This is the Blue House Series…so far. Presently I am working on the fourth book, Serenade of the Cattails. It’s always a thrill when I reach the halfway mark when writing a book, and I’ve done that (plus a bit more), I’m happy to say. Topsail Island Trilogy, The Sneaky Freaky and Blowfish (pictured on the beach and in the beach grass) were so fun to write, but fickle as I am, I’m loving Serenade more than any of them. My characters keep growing, experiencing, failing and picking themselves up. And then there is always the butthead, the nefarious antagonist that we all have known at least once in our lives. They are so much fun to write.

Here is a little excerpt:

The memory of conversations and their meanings ebbed as Mim stretched her legs out along the sofa and rested her arm against the back of it. She perused the view from the window, the greenness of Greenfield Lake. Everything seemed to be touched by a soft spring greenness. Lily pads floating there beneath long spiny branches of the cypress trees, casting long shadows over the water, they too held the color, though it was darker. 

It was all so beautiful and Mim was glad that she’d been able to get an apartment across from the lake. 

In the distance , she could hear the crisp laughter of children playing on the swings or monkey bars or perhaps lining up to take a ride on the paddle wheel boat that toured the lake. She’d been on it a couple of times and listened to the boat captain tell the history of the lake and how the gardens of azaleas were planted and nurtured. He pointed out alligators, turtles and cranes, herons, egrets and other birds that made the lake their home. 

“It’s beautiful here,” Mim said aloud, though she did miss living at the beach. But it was nice being closer to town, to the movies, bowling alleys and restaurants. And she thought that perhaps there was more to life than Topsail Island.

Dear readers, do you really think Mim can resist the pull of Topsail Island and the ocean?

Merry Christmas to all! Hope this year’s Christmas brings joy and peace to your home and that the New Year is full of hope and fulfillment. I’ve been working on the 4th book in the Blue House series, Serenade of the Cattails, and am certain it should be ready by May 2024. I’m working diligently to make this a true whodunit. Wow! Talk about walking backwards….anyway, it should be a fun ride. Thank you for reading and following!!

Merry Christmas to all! And may the New Year be filled with joy and hope and better things. In the meantime, these books, along with the books from the Blue House series, are discounted on Amazon. Hope my readers have enjoyed reading my novels. Serenade of the Cattails, the fourth novel in the Blue House series,  should be out no later than June. It is a true Whodunit–a challenge to write. Also, Topsail Island Tango should be available as an audio-book late winter or early spring. I’m so excited for this new format. Now my books are available in hard copy, eBook and audio book form. Thank you so much to my readers!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope this is a wonderful season for everybody.  Now thru the Christmas holidays my Topsail Island Trilogy is on sale on Amazon. Check out these good prices. Also, The Blue House Series is also on sale. Check it out on my author page, Carol Ann Ross, author.

The Blue House series, right now my most favorite series, is well on its way to having the fourth book completed.. It’s all about the old swing bridge, the huge dunes we once had, the 9 fishing piers, and characterizations of the people who came and went (and stayed), that I can muster. Of course I write fiction. I am a novelist, so I take liberties with times and locations, and people-all in an attempt to bring the Topsail of the 1960s alive. I hope my readers like my work, I hope it helps you to recall your youth. And if you are young, maybe it will give you a glimpse into another time. when people were vulnerable (as they are today), had dreams, made mistakes ( some really stupid ones), and, for lack of a better term- were simply human beings trying to do the best they could.

Here is a little excerpt: Rousing her from her sleep, Rufus Myers called softly to his daughter, “Hey little chicken, better get up if you want to go fishing with me.”

Mim looked into her father’s face. As usual, a broad smile stretched across it. His brown eyes held the whole world. She loved him more than anything, even her dog Rusty.

“Come on, gal, get your britches on and get your fishing pole and let’s go out in the skiff and catch some mullet.”

Her arms encircled her father’s neck, and she kissed him long on the cheek, the stiff bristles of his day old beard scratching against her soft skin. “You’re itchy, Daddy,” she giggled. “We’re gonna go out by Goat Island? That’s where we caught them last time.”

I hear music

If you love the ocean, the marsh-the mountains, wherever “your” place is— and if you’ve spent hours there, contemplating, dreaming, whatever-maybe this excerpt from Serenade of the Cattails will make sense to you.

Seeing herself as the girl (she’d never stopped doing that) Mary licked her lips to the memory of salt air and sunshine glaring off the stands of cattails that, though they made no noise even in the breeze, had always conjured the music of life in the marsh, where life began. Scenes of her past life, dreams for the future, it all played in her head creating a sort of lilt, an unintelligible tune that brought humming to her lips; humming that changed with the days and direction of her thoughts.

I learned a new word.The word is draoi. It is pronounced “dree,” phonetically and it is of Scottish/Irish origin. If you look up the meaning it refers to someone who has healing powers. My Mary character, In Serenade of the Cattails, refers to herself as a draoi, though modestly, citing that her powers are limited and that too much power is hogwash and can be even bad.

Here is a little excerpt from “Cattails,” due out in the Spring.

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I’ve lately been working on the 4th book in the Blue House Series, Serenade of the Cattails. This book, as the others in the series, is set in the 1960s. What a very different world that period is from the one we live in now. Or is it? Or not so much, huh? Crazy times call for crazy, or at least odd, characters. I really like Mary Bolton, a pretty much eccentric old gal who is chock full of old wives tales and off the beaten path beliefs. She shapes the story in ways that take the reader to very different places and she loves the cattails.

Who likes short shorts? We like short shorts….words to a song popular in the 1960s. And this is a photo of my father, my sister and myself in 1967. It was a different world then, we saw nothing wrong with wearing short shorts-and that was way before Daisy Dukes came into fashion. People thought differently then, I think. Anyway, we were safe on Topsail Island even though miles and miles away the Vietnam War was waging, cities were being burned, women were burning their bras, MLK had been shot, Bobby Kennedy had been too.

My new series, The Blue House Series, is about those times. Starting in 1963, when women wore gloves and pill box hats with matching shoes, and hemlines were either mid-knee or just below. Three short years later those fashions were passe and hemlines were mid-thigh. This series traverses time, capturing the journey through the 60s. At least that’s what I’m shootin’ for.

So far, Topsail Island Tango, Sneaky Freaky, and Blowfish are available. Presently I am working on Serenade of the Cattails and I’m having a ball researching information about that time in our lives and trying to make the words a story. Please check out these books. And if you have been reading me, I would say the story line is somewhere between The Topsail Island Trilogy and The Murder by the Seas books-with some coming of age, romance, murder and intrigue. Thanks for reading!

If you remember the swing bridge Topsail had a few years ago, then perhaps the blurb on this back cover will bring back some good memories. If you don’t remember the bridge, hopefully it will give you an idea of how things were way back when, in the 1960s. Blowfish is set in the Vietnam era, the age of the hippies and revolutions and anger, riots, bra burnings. But Topsail was a bubble, an impervious bubble where one could be safe.

I often wonder if my parents felt as I do now, worried about our country’s future.