It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the Christmas Season "officially" starts today (at least it does by my reckoning). I've told myself that I'm not going to even think about Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. I did cheat a little, I confess, when I bought some presents online for my husband on Black Friday. I was not immune to all the hoopla and frenzy about "finding that big sale." Every year, my husband and I see on TV campers lining up outside of Best Buy, hoping to save big time on a TV or computer. Some people started camping out last Monday for Black Friday. We live in Southern California where the weather is the mildest in the nation, but this past week it's been cold. I'm talking under 60 degrees in the daytime. Yes, we are wimps when it comes to winter weather, but it's all we know.
The idea of getting a TV or computer as a Christmas present was an unthinkable luxury when I was growing up. My parents always strugged financially in order to put presents under the Christmas tree, since my father, who was a carpenter, was usually out of work in the off-season. Even though my parents had trouble making ends meet when it came to buying Christmas presents, we always had packages under the tree. Each year, my sisters and I would get our yearly supply of bathrobes, slippers, and pajamas. My parents gave each of us girls one "real" present in addition to bedtime wear. I might get a stuffed animal--my favorite was a cat whom I named "Grinny". When I turned 11, more than anything, I wanted a Nancy Drew book under the Christmas tree. I hoped and prayed I might get one and used to feel the packages to see if they might be books about my favorite teenage sleuth.
Here we are wearing our new pajamas while my angelic Grandmother looks on
My love of mysteries continues to this day. My husband and I religiously watch Masterpiece Mystery. Some of our favorite series star the incomparable Sherlock Holmes--both the Jeremy Brett and the modern Benedict Cumberbatch versions. We love Scott and Bailey, a modern day British series about women detectives that no one else besides us seems to know exists. Why hasn't anyone discovered this amazing series? It's right up there with Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, for goodness sake.
But, my first love has always been Nancy Drew. It is because she led such a charmed life: she was popular, knew all sorts of obscure facts, had a very kind and permissive father, a snazzy blue roadster, and plenty of unsupervised time to go off searching for clues in each of her "cases". Many famous women such as Hillary Clinton, Former First Lady Laura Bush, and Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Sonia Sotomayor cite her as formative influences.
The Nancy Drew books inspired me to try my hand at writing mysteries. I've created a character who was inspired by the Nancy Drew super-hero of my childhood. Her name is Nancy Keene and the mysteries about her adventures are humorous and PG-rated. They're targeted not to teenagers--they'd never get my jokes--but to women babyboomers like myself who grew up reading and loving Nancy Drew. My books take place in some of my favorite travel destinations, so they are travelogues in addition to being cozy mysteries.
Check them out sometime. They are available at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords. Here is a list of their titles and the Amazon link for each one:
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