Short and Sweet

Saralyn Richard
January 30, 2025

These days all months rush by quickly, but February gives me no time to catch my breath. Especially now, when my work on MRS. OLIVER’S TWIST is coming to a head.

Many thanks to more than 200 of you, who weighed in on the cover options. Covers #1 and #3 had the most “votes,” but even more importantly, you gave me specific suggestions that I was able to use to create the final cover. I learned so much from you about martini glasses! Also about sizes, shapes, colors, positioning, lettering—I took all your comments to heart.

One of you, and I can’t remember who, suggested I tie a napkin around the stem of the glass, or add a handkerchief with blotted lipstick on it. If you are that person, please identify yourself!

The cover is almost finished now, and I will reveal it to you before I show it to anyone else—very soon!

This month I’ve had several book clubs and other appearances, all of which I’ve enjoyed immensely. Meeting with readers is the absolute best part of being an author, and I love sharing my author journey. Many of you know that I was bitten by the writing bug as a sophomore in high school, but when I told my parents I was going to become a writer, they said, “No, you’re not. That’s not a real job.”

So, my options were medicine or education, and, while I have the heart to be a doctor, I lack the stomach. In fact, I pass out from the sight of blood. So I went into teaching, and I found working with kids to be incredibly rewarding. I was a teacher, administrator, and school improvement consultant, mainly in urban high schools, and all the while gathering stories I wanted to tell.*

My English teaching days at Brentwood High School in St. Louis

I wasn’t able to fulfill my dream of becoming an author until 2013, when my first book, NAUGHTY NANA, a children’s picture book, was published. Since that time I’ve launched six mystery novels, four in the Detective Parrott series and two standalones. MRS. OLIVER’S TWIST will be my eighth book in twelve years.

In most of these newsletters, I ask questions of you, but this month I’m going to turn the tables. Here’s your chance to ask me anything you’d like to know—about my backstory, my writing or publishing experiences, my characters—anything at all. Send me your questions by email as a reply to this newsletter, and I will publish your questions and my answers in upcoming newsletters. If you want your name included, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll keep it anonymous.

On February 15, I’ll be reading from one of my books and meeting with readers and writers at the “Fall in Love with Reading” event at University of Houston Clear Lake Pearland campus from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you’re in the area, please come out to chat with the other authors and me.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet done so, I would greatly appreciate your following me on Amazon at this link. Just one click, and Amazon will notify you whenever a new book comes out.

If you know anyone who might enjoy this newsletter, please forward it to them. They can join the crowd by subscribing on my website.

Happy Valentine’s Day, and much love,

Saralyn

*A MURDER OF PRINCIPAL is the closest thing to autobiography, but, despite many assumptions to the contrary, it is pure fiction. I discuss this phenomenon this month at The Stiletto Gang here.