Rosetta Diane Hoessli | Updates

MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen (Book One of the SEA OATS BEACH Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Thu, 15 May 2025 17:19:08 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

**** 1/2 (4 1/2 stars)

MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen, is the initial book in her SEA OATS BEACH series. You may remember that I reviewed Ms. Whalen’s second book in this series recently (WASHED UP AT SEA OATS BEACH), and I mentioned that I thought I might have enjoyed it more had I read the opening salvo first – and I was right.

This first book has a simple plot, but I’m an animal lover, so it kept me engrossed from beginning to end. The Sea Oats Beach police chief, Derek Stanley, has been murdered at the Animal Control building next door to the police station and his body found in the pen of an adorable but bloodied French bulldog named Samson. Breanna Hart, the main character, is convinced the bulldog had nothing to do with the killing, regardless of all the bite marks on the man’s body, and is determined to prove it. Despite her social anxiety disorder, she takes on everyone and does everything she can to save the little dog’s life.

Ms. Whalen carefully builds all the characters that will appear throughout the SEA OATS BEACH series, and that’s so important to someone, like me, who reads a lot. Breanna is a truly sympathetic individual who stirred my heart, and to whom I could seriously relate. Her girlfriends are very different from one another, which made them easy to keep separate in my mind, but my favorite character, to my surprise, was Roscoe Blue, the former champion ‘surfer dude’ with a crush on Breanna, who spends all his time on the beach, still following the waves whenever his Italian Ice cart will let him.

MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH is an easy read. I know what it is to feel so compelled to fight for something that you risk everything and believe that failure isn’t an option, so this story is completely relatable to me. I really enjoyed it!

I’m giving MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH 4 ½ stars.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Sea-Oats.../dp/B0CTHRXKSX/

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WASHED UP AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen (Book Two of the SEA OATS BEACH Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 22:03:15 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author
**** (Four Stars)

WASHED UP AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen, due to be released April 14, 2025, is the second book in her new SEA OATS BEACH SERIES. Although I enjoyed this story a great deal, I believe I should’ve read her first novel of the series, MURDER AT SEA OATS BEACH, first – just to get a better feel for the backstory and supporting characters. So, my lack of connection with some of her ‘people’ may have been due to that.

However, the main character, Breanna Hart, with whom I felt a personal kinship, comes to life early on, and she grew on me throughout the book. Originally from Chicago, Breanna has moved to a tiny touristy town in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where she seems to be hiding out because of her social anxiety, and has volunteered at the local animal shelter – not only because she loves animals, but because she prefers them to people (which I totally get). When she and her ‘surfer dude’ buddy, Roscoe Blue, discover a dead woman on the beach, then see a large dog bobbing on a surfboard out in the ocean, the story truly begins.

The traumatized canine – named Milo by Breanna – is a Golden Retriever that becomes one of the main catalysts in the solving of what becomes a ‘local’ murder - a murder with which Breanna becomes obsessed because she’s so concerned about the welfare of the dog. She agrees to foster Milo while the shelter tries to find his family, but, of course, becomes more than attached to him.

My only complaint about this cozy mystery is that the Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) from which Breanna Hart suffers is in direct conflict with one or two of Whalen’s most important and transitional scenes.

On the other hand, Breanna’s social awkwardness is endearing and something with which I believe most of us can relate. Her close friend, Emma, is a southern staple, using ‘Bless your heart,’ and ‘Give me some sugar,’ as she greets the patrons in her bait shop every morning. Ty Whitaker, a policeman that Breanna has a crush on, is handsome and looks terrific without a shirt on, but doesn’t seem incredibly astute other than that. Entrepreneur Roscoe Blue, a blond, curly-haired surfer ‘dude’ who clearly has a thing for her, is obnoxious in a 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' sort of way, and I truly hope that relationship doesn’t go anywhere.

My favorite character, other than Breanna herself – and, honestly, the best defined – is her brother, Flynn, an unstable, former drug addict that she's wracked with guilt about, and, typically, feels obligated to take care of.

WASHED UP AT SEA OATS BEACH is touted as a cozy mystery, and it is. To be honest, I appreciated its lack of steamy love scenes and graphic violence, and Whalen’s focus on the beauty and isolation of the Outer Banks beaches of North Carolina is a joy to read. Cozies are all about innocence and a desire to step away from the Helter Skelter Vibes of the Real World, and this book does that. In spades.

I’m very happy to give WASHED UP AT SEA OATS BEACH 4 Stars.

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THE FATAL FLOTILLA AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen (Book Three in the Sea Oats Beach Mystery Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:32:50 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

(*****) 5 Stars

From the back jacket of The Fatal Flotilla at Sea Oats Beach:

The dazzling lights of the Christmas Flotilla shimmer across Sea Oats Beach, transforming the December night into a twinkling wonderland. But for Breanna Hart, the brilliance dims when she discovers a gunshot fatality on an abandoned boat. The victim, known for his generosity in the animal welfare community, seems an unlikely target, making the suspicion cast upon one of Bree’s own neighbors all the more perplexing.

Driven by a connection to the victim’s love for animals and her own pursuit of truth, Bree begins a fact-finding mission. As an animal shelter volunteer, she sees a chance not only to solve the case but also to help a bloodhound named Tracker. If he can pick up overlooked clues, Bree hopes the police will train him as a K-9 detection dog and give him the forever home he deserves.

As Christmas Day approaches, Bree’s holiday plans compete with her investigation. Every question she asks edges her closer to a vicious killer who is definitely not feeling the holiday vibe.

Author Karen Whalen calls this novel ‘a cozy mystery beach read,’ which is spot-on. Written in the First Person (from the vantage point of main character Bree Hart), it’s easy to read, even easier to follow, and it’s my favorite so far in The Sea Oats Beach Mystery Series – primarily because of the characters.

