Greetings
BloggingGreeting good friends and gentle readers, In the red hills of south Georgia, we finally have a cool breeze. Despite the drought, here on our homestead, we had enough pears and muscadine grapes to make wine--Bill, my husband, is the chemist; Peter, our neighbor and friend, and I are the fruit-pickers and work the manual fruit press. (You don't want to know how much sweat equity goes into producing 10 gallons of pear juice from sand pears. But, the grapes are easy. Well, easier.) Just yesterday, I had germination in my lettuce and arugula beds in the veggie garden, and we are still getting peppers and eggplants out of the garden. It's a far cry from my old life at the law firm and this one suits me far better. Bill and I are making plans to build a cold-frame so we can have lettuce all winter long. Bunni, our 100-year-old cat, is just fine. (In cat-years, she's 21.) In that spirit of eat local, eat healthy, save-the-globe via organic, sustainable farming, and the old, can-do do-it-yourself, I highly recommend reading Barbara Kingsolver's newest book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It's a joy, and an inspiration. Even if you don't garden, you eat. This is not only an entertaining book to read, it's an important book to read. During those too-hot to be outside afternoons, I decided to learn some basic graphic arts techniques and HTML commands and design and launch my own website and blog--here it is. The basis of the artwork is Ted Morris' wonderful painting of the lilies. And, Ted and Ted fans, I apologize for the alterations! This website is not flashy, but, hey, two weeks ago I didn't know a HTML command from Adam's House-cat. And I am letting Chloe Weil, my webmaster, update my regular website, so I can keep the flash animation and other things I don't yet know how to do. Please feel free to visit www.clairematturro.com. And if you want to comment on any of this, or anything else, just roll down the screen here and type away. Be well, stay cool, and don't be eating anything you can't pronounce or anything that's a color that doesn't naturally occur in the food chain. Claire Hamner Matturro Let's Talk Books and Gardens and Organics. What are you reading? Do you read "chick lit" mysteries (or Tart Noir)? Do you grow any veggies? Buy organic? Have a favorite book to rave about? Be my guest. Click and type in a question or comment Hi Claire! Love reading your new website and blog for Lilly Belle. Glad you finally got something out of your parched garden. I haven't had my flower garden since last year when we began renovations on our home. I had a special spot ouside the "Feline Room" in a protected area where I grew flowers and had a birdbath and feeder. Now the area has changed a bit and we have a privacy wall outside it (since we skinny dip in our hot tub just inside, at least we will once we get it back in there) and the area has shrunk a bit. However, we'll be moving our front walkway out quite a bit, so I'll have more area for a nice garden. If you'd like to read anything on our renovations, you can go to my blog at http://herronfamily.typepad.com . We've been living in one room for the past four months. In that time, I've had major surgery and four procedures on my spine. I'm about to have four more. Plus we're submitting the paperwork to the insurance company for approval for a spinal cord stimulator to help me with the pain of psoriatic arthritis and inflammatory spinal arthritis. I'm on the injectible drug Humira which is hopefully keeping the damage at bay, but all the old damage is still there. Plus I have peripheral neuropathy which is very troublesome in my feet. It will help that as well. I haven't been able to concentrate well during all the construction and anesthesia and recovery, but at least I'm making a dent in my piles of magazines! But! I am keeping up in buying my favorite authors' books. You have one coming out soon - Sweetheart Deal. Will you be doing any signings? Or will I need to send you a copy to sign? Either is fine with me since I'm not exactly mobile. As a matter of fact, I think the last time you were in Sarasota, my terrific hubby Bill attended your signing at Circle Books for me. Oh, another question you asked ... I love chick lit. It's mysterious and puzzling yet funny and includes details most men wouldn't understand. I just feel more akin to he characters. So I'll have to check back on Lilly Belle! Sandie Herron in Sarasota where it's still warm altho the weathermen say a cold front came through and heralded fall. I suppose 89 for a high is better than 90! Hi. I tried the cake recipe, mostly because I wanted something sweet that wouldn't be too fattening. It's a good cake. My kids ate it and didn't even know it wasn't a real cake with eggs and stuff. Thanks.
