• Sunday Snippet: The Father’s Day 2025 Edition

    For many years, Father’s day was an…uncomfortable holiday for me. My dad left our family when I was 6 years old, and was never really in my childhood, except for the occasional times when we went to where he worked to pick up the few dollars he was willing to give us. He rarely paid support, and my mom worked her tail off going to school full time to get her nursing degree in addition to being a cashier at a grocery store to keep food on the table. I honestly don’t know how she did it. The woman didn’t sleep for over two years. Mother’s Day was huge for…

  • Author Spotlight: Jolie Tunnell Returns with a New Mystery Series!

    What a treat to welcome back historical mystery writer Jolie Tunnell, who has a brand new series with Tule Publishing! Book 1, Shadows in Chinatown, just released on Monday and is available wherever ebooks are sold! Award-winning author Jolie Tunnell brings the past to life in suspenseful historical mysteries, bringing the flavor of the turn-of-the-century Wild West to the isolated mountains of Idyllwild and the writhing underbelly of San Francisco. Her books gallop to the last page. A Southern California native, she loves on her sprawling family, forces her freeloading tomcat to cuddle, and can drink her weight in Yorkshire Gold tea. Sign up for her extraordinary newsletter and settle…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Musing about Mom and Food Edition

    Dear Mom, I was thinking about you today…that’s not new. I think about you almost every day. Seems like there’s something to remind me of you everywhere I look—violets in the grass, lilies of the valley in my garden, a book you once read to us, a woman wearing a flowy skirt and a teal blue T-shirt who passes by me in the tuna aisle at the Kroger. Believe it or not, it was the tuna aisle that made me think of you today. Remember when you started Weight Watchers back in the sixties—not sure when, except that it was when Jean Neidich first started the program? It was restrictive…

  • Author Spotlight: Sarah Burr Is Her with a New Coco Cline Novel & a Fab Giveaway!

    What fun to have my pal and one of my very favorite cozy writers with me today. Sarah E. Burr, a cozy mystery author who’s been dreaming of solving whodunits since her childhood in Appleton, Maine—Nancy Drew was (and always will be) her hero! When corporate life didn’t deliver any real-life crime scenes, she swapped her healthcare tech career for writing mysteries of her own, and she’s been crafting twisty tales ever since. She is a Sisters in Crime member and co-host of The Bookish Hour and A Bookish Moment, where she chat about all things writing with fellow authors. When she’s not plotting her next cozy caper, you’ll find her belting show tunes,…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Lake Life Reality Edition

    We are in our 14th year here at the lake. It’s hard to believe we’ve had our cottage for so long, particularly given that we waited for so long to buy one. It seemed like whenever we were ready to buy, cottages were just out of our reach and when they were in our reach, we weren’t in a position to consider buying one. Fourteen years ago, when this marriage-long dream came true, we were overjoyed. We still are, although the realities of lake life are a little different from the fantasies. This is a rehash of the harsh realities of lake life, but I’m doing it again anyway because…

  • Author Spotlight: Elsa Winckler Is Back with More Cowboys!

    I always love having fellow Tule author Elsa Winckler on the blog. She’s always a delight and her stories are full of wonder and love and spunky heroines and hot heroes. Elsa has been reading love stories for as long as she can remember and when she ‘met’ the classic authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James, the Brontë sisters, etc. during her Honors studies, she was hooked for life. Although her three gown-up children rarely acknowledge the fact they have a romance-writing mom, her husband fortunately, is very proud of her, reads every word and is happy to make sure she gets the kissing scenes just right. She…

  • Author Spotlight: Historical Romance Author Kate Moore Talks About Creating a Story…

    Today I’m so pleased to welcome fellow Tule author, Kate Moore to the Author Spotlight. Her historical romances bring a touch of fun and a little different take to the genre. Kate taught English Literature to generations of high school students, who are now her Facebook friends, while she not-so-secretly penned Romances. In Kate’s stories, an undeniable mutual attraction brings honorable, edgy loners and warm, practical women into a circle of love in Regency England or contemporary California. A Golden Heart, Golden Crown, and Book Buyers Best award winner and three-time RITA finalist, Kate lives north of San Francisco with her surfer husband, their yellow Lab, toys for visiting grandkids,…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Let Freedom Ring Edition

    It’s a holiday weekend–which means a three-day weekend for a lot of folks. We’re at the lake and although this is sort of the official start of summer, the park isn’t hopping like it usually is every year at this time. Oh, it’s busy. Folks are here opening up their cottages and getting boats in the water, but somehow it seems more subdued. Even the amusement park, which has been a part of the lake community since 1928 isn’t as crowded as usual (that’s according to Son, who took his family there yesterday. I avoid the amusement park except to go by it in the boat when we’re cruising the…

  • Author Spotlight: Welcome, Thriller Author R. John Dingle

    What a pleasure it is to to introduce y’all to debut thriller author, R. John Dingle! He’s a brand new Tule Mystery writer and we’re all so delighted to welcome him to the Tule family. R. John Dingle was born and raised in New England. In fact, despite extensive travel, a move to Australia represents his only bragging right for actually residing outside the six-state area. John and his wife currently call a small island in Mid-Coast Maine “home,” both living, writing, and boating from their restored 200-year-old house (which they continually assure their three adult children is not haunted). The psychological thriller, Karma Never Sleeps, is John’s first novel.…

  • Author Spotlight: Welcome, Author Tara Ryan!

    I’m excited to welcome fellow Tule author Tara Ryan to the Spotlight. Today, we’re all about her writing journey and her indie books. Tara grew up with her nose buried in a book, and not much has changed. She’s a serial entrepreneur—doggie daycare owner, quilt shop owner, maker, and of course, author. She lives in the mountains of North Carolina with her #1 love, a shichon named Agador Spartacus. Her whole family lives nearby, including her two grown sons, who are inspirations for the “cool” things young people say. She currently has two standalone women’s fiction novels available, Above Average Girl and The Things I Do For Her. They are…