Book Release Week!

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Edith here, delighted to be releasing a new book tomorrow on the same day as Wickeds Barb and Liz (mine is written as Maddie Day and Liz’s as Cate Conte). You’ll be hearing about our books here and elsewhere all week. Please check out all the blogs I’ll be visiting or have visited in this release season, many of which offer a chance to win a book. Link is on this page. And I’ll give away a copy to one commenter here, too.

I knew I wanted to set one of my Country Store Mysteries in August. I lived in southern Indiana a few decades ago. This southern California girl was used to super hot weather, but it always came with low humidity. I’d never before lived in a place where the air became a swamp for part of the summer.

I lived in the southern Midwest a long time ago, though, so I thought I’d better check my memory. Nashville, Indiana is the county seat for where I’ve plunked down my fictional town of South Lick.

Graphics from weatherspark.com

Yep, pretty hot at the start of August.

And even more humid.

Unless you live in air conditioning – which, as a doctoral student, I did not – you have to get used to your brain not working well. You take lots of showers. Sleep under a ceiling fan wearing little to nothing. Do lots of laundry. Drink cool drinks and eat cool foods. And move slowly. I found the weather sensual but highly unproductive for mind work (which is why I was there).

Tempers can get a bit steamy in that climate, too, and that’s what happens in Strangled Eggs and Ham.

Factions of locals are pitted against each other. A visiting lawyer is killed. Robbie Jordan’s Aunt Adele gets in hot water. The oppressive heat and humidity form the backdrop to all of it. As the end of the cover copy reads, “But if slashed tires are any indication, she’ll need to crack this case before her own aunt gets served something deadly next . . .  “

Readers: I hope you love the book, and Liz’s and Barb’s, too! Where have you lived or visited that had perfect weather you didn’t have to escape from? I’ll send one of you a signed copy of the new book!

Published by Edith Maxwell

Agatha Award -winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Beyond the Page) and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Dot and Amelia Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries series, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries (all from Kensington Publishing). She lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and cat Martin, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.

60 Thoughts

  1. Happy almost release day! I remember Seattle having the most perfect summer temps. The only problem is when it gets too hot. Many people do not have air conditioning and it can get pretty miserable.

  2. Congratulations on the new book. Monterey, California has the perfect climate. Not as hot as Southern California and rarely cold. It gets cool but you don’t have to pull out a parka. Your post reminded me of times in college in Missouri where we would go to the grocery store and stand in the frozen food aisles to cool off.

  3. I haven’t lived there, but everytime I was in San Diego it was perfect weather. The humidity is what kills me! That’s why I moved out of the swamp in DC….little did I know Climate Change would start brining that heat even higher. I lived in Hawaii when I was in first grade, and from what I remember that weather was pretty dang nice too. We had the rainy month during the winter, but nothing that I couldn’t handle.

  4. My husband had grandparents in Colorado – loved the weather! Warm but little to no humidity. We could watch snow storms come over the mountain in June yet it was lovely weather at the base of the mountain where his grandparents were. Beautiful country too!

  5. Let me add belatedly that my next Museum Mystery, Digging up History, will be released tomorrow as well (no, it’s not my fault the announcement is late–there were a lot of glitches along the way, and some people insist on taking vacations at inconvenient times, and we were still polishing it last week). It’s set in Philadelphia, and I still miss the city. If you want a weather comment–when I commuted by train from the suburbs, I could walk from Suburban Station to the building where I was working through underground tunnels, so I never got wet. Which may be why I don’t remember it raining in Philadelphia.

  7. I think Monterey, CA, has perfect weather, aside from a few (very few) days when it gets hot. My son was stationed there in the Army and we visited during different seasons. It can be chilly but generally my idea of perfect! Also, when we lived in Germany for three years, I loved the weather – not hot, not too cold.

  8. Southern California! It was hot, but not humid. I lived a half hour from the mountains, the desert, or the beach depending on which direction we went. I now live back east and it is the humidity that is a pain to deal with. Give me dry heat any day! P.S. Thank goodness I checked this before posting, somehow desert changed to “sewer”..that would have made me sound weird 😊

    1. I grew up in that weather, Candice, but the thing that got me in the sixties was the terrible smog in the San Gabriel Valley. Health-endangering! Now they have cleaned up a lot of that, but there are just too many people who live there. Give me semi-rural New England any day.

  9. When I was in the Caribbean, I kept getting told Aruba was perfect. Not too hot, always a breeze, never too humid. Sadly I did not get there to find out.

    As beautiful as PR was, it definitely got hot and humid.