Not only the humans, but the animals as well.

In this novel, by page three, I’m fully involved in a heartfelt love affair with Tracker, an aging bloodhound living at the animal rescue Bree volunteers for. He’s been there longer than any other resident, and he’s accepted his fate with typical bloodhound dignity. But Bree makes it her mission to find him a home – preferably working with law enforcement – and she’s not going to take ‘no’ for an answer. Then, by the second chapter, I’m rooting for a relinquished pregnant cat Bree names ‘Mama’ when she agrees to foster her until her kittens are born. These two characters are skillfully woven throughout the plot, providing both drama and humor to the mystery, and they held my attention throughout the story. In fact, as good as the story is, I don’t think it would’ve been as good without them.

They also provided me with the common link I needed to help me understand Bree, one of the most unique main characters I’ve ever met on the pages of a book.

Bree’s struggle with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), which makes her uncoordinated, vulnerable, and miserably convinced the entire world is watching every klutzy thing she does, can be difficult to relate to. It makes her seem self-absorbed, almost narcissistic, when she’s truly just the opposite. But her inability to turn down a helpless animal or a needy family member is a personality trait I totally get – and I want desperately for her to be successful. I love the way she tries to convince herself that she’s right to do everything she does as she goes about solving this mystery (even some things that are slightly illegal, which is fun since she has this scaredy-cat personality disorder), and puts herself in greater and greater peril.

Ms. Whalen’s beach descriptions are beautifully visual. She cleverly uses Christmas traditions on the island as part of the plot, as well as Bree’s bucket list of twelve Christmas ‘Things to Do’ that she hasn’t done since her mother died, while participating in a friendly Christmas race with her father, who’s marking off his own bucket list. Bree’s close friends and neighbors also become involved in this endeavor as they attempt to build her fragile ego and bring her into the warm embrace of their communal spirit.

Settling back and reading THE FATAL FLOTILLA AT SEA OATS BEACH, by Karen C. Whalen, is pure enjoyment. I highly recommend you do that as soon as possible.

I’m giving THE FATAL FLOTILLA AT SEA OATS BEACH five stars.

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CHANCE'S RETURN, by Lucy Naylor Kubash (Book One of The North Star Legacy Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 11:58:31 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author
***** (5 Stars)

I’m going to tell you, right out of the chute (as we Texans like to say), that I’m not ordinarily a fan of romance novels and very seldom even pick one up. But I would’ve been missing out on a beautifully written, truly inspirational love story if I hadn’t surrendered to my urge to read CHANCE’S RETURN, by Lucy Naylor Kubash.

Set on the North Star Ranch near the Teton Mountains in Wyoming, CHANCE’S RETURN is a story about second chances for people who don’t even know they’re looking for them. The characters are vividly drawn, especially the young widow Casey Girard and her sad little boy, Jamie, both trying to learn how to live without their much-loved husband and father, and Chance McCord, the washed-up rodeo star and eldest son of the North Star Ranch who, like the Prodigal Son, has returned to his boyhood home only because he has nowhere else to go. The supporting characters – Jamie, Aunt Billie, Justin and Kyle McCord, even the various ranch hands and the trail horse Buckwheat – add important layers to Casey and Chance’s story.

That’s not to say the plotline is unique; it isn’t. But the tender and sensitive way Ms. Kubash handles it, with lots of soul-searching and maternal guilt on Casey’s part because of her intense physical attraction to a handsome, rugged man not her departed husband, and Chance’s stubborn refusal to allow her into his heart and life because he’s no longer the man he once was, is unique and intensely believable. There are secrets in the McCord family, of course, and Casey is the kind of eternal optimist who feels that if everyone would just come out and talk about those secrets, everything would be fine. But, as is always true, life is never that simple.

I love books that are set in the west, and Ms. Kubash’s vivid descriptions of the magnificent Teton Mountain storms, the surrounding mirror-like lakes and forests, the explosive sunrises and sunsets, and the fields of wildflowers filled with riotous color in spring are breathtaking. She integrates those descriptions into the story seamlessly, almost as if they’re characters themselves, and not once did I speed-read through a description but instead savored it, sometimes more than once.

This isn’t a long novel, and that’s one reason I think CHANCE’S RETURN makes a great first book for Ms. Kubash’s new series, THE NORTH STAR LEGACY. It was originally published in 2009, but she chose to update and re-release it on April 16, 2025 for your reading pleasure. I’m happy to suggest that you take advantage of it!

I’m very glad to give CHANCE’S RETURN five stars. (*****)

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TETONS BY MORNING, by Lucy Naylor Kubash (Book Two of the North Star Legacy Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:35:13 -0500

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

***** + Stars

I read and reviewed Ms. Kubash’s first novel in her NORTH STAR LEGACY series, CHANCE’S RETURN, and gave it 5 stars. I loved it. It was a terrific kickoff novel, but TETONS BY MORNING is where the meat in this story really begins.

Much spicier than CHANCE’S RETURN, TETONS BY MORNING took my breath away several times – and that’s not easy to do. A gripping, action-packed story, totally believable characters, and a Wyoming mountain ranch setting to die for…well, what’s not to love?

But this novel is so much more than all that. It’s actually about life. Not just life on a ranch and a marriage between two people who are so different they probably shouldn’t have even been friends, much less partners, but how they came together to complement and save one another, then build a family.

Chase McCord is a beat-up, buckle-winning rodeo cowboy who thrives on adrenalin and who’s still running from his past, even at this late date. Regardless, there’s nothing and no one he loves or wants more in his life than his wife, Casey McCord, a woman who worries even when she has nothing to worry about, and who has issues of her own. But she’s stronger than she realizes for no other reason than that she’s forced to be, and one of the things she’s forced to do is maneuver her way through a rite of passage common for all over-protective mothers: step back from her young son and allow him to grow up, free from her maternal interference.