MATTURRO DELIVERS PLUCKY SOUTHERN CHARM WITH A SIDE OF MAMA DRAMA IN SWEETHEART DEAL Drenched in southern charm, laced with family shenanigans, and packed with quirky humor, Claire Matturro’s SWEETHEART DEAL (William Morrow, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; On Sale: 10/ After engaging critics and readers alike with Wildcat Wine, Bone Valley, and the award-winning Skinny-Dipping, Claire Matturro returns with the sharp, sexy and loveably neurotic vegetarian attorney Lilly Belle Rose Cleary. Lilly is yanked from her life in Florida when her brother Dan phones with the startling news that their reclusive, phobic mother—who hasn’t left her house in years—is not only lying comatose in the local hospital, but is accused of murder. Though Lilly vowed to never return to her hometown (for good reason!) after graduating from high school twenty years ago, she cannot refuse Dan’s plea, especially given such strange circumstances; it seems that Lilly’s mother shot a man in a dispute over a freezer full of voodoo eggs (yes, voodoo eggs). Lilly arrives in Georgia just in time to discover the body of her old high school crush, a county commissioner with some dubious dealings, smothered under a load of sweet feed. Then, a trio of meddling teens, including Lilly’s nephew, goes missing, along with an albino ferret harboring some serious Lassie fantasies. If all this isn’t enough to keep Lilly half crazy and too busy, she’s also got to juggle someone trying to kill her over-sedated mother along with the demands of her work, including a pesky lawsuit back in Sarasota that needs fixing pronto. But despite being armed with little more than her cell phone, her cunning, and her high tolerance for risk no matter how tumultuous the circumstances, Lilly always seems to crack the case with her shrewd sense of humor intact. Claire Hamner Matturro, a real-life lawyer born in Alabama and now a Georgia resident, delightfully captures the eccentric Southern culture and complex legal world both she and her protagonist share. With a plot shot full with enough attorney adventures to satisfy any die-hard legal thriller fan, a sense of poignancy bred from tackling tough family issues, and a cast of characters richer than a bowl of cheese grits, Matturro conjures up a compelling case for SWEETHEART DEAL. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Claire Hamner Matturro earned an M.A. and a law degree with honors from The University of Alabama before returning to the region of her childhood, southwest Florida. In Sarasota, she practiced law at the prominent Dickinson and Gibbons law firm, becoming its first female partner. After nearly a decade of lawyering, Matturro spent six years on the writing faculty at Florida State University College of Law, before turning her talents to writing fiction. Matturro has won the Romantic Times Award for Best First Mystery, first place in the SEAK Contest for Legal Fiction, and was nominated for a Barry Award in 2005, as well as receiving a Georgia Author of the Year nomination in 2006. In 2007, Matturro was a visiting professor in legal writing at the University of Oregon School of Law, but is now back in the house her husband built in rural Georgia. There, they share a small organic blueberry farm with their 21-year-old cat. Praise for Claire Matturro’s Lilly Cleary Series “A smart legal mystery.” —New York Times Book Review “As she did in her debut novel Skinny-dipping, Matturro devises a unique and complex plot with a lot of high-energy juice. She is a welcome addition to the growing list of notable crime writing novelists inspired by the beauty and insanity of Florida.” —Miami Herald “Matturro's publisher knows a good thing when it sees one: It signed her to a four-book deal just on the strength of her first. Good to know there's more Lilly Cleary adventures coming. Her sweet, sassy, sexy personality is enthralling.” —Rocky Mountain News “A bright, brassy, sexy, sassy heroine enters the lists of legal fiction with a joyful noise. Funny, sharp, savvy both as to the courtroom and the human condition. This new kid on Grisham’s block is one to watch.” —Kirkus Reviews “Lilly’s voice is irrepressible, but it’s not just the smart narration and good dialogue; Matturro, a former appellate attorney, has the legal stuff down pat.” —Publishers Weekly “Suspenseful, intoxicating page-turner...a quickly moving plot...characters so fun that you would probably enjoy reading this mystery, even if there were no mystery.” —Montgomery Advertiser “As she did in last year’s debut, Skinny-dipping, author Claire Matturro continues to enliven the legal thriller with the perfect blend of humor and drama.” —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel "Matturro has a fresh voice and lively style (think Janet Evanovich meets John Grisham), and as a former appellate attorney and member of the writing faculty at Florida State University College of Law, she's certainly qualified to write about the law." —Library Journal |
|||
|
