love walking in cemeteries, soaking up the older names, seeing how long people lived, noticing the changes in gravestone styles from different eras. There's one very near my son's home in Northampton, MA with wide paved paths they keep snow free - I was walking there two days ago.

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    1. I love the cover, too, and congratulations on the series extension!

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    2. thanks Edith, your son's cemetery sounds lovely. Miss Gloria thanks you for worrying about her...

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  3. An evocative snippet, Lucy! I look forward to the book. My associations with cemeteries are all positive, except of course for the sad days of funerals. When I was a little girl and the family would travel from Connecticut to Alabama to visit my grandmother, my mother would take us to the cemetery with scrub brushes and buckets to clean the family gravestones from the past 100 years and trim back encroaching shrubbery. Now I travel from the Adirondacks to CT to scrub my parents' gravestone and trim back their little holly bush. Because they have been gone so long (Dad 35 years, Mom 20) it is a meditative task and not a melancholy one.

    A favorite stone inscription from the Alabama plot was Mark 14:8, on the grave of a great-great aunt: "She hath done what she could." It became a saying of my mother. When she had exerted herself to the limit to accomplish something, often rescuing one of us five children from some poor decision, she would finally say with a tiny sigh: "She hath done what she could." I too use this phrase, thus it has entered my family's fund of aphorisms also. Once I unloaded 500 hay bales, too many to fit in my hayloft, and I was struggling to stack the last 75 in the driveway so I could cover them with a tarp before the approaching rainstorm broke. I was exhausted to the point of tears, the wind had risen, I barely had strength to lift the bales but was driving myself mercilessly to heave them high when the tarp pulled away from me, snapping, and my daughter, age 11, ran to me and screamed in my ear, "SHE HATH DONE WHAT SHE COULD, Mom! She hath done what she could!" (Selden)

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    1. I meant to say, what a great cover and such an exciting parade of accomplishments -- hooray for finishing the page proofs on #15 and "almost" having a contract signed for the next two! You must feel dizzy! (Selden)

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    2. Selden, having been around hay bales, I have to comment that you, my dear, are a tough cookie. Just moving one puts me on the couch for the rest of the day!

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    3. Selden, what lovely comments! I loved your line about the work being meditative rather than melancholy. Your daughter was so wise!

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    4. That is so wonderful! I am going to adopt this phrase… xx

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    5. 500 bales of hay! I'm so glad your daughter rescued you from that mind-bogglingly hard work. What a great family story!

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  4. Love the cover! I like cemetaries, too, although I don't see the headstone varieties here in Braga. I loved some of the inscriptions you shared, particularly “I always dreamed of owning a small place in Key West.” :-)

    Meanwhile, this was such a poignant scene. It deeply moved me, and I felt in a small way I could relate: As I get older, I know I'll really be devastated if my husband goes first. And even as an ex-pat, I can relate to Miss Gloria's observation about missing those who are gone: I, too, love our life and our new friends, but miss the old ones, too. Very nicely captured.

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    1. Thank you Elizabeth. I suspect we'll all face these feelings, if we're lucky enough to live that long.

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  5. Cemeteries are treasure troves of history. I do feel rather melancholy when visiting them though.
    I love the cover of Mango Murders. The color of that sky over the water is just gorgeous!

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    1. It's amazing, isn't it? Some nights it really looks that way...

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  6. What a beautiful scene, Lucy/Roberta. Miss Gloria has become a touchstone in this series for thoughtful reminiscences and interesting perspectives. I LOVE the cover! It's gorgeous!

    There is a Jewish tradition to visit the cemetery before the high holidays in the fall. My cousins and I try to go together and leave stones on all the family graves. The Jewish cemetery in the small Connecticut town where I grew up is the new one. My great grandparents are buried in an older cemetery not too far from there, and when my aunt was alive, we would go to that one, too. We would all bring stones to leave on their headstones.

    My husband's parents and family members are buried in a beautiful cemetery in Albany. We drive there every summer to visit their graves and leave stones. We have a mystery, someone has been visiting his father's grave and we have no idea who. He has been gone since 2000, but right away we saw that he had had another visitor. (For those who don't know the tradition, the stones remain and are not removed. You can see the ones you have brought over the years.)

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    1. That's intriguing about someone leaving stones that you have no idea who they are. Maybe leave a not in an envelope (duct) taped to the headstone asking about it?

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    2. I love seeing the stones on gravestones--connects the past to the present

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  7. Judy, that sounds like a lovely tradition, one I've never heard about before.

    Miss Gloria is good for Hayley, isn't she? To show her how to age gracefully, among many other things. Love their relationship and how it's developed over time.