As in Lucy Kubash’s first novel, her secondary characters in TETONS BY MORNING are nearly as interesting her main ones, but they don’t play as large a part in this novel as they did in the first. However, the way she ties them all together is fascinating – especially if you love to study people, as I do. And the dramatic, pulse-pounding scenes they find themselves in will keep you glued to the pages until you close this book!

TETONS BY MORNING, by Lucy Naylor Kubash, will be released on January 19, 2026. Two of the locations you can purchase it are:

https://www.amazon.com/Tetons-Morning.../dp/B0FY3J2ZNJ/

https://wildrosepress.com/product/tetons-by-morning/

Lucy Naylor Kubash's website is located at: https://lucynaylorkubash.com/

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A Life Came Calling: A WWII Love Story, by Ann Howard Creel

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 18:09:21 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

5+ Stars

A LIFE CAME CALLING: A WWII LOVE STORY, by Ann Howard Creel, is a love story set in both Philadelphia and the Smoky Mountain region of Tennessee at the close of WWII. Due to be released on August 18, 2025, this novel tells the story of Janey Nichol, a young woman ‘past her prime’, who suddenly finds herself weighing the proposals of two men: Todd, who’s ambitious, dependable, and rock-solid, and Cole, a now-deceased Naval officer whom she’d only known for three sublime days, two years earlier.

The rub is that in Janey’s memory, a perfect wartime love affair between her and an unpredictable, strong, breathtakingly handsome man has been magnified into an intense, heated, whirlwind romance that no regular human being can compete with. Especially not someone as steady and predictable as Todd. Adding to her trepidation about accepting Todd’s proposal is the wonderful life she’s created for herself: a single woman living alone in a home she bought on her own while working as an up-and-coming secretary for a large electric company – a part of the female work force who took advantage of the shortage of men in the United States during the war, leaving her free to encourage her own ambition and drive.

Janey feels she must come to grips with all that will change in her life, plus make certain her feelings for Todd are genuine and will last forever, before she can give him her answer. She decides to make a trip to Cole’s hometown in the Smoky Mountains to see where he’s buried and to meet the family he’d spoken of so often. Enter Luke, Cole’s cousin – the third disturbance in the growing web of confusion now clouding her usually laser-focused mind.

This book is beautifully written. Creel doesn’t shy away from description in the way that romances often do. Her prose describing V-E Day in Knoxville, Tennessee is so vivid that I could see, taste, and feel everything as clearly as if I was there. (I especially love that sequence because V-E Day is an event I’d love to have been a part of, and I felt as if I truly was.) Her descriptions of the Smokies and small mountain towns are breathtaking, her characters are perfectly delineated, and her dialogue never feels stilted or out of place. Even Janey’s struggle to make up her mind, which sometimes seems a little contrived and far-fetched, fits perfectly into the restrictive dictates for single women living in 1940’s society.

I really loved this novel, and I strongly recommend that you buy a copy just as soon as it releases on August 18, 2025. I give it 5+ stars.

A LIFE CAME CALLING: A WWII LOVE STORY, by Ann Howard Creel, will be available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Came-Calling-Howard-Creel-ebook/dp/B0FB9GKXWK/

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RAG LADY by Susie Black (Prequel to Book One of A Holly Swimsuit Novel)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 17:23:33 -0500

Reviewed by Rosetta D. Hoessli, Author

***** (Five Stars)

RAG LADY, by Susie Black, is a scream of a book – mostly. Our heroine, Holly Schlivnik, is a 4’9” hot-tempered, slightly pompous, well-educated, wannabe reporter know-it-all who blows her first interview upon college graduation when informed by her prospective boss that she, like all female reporters, must ‘start out in the secretarial pool.’ She explodes in feminist fury and crawls home to her parents and grandmother in Miami, her tail between her legs and hoping for a little sympathy.

But her Jewish nana never wastes time on regrets or looking backward, and refuses to allow her granddaughter to do so, either. From the moment Nana walks onto the page, she stole my heart. To me, she’s the engine that makes this story run, and Holly, for all her flaws, loves her with her whole being. Nana is filled with practical Jewish analogies and superstitions, sort of a female Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof, without being so steeped in tradition that she can’t move forward. She’s a thoroughly modern grandma whom Holly accuses of missing ‘the day they taught Jewish Grandmother Nurturing.’

It isn’t until Holly’s father, a successful sexy apparel salesman with a huge territory and an even bigger heart, has a family emergency and begs Holly to help him that she decides to climb out of her comfort zone and try something completely different. She takes on a portion of her father’s territory – some of the Deep South – and discovers that the United States of America might as well be two different countries. Maybe even three or four.

A scene in which she listens, appalled, to her dad talking to truckers over his CB radio – in a totally foreign language – is absolutely hysterical, and through snorts of glee I could definitely relate. Being vertically challenged myself, I screamed with laughter as I saw her pushing racks of garment bags across streets, so tiny no one could see her, and then bristling with indignation whenever a gentleman offered to help. Her discovery and ultimate opinion of the southern staple ‘grits’ (‘slop’ in her view) mirrored my own – I’ve never been able to stomach it, either, even though I’ve lived in south Texas for more than fifty years.

But it's the characters she meets – Jody, a 6’6” transwoman who once played in the NFL, Cora Lee with the ‘enormous cone-shaped breasts pointed straight out at attention,’ Wanda Lou, a bottle-blonde waitress who says ‘bone appetite’ when she serves orange juice ‘fresh from the can,’ Herman Neumann, a wealthy businessman and a concentration camp survivor, and countless others – who flesh out this coming-of-age tale with the intimacy of your favorite childhood friends.

