Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

APRIL 2019

Yippee! PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND will be published in early April! Here’s the lovely cover art and a pre-order link. I’m really excited about the re-birth (well, re-publication, anyway) of my entire inventory of back-list novels. As I think I mentioned in another blog, I’m not accustomed to good things happening to what I laughingly call my writing career.

Here’s the pre-order link for PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND

The Pecos Valley books are dear to my heart. My mother’s family moved from Georgetown, Texas, to Roswell, New Mexico, in the early 1900s. In fact, my maternal grandmother bought the property upon which my house sits in 1903! Most of the things I describe about Rosedale, New Mexico, are stories I heard from my mom.

By the way, my maternal grandmother was born in Switzerland. Her family immigrated to the USA before Ellis Island was the incoming destination for immigrants. I think her family docked at the Battery. Her ship also hit an iceberg on its way from England (departure point for all of Europe, I guess) to New York. My grandmother was so seasick, she wanted the ship to sink, but I’m kinda glad it didn’t. Don’t know her feelings on the matter. The Titanic disaster disturbed her a lot, even though Titanic hit that iceberg about thirty years after her own ship collided with its berg.

Anywho, until she was an adult, my maternal grandmother believed her last name to be Ischy, because the man whom she regarded as her father was named Christian Ischy. It wasn’t until she grew up and wanted to get married (to a fellow named Daugherty) that her mother admitted that the father of my grandmother, Emma, and her sister, Lina, was a gent named Krieg. Only she didn’t seem to consider him a gent. Emma Krieg (or Craig, which is the name I used for several of my earlier novels) died before I was born, but she used to tell my mother (Wilma Rachel Wilson, which explains another of my pseudonyms) the only thing her mother told her (Emma) about her father was that he was a “wonderful musician.” I used to weave romantic fancies when I was a kid about my great-grandfather being some famous old-time composer, but I couldn’t find any who were Swiss. Maybe Franz Liszt visited Switzerland a time or two? Frederic Chopin? Hope to heaven it wasn’t Richard Wagner!!!! In reality, he was probably a championship yodeler or something.

Oh, and my maternal grandmother married William Jones Wilson when she became a widow. Her first husband, the Daugherty in question, died of tuberculosis after they’d been married less than a year. My maternal grandfather died two days after my mother was born, so poor Emma was left to rear five of her own children and, I think, something like six kids from Will's prior marriage to his first wife, Emma’s best friend, on her own. At least she had a vocation: seamstress. I still have the mirror upon which eager brides-to-be would scrape their rings in order to see if they were real diamonds. That mirror holds scratches from lovesick maidens of yore, by golly!

Anybody confused yet? My father’s family is so much easier to trace. Oh, well.

By the way, according to an author friend of mine who lives in Georgetown, Texas, there are still Ischys running around all 0ver the place there. I guess technically we aren’t related, but what the heck. Here's a photo of my grandmother and her children. This picture was probably taken in 1920 or thereabouts, and Emma was maybe 49 years old. Left to right are Bill Wilson, Maren Wilson (who owned the house I gave to Mrs. Bissel in my Daisy Gumm Majesty books), Jesse Lee "Red" Wilson, Wilma (Mom to me) and Adolph. Rough life:

So… as for the rest of my life, things are pretty much back to normal, as normality relates to me personally. Not only did I have to replace my refrigerator in February, but March also provoked a call to an electrician and one to my very favorite plumber of all time. This favoritism is probably because I have to call him so often, and we’ve become pals. Good thing he’s a nice guy, because I think I supported his family last year.

And now for the medical issues. I already knew I’d have to have carpal-tunnel surgery on my right wrist. Had similar surgery on the left one last year; easy-peasy. Right wrist’s surgery’s scheduled for April 8^th.

In the not-so-easy category is my left shoulder. Blasted thing has been hurting like heck for months. So I figured I’d probably torn the rotator cuff or something. Ha! I should be so lucky.

On Friday, March 29, I went to see Dr. Bryant, who fixed my left wrist last year. This time I wanted him to look at my wonky left shoulder. So he had his tech take X-rays. I think he was the only person happy with the results.

Honest to dog, he was positively THRILLED when he went through those X-rays! First one: "Wow!" Second one: "Will you look at this!" Third one: "This is amazing!" Evidently most people with shoulders like mine can't move their arms at all. Medical miracle here. Oh, and it’s not a rotator-cuff injury. It’s pure-D osteoarthritis. No cartilage between the socket and the ball joint. He then aspirated about a quart of some kind of fluid that shouldn’t have been in my shoulder (telling his nurse, “Wow, look at this! You don’t see this very often! I sure wish a med student was here so I could show them this procedure!”). I live to give joy to surgeons. Anyhow, whatever parts need replacement will be replaced as soon as I recover from the carpal-tunnel thing.

Funniest thing he said, however, is that he's never seen such terrible, widespread osteoarthritis in a person as young as I! He called me young! Peter Brandvold, who should know better, asked if he was speaking in tortoise years. But I’ve got two of his book under my personal editorial control, so he’d just better be nice to me. If possible. Can’t expect too much from that source, I reckon.

What else to report? Poor little Jazzy has been having ear problems. She began shaking her ear as if one or both ears were itching. So I called my vet only to learn HIS OFFICE WAS CLOSED UNTIL APRIL FIRST!!!! How dare they be closed when Jazzy needs them? Besides, Dr. Smith is the only veterinarian in Roswell whom I trust. Another vet murdered my wonderful, sweet, darling Bella; another one ripped me off for too many hundreds of dollars; and, well… never mind.

So, since I didn’t know what else to do, I called Jazzy’s Founding Father, Jacob Torres. Jacob found her running along the highway to Ruidoso, collarless, tagless and chipless, so he picked her up. He intended to keep her, but Jazzy proved too much for him, so he gave her to me and took up the breeding and showing of long-haired Chihuahuas. Jacob told me to bring her in, so I did.

He cleaned out her ears, having found a little ear wax build-up. But Jazzy began shaking her head again today, and now her ears (or maybe only one of them) hurt. So I’ll try Dr. Smith again on Monday, the day I have to pre-register for carpal-tunnel surgery. And I have 597 books to edit and 7,000 of my own books being re-published any old day now. Life always picks the least convenient times to go wrong, you know?

Here's Jazzy, the Beautiful Blue Wiener and Queen of All She Surveys. She's gorgeous, and her head's full of cotton fluff. And she doesn't care!

But enough of that. Bam-Bam has chosen wieners of March’s book-giveaway. They are:

Sue D’Amico, who wins a copy of UNSETTLED SPIRITS,
Kristie Dilcher, who wins a copy of SPIRITS UNITED,
And Kathleen Lauri-Lewis wins a copy of SPIRITS UNEARTHED!

Congratulations, ladies! I’ll get your books to you as soon as I can.
At the end of April, I’ll be giving away a few copies of PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND! 

Providing I can use my left shoulder then. But don’t worry. I’ll get ‘em sent somehow or other.

My Daisy publisher, ePublishing Works, has also set up a pre-order page on Amazon.com for SCARLET SPIRITS, the next Daisy book, which will be published in the fall of 2019. Yay, me! Haven’t a clue what the cover will look like, but here’s the Kindle link if you have a burning desire to pre-order it:

Pre-Order SCARLET SPIRITS

Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded a Facebook page called DAISY DAZE just for posting stuff from the 1920s that Daisy Gumm Majesty and her family might have used or seen or gone to or shopped at. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ .

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

I think that’s it! Thank you