Traveling to Lake Wobegon

I wrote this fictional story last year about my trip to Minnesota in search of Lake Wobegon and fall leaves. Now is the time of year when I wish I wasn't from sunny Southern California.  I want sweater weather, pumpkin spice lattes, and rainy days indoors reading a good book.  The opening chapter of my book has teenage sleuth, Nancy Keene, preparing for a Halloween party by painting headstone epitaphs in her backyard while ashes from a nearby brush fire are raining down on her. This really happened one year when my husband and I prepared for a party.  This book has Nancy and her father listening to "A Prairie Home Companion", like they do every Saturday night.  My husband and I have been listening to the radio show for thirty years.  On our pilgrimage to Lake Wobegon last year, my husband and I met Garrison Keillor while we were there: he was walking out of a bookstore and I saw him in the parking lot.  He wasn't there doing promotions; he was just buying some books to read during his flight to New Orleans, he told us.  He was very gracious and totally in character.  My husband got to shake his hand.  It was definitely the high point of our trip. I write about all these fun times in this book, which also includes pictures of some of the fictional places upon which Keillor bases his Lake Wobegon stories.

eBook available for 1.99. 

Also available in paperback at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Nancy Drew Meets Jame Bond

What would happen if Nancy Drew met James Bond?  Find out in The Stolen Mask: A Nancy Keene Mystery, a humorous, PG-Rated tale written for nostalgic women baby-boomers who grew up loving Nancy Drew mysteries.  The teenage sleuth in this story goes to London and stays in the same hotel as Daniel Craig (AKA James Bond) when his BAFTA award is stolen from his room.  When Nancy is not on a Jane Austen pilgrimage or visiting Buckingham Palace, she channels Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, and Rumpole of the Bailey to help her solve the mystery of who took the award and why.

The Stolen Mask: A Nancy Keene Mystery
This eBook is available for $1.99





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Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock

Back in 1968, many of the musicians who played at the Monterey Pop Festival made their way down to my home town of Costa Mesa, California and performed at "The Newport Pop Festival"--which was later known as "Orange County's version of Woodstock."  I went with my sister and my cousins. I was only 13.  We saw The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Steppenwolf, and Eric Burdon and The Animals, and many more bands.

Drawing upon that experience, I wrote this time-travel fantasy about two sisters from the present time who go to the county fair where the concert had taken place, and are magically transported back to 1968 when they are inside a photo booth.  Their younger selves join the other young hippies who attended the concert, listen to the bands, go back to the house they grew up in, and talk to deceased loved ones again.  They even encounter younger versions of their future husbands. But--will they be able to get back to the 21st century?

The Summer of Love: A Trip Back to 1968

By Louise Hathaway

eBook Available for $1.99 at Your Favorite Online Bookstore

Common Theme in Literature

When I was an English Major in college, the search for family, for a sense of belonging, was a common theme in some of the literature we read and wrote about.  So, when I started writing novels, I tried to keep that in mind.  One of the first murder/mysteries my husband and I wrote together, "The Tustin Chronicles: A Detective Santy Mystery," is about a daughter's search for her parentage. We began the book after my brother passed away and it is loosely based on his relationship with his adopted daughter.

We've written four books with her as a main character.  The second book in the series is about her trying to help her father adjust to life outside of prison; the third is about her meeting her cousins for the first time in Savannah when one of them is murdered; and the last is a psychological thriller about someone from her past stalking her and threatening her family.  We hope you like our characters; many are based on people we know; in fact, the murderer in The Tustin Chronicles, is someone I knew when I was 13.  Art imitating life is what we've tried to achieve in our novels.

Here are the books in The Detective Santy Mysteries:

All are available at your favorite online bookstore for $2.99 and less

The Tustin Chronicles

Murder at the Abbey

Honeymoon in Savannah

The Body on Ortega Highway 

Nancy Drew Meets James Bond

I've been busy writing my next Nancy Keene book, "The Case of the Stolen Mask".  This book, a humorous, PG-Rated tale written for nostalgic women baby-boomers like myself who grew up loving Nancy Drew mysteries, has my teenage sleuth going to London and staying in the same hotel as Daniel Craig (AKA James Bond) when his BAFTA award is stolen from his room.  When Nancy is not on a Jane Austen pilgrimage or visiting Buckingham Palace, she channels Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, and Rumpole of the Bailey to help her solve the mystery.

Check out my other Nancy Keene Mysteries at all your favorite online bookstores:

The Missing Bachelor Farmer

The Ghost in the Plantation

The Buried Treasure on Route 66