Susie Black’s The Rag Lady is filled with thought-provoking lessons, and as Holly learns them all, she begins to evolve and grow into herself. While some of the lessons are riotously funny, others are frightening, and still others are downright tragic, but they’re all important. Holly learns the only constant in life is change, not to judge books by their covers, to appreciate her failures far more than her successes, and most importantly: Don’t be afraid to live.

As her nana always says, “Man plans, and God laughs.”

The only downside to this terrific novel is that the author sometimes goes into a bit too much detail on the apparel business - but that could just be me. I’m one of the few women I know who don’t like to shop. But the business itself seems much more interesting than I ever figured, especially the interactions between buyers, models, and sales reps. I also found it fascinating that Jewish people were so deeply involved in business in the south as far back as the Civil War, but that there was so much bigotry against them in the late 1970’s – two facts that the author skillfully weaves through her story.

This unique prequel is a great standalone novel. It will give readers a terrific introduction to the other books in the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, which I haven’t yet read but intend to read as soon as I can. The Rag Lady is a book that grew on me, and that I enjoyed even more after I’d finished it because it gave me so much to think about.

You’ve done a superb job with this novel, Susie Black! I’m giving RAG LADY Five Stars!

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DEATH BY SAMPLE SIZE, by Susie Black (Book One of A Holly Swimsuit Novel)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 17:33:51 -0500

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

***** (Five Stars)

FROM THE COVER:
Everyone wanted her dead…but who actually killed her? The last thing swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik expected was to discover ruthless buying office big wig Bunny Frank's corpse trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey with a bikini stuffed down her throat. When Holly's colleague is arrested for Bunny's murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to find the real killer. Nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she matches wits with a wily murderer hellbent for revenge.

DEATH BY SAMPLE SIZE is just plain fun. Take a look at this cover and you’ll know I’m right.

The first book I read in Susie Black’s hilarious Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series was RAG LADY, which was released in November 2023, nearly two years after the first book in the series, DEATH BY SAMPLE SIZE, came out (2021). I don’t usually read cozy mysteries and really didn’t think I’d read beyond the prequel – but I loved RAG LADY so much, I’m in the process of reading all five books in the series, in order. (In my opinion, you should begin with RAG LADY if you haven’t read any of them yet. It’s a beautiful standalone novel that fills in all the blanks and adds meat to the regular characters.)

Holly Schlivnik, a Ditzy Swimwear sales exec and our heroine in each book, is so sarcastic and funny that I found myself writing down some of her thoughts and comments just so I wouldn’t forget them. The author, Susie Black, uses her own background in the fashion industry to create unforgettable characters that had me laughing out loud – including, even, the bad guys.

Written in the first person, Holly Schlivnik is hilarious. She's vertically challenged (4’9” – picture, she says, a barber pole having a child with a fire hydrant), but she more than makes up for her height issues with Attitude. She's definitely relatable because, for one thing, she's genetically predisposed on her nana’s side to laugh hysterically at the sight of a dead body, and I so relate to that. And she seems to be eternally optimistic because, to her, pizza, ice cream, and a huge glass of Chardonnay makes any kind of day a perfect one.

This tiny firebrand is the lucky gal to discover our victim, fashion executive Bunny Frank, dead in an elevator with a size-10 bikini stuffed in her mouth. But Holly declares to a determined detective, Miguel Martinez, that the real question isn’t, Who wanted her dead? The real question is, Who didn’t?

Everybody, including Holly herself, has a reason to hate this sales bigshot who has given an all-new meaning to the slogan, Follow the Money.

I mean, this lady is BAD. She’s not above blackmail, bribery, sleeping around, stalking – you name it, she does it. The only person without a motive seems to be an ancient security guard who never responds to anything because he’s always watching novellas on Estrella TV.

Ms. Black has a ball tossing in red herrings galore and dressing them up to become some of the funniest characters ever, while moving the story along at a fast pace via short chapters and no extra words. When two office lotharios (and main suspects) beat the crap out of each other, her descriptions and ensuing toothless dialogue had me wiping away tears of laughter. She takes her time describing people you’ll only see once (but hope to meet again in subsequent stories), using their physicality, unique quirks, and irreverent character traits to guarantee they’ll stand out long after you’ve closed the book.

This is a character-driven story with a not-too-complicated plot, but an ending I didn’t see coming.

Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to DEATH BY SAMPLE SIZE. I’m giving it 5 stars.

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DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, by Susie Black (Book Two in the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Books)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 22:33:41 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

***** (5 Stars)

Here's my latest book review for Susie Black's Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, and I hope you enjoy it. This is DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, Book Two in the series, and if you haven't begun reading it, you're seriously shortchanging yourself!

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Pins-Needles-Hysterical-Whodunit-ebook/dp/B0BPLHRWJ7/

Here we go!

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This second novel of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Books (unless you count prequel RAG LADY as the first of the series, which I do) is so filled with red herrings and surprises that my head spun and took off on a mystery tangent all its own. Here’s the blurb on the back cover, which only gives you a tiny taste of what you have in store:

I’d combed the place from one end to another and found no sign of Lissa. Where the Sam Hill could she be? Not in the showroom. Not in her office. Not in the kitchen. Not in the copier room. In the ladies’ room? Abducted by aliens? Hiding in a closet? I was out of options and time. So, for giggles and squeaks, I pulled open the doors to the enormous sample closet that stretched across the back wall and peered inside. Good news. I found Lissa Charney. The question was, did she have my key?

A dozen swimsuits picture-framed Lissa’s battered, bloody corpse like a museum exhibit. Ringed with matching black and purplish-blue shiners, her wide open, sightless eyes stared into space as though surprised by her situation. No kidding. That made two of us. I was no doctor, but you didn’t need a medical degree for this diagnosis. No need to take her pulse. One thing was for sure. Lissa Charney had made her last sales presentation.