    Lucy, you will have such fun this weekend!! Take loads of pictures, okay, so we can at least be there in our imaginations. I've been watching the Ashley Jensen season of Shetland, and have been thinking a lot about Ann and her brilliance this week. Ruth Calder is almost the opposite of Jimmy Perez.

    I've talked before about how my grandfather was the sexton of the Catholic cemetery where I grew up. So I literally spent my childhood there one way or the other, with only good memories and vibes. Both my grandfathers were the gardeners in their families, as was my great grandmother, and I'm sure spending so much time in and around their gardens and the beautifully landscaped cemetery influenced my own love of nature and growing things.

    Speaking of which, we gave our talks last night to the garden club, and it went very well. Thank you all for helping me practice being the "expert", it made a big difference, and I appreciate it.

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    1. Glad it went well, Karen, and I'm not surprised!

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    2. Lovely Karen, yes Miss G is showing all of us how to age gracefully. It's also lovely to hear about the history of gardeners in your family. Congrats on a successful talk!

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    3. Karen, glad to hear you mention Shetland. late to the party, I know, but I have just started watching it and I am loving and savoring it so much. (Thank goodness for closed captioning!) I have read most of the books and have concluded that Ann Cleeves is a genius!

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    4. Judy, what a heartwarming glimpse of your grandfather and spending your childhood around the cemetery. Congratulations on your talk! (Selden)

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    5. Oops, that was supposed to be Karen. Sorry! (Selden)

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    6. Thanks, everyone!

      Yes, it's too bad some of our also brilliant Reds aren't having series made. So much American television just doesn't reach the same level of excellence as the stuff coming from the UK. You gotta wonder.

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  8. Love the bit you shared and I agree the cover art is fantastic. Nice release date, too, which just happens to be my birthday! P.S. We are checked in for a month in Key West and passed you and Lottie on your 5:15 walk yesterday.

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    1. Happy birthday to you:). Make sure you say hello. We are often in another world on a walk!

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    2. Will say hello next time! We're in a unit at The Foundry so our paths will be intersecting frequently.

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  9. Thanks for sharing the snippet! I love the bright colors on the cover. I do enjoy the scenes at the cemetery and am tickled that Miss Gloria is a tour guide there. When I was in college, we lived across the street from an old cemetery and used to go there and walk around or enjoy the great view. Have fun with Ann Cleeves.

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  10. Congratulations, Lucy! The colors in that cover make me feel like I'm right there in Key West, cruising! Love how your characters are so real--this is why we readers clamor for the series to continue--we love Miss Gloria. And now I want to give her a hug, too!

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  11. The cover is GORGEOUS Lucy!

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  12. My mother's family were from Portland, Ore. However, my mother and our family never lived or even visited Portland. My daughter fell in love with Reed College (class of '93) in Portland. One day she was studying on a bench in an older cemetery in SW Portland and happened to look down and to her right where she saw a headstone. She recognized it as her great grandmother's name. It was like she (ggmom) was saying hey welcome to Portland!! My daughter graduated college went back east to grad school and then back to Portland where she's living and raising her family.

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    1. Meant to say congrats on the newest book and the cover is great. I love the cat sitting on the chair. So cute!
      Q Lucy, #14 is out in August and then #15 is in the works - are you in contract for another two books in the series (#16 and #17)? I have my fingers crossed!!

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    2. 14 is A POISONOUS PALATE (already out), then 15 is this one, THE MANGO MURDERS, then after that two more:)

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  13. Lucy, yes indeed that is a gorgeous cover! Looking forward to reading the latest installment and so wishing I could be there with you for the Ann Cleeves shindig!

    As for visiting cemeteries, I'm not too keen, unless they are very old like the one in Hurley, NY, where you can find stones with dates (when you can see them) in the 1600s.

    When I was in high school I had friends that lived next to a cemetery. My friend's little sisters often played there, running around and climbing on the stones. I remember hearing about an older couple who had just bought a plot and they had the stone installed with their name. They were obviously charmed by the little girls playing there and took pictures of them on their stone. When I first heard about that it sort of freaked me out - playing in the cemetery was bad enough! I imagined that couple showing the pictures to all their friends and family. I can't imagine what those folks thought, but the couple was happy and that's all that matters.

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    1. It's a sweet story though. they were getting ready for the next step!

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  14. Lucy, congrats on finishing the page proofs and the (almost) next contract! I had a sneak peek, and I can say The Mango Murders is another great Key West Mystery. I love the cover. The mango-colored sky and title are beautiful.
    I enjoy visiting Connecticut’s colonial cemeteries. It feels like stepping back in time, much like the Key West cemetery you describe. My favorite inscription there has to be “I told you I was sick.” Perfect Key West humor!

