Today is my dear grandfather’s 90th birthday. My PopPop, as I have always called him, has seen so many changes in his lifetime, I can scarcely imagine it–which is saying a lot. He grew up during the Great Depression where an orange was a luxury he tasted only once in childhood, then promising himself one day he’d be rich enough to eat as many of them as he ever wanted. He served valiantly in World War II. And today, travels the world in efforts to aid developing nations during times of crisis. I’m so very proud of the remarkable person he is.

In honor of such a special day, I’ve also decided to post a tiny sneak peek of my current work-in-progress, a middle grade mystery.

Synopsis:  THE SECRETS OF ARBOR HOUSE begins without much fanfare where many of life’s mysteries are often overlooked–in the trash. Okay, not entirely. It actually starts in Brumby’s Old-to-New, the family secondhand store, when Madeline Brumby discovers a strange letter hidden in the belly of a donated piano. When the letter leads Maddie, and her best friend Holly “Holls” Little, to Arbor House, they find themselves surrounded by less-than-trustworthy characters linked in some way or another to the house itself, and with limited time to discover the answers hidden there.

Snippet:  Brumby’s Old-to-New overflowed with both trash and treasure, a place where old things discarded from one owner turned into new things to be discovered by another. The store opened because Mrs. Brumby couldn’t stand throwing perfectly good things away, but for her daughter, Madeline Brumby, the excitement had always been the hunt – the mystery behind the next drop-off or delivery. Would it be a box of old jewelry with forgotten family photos stuffed behind the lining? Would a wardrobe filled with fur coats from an old movie star get wheeled in? You never could tell, but if you paid attention, Maddie had found you could learn a lot about people from what they throw away.