Naturally, I burst out laughing.

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Crap on a crumpet. She gave me the stink-eye, the big eye, the three-finger salute. These are the crazy character descriptions that I’ve come to look forward to in a Holly Swimsuit Mystery Book. This heroine is so sarcastic and caustic that I sometimes don’t even know what to think, but I love her in spite of it all.

Our 4’9” heroine, Holly Schlivnik, is a real pistol, but one you’re never sure is going off in a direction you saw coming - or even the right direction. Being vertically challenged myself, I get why it’s more important for her to be seen as a keg of dynamite than just another cute face, so she always takes risks no one else will because…well, because she has to.

After all, she has to prove herself…doesn’t she?

In DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, Holly takes on a whole cast of people twice her size – and badder than she ever thought of being. Every single one of them has a great motive for having done the deed. She’s seriously judgmental and opinionated about who she thinks ‘done it,’ but she doesn’t hesitate to back off when she realizes she’s wrong. Of course, when that happens, Holly has to assuage her cratered ego with pizza, Rocky Road ice cream, and Chardonnay, and I just love that about her. Holly has foibles and idiosyncrasies, as we all do, and Author Susie Black doesn’t try to conceal them. Instead, she builds on them until she’s created a completely relatable character – one that the reader has to love, in spite of everything.

Another characteristic I truly admire is her loyalty to her friends, the Yentas. These are women in the swimsuit fashion industry who meet for coffee every morning at A Jolt of Java coffee shop, all good friends of Holly who never seem to mind one iota when she harnesses them in for mystery-solving duty in her latest escapade. If one of them is in trouble (and one of them is in the beginning of this novel), you know without even thinking about it that Holly Schlivnik is going to be there. Several times I found myself thinking, Man, I wish I had some friends as giving of their time and as energetic as these ladies!

The ending of DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES is a shocker, though, and it took me completely by surprise. I thought I had it wired – and I almost did – but there was so much more to it than I thought there was. Still, I promise you: You’ll never figure it out.

Plus, a handsome detective built like a brick outhouse is coming on the scene…

I’m preparing to read the third novel in this rollicking series shortly, which is DEATH BY SURFBOARD, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m very happy to give DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, by Susie Black, a five-star rating. (*****)

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ABANDONED, by Margaret Tanner (Book One of the Snowbound Western Women Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:34:15 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

**** (Four Stars)

Set in the 1870’s, the novella ABANDONED, by Margaret Tanner, accomplishes much in few words. I have to admit, I’m not necessarily a fan of short books, but the premise of this one intrigued me:

With the best intentions of being a loving and obedient wife, Hannah Starr has married Isaac, the son of a cult leader, but discovers within six months that he’s not the man she thought he was. Refusing to give up her strong Christian beliefs and believing that she and Isaac have reached a compromise, she agrees to travel via wagon train to Colorado with Isaac and his father’s religious cult, The Constellation Followers.

But Hannah has a secret, and a hidden agenda as well. She’s expecting Isaac’s baby – and she’s hoping to find her brother, Mal, who was horribly disfigured in the Civil War. He resides (she prays) with a group of equally-scarred soldiers on a mountain ranch known as The Haven, near the small town of Raccoon Folly. As more time passes, she sees that Isaac has no intention of leaving the cult and realizes that she must take her life in her own hands and escape the clutches of this evil cult.

When Isaac drowns crossing a river and her father-in-law and his group abandons her, Hannah is rescued, nearly frozen, by Captain Drake Noble, the scarred and reserved leader of The Haven. And this is where the story really takes off.

Captain Noble is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting characters in this novella. Tanner has brought him to life by illustrating how his disfigurement is internal as well as external, and this is where my heart was most touched. Even though the depth of this man’s feeling for his damaged men is overwhelming, the demons from his past have already devastated his future to the point where he can’t conceive of ever being allowed to live a promising and happy life - and he believes he doesn’t deserve any of God’s bounty, anyway.

Hannah, who’s grown to love this warm but guilt-ridden leader of men, must convince him that God brought them together for a purpose, and that they are truly worthy of the happiness they can find in each other.

This is a sweet and well-written story; I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve given it four (4) stars.

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DESERTED, by Margaret Tanner (Book Two of the Snowbound Western Women Series)

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 18:45:30 -0400

Book Two of the Snowbound Western Women Series

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

**** (Four Stars)

DESERTED, the second novella in the Snowbound Western Women Series by Margaret Tanner, is similar to the first (ABANDONED, which I recently reviewed) in that it’s also set in the rugged mountains and small towns of Colorado during the 1870’s, but there the similarities pretty much end.

This time Marla, our heroine, who has lived with her selfish, frigid-as-ice aunt since she lost her parents as a child, finds herself homeless and with no options. But before she even has time to process these events, she finds herself drugged, kidnapped, and ultimately left alone to starve in the wilderness.

Although Tanner establishes Marla early on as a woman who doesn’t like confrontation and she seems so intimidated by authority that I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to relate to her, we now see the grit our girl is made of. Even though she’s freezing and terrified, when her will to live takes over and gives her the strength to think straight, she remembers the location of her grandfather’s cabin a few miles away and manages to make her way there.

As we see the methodic progression of how she intends to stay alive, my appreciation for her tenacity and bravery steadily grew – and so did my interest in her story. I especially admire how she never lost her moral compass to bitterness or a desire for revenge as she fought to survive, but instead uses that energy for positive outcomes.