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    1. I love the old CT cemeteries too. There was a beauty from Guilford in the advice column mysteries, remember?

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  15. LUCY: The Key West sky on your cover is gorgeous!
    Miss Gloria's sadness in that cemetery snippet is heartfelt.
    Looking forward to learning more.

    And I am envious about your event with Ann Cleeves.

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  16. Lovely cover, Lucy.

    I enjoy visiting cemeteries. So peaceful - and you can find some interesting headstones!

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  17. I'm with Edith and I don't want Miss Gloria to be dealing with dementia. Hayley needs her to be feisty and a force to be reckoned with. It is good to have those moments when she shows her vulnerability as that give Hayley permission to reflect on the good and bad in times gone by. I love the snippet and cannot wait to read more! The detail on the cover is wonderful. I really like it.
    As for cemeteries, I like ones that have historical significance but otherwise don't find myself drawn to them. Let us know how the Ann Cleeves event goes! -- Victoria

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    1. The good thing about fictional characters is they don't have to age the same way as we do

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  18. The cover is breathtaking - so very Florida Keys. As for cemeteries, I'm a fan. Love to visit the older sections, read the inscriptions, and ponder lives lost. The Key West Cemetery is one of my favorite stops. There's so much history, and humor, to be found there.

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    1. Thanks Kait, yes definitely full of history and humor, just like the town

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  19. Gorgeous cover! It reminded me of summer yachting photos on social media by people whom I follow.

    Regarding cemeteries, I used to be afraid of them when I was a child. Now that I am older, I see them as monuments to family history.

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    1. I didn't like them either as a child, but I don't think I'd ever seen a cemetery so full of beautiful stones...

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  20. That’s a gorgeous cover! And I’m grateful to hear that the series will go on!

    I love walking through the older sections of cemeteries. Many years ago, while walking through the older section of a cemetery, my sister and our mom discovered the grave of one of my great grandmothers. She became a real person to me then, not just a name in family history. She was my paternal grandfather’s mother, and died when he was an adolescent, so my dad and his siblings never knew her.That same day, we discovered the graves of my grandmother’s cousin. She and her husband and infant triplets all died from the Spanish flu within a few days of each other. I’ve often wondered if they had other children. During the pandemic I thought of them often.

    DebRo

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    1. Should be “my sister and our mom and I”

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    2. That was from me, Deb!

      DebRo

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    3. So cool DebRo that you discovered your family in several ways!

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  21. Oh my goodness, discover is absolutely gorgeous! Perfect! And congratulations on the new contract… It just makes me stand and applaud you!
    Cemeteries. It is just so evocative, every time, when you think of the stories behind every single one of those stones. Incredibly powerful.

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  22. What a stunning vibrant cover. I am ready to read it!
    And the teaser is so sweet and poignant.

    A cemetery is interesting for me, especially older ones. The history, the messages on headstones plus a feeling of walking with our past or with my ancestors make them peaceful places.

    And so wish I could join you and Ann Cleeves in Key West. She is one of my favorite authors!
    Enjoy (Heather S)

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    1. I'd love to fly to Key West to meet & hear Anne Cleeves speak AND of course Lucy too!
      I have enjoyed the tv shows VERA based on Anne Cleeves books. Vera is a great character and roll model. I love that the Brits have characters that are like everyday people - not perfect 30 yr old super models with Karate black belts and super powers. I watched the last show (it ran for around 13 seasons + - ) and it was the perfect ending. Sad though to see it end.

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    2. Yes, I love the real people, and agree, that ending was perfectly done!

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  23. I do not agree with Edith Miss Gloria is simply reminiscing! As we do in cemeteries. I know many in late 80s and not one has Dementia. Society is to quick to judge seniors and put them in that category. It's agist. . Miss Gloria is a vital intelligence and a joy to read. I visit my families cemetery when I can travel to it. It's so beautiful and peaceful. Love the new cover. Thank you for continuing the series.

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  24. Beautiful and eye catching and so tropical. I embrace the artist and the cat. Do you remember the phrase about size and future events? It goes like this. First = a fine smol thing Second = it chomnk =bigger Third = a Heckin chomker = fills more space Forth = Hefty chonk = Event now need a bigger room and more helpers Fifth = Mega chonker = Event now needs Zoom to accommodate all who want to be there and finally Sixth = Oh Lawd it coming = Beyond expectations and happiness that event will be attended.

