Janet Elaine Smith--at a loss for words?

Yes, it's true. After finally completing my time travel Port Call to the Future, sequel to House Call to the Past, I had to start immediately on the 4th Patrick and Grace Mystery, St. Peter by the Bay.

Why the hurry? Didn't the pirate Black Sam Bellamy get into enough mischief in Port Call after he'd been MIA for almost 300 years? Could it possibly really be him? Blair Smythe had to find out for sure to satisfy her father--and her own longings for him. And how were either of them going to deal with the fact that while he was swirling around in that eddy he would develop a conscience. Shucks, he didn't know what it was, and he sure as anything didn't know what to do with it! That should have been enough to satisfy anybody for a good long dry spell when an author could take it easy.
You can order Port Call to the Future here. Amazon says it will be shipped in 2-3 weeks, but people tell me they've been getting it 3-4 days after they've ordered it.

But this author hadn't counted on the fact that the people in Marinette Wisconsin, where the next Patrick and Grace Mystery was to be set getting so excited about the book. As I began to do research with the places I wanted to include in the storyline, the Marinette residents became so excited about it that they wanted to be in the book too. Then came the news from the woman in charge of the Logging/Heritage festival that they would like to have the book available for the arts and craft show, which is July 14-15. Yes, THIS July 14-15. Well, the book was pretty well written in my head and I had been to Marinette a number of times, and I had even observed the 100-miler race last year so the research was minimal. I had been at the Riverside Manor bed and breakfast place where Patrick and Grace won a week's vacation. Piece of cake, right?

Well, the cake ended up having wedding bells--and a weiner dog on it. When Grace got one of her "women's intuition" things going, you knew there was trouble ahead. And who knew that St. Peter was a Viet Nam vet with a whole lot of issues of his own? Could Grace help him solve them, as well as the mystery of the dead man on the boat, with Patrick's help, of course.

Anyway, they are both done. Port Call to the Future is out and available almost everyplace. St. Peter by the Bay will (fingers crossed) be available by mid July.

I've been having so much fun I don't know which way is up and which way is down, but for the moment, I'm going to take a bit of a break. I think I've run out of words. I know, I've used the rest of them up on here so don't expect a new blog for at least a week or two.

You can read an excerpt of Port Call to the Future at http://janetesmithstarbooks.tripod.com/ . There will be one for St. Peter by the Bay there in the next couple of days too, so check back often.

Thanks for reading. Keep it up. Readers are an author's favorite people.