Hi there, guys and dolls! Well, I’m happy to announce I’m working hard on book four in my Poppy Cove Mystery Series. My girls, Andrea and Heather, have been plotting and scheming away, figuring out the details and fine points on what’s going to happen to my Santa Lucia social set. Stay tuned, plenty of news to follow as time carries on. As they are writing away, they’re schmoozing and kibbitzing about the people of the town, the characters and their lives. Although cozy mysteries always contain mayhem and usually a murder or few, the stories (and pretty much every type of tale of fiction) are about people – their lives, their traits and their journeys, especially in a series. People and times do change, they do unfold and show us who they are by and by, as we get to know them further and their lives progress in reality, and they should in fiction as well. It’s natural, relatable and makes us feel all a little bit more human, ironically when we see how things do and don’t work out for our heroes and heroines in fiction. A NATE TO REMEMBER, the third in my series, dealt intimately with some of my characters – a revelation of one major one, and also the reactions and perceptions of those around her, about how they thought of where they were in their lives. Now as the next story unfolds, some of the Santa Lucians who were cast in the harsh light of day can settle in, sit on the back burner a bit and simmer contently while others have the (sometimes unwanted) spotlight shine on them. All part of the ebb and flow of real and fictional life. Attitudes and time change too, rounding out action and reaction in people, as a copacetic flow, balancing act or tug of war, depending on the character and circumstance and how they view their world, real or imagined. Come to think of it, isn’t how you see your life all perception anyhow? I’ll leave you with that to contemplate over peanuts and martinis at the bar… Toodles, Barbara Jean Coast