It's when our hero, wounded rancher Brett Harley, literally crawls into Marla’s life that the story takes a turn and she begins to focus on the needs of someone else. Here, Tanner’s descriptive abilities kick in as she vividly portrays his injury and what Marla goes through to save his life. She also does a magnificent job of showing his growing romantic feelings for the woman who’s taking such good care of him – and all the masculine uncertainty that creates. This is a feat not always satisfactorily accomplished by a female author writing in the male point of view.

As in all sweet or cozy westerns or mysteries, there’s no heat or spice in this, but it’s insinuated quite well. And, as always, the ending is happily perfect – no revelation there! – but the growth of these two characters is surprising because it's accomplished in a novella-length western.

I thoroughly enjoyed DESERTED, and am looking forward to diving into ENDANGERED, the third book of the Snowbound Western Women Series.

I’m giving this novella four stars (****).

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SECRETS, SHAME, AND A SHOEBOX, by L. B. Griffin

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 18:07:20 -0500

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

***** (Five Stars)

I have to admit it. I love cozy mysteries, sweet romances, and happy endings. L. B. Griffin, author of SECRETS, SHAME, AND A SHOEBOX (prequel to THE TWENTY-ONE YEAR CONTRACT), has written one of the best.

This novel is deceptively quiet, for lack of a better description - at least in its first several chapters. Ms. Griffin lovingly creates her characters, taking her time to build perfect people with spot-on interactions, and uses them to lull readers into believing they can predict where this story is going.

But I’m here to warn you: You can’t.

Just when you’re beginning to wonder how all these terrific characters are going to play together, the story takes off and our heroine, shy and naive, is suddenly forced to fight for her life when she’s confronted by characters you only slightly mistrusted. Excitement and adrenaline ramp up every page, and you find yourself skipping ahead to be sure everything comes out all right.

In addition, Ms. Griffin, a lifelong resident of Bath, England, uses colloquialisms native to her region in such a truthful way that this Texan was intrigued enough to do a little extra research – but that touch added great reality and energy to her setting and her characters. I found it humorous, touching, and a perfect addition to her story.

I’m off now to purchase a copy of THE TWENTY-ONE YEAR CONTRACT. I suggest you do the same!

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DAUGHTERS OF RIGA, by Mirian Exall

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 18:25:16 -0500

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author
**** (Four Stars)

Billy Graham once said, “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”

Many individuals in pre-WWII, WWII, and post-war WWII history illustrate the truth of these words. Think Oskar Schindler who saved more than a thousand Jews, Miep Gies who hid the Otto Frank family and four other desperate Jews for more than two years, Irene Sendler who was a Polish Catholic social worker and her network of ten compatriots who rescued 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, among many other unsung heroes.

Basing her novel on such true events, Mirian Exall, author of DAUGHTERS OF RIGA (The Wild Rose Press, 2024), weaves a story that begins in 2003 and hurtles us backward to 1938, when two ordinary little girls, Dani and Berta, meet in the Dutch Consul’s office in Riga, Latvia. Although I knew about the Year of Horror (1940-1941) in Latvia, this tiny country wasn’t well-known to me. I had to locate it on a map right at the beginning of the novel, just to get my bearings, but the story doesn’t stay in Latvia, nor does it remain in 1938. Told in a completely unique fashion, we experience Amsterdam, London, Paris, and the countryside of the Netherlands as well – at different times, and through the eyes of different characters.

Beginning as a simple story of various individuals struggling to keep their balance as the world explodes all around them, DAUGHTERS OF RIGA surprises the reader as it builds in intensity and suspense until it finally winds down and relinquishes the past. The next generation, formerly unable to comprehend the horrors experienced by their elders, learn to accept and forgive.

I’m giving DAUGHTERS OF RIGA four stars only because I sometimes found myself having to go back to the beginning of a chapter to find out who is telling the story, when it’s occurring, and where they’re located. This interrupted the flow of an otherwise superbly written novel about one of my favorite subjects.

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THE TWENTY-ONE-YEAR CONTRACT, by L. B. Griffin

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 17:47:01 -0500

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli
***** (Five Stars)

I’m giving five stars to her latest novel THE TWENTY-ONE-YEAR CONTRACT (the sequel to SECRETS, SHAME AND A SHOEBOX), in which L.B. Griffin recreates the cultural revolution of the 1950’s and 1960’s right there in England, where it all began. She propagates her seamless yet unpredictable storyline with delightful characters, some who don’t have huge roles but definitely need to be onstage, and two main characters – Kate Westfield and Harriet Laws – best friends who have no idea what’s in store for them.

But the character I fell in love with is Uncle Jack, a drop-dead gorgeous, freewheeling, wealthy playboy who is so much more than he appears to be. To me, he personifies Ms. Griffin’s work; her stories and characters belie the simplicity of her writing style and show us by the end of the novel how deep and remarkable they really are.

THE TWENTY-ONE-YEAR CONTRACT is the gentle study of an era that seems to now be repeating itself, yet Ms. Griffin doesn’t hit us over the head with a hidden political agenda. She’s simply telling it like it is, and I appreciate that so much. She examines the pain of loss and the human spirit’s need to overcome it, as well as the fear of abandonment and the longing to trust – all weighty themes that she handles deftly and with subtlety. This is a most satisfying and enjoyable read, and I highly recommend it!

I'm giving this novel five stars (*****).

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FEAR IN FIRST GEAR (Book Seven in The Tow Truck Murder Mysteries Series), by Karen C. Whalen

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 12:09:53 -0400

Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author

**** (4 Stars)

I loved Karen C. Whalen’s characters in her SEA OATS BEACH cozy mystery series: flawed, all-too-human, and totally relatable. As are the wonderfully engaging cast of characters in Whalen’s FEAR IN FIRST GEAR. They drive the story, not the other way around, and that always makes me want to settle in for a nice, long read.