    I rather suspect your Key West Events fall into the Oh Lawd .. category. Have fun.

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    1. I love your phrase so much! I wish we could zoom so you all could join us from afar

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  25. That cover is brilliant! Congrats on the new book, the upcoming book and the contract.

    Cemeteries are my favourite places to walk and think. I don't know if auras survive death but cemeteries are laden with the air of untold stories. Even with all that, they are quiet and offer solitude which I find peaceful.

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    1. I love the idea of auras in cemeteries! Miss Gloria may borrow that...

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  26. What a beautiful passage. I love the relationship between Miss Gloria and Hayley, and can't wait for #15 with that gorgeous cover (Hi Evinrude!!). I recall a few of my relatives expressing the same thoughts as Miss Gloria -- they were happy to still be here, but missed so many of those who had passed. My aunt passed at 104, long after her husband, friends, and even more sadly, two of her children. She often wondered why she was still alive.
    When we went to New Orleans 30 years ago, we took a cemetery tour, and for the first time I saw them as places to not only mourn, but also celebrate. It's the only cemetery where I felt that.

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    1. My mother in law died at 102, and had the same mixed feelings. thank you

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  27. First, I love that cover! I just want to sail into the sunset right now. Plus I love the "not this again" expression on the cat's face (although why the artist doesn't use T-Bone as a model, I don't know.)

    I also love time in cemeteries. In Portland, we're lucky to have Evergreen Cemetery, designed in 1854 by landscape architect Charles H. Howe. It's a National Historic Landmark and a city park as well! It was one of the earliest examples of the cemetery-as-a-park movement of the mid 19th century, and is a lovely place to walk or picnic. You can even get married there, in the gothic style Wilde Memorial Chapel!

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    1. Well, they started with Evinrude back in 2012, so people would complain if Tbone displaced him! We will have to visit your cemetery next time in Portland.

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  28. Lucy/Roberta, congratulations on The Mango Murders! The cover is beautiful - especially the sky. And congrats on the extension of your contract. As for your date with Ann Cleeves, I predict you will have fun with her! I saw her at Bouchercon in ‘23 and she was quite amusing. It’s even more fun if you have read and watched her Vera and Shetland books/shows because she gives you insiders’ news.

    Re cemeteries: I don’t have much experience in walking through them, but I have gotten into genealogy so would probably find it fascinating to see my ancestors’ graves now that I know some names.

    On Tuesday I attended a Celebration of Life for a woman I met on our recent cruise. My friends, husband and I hung out with this woman and her friend on the shore excursions (and in the bar on board; she did enjoy her cocktails!) and really enjoyed her. She was looking forward to celebrating her 85th birthday in December, but alas, died in her sleep in November. Looking at the slide show that was on a loop and seeing her as a bride and on other occasions really made me contemplative. So much happens in a lifetime that our descendants will never know. — Pat S

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    1. that is so true Pat, if you live a long time, the memories are endless

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  29. I love the cover, but where are the mangoes? I feel for Miss Gloria. I find myself melancholy at times, thinking about friends and family no longer with us. There is a historic cemetery down the street that I visit sometimes. Lovely place. My family were rolling stones, so their grave sites are scattered all over the country.

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    1. Oh boo Pat, there should have been a big bowl of mangoes on the table!!

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  30. Lucy, congratulations on even more books! and on having so much writing done! and on the gorgeous cover! A that will, I hope, get my head straight…these are MANGO murders, not mangrove murders…erasing images of bodies caught in those amazing roots. Cemetery experiences began was I was a toddler and continued to be joyful. My maternal grandmother, my mother, my aunt, my 6 month younger cousin and I would take geraniums every decoration/Memorial Day in the spring and evergreen arrangements around Christmas. Grammie and Mother always talked to Cousin Athalia, Uncle Rueben, Grandpa, and assorted cousins. Grammie was the last to die by nearly 20 years and Mother and I continued to go talk with her for many years. A regret of moving out of my home state, no more conversations. Elisabeth.

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    1. that's lovely Elisabeth--those conversations could continue in your head??

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  31. Cincinnati has the amazing Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum. Lots of famous people buried there, including the original Superman, Steve Reeves.

    Far from being a somber place for only the dead, it's teeming with life every day. Historians, landscape enthusiasts, gardeners and the horticulturally curious, as well as walkers and runners, mix with mourners and artists and tourists. It's just a beautiful spot.

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    1. Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge (MA) is an amazing arboretum as well as a burying ground for famous people over the centuries, and it's a fabulous place to go birding, especially in the spring migration.

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    2. I forgot birding!

