Book your appointment at The Zen Goat

Before Janna Rollins’s debut cozy mystery An Escape Goat: A Zen Goat Mystery begins, Callie Haybeck, a young woman living in Seattle, has never quite lived up to her older sister’s life choices. The one thing Callie’s proud of is her certification as a yoga instructor, but the Covid pandemic derailed her career, leaving her to daydream of one day having a yoga practice on a tropical beach. After learning about long-lost members of her family and meeting them, an idea was born: Callie would move to Haybeck Farm in New Hampshire and open a yoga studio, The Zen Goat. Classes would include adorable baby goats and lure tourists from their hectic city lives to the bucolic countryside.

From the moment the book opens at the start of Callie’s first four-day yoga retreat, things go awry. Though she loves the baby goats, she’s fighting an unexpected allergy–to goats. Along with the babies, she also rescued an adult goat, Bugsy, who always finds ways out of his enclosure. Her first clients, a group of four affluent women from Boston, including a social media influencer and her best frenemy, along with a ballerina and a medical student, all accompanied by a male driver/assistant, have arrived ahead of schedule with enough tension among them to defy even goat yoga. The influencer’s chihuahua, Matilda, immediately darts away to face off with Bugsy. When Callie hurries from the farmhouse to rescue the dog, her clients aren’t impressed by her frazzled appearance, especially when she falls and gets goat “raisins” caught in her braids. Matilda takes an instant dislike to her and bites her. After she finally gets the women and dog ushered into the guest cottage, Callie learns the massage therapist and esthetician she’s booked for the spa day that her clients requested during their retreat can’t make it.

From those opening minutes, the book offers mishaps, mayhem, and murder with a lively range of characters; an abundance of motives and secrets; relatives from both sides of the Haybeck family who want Callie off the farm; an adventurous great-aunt; and a handsome veterinarian who thinks Callie’s the last person who should have goats in her care. It’s all set against the kindness of family and a charming small town that may make Callie’s dream of a tropical escape fade a little more each day.

An Escape Goat, available March 12, 2024, from Level Best Books, checks all my favorite boxes: snappy dialogue, engaging, layered characters, a good mystery, and funny situations. I look forward to reading future books in the series. Who wants to book a retreat at The Zen Goat with me? I promise to leave my own neurotic chihuahua at home.

Read and reviewed from an ARC and cross-posted to Goodreads.

Happy Caturday!


I don’t have cats, but in solidarity with those who do, I thought I’d dedicate part of today’s post to cats. Mainly because Debby gave me this cool Haunted Cat Tarot deck for Christmas. Any particular card you’d like to see?

When I took her to an appointment earlier in the week, I took this coloring book with me.

I’d already torn a page out of it at some point, and I decided to color that one. But I wasn’t sure how to color it, so I looked up various wild cats and found this one to inspire me.

Here’s how it turned out.

What I do have is dogs. The other day, after a frantic round of digging, which she isn’t supposed to do, Delta apparently found somebody’s last marble.

It’s all cleaned up and put with the other marbles now.


Meanwhile, Anime had dental surgery yesterday morning, and she’s had a miserable two days. She started drinking water again sometime around noon today, and this evening, she took some meatballs (canned dog food rolled around her regular meds and her pain med). She’s finally stopped dripping blood from her mouth and is overall a lot more comfortable tonight. Through it all, she’s been very sweet and stoic, so clearly it wasn’t her last marble Delta found.


The tree has been stripped and all the ornaments and decorations have been put away.

Except we have to find the bin that has the box that my vintage Holt Howard angel goes in. Meanwhile, I posed her with an appropriate old Southern novel that I haven’t read in decades and probably should read again.

Sometimes when I get really busy, I forget to eat. When tonight’s light meal of a BLT, half an apple, and some potato chips seemed ridiculously good, it occurred to me that I’d only eaten yogurt with the water and coffee I drank today. It was a good sandwich, though.

the attack on reading

Now that I’m back, I’d wanted to post something yesterday about banned books. Last week was Banned Books Week. Though none of my published books have been banned to my knowledge, I’m sure at least some of them would go on a list of challenged books if any of the groups determined to police and suppress books were aware of them. That’s because all of them, whether written as Timothy James Beck or Cochrane/Lambert novels with my writing partners, or my own two contemporary romances, present a diverse set of characters, among them gay, lesbian, and transgendered folk, as well as characters of different races as part of the stories.

