For the month of December, we’ll be having a special holiday edition of the Read Along, with the short holiday novella “Ivy & Intrigue” and super special guest co-host Stephanie Barron!

Join me and Stephanie Barron for both ivy and, yes, you guessed it, intrigue at 8pm EST on Tuesday, December 14th as we discuss spies in the mince pies and just what happens after the happily ever after as Amy and Richard deal with the ups and downs of married life (and spies) in the midst of an Uppington family Christmas.

You can register here.  As always the event is free, virtual, and open to anyone anywhere.

Back in the very olden days, when I was just a wee young grad student, I used to haunt the new paperbacks section of the now defunct Wordsworth Books in Harvard Square, checking to see if there was a new Stephanie Barron Jane Austen mystery out.  Jane and her mysteries kept me company on those long train rides home from Boston to New York.  So it is a deep honor (and thrill) to have Stephanie Barron with me to discuss seasonal mayhem.

“Ivy and Intrigue” was originally written as something of a personal dare: could I produce a serial novella in real time, posting the chapters, one a week, as I wrote them?

It turned out I could (that was after I left the law firm, but before I had kids), and the result was this holiday novella, which revisited the hero and heroine of the first Pink Carnation book during their first Christmas together as a married couple.  And, of course, Eloise.

Of all my couples, Amy and Richard was the pair I worried about the most.  Henrietta and Miles clearly went together like Miss Gwen and parasols and Letty and Geoff seemed pretty settled– and as for Mary and Vaughn, well, they lived in their own impenetrable fortress of smugness and snark– but Richard and Amy had unresolved issues.  I needed to check in with them and make sure they were okay.  And maybe tie up a few loose plot ends while I was at at….

“Ivy & Intrigue” is available in print from Amazon and B&N, on Kindle and Nook, or as a free PDF here on the website.

Recipe and drink suggestions coming soon!