My relationship with Yves starts to unravel on a Sunday morning while we sit on blankets in Central Park enjoying Brie on French baguettes and sharing a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. The sun hangs on the sky like a ripe apricot, a perfect complement to our lunch but an incongruous backdrop to the news I’m […]
Bach and the Power of Friendship New York City. Early fall. 1969. The sound of calliope music tells me I’m approaching The Carrousel, one of the most visited sights in Manhattan’s Central Park. The wooden horses, all in bright colors, carry someone on their backs. Some are adults. Most are children whose smiling faces tell […]
Susan B. Bernhardt is one of those authors a reader waits with anticipation for her next release. Well, the wait is over. With Dress to Kill, her 7th cozy and the second book in the Irina Curtius series, Ms. Bernhardt has reaffirmed her position as Queen of the Cozy. Cozies are known for featuring an […]
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Farewell to Donny Saying goodbye to a friend after an enjoyable evening of dinner and drinks leaves us with a smile. When we lose a parent, spouse, sibling, child, or pet, however, our goodbyes come laden with grief rather than joy. Why have I included a pet on the…
On the way back to Santiago, Violeta remembered Doña Ana’s crumbling the pieces of paper with Diego’s and Carmina’s names, rubbing them between her fingers, and with the lit tip of the cigar burning them. Afterward, Doña Ana threw them into the pile of wood that would become the fire for her meal that evening. […]
That same afternoon, her neighbor, Rafael, drove Violeta to El Caney, a small village 4.5 miles northeast of Santiago. The name “Caney” meant longhouse in Taino, the language of a tribe of Indians by the same name that first settled in this part of Cuba; eventually the Tainos spread to other parts of Cuba, building […]
Before I wrote my memoir, Cuba Adios, I played around with the idea of writing the story as a novel. I asked myself, what if the story revolves around a mother who has to deal with a double loss; her children going to the US as part of Operation Pedro Pan and the dissolution of […]
Murder Misunderstood By Susan Bernhardt, When Susan Bernhard made her publishing debut with The Ginseng Conspiracy, the first book in the Kay Driscoll series, she entered an arena already crowded with cozy mystery writers, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, M.C. Beaton, Alexander McCall Smith, and the great dame of them all, Agatha Christie. Bernhardt secured her […]
Fifty years ago today, Martin Luther King, leader of the civil rights movement, was killed in Memphis, Tennessee. He left us with a dream that all people be treated equal regardless of the color of their skin. In those fifty years, a lot has happened. We have made some progress, but we are at risk […]
I – Gente del Solá Oye, Cachita, Cachumba, Oye, negra de solá suelta e’coba Deja todo que ya es hora de bailar Aquí tengo a Domitila Maricusa y Soleda Han traído hasta chancletas Porque quieren chancletar ¡Pero que cosa, mi negra! ¿Que la gente va a pensar de nosotras? Que somos chusmas Yo se que […]
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