  11. Erie Pa has perfect weather low70s low humidity usually in May every year.

  12. I live in southeastern Texas, which is always hot/humid! I lived in Mo. for a year, never perfect weather, just not as humid as my part of Texas. Ms, Fla. is hot/humid..I don’t know anywhere, that the weather is perfect?? Is there even such a real thing as perfect weather? Pleasant, yes, but perfect? Congratulations on your new book release!! xoxoxo

  13. I visited the Big Island of Hawaii, and it’s pretty well perfect weather wise (and beautiful!) There is that pesky volcano…

  16. I don’t mind the summer heat until it gets to 100. Then it feels too hot. But I have air conditioning, so it’s not that big an issue for me. I’ll take our dry heat to humidity.

    Loved the new book. Look for my review on Wednesday.

  17. After spending most of my life in Texas, I moved up to Woody Creek, Colorado and experienced actual seasons for the first time. I loved each of them as they were all beautiful and fun and made every day a staycation. We’re in San many bad hair days 🙁

    1. I lost part of my comment! We’re in San Antonio, Texas now, where the weather is very similar to Robbie Jordan’s South Lick, Indiana — hot and muggy with lots of bad hair days!

  18. Happy almost release day! Please don’t enter me in the draw. I was lucky enough to already receive an early copy of this wonderful book. My review will be up on pub day :-).
    I grew up in northwest Indiana, Cedar Lake, and the weather was just the weather since it was all I knew. Then moved to New Jersey as young adult and it was like Indiana only greener, with an ocean at the end of the street. From there to Florida and yep, humid but the big thing was those mosquitos in July. Then Central Spain and Northern California – same weather, dry, dry, dry, loved it. Still love it, wouldn’t trade this weather for anything. A few years after arriving in California I was sent on a year-long business trip back home to Indiana/Illinois. It was only then I realized that it was just as humid as Florida, some rain 3-4 days a week, hot and sticky all day, hot and sticky all night. I’ll stay in California, thanks!

  20. Arizona has weather that’s almost perfect. Where I live not so much. Thank you for the chance.

  21. I live in WA state, which has really perfect weather, at least in Western WA. I am currently visiting MN, where I grew up and know about heat and humidity. Looking forward to this book. Happy Release Day Eve!

  22. Pingback: Book Release Week! — The Wickeds

  23. I grew up in Indiana with no A/C. So, I understand! Also lived up n Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other parts of Pennsylvania all with no A/C. Only in the last 10 years have we had the comfort of A/C. And then there were the many weeks in the Peru and Bolivia rain forests…..

    Really looking forward to your latest book. Love your writing!!❤️

  24. It all depends on the time of year; IL, OK and MI can all have wonderful weather and miserable weather (both too hot and too cold.) I honeymooned in San Diego (La Jolla, with an ocean view) and I didn’t realize that July might me uncomfortably cold, which it often was. But when it was nice, it was great. Our hotel didn’t even have a/c and we n very needed it. Legallyblonde1961 at yahoo dot com

  25. Happy release week!! I love this topic because until yesterday, southern Wisconsin was perfect. Low humidity, plenty of sunshine and did I mention the low humidity? Today, high humidity, thunderstorms and to top it all off, the air conditioning at my job broke down! Must be a Monday! 😊

  26. Mom and I called summer humidity “heavy air” — so hard to breathe. Pre-airconditioning, Dad had a system of turning fans to blow out or in to move the air and find some relief, and we’d go to the drive-in or the Muny . . . and the library was the first building I knew of to have a/c. Three extra cheers for libraries. I know now that they did it for the preservation of the books, but we kids LOVED it.
    The summer I taught in Jamaica, I was so surprised by the relatively cool summer temperatures, that island effect, never too hot, never too cold . . . hmm. Tempting. 😉

  27. I’ve lived in Michigan and Illinois and we have some beautiful summer weather, but we also have some really hot and humid days. We’re had some really beautiful weather in Chicago with occasional rain but hot and humid is on the way.

  29. Since I live in Arkansas were the weather reports come with the humidity levels as well, you KNOW we are very aware of HOT, sticky weather. The running joke is that you don’t need a water sprinkler to water you yard. You just give everyone plenty to drink, sit them on the porch a while and then turn on the music and let them dance in the yard. As they twist and move they will water the yard enough to have a pretty green lawn in no time. 🙂

    We have visited lots of places that it were hot but it’s a dry hot. Enjoyed them, but also found it hard to know when you got too hot. Us southerners use sweat as an indication of to when to stop and hit the shade or grab that glass of ice tea.

    In all honestly, I think the perfect place to live is where you call home. If it’s not, then you need to work to getting to where home is your perfect place. We did over two years ago when we moved to the Ozark Mountains.

    Congratulations on the release of “Strangled Eggs and Ham”! Thank you for the chance to win a copy because I can’t wait for the opportunity to dive in and read more about Robbie.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

  30. I spent 20 years in San Diego. I don’t know if you can beat the weather anywhere else. Now, I live about 75 miles North and more inland (think desert) and it is hotter here. I wish I could afford to move back.
    lkish77123 at gmail dot com

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