Month: January 2025

Barcelona Spain

Day seven of our trip we rose at 3:30 am and Janneke and Cor took us to the airport. Our flight to Barcelona, Spain left at 6 am. We arrived in Barcelona around 9 am and boarded an airport shuttle bus to get us to the main terminal. At the terminal, we looked for where we would fly out the next day on our way to Santander. Once we felt confident and figured out what time we’d need to arrive at the airport, we took a bus to the hotel.

We were lucky enough to check in early. We deposited our bags and found the closest hop on hop off bus to see the city sights.

At one of the squares we hopped off and ate at the Hard Rock Café. The food was good and it had outdoor seating. We watched the buses filled with tourists like us go by as well as many pedestrians and cars.

We hopped on a different color line bus to see another part of the city. This bus took us to the Sabrado Familia church. The building was an oddity to say the least. The architect Antoni Gaudi designed the church. It has so many things happening it is almost a train wreck but then you also see the beauty in the lines and his genius in pulling it all together.

every side of the church was different

We hopped back on the bus and got off at the Poble Espanyol. It was like walking into a castle only the streets were lined with small shops that depicted various places on the Iberian Peninsula in the 17 and 1800’s.

One lane had colorful umbrellas hanging over the cobblestone street. As we were touring the area it started raining. We popped into a shop to wait the rain out and had a nice conversation with the woman who worked there. The rain let up and moved on, taking a stroll through the museum of modern art.

Leaving the art museum the rain had let up so we ventured up to the Monastery of Saint Miguel.

The rain started up as we began our walk down to our hotel. We were soaked by the time we were halfway back to where we’d planned to eat. We sat in a restaurant in a large mall, soaked and our hair stringy as we ate.

After hot showers, we ended the day happy to be able to sleep in the next day before our afternoon flight to Santander.  We rehashed the things we saw and what we each liked the best from our wonderful day of discovering Barcelona.

Fun New Things for a New Year

2025 is here. There was a time when I thought that year was a long way in the future. And now, here it is!

I’m excited to get this year rolling. You can now purchase my books in print, ebook, or audiobook direct from my website! It took a few months at the end of last year for me to get it all set up and my web guy to set it up on my website but you can now purchase any book or version of the book you want direct from me.

If you buy a print book, I will autograph it, add a couple of pieces of swag, and ship it to you for free.

The perk of purchasing the audiobooks from me is the price is lower on my website than on the vendors, unless I’m doing a specific sale. Because I cut out the middleman I can make more by giving you a deal on the audiobooks.

And the ebooks are the same price, but if you subscribe to my newsletter, you will be able to get new releases before anyone who purchases from a store and they will be a dollar cheaper for a limited time.

So if you aren’t already signed up to get my monthly newsletter which by the way, also gets you a free book or short story from an author who writes similar books to my Gabriel Hawke series, and you get a chance to win a mug. Each month I’m giving away a coffee mug. This month it’s a Gabriel Hawke mug. February is one with artwork from a local artist.

This month I am starting a new series and first book. I may be crazy but the idea came to me for a cozy mystery that I haven’t been able to figure out how to bring in the Native American element I have in the other mysteries, but I’m hoping the crazy cast of critters will be enough to draw readers in.

The title of the new series is Cuddle Farm Mysteries. The main character, Andi Clark, is a widow who owns a group of therapy animals. She goes to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, shelters, parties, and events with her van and animals. During the course of these adventures they will get caught up in a murder some way or another.

Here are her therapy animals:

 LULU – a dapple brown and black female Chiweenie with long hair who barks at men but loves women and children.

COCOA – a brown and white female border collie who herds the other animals into the van.

ATHENA – Golden Retriever/Pyrenees mix. She keeps watch over the other animals.

SPARKY – a male mini donkey who likes to steal things.

CUPCAKE – a female black and white pygmy goat who eats anything she can get between her lips.

FLOPPSIE – a female brown and white dwarf lop-eared bunny who can get out of any cage she doesn’t want to be in.

CHICKLET – a female checkerboard silky chicken with crazy head feathers and eyes that hide behind her feathers but she sees everything. 

While I’m writing the first book now, it won’t be out until next October. It will take a while to decide on the cover and what things I want to focus on for the cover elements going forward as a series.

So stay tuned to learn more about this new series, the Gabriel Hawke and Spotted Pony Casino books I’ll be writing this year.