      Using the full potential of a peaceful place soothes our souls, I think.

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    3. Edith, I love Mount Auburn Cemetery--such a beautiful place to walk. I have a close friend in Cambridge, and we often spend time walking there when I'm visiting her.

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    4. Kim, I have an essay about the cemetery in a lovely anthology of essays inspired by Mt. Auburn. It's called Dead in Good Company, edited by John Garp.

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  32. Lucy, your cover is gorgeous!!! I love old cemetaries in England, and can spend hours reading the gravestones there. And I love your scene with Hayley and Miss Gloria. It's thoughtful and compassionate--one of the many reasons we all adore your books.

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  33. Lucy, I love the cover. What a great scene. Makes you think.

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  34. That's a lovely excerpt, Lucy. You transition so well from the humor of the inscriptions on the graves to Miss Gloria's concerns.

    In Bern, the pubic cemeteries (as opposed to the ones attached to churches) are looked after by the city's park department, and they are full of trees and flowering shrubs, not to mention the countless flowers planted on all the graves. On my regular neighborhood walk, I often include a section of the nearest cemetery, which is beautiful; sometimes I take a bus to the gate and spend an hour walking its paths.

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  35. Miss Gloria's 85th birthday! I already know I will love it. I always Miss Gloria as the "taking the bull by the horns" personality, and she is, but I like that you've caught her in a reflective situation and that Hayley knew she needed to just listen and not spew out reassurances and advice. A special moment between these friends. The cover of the book is gorgeous with all the bright colors, and what a wonderfully quirky touch with having the cat looking over the chair and not just sitting somewhere. Just precious.

    I always loved visiting cemeteries, and I think one of the reasons that they never spooked me is that from a fairly young age, I would accompany my parents to the cemetery where our deceased family members were buried on Memorial Day. My mother would gather flowers from the yard mainly, with occasionally some bought ones thrown in, and she would fix them in the vases of the relatives when we got to the cemetery. What's interesting is that my father was just as concerned as my mother that we had enough and a variety of flowers. As I got older, I would often visit the cemetery of a place, reading the interesting inscriptions and viewing the different monuments. It was like a history lesson at times. Of course, when Kevin was killed, a cemetery became as real as they can, no wondering what a person's life was back way back when from an unknown name. Also, Philip's parents gave us the cemetery plots (4) a long time ago when they decided to go with the mausoleum. The cemetery is a beautiful setting and so peaceful, but it doesn't allow monuments, only rectangular plaques in the ground, with a holder for flowers and the person's information and picture and a few symbols of interest, like a guitar engraved. I've actually come to be okay without the monuments. I look out across fields of flowers when I visit Kev. I sit and talk to him or read or whatever, and I find the cemetery comforts me. I know that's not how everyone feels about cemeteries, but to me it is a sacred, spiritual place.

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    1. I agree, Kathy, and am glad you have fond solace visiting Kevin's memories there.

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  36. I just started reading this series again. Love the cover. Can't wait to pre-order.

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  37. Oh, I want to be right there! . . . can hardly wait! --Storyteller Mary

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  38. Edel Waugh SalisburyJanuary 31, 2025 at 1:04 AM

    I can’t wait to read this . This sounds terrific and the cover is gorgeous xxxx

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  39. Lucy - We just love visiting cemeteries as my husband has featured many graves as part of a story on his local cable TV show about a famous person or a place that we have travelled to such as New Orleans and Key West. Famous people's graves that we have sought out include Babe Ruth (near Valhalla, NY) and John Belushi on Martha's Vineyard. Although a visitor's grave is near the street for tourists, he is really buried up in the back without a marker. We use Tod Benoit's book as a resource: "Where They Are Buried: How did They Die? Fitting Ends and Final Resting Places of The Famous, Infamous, and Noteworthy".

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  40. melissa here. I like wandering through old cemeteries, making notes of a few names to look up when I get home. there's an old cemetery in Tampa where I learned just how close the civil war came to home. there's also an odd story of a mausoleum on Key West built by a Carl Tanzler for a girl he fell in love with and had died of TB. let's just leave it at he wanted her corpse. cemeteries are a place of sadness but also of intrigue.

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    1. yes, so true. We were just today telling our houseguest the story about Mr. Tanzler

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  41. Love your work. Used to make picnics at the graveyard near Grandma's burial place with my cousin. Very comforting.

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  42. Can't wait to read this! Love the cover! I love cemeteries! The ones in New Orleans are amazing and also the ones up in the New England States because they are the oldest! We grew up spending a lot of time on weekends looking for old cemeteries in our area and walking through them.

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