Posts by LesleyADiehl
Tales from the Hayloft: The Bumblebee Skirt
Many of you know my passion for yard sales, consignment shops and stores that sell used clothing and household items. And some of you also know that I come by this passion via my father’s mother, my grandmother whom I have labeled the queen of recycling, reusing, redoing and reinventing. She took my aunt’s clothing…
Read MoreA New Eve Appel Mystery goes on tour
That’s the cover for the new Eve Appel mystery. Cute little gator, eh? Here’s what Eve is up to now: When Eve intercepts an airborne, muddy, disembodied head, how can she help but get her hands dirty? On September 1, 2016, Camel Press will release Mud Bog Murder ($15.95, 268 pages, ISBN: 978-1-60381-315-0), the fourth…
Read MoreInspiration for Murder: A Visit from Author Judy Penz Sheluk
Author Judy Penz Sheluk is back again with a new mystery, and she tells us what inspired her to write this one. Judy Penz Sheluk: Inspiration Strikes Again Last time on Lesley Diehl… Don’t you just love when they do that with your favorite TV show? Maybe you’ve recorded it and it’s been…
Read MoreTales from the Hay Loft: Chickens and Panda
Attending the fair last week and spending some time looking through the animal barns reminded me why I’m not fond of chickens. As a kid growing up on the farm, we had pigs, cows, boarded a few horses, and raised chickens, the white feathered variety. The rooster we owned was proprietary about…
Read MoreTales from the Hayloft: It’s Fair Time!
It’s the end of summer and time for county fairs. See that ferris wheel in the picture above? I rode on one only once in my life. I’m not one for heights or for that feeling you get in your stomach when the wheel descends. County fairs are about more than the rides. They’re also…
Read MoreGrandma and I go to the Big City
This story continues my Tales from the Hayloft, but it’s really a tale about the “big city.” My mother’s parents lived in Rockford, Illinois when I was a kid living on the farm. Visiting them was exciting. It meant getting the Sunday paper with the comics section, which included the Brenda Starr comic strip with…
Read MoreMy First Hangover
It’s past July 4, and as we used to say on the farm, the corn was knee high by the fourth of July here in Upstate New York. Getting hungover may not seem like a fond childhood memory, but it’s one of my earliest on the farm. We moved from an apartment in our small…
Read MoreStories from the Hayloft: The Red Mitten
When I was a kid, I loved following my dad around on the farm as he went about his chores. He milked the cows both morning and evening and both times, I accompanied him to the dairy barn where I fed hay to the young calves housed in one of the pens. One evening during…
Read MoreStories from the Hayloft Continued
Happy Fourth of July. I don’t know how all of you are celebrating, but we’re going to have a quiet holiday hanging out in our backyard. As you can tell from the picture above, it’s really serene with the sun coming through the trees. I can’t think of a better place in which to celebrate…
Read MoreStories from the Hayloft
All my protagonists love the country. Whether they’ve grown up as country girls or moved to rural life as adults, each one feels at home in the quietude of a small town setting. I grew up on a farm in Northern Illinois. Although I was an only child, I never felt alone because there was…
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