Melissa R. L. Simonin

Our poor girl has had a rough 2+ weeks. I’ll spare everyone the photo Em sent me early this morning; suffice to say it’s the sort of image used in pleas from rescue organizations on behalf of abused and neglected animals. The left side of her face was so swollen and misshapen, it was impossible […]

The world of my books has grown to encompass more cities than I can keep track of without a map to refer to. I’ve often thought how nice it would be to have a better map than the simple 8” X 10” I’ve been using. How nice it would be to have one big enough to […]

Pandy has, of all things–an upper respiratory virus. How did this happen? We do wonder. Both girls are entirely indoor cats. Em had the flu (or was it some version of corona virus?), then I caught it (whatever it was), and then a week and a half ago, Pandy became sick. So did she catch […]

Last week Arctic had more excitement than he wanted, and so did the vet’s office. It started out well enough, aside from the fact Arctic’s teeth required cleaning 😑. We’re brushing daily now, so hopefully it won’t be necessary to do this again. Because… although sedating Arctic went well with me beside him, the instant […]

So bad news first, in order of vet visit… Star’s creatinine and other kidney related values tested higher than normal. I was crushed to discover this, even though the vet stressed 1) they’re only slightly elevated, so we’ll retest in 3-4 weeks,  2) the test might turn out to be a fluke, 3) there is […]

I’m probably not the only one who feels we’re stuck in a game of Jumanji, otherwise all but one of the many t-shirts on etsy offering that sentiment will go to waste. As nice as it would be to believe life will get back to the old normal again, I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking. So… […]

After the roughly two month process to make all of my books available on Barnes&Noble, I got back to writing “gone in a flash”, Jack and Charlotte’s third book. I tried, anyway. But for some reason, it just wasn’t working. It was actually difficult to write. I’ve never had this experience before, and it was unpleasant. It […]

Yesterday the last three hardbacks arrived, completing the set. For now. I hope to add “Gone in a Flash” before long. Then after that… it could be on to the next Mystery Lane, or House of Bannerman. Xander and Jenny are due a short story of their own, as well. Last we saw them in […]

It’s been a long two months, but at last all 20 of my titles have been uploaded to Nook, paperback, and hardback (otherwise known as “other format” on their website) are available, or soon will be. This endeavor absorbed so much of my time, “Gone in a Flash”, Jack and Charlotte’s third book, went quite […]

Who would’ve guessed an auto update to the website theme would cause a fatal flaw and shut the website down, and the administrator out. Thankfully, Mom decided to visit the site within hours of its death—or murder, might be more appropriate, and so I wasn’t unaware of its demise for long. While I didn’t intend […]