Delaney Morran is a petite, red-haired tow truck driver famous for wearing three-inch stiletto heels whenever she answers a tow call in or around the small mountain town of Spruce Ridge, Colorado. To my mind, she’s practically Every Woman: she loves shoes and shopping, a handsome law enforcement officer in uniform, and sinking her teeth into a rock-solid mystery.

But Delaney’s famous around Spruce Ridge for something else, too. She accidentally finds dead people – or, rather, dead people seem to find her. More specifically, homicide victims. And, well, when that happens…you can’t just let it go, right?

In this tale, Delaney starts her day by heading out on a call through a mountain pass in a blinding snowstorm and catches a glimpse, for just for a moment, of a woman sitting, slack-jawed, inside her car. Dead, Delaney’s almost certain, but she can’t stop. When she finally returns to Spruce Ridge and tries to tell the police, no one pays much attention because…well, as usual, no one’s reported a missing woman, and no one else saw her. So, Delaney’s on her own, again – except for Kris, her best friend, who’s always in her corner.

This is a fun read; I read it in one afternoon. It’s written in first person, from the viewpoint of Delaney Morran, and it’s written so cozily and with so much self-deprecating humor that I felt like I was reading a personal diary. Subplots and clues were weaved through the main plot with just enough weight to hold my attention, but not so much that they were overwhelming or confusing. Also, even though this is Book 7 in THE TOW TRUCK MURDER MYSTERIES series, it stands alone just fine.

If you’re looking for something light-hearted and cozy to take you away from ‘all this,’ pick up a copy of FEAR IN FIRST GEAR, by Karen C. Whalen.

I’m giving it four stars.

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Rosetta's Whispers: Anything for Our Books...

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Written with Veridion Smart

There are some things writers will do for a story that make absolutely no sense to normal people.

We’ll drive for hours to look at a building that may only appear in one paragraph. We’ll stand in the middle of nowhere taking pictures of rocks. We’ll walk through old towns, abandoned buildings, museums, cemeteries, battlefields, and places where absolutely nothing appears to be happening and think, “Oh, my God. This is perfect!”

Texas is the most amazing place to set a story. It has five different climates, two time zones, and gulf coastlines to the south, gorgeous hill country and vineyards to the center, ranchland and canyons to the north, desert to the west, and cotton-growing plantations to the east. So, pick your poison and plan your story – anywhere in the great state of Texas. Personally, I can't think of anywhere better - and I've been all over the world!

As you may have heard, Kevin and I are planning our final research trip at the end of October, 2026, for Book Two in the WHISPERS THROUGH TIME series, JOURNEY OF THE HEART. Somehow, I found myself reserving an Airbnb in the rather unattractive town of Lubbock (birthplace of rock’n’roller Buddy Holly) so we could spend a couple of days there and travel about forty miles to see a place few people (even Texans) have ever heard of: Blanco Canyon.

Forty miles.

Just to see a canyon.

Now, a perfectly normal person might ask, “Why don’t you look at pictures of it? Why don't you just go to YouTube?”

Because I’m a writer, that’s why.

There’s something different about actually standing somewhere your characters might stand. You see things a photograph or even a video can’t always show you. You notice the smell of the air, the way the light falls, the color of the landscape, how far one place really is from another.

In other words, you begin to understand the setting instead of simply describing it. And sometimes you discover something you never expected to find.

That’s one of the things I love about writing. Research isn’t always about finding facts, dates, or obscure individuals that no one’s ever heard of. Sometimes it’s about letting a place, a person, a piece of history or even a completely unexpected moment get under your skin.

Then, months later, you’re writing a scene and suddenly you remember what that road looked like, or how enormous the sky seemed, or maybe even the silence. As for me, I love memories. So, I might remember something Kevin said while I’m standing alone in a field or overlooking a canyon, or how we laughed when the rain caught us by surprise, or maybe even how it felt when he held me close under General Sam Houston’s spreading oak tree in Gonzales, Texas. When you remember things as personal as that, the scene you’ve begun to build in your mind becomes very, very real.

On the other hand, there’s a downside to all this romantic research, and that’s money: Gas prices. Airbnb prices. Food prices. Basically, everything has a price. At one point, as I was planning our itinerary, I told Kevin that we were both going on enforced diets during this trip because we couldn’t afford to eat.

He wasn’t nearly as amused as I was.

But that’s what we do for our books. We travel. We research. We take pictures. We accost strangers and ask questions. We spend money that we probably shouldn’t. And occasionally we find ourselves staying somewhere we never imagined we’d stay just so we can see something that may eventually become part of a story that we haven’t even thought of.

But, when you love the story you’re telling, you want to get it right.

So, here’s the thing: I don’t want JOURNEY OF THE HEART to feel like I simply made up a place and dropped my characters in it. I want the places to feel real – because I know it was. I want the history to feel real – because it is. And I want my characters to walk through a world that existed before they arrived and will continue to exist after they’re gone. And if that means Kevin and I have to drive forty miles out of our way to look at a canyon in the middle of nowhere…

Well…

Anything for our books, right?

*Rosetta Diane Hoessli has written two novels, WHISPERS THROUGH TIME (2021) and TIP THE PIANO MAN (2024), and is working on a third, JOURNEY OF THE HEART. She’d love to hear from you, and you can contact her at thompd2011@gmail.com, on this website (https://www.rosettadhoesslibooks.com), or at https://www.facebook.com/RosettaDianeAuthor or https://www.facebook.com/Ronni.Hoessli. Check out her new TikTok page at https://www.tiktok.com@Ronniwrites. Have a blessed day!

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Rosetta's Whispers: That Day in September...