I follow an account on Instagram created by a musician who features banned and challenged children’s books. He might show some of their pages (if picture books), read brief excerpts, and describe what the books are about. Consistently, teachers respond to share how some of those books have been the ones their students most enjoyed because they learned new things or saw themselves or their situations represented. Other commenters ask why these interesting, funny, informative, or historically accurate stories are being challenged, and the answer is invariably the same: They feature characters who are different from what’s regarded as “mainstream,” whether because they are Black, Indigenous, reflect a non-white or first generation home or situation (for example, parents or grandparents are Asian or Hispanic), or whose lives are perceived as somehow “less than,” perhaps because of a one-parent home, or two of the parents are same sex (which means not only, for example, a gay couple, but even a dad and a stepdad, or mom and a step-mom). They may also feature stories set in periods of history or accurately including events that make people uncomfortable (e.g., school desegregation, World War II internment camps for Japanese Americans).

Groups of people who intend to limit what other people can read have placed themselves on school boards and in community groups, and are determined to get these books off the shelves of schools and public libraries. I agree with those who say, “You have every right to decide what YOUR CHILD can read, but absolutely NO RIGHT to decide that for the rest of us, whether as readers or parents and grandparents of readers. These groups’ methods are fear-mongering and perpetuating outright falsehoods on social media and in town hall meetings about children being forced to read age-inappropriate books. Of course, they don’t simply target children’s books, they also go after young adult books and books read by adults from college level and well beyond.

The books on my shelves and in my eBook shelves are full of titles I’ve read throughout my life deemed inappropriate and even dangerous. I’m grateful every day for the teachers who introduced me to books, librarians who found books for me, booksellers who recommended books, a kind minister who encouraged me to read by buying me children’s classics, and for my parents whose shelves were full of all kinds of books and who, rather than censoring my reading, turned my choices into opportunities for us to talk about books.

Historically… well…

Watermelon sugar


Today is National Watermelon Day! Lindsey has grown some sprouts from seeds and given a couple to Debby, the plant person of Houndstooth Hall.

Today, I am the RELAX person at Houndstooth Hall, so a bit of watermelon and some cherries fit right in with my plan: drink water and start training my eyes to read with the new bifocals while delving into this 2016 biography of Randy Newman that I’ve had on the shelf since February of ’22.

It’s like my third rendezvous with watermelon this week. This one on Sunday:

And this brunch on either Monday or Tuesday of watermelon, veggies with ranch dip, hummus with pita chips, and walnuts.

I wonder if I can read and listen to Harry Styles at the same time.

Hump Day

It’s been a day… So here are a few happier things to make it better.

When I was at Lynne’s for a few days last week, she made me an early birthday cake. IT WAS SO FREAKING GOOD.

We had another cake Sunday, when we finally got to celebrate Lindsey’s January birthday along with mine. It was a very fun night of food, conversation, and gift opening!


This is a pillow we got for their “you’re back at RubinSmo Manor after your big remodeled house” warming present. It’s from the web site of a favorite Instagram account of Rhonda’s, Lindsey’s, and mine, associated with Effin’ Birds, where nothing is sacred and the easily offended dare not go. 😉


Richard Marx, Stories To Tell: Greatest Hits and More; and Limitless.

I have done a bit of writing in fits and starts. A lot has gone on in and around Houndstooth Hall the last week or so, plus the world and all its happenings are a distraction. Since I’m still in the “M” playlist section, I decided to listen to the Richard Marx I have in cardboard sleeves (as I’m moving them from the box where CDs go when they won’t fit in the binders I use to a netted section in the front of the binder with all the Mellencamp CDs that are also in cardboard sleeves). Time will tell if that works out, especially since I have more in cardboard sleeves that would need to fit in this binder (thinking of McCartney and Petty, for starters).

