Date Night Ideas

Are you looking for something fun to do on date night?  Here's an idea: how about going to a mystery dinner theater?  My husband and I went to a performance and had a great time interacting with the performers and trying to figure out whodunit. A few days afterwards, I was inspired to write this Romantic Comedy and Cozy Mystery about what happens when someone is actually killed during the performance. 

In this humorous and sexy romance novel,  Isabella, a librarian in her early thirties, goes with her friends to a performance where a murder takes place.  When a handsome detective comes to investigate, she falls in love with him, and gets herself mixed up with some dangerous people when she goes undercover—in spite of his warnings—to help him solve the crime.

Watchin' the Detective: A Mystery Dinner Romance 

by Louise Hathaway

Only 99 Cents!

Available at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Google Play,

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Here's what readers are saying in two 5 Star Reviews:

"What a wonderful little book! A great idea to take the dinner into an actual murder and then on top of it add some romance too. Great idea. This is a very easy read and hard to put down. I would recommend this to anyone who had been to a murder mystery dinner and hoped for more than just so-so food. You'll not regret it!"

"Walk through Orange County with Isabella as she helps Detective Don "Draper" Sterling solve a murder mystery. Light and fun murder mystery to read at the beach! Take Isabella with you..."

Jane Austen's Sisters

It's an interesting family dynamic to be a middle sister.  It's like the best of both worlds: I get an older sister to mother and protect me and a younger sister that I can try to nurture and influence, as if she were my daughter.  Before my younger sister died, we had a saying:  "There's no friend like a sister." I'd like to add that "there's no friend like a little sister."  She used to put me on a pedestal--no matter what stupid thing that I would ever do, she always believed in me.  Any book, movie or song I ever liked, my sister would run out and purchase for herself, so that we could "relate" to each other.  I have always done the same with my big sister.  I try to impress her with my knowledge of the music from her "Summer of Love" generation.  Not only have I tried to emulate my older sister: I am her biggest fan.

"What's this have to do with Jane Austen?" you might be asking.  My little sister and I loved Sense and Sensibility.  We often said that I was "sensibility" because of my caution and practicality and she was "sense" with her heady ideas of love.  She told me once, "You want to be safe and secure in love, but I like the roller coaster ride."  Doesn't she sound like Marianne in Jane Austen's book?  There is a scene in the book that my sister and I once talked about: Marianne is critically ill, on the brink of death, and Elinor, at her bedside, totally breaks down.  She practically demands that Marianne stay alive: "Would you break mother's heart?  Would you break mine?" I told my sister that I'd react the same way if anything ever happened to her.  Little did we know that a few years later, our lives would mimic this scene.  My sister was in Intensive Care for six months and I often thought of Marianne when I visited the hospital. Austen's fictional character was spared; but my real life one wasn't.  I wrote and dedicated this book to the memory of my little sister:

Nonsense and Sensibility: A Modern Austen Variation

by Louise Hathaway

$1.99

At Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Google Play,

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A Prairie Home Companion

The Missing Bachelor Farmer: A Nancy Keene Mystery

by Louise Hathaway

My husband and I have been listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" since the mid-1980s. What did you think of last night's show?  I am going to miss Garrison Keillor when he resigns from the radio show in the summer.  I'll miss Pastor Liz, the bachelor farmers, Ruth Harrison: Reference Librarian, and the skits for the Professional Organization of English Majors.  A few years ago, my husband and I made a pilgrimage to "Lake Wobegon" in search of the fictional world that Garrison Keillor created.  It was a great trip, as we traced his steps.  We had read that he owns "Common Good Books" in St. Paul, so we thought, let's just stop in the store and "soak up the vibe."  As we were pulling into the parking lot, I saw a tall, elderly man walking towards his car with a couple of books tucked under his arm.  I said to my husband, "Oh, my God!  That's Garrison Keillor!"  My husband called out, "Mr. Keillor."  Garrison kindly approached our car and shook my husband's hand.  We had a little conversation, too.  What a dream come true to meet our generation's Mark Twain.

I wrote about the whole experience in my book, "The Missing Bachelor Farmer: A Nancy Keene Mystery."  It's about a precocious teenager who talks her father into taking them on a pilgrimage to Lake Wobegon and they join the search party when a bachelor farmer goes missing.  It is available for $1.99 at Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Kobo, and Smashwords.  To purchase, please click on one of the links below:

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High School Reunion

High School Reunion: You Can Go Home Again

by Louise Hathaway

Okay, ladies.  ‘Fess up.  How many of you out there can admit that you go to your high school reunions hoping to see your old boyfriend?  You know, “The One Who Got Away”?  If you do, I think you’ll like our eBook, “High School Reunion: You Can Go Home Again”.  It is partly based upon my courtship with my husband who I met in high school.  He courted me by writing a poem and handed it to me on the last day of school as “a token of our friendship”--as he called it.  His wonderful poem is inside this story.  What a good poet he was and how very lucky I was to receive it.  I’m so glad I didn’t let him get away.  Our book's protagonist, Danielle Dubois, has spent twelve years looking for the guy who wrote her the poem and has been going to her high school reunions, hoping that she can finally tell him that she shares his feelings. Is it too late?  Will she get a second chance at love? 

This eBook is available at all of your favorite eBookstores (Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo).  And it’s only 99 cents!

Here's what one reader wrote in a Five-Star Review of this story:

Everybody probably had at least one crush in high school. Most people might have wondered at least at some point about what ever happened to that person. What would happen if you got one more chance to get together. How would it change your life?

That’s what this story is all about. It’s a very believable depiction of wanting to see that person again, and getting to meet up. There is some unfinished business in Danielle’s past, and the reader gets to experience tying up those loose ends.

I enjoyed reading High School Reunion. It’s that second chance you might have dreamed about. It’s about giving romance the chance that should have happened a long time ago. It’s about going out on a limb to try to get what you want, now that you have experience being an adult. Give this one a read if you've ever wondered, "What if?"