Maybe it’s because October is here and with its arrival, the promise of cooler weather. Crisp days and nights make me think of much chillier temps and that, of course, leads to the thoughts of the fireplace. So, why do I have a life-long love of fireplaces? Could it be because Irish ancestors sat around a smoky peat fire for warmth and cooking? Or could it be the vision of Cherokee forerunners and the hickory smoke whose fragrance was a part of everyday life?
My Latty family depended on their fireplace at Etta for warmth and family together time in winter evenings–Edna piecing quilts, Levi mending a harness, Henry playing with his little homemade toys and Susie, as well as her sisters Alice and Georgia, probably reading. Mom’s favorite reading place was a chair beside the fireplace.
We had a fireplace at our Tahlequah home, Manos Meadows, and I have a fireplace here in Arkansas, so is it any wonder that fireplaces figure prominently in the cozy mysteries I write?
Readers of the Darcy and Flora series will remember that Darcy and her mother discuss many problems while sitting around that blazing hearthfire, coffee cups in hand. Not to be out-done by a previous series, Ned McNeil, too, has a fireplace in Uncle Javin’s house. And, wouldn’t you know, in Ned’s latest mystery, Moonstruck and Murderous, there just happens to be an ancient fireplace in Miss Eva’s home. This fireplace is so large, it contains an inglenook, and that inglenook is pivotal to the plot line of the story.
Anyway, cool weather, new month, fireplaces, and cozy mysteries. They all warm us, inside and out. And, while I’m working on another book, what better place to write than in front of a crackling fire? Now, if the weather will just cooperate!
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