Last year, my husband went away on a golf trip. I needed to use the grill, but I couldn’t get it lit. He told me to light something or another, which I did. Except I lit the wrong thing. And I ended up blowing myself up.

Truly, that’s about the extent of the story. I can’t light a grill worth my weight in charcoal.*

Anyway, I was blown backward with several singed eyelashes and eyebrows, but otherwise not hurt. My neighbor ended up rescuing me, and when I say rescue, I meant he lit the grill for me so I could have dinner.

The last newsletter about grilling zucchini got me thinking about this blowing up event.** I thought perhaps it would be time to learn how to light a grill. In case I needed to make zucchini whilst my husband is away on another golf trip. (It’s an annual trip. I may just have Chinese takeout all week. My absolute favorite Chinese food restaurant is reopening just in time!)

God did not endow me with natural grilling skills. So, this year, I shall do what every other red-blooded American person does. I will look it up on the internet. Because the internet is never, ever wrong.

Enter Google, or more specifically, Youtube. For some ungodly reason, millions of otherwise sane individuals use their cell phones or other inexpensive camera paraphernalia and record themselves doing things.

*** And people like me, who cannot light a match to a grill, here's a YT vid for ya:

Youtubers have sparked an entire slew of DIY videos, which, in turn, has sparked an entire slew of entire shows dedicated to flipping houses. Which, in my humble opinion, begs the most important internet question of all.

Where did all the cute kitty videos go?

* I guess technically propane, which weighs 4.11 pounds per gallon. I’ll leave the math to you.

** Please don’t blow yourself up in the making of any zukes.

*** Sometimes nothing.

The Book Promos

Today, I want to announce one book: The Treasure of Escondida Box Set: Books 1-5. These five books are about the adventures of an all-female spy team on the island of Escondida. They unearth clues to keep their country safe, and in the meantime, they fall in love.

Book Giveaways

• Sweet Treats for Summer: An All-Genre Giveaway … as the name implies, all sorts of books to take on your beach vacay.
• Free Short Stories for the Summer … in case you want little bites to read in one sitting.
• The JOY of Murder Release Celebration and Giveaway … murder, murder, and more murder. Everyone (fictional) is getting murdered.
• Who Dunnit Giveaway … put a little mystery in your life.

Happenings

You may have noticed that I moved the mailing list back over to Substack from Revue. I will always be deeply grateful to the staff at Revue and Twitter for helping me get started. I still love the Revue platform. But the happenings at Twitter (with the Elon Musk takeover) make me SMH.

You may have noticed a new format to the images, too. Don’t worry … Joe is still here, and I will still feature him! But I am in the process of rebranding my author social medias, and I don’t want it to be all about him. I’ve had to make the very realistic decision not to brand with him any longer. Because, sadly, Joe is an old dog.

In writing news, I started a crime/partial legal thriller novellette, featuring a character named Derrick Hunt. I started a novel with Derrick and Annie Totter, but I put it aside to finish Girl Scorned. The Hunt books will be a series that I will eventually publish on the Kindle Unlimited … so stay tuned! Readers of the newsletter will get this one for free!

Derrick is a former homicide police detective for Baltimore City. I know nothing about Baltimore City, except that I can get some really good Korean BBQ. (You see what I did there?) So I needed to do some research about the Baltimore City Police Department. Fortunately, a very nice man named David Simon wrote a book titled Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.