ETA: My last book read this month, also a gift from Timothy, is the latest Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich. The supporting cast of characters she invents each book are brilliant and keep me laughing. They tend to turn up again in future books.

More birthday stuff to come. I like to drag this celebration out each time I hit 135 years.

And still…


During Christmas 2012, I received a copy of My Ideal Bookshelf from Geri and David. I came up with a bookshelf of my own favorites and loved all the comments I received from people about what books would be on their ideal bookshelves. I think I used my selection for my banner in 2013, or maybe part of it, or maybe for just part of the year? I used to replace banners (mastheads?) frequently.

I thought I’d share the cover of the book again because of the titles the authors gave the books in their illustration. It’s probably impossible to list one book in any category–reading experiences and reactions can be fluid depending on our age, circumstances, memories–but feel free to share a category and which book in your reading history fulfills it. Or put your answer on your social media and let me know in comments so I can drop by there.

If the photo’s hard to read, the categories are: “My Favorite Book,” “Book That Changed My life,” “The Book I Read Again and Again,” “The Book I Love The Most,” “The Book That Made Me Who I Am,” “The Best Book I Ever Read,” and “The Book That Makes Me Cry Every Time.”

My own shelf as a I curated it in early 2013.

Shiny

Thinking about Florida today as Hurricane Ian makes landfall and hoping for the best. I have friends and family living all over the state or who own property and vacation homes there.

Meanwhile: don’t feel well; can’t write; here are shiny things to distract us all.

Most of these stretch back to the 1980s, so if they look vintage, they’re imitation. In earlier decades of the 20th century, you could walk into junk/antique/resell stores or pawn shops and find an abundance of old brooches, pins, and pendants. Originally called “paste,” later “costume,” jewelry, they rarely had monetary value, so when they ended up in stores after deaths and estate sales, they were usually inexpensive (there were exceptions, of course).

Not so much anymore. The prices vary but can go quite high. Fortunately, one of my characters is scouring stores in rural areas and small towns in the 1970s and can buy what she wants. She has a plan, and I don’t have the budget to go to my favorite antique or vintage stores to make it a reality. Hopefully, when I get back to writing, I can describe her vision in a way to do it justice. She’s well ahead of her time, and the suggestion for what she’s doing came from Lynne.

Read in August

Books that I read in August:


I read The Book of Life, the third book in Deborah Harkness’s All Souls series. I think Tom and Debby may wind up watching the series made from these books. I have one left to read–the fourth one, first one written after “the trilogy” was completed–but I’ve forbidden myself to do so until September. I’ve really enjoyed this series.


Reading Janet Evanovich’s Fortune and Glory: Tantalizing Twenty-Seven and Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight caught me up with her Stephanie Plum series. I think the next one releases in November. I know some readers say they’re repetitive, but for me, there’s comfort in coming back to these characters, and I laugh so much when I read them.


The biography I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon was written by Zevon’s former wife Crystal Zevon at his wish and under the condition that she tell all the story. He died in 2003 from the effects of mesothelioma. This bio was a lot to process about one of my favorite artists. He had his demons, but some of the best musicians, composers, novelists, journalists, and artist managers of his working decades held his gifts in highest regard. Many of his worst behaviors happened during his blackouts (he was an alcoholic and addict) and he had no memory of them and was horrified and remorseful when made aware. Like many gifted people with his kinds of problems, he could also show extraordinary grace and kindness. To me, Crystal Zevon wrote with honesty and love, which made for a compelling read. I have two additional biographies of him in my TBR pile. I’ve started one of them, but it’s slow going because as I read, I’m doing a deep dive into Zevon’s music as the writer introduces his work from its beginning. I’m hearing songs I’ve never heard before.

Reading slowed down the second half of the month, not just because of my own writing, but because I’ve undertaken several organizing and purging projects. There’s no mystery here. When the world outside presents an abundance of chaos, all out of my control, I try to bring order where I can in the smaller environment of home. If this is something that might work for you, too, I recommend not doing it as I do it. Identify and follow through on one task at a time instead of juggling several at once.

A bright side: I’ve donated good stuff to Goodwill and to the Little Free Libraries around me.