Monica Ferris | The Life of Connor Sullivan

I have a little talent that has proved itself useful over the years. I don’t
need an alarm clock. Before I fall asleep, I picture a clock in my head with
the hands set to the time I want to wake up. And I wake up within five minutes
or less of that time. It doesn’t matter that I’m in a different time zone or
that we’re going off or on daylight savings time, I will wake up at the time I
set. Maybe I’m like Peter Pan’s crocodile and somehow swallowed a clock.

On an ordinary weekday I wake at six, bathe, dress, make breakfast for myself
and my lady, annoy the cat Thai, log on to my computer and, if the world hasn’t
come to an end, begin the unscheduled portion of my day.

This consists of housework, needlework, shopping, visiting friends, short
sight-seeing trips, fishing, skiing, volunteering at a local nursing home,
working occasional hours in a needlework shop, and reading history and action
novels.

My lady, whose name is Elizabeth but who is called Betsy, owns her own small
business, over which, like the Queen of England (of similar name, though I doubt
she was ever called Betsy), she lives. It is a needlework shop, focusing mainly
on needlepoint and counted cross stitch, with a side aisle devoted to knitting
and a corner to crochet. I myself am a knitter – I spent many years at sea and
there are long idle hours in that occupation, so taking up a craft that does not
occupy a great deal of space or make a big mess is called for. Though I am now
retired, I still knit. Fortunately, I am a muscular man with a harsh, weathered
face, so no one dares to remark unkindly when they see me working with needles.

I sometimes help out in the shop, because Betsy has a second occupation, of
which I secretly strongly disapprove, because it can be damned dangerous. She
helps people wrongly accused of a serious crime prove themselves innocent.
Often this calls for discovering the actual perpetrator, who very naturally
resents her interference. I am clever enough not to try to talk her out of her
sleuthing, because I want to continue living with her. So I support her efforts
when I can, condole with her when things become difficult, and soothe her
troubled spirit when it turns out that the culprit is someone she came to like.

Her latest adventure involved a local man injured when a tree fell on his house
during a violent storm. When rescue crews broke in to save him, they discovered
his house was full to the rafters with an astonishing mix of trash and treasure.
A cousin drove all the way from Indiana to help care for him and organize a
clean-up. While he was still in the hospital someone entered his room and
smothered him with a pillow. The police, of course, suspected his cousin, who
was seriously in need of the money she would inherit from the sale of his
property. Betsy, bless her heart, set out to prove her innocent.

I would like to marry Betsy, but she is twice divorced and so does not trust her
judgement of the male sex. I think she’s a terrific judge of character – how
else could she so successfully investigate her cases? – but dare not press my
cause too strongly for the reason given above: I want to continue to live with
her. I am beginning to see how the characters in a romance novel come to live
such tangled lives. I hope ours comes to as happy an ending as they do.

About DARNED IF YOU DO

The USA Today bestselling Needlecraft Mysteries have shown that when it comes to murder, Betsy Devonshire, owner of the Crewel World needlework shop, doesn’t mess around. But when a local hoarder is murdered, she’ll need all her wits to dig a new friend out of a heap of trouble…

After a tree falls on Tom Riordan’s house, landing him in the hospital, the
police discover a mountain of junk piled high in his home. Locals in Excelsior,
Minnesota—including Betsy and her Crewel World Monday Bunch—offer to help with
the cleanup while Tom recuperates.

But when Tom is found murdered in his hospital bed, the sole heir to his
property—his cousin Valentina—becomes the number one suspect. Betsy believes
there’s more to the case than meets the eye, but finding clues to the killer’s
identity in the clutter Tom left behind will be like looking for a needle in a
haystack …