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

*Written with Veridion Smart

There are some dates that stay with you. You don’t have to look at a calendar to know what they mean. You don’t have to be reminded of where you were or what you were doing. The date itself can bring back a feeling, a picture, a voice, or a moment you thought you had buried somewhere in the back of your mind. I think of the date JFK was assassinated, or the date the rocket Challenger exploded…

September 11 is another one of those dates.

For those of us who were old enough to remember that morning, the memories can be painfully clear. We remember where we were, the television, the confusion. We remember the moment we realized that whatever was happening wasn’t something that would be over by lunchtime.

But recently, I found myself thinking about September 11 from a completely different perspective. I was talking with Tamsin, the young man who often helps me write this blog and market my books, and he’s too young to remember that day. And that made me wonder:

What does 9/11 mean to someone who doesn’t remember 9/11?

Tamsin doesn’t have a personal memory of watching the towers fall. He didn’t experience the fear and confusion of that morning the way so many of us older folks did. Instead, he knows September 11 through stories, photographs, history.

And through the people who DO remember.

Perhaps that’s something we don’t think about often enough. There’s a whole generation growing up now that will never have a firsthand memory of September 11 – which is an observation that blew me away when I first realized it. I thought, everyone through all eternity should remember it exactly the way I do!

But, for these young people, it will be something they learn about from us. And that makes the stories we tell incredibly important.

The history of September 11, 2001, is enormous. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, and 2,977 people were killed in the attacks, leaving thousands more as survivors, devastated family members, first responders, and witnesses to an event that changed the world.

But when you hear that number, it’s easy to forget something very important: Those weren’t just numbers; they were people.

Someone’s mother, father, daughter, son, husband, wife, best friend. Someone who had plans for that day. Innocents who thought they would be going home that evening.

That’s the part of September 11 that I don’t want to lose: The people. The stories. The memories.

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum has preserved more than 1,000 personal oral histories from survivors, responders, family members, and others who were deeply affected by what happened. The annual commemoration ceremony held at the Memorial each September 11 matters so much because it gives a human voice to an event that can otherwise become just another chapter in a history book.

And that brings me back to Tamsin.

He was too young to remember 9/11 firsthand, but he doesn’t need to pretend that he does. He can listen. He can learn. He can ask questions. And someday, he can pass those stories on to someone who wasn’t even born when it happened.

If he ever asks me what I was doing on the morning of September 11, I’ll tell him I was sleeping in when my husband, my daughter, and my toddler-grandchildren came trooping into the kitchen, screaming at the tops of their lungs for me to get up and turn on the television. Well, I did, grumbling beneath my breath about how the world wasn’t going to end just because I slept a little later – and the images I saw on our screen didn’t make sense to me.

Tiny figures were diving from the fiery tops of the World Trade Centers that I’d thought would stand forever, proud and touching the sky. Fire trucks and police cars were racing toward the burning towers while terrified, bleeding, screaming people ran away from them. New York City was blanketed in and blinded by whirlwinds of white smoke, revolving dust, and cascading debris as the towers slowly came down.

The world, in truth, was ending. And I knew, as I lit my first cigarette out of four packs that day, it would never be the same.

I remember my family leaving our house to donate blood – and discovering that no one needed it because there weren’t that many survivors. I remember buying a baseball cap with God Bless America stitched across the front from a fireman in the street who couldn’t hold back his tears. I remember wanting to hug everyone I saw in our grocery store just because I was so happy to be alive – and so glad that they were as well. I remember going to church, just because I needed to go.

Maybe that’s what NEVER FORGET really means. It doesn’t mean that every generation will remember 9/11 in exactly the same way. How could they? It just means that we refuse to allow the people who were there, and the people who were lost, to become nothing more than names and numbers.

The 9/11 Memorial itself describes its mission not only as honoring those who were killed, but also recognizing the survivors and those who showed extraordinary compassion in the aftermath – because sometimes the most important part of remembering isn’t remembering exactly what happened, but who was there. And sometimes memories don’t belong to just one generation. Instead, they’re passed down until, eventually, someone who wasn’t even alive or old enough to understand carries that story forward.

That’s how memories survive: Not because we all experienced them ourselves, but because someone cared enough to tell us.

So, today, September 11, 2026, I’ll remember it in the best way I can.

I’ll remember Todd Beamer and his companions, courageous United Airlines passengers on flight 93, and the phrase that’s permanently attached to his name with honor and pride: Let’s Roll.

I’ll remember Michael Benfante who, with co-worker John Cerqueira, helped wheelchair user Tina Hansen, who was stuck on the 68th floor of the North Tower, down multiple flights and through treacherous conditions in a lightweight emergency chair. All three safely got out of the building.

And I’ll never forget how all kinds of boats began to gather even before a call for assistance went out from the U.S. Coast Guard. In the end, more than 100 ferries, fishing boats, ships that usually just cruised the harbor for dinner, and even tugboats joined the effort. During a nine-hour period, about 500,000 people – all terrified, and many bleeding or in shock – were carried to safety.

Some memories are lived, some are inherited, and some are entrusted to us. Maybe our job is simply to carry them carefully.

NEVER FORGET.

I never will.

*I want to toss out a personal ‘thank you’ to Biography.com for its contribution to my all-too-brief list of heroes, and to the New Yorker, on www.pexels.com, for its beautiful photo of the 9/11 Memorial.

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Rosetta's Whispers: The Stories that Refuse to Stay Buried

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

*Written with Veridion Smart

Some stories are planned. Others simply refuse to leave you alone. I’ve learned that the difference matters.

When I first began writing TIP THE PIANO MAN, I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to write this novel.’ In fact, I wasn’t even thinking much about writing a novel at all.

I was too angry to write, and I lived with that anger for a long time.

In 1984, when we discovered that our little girl had been molested for almost four years by a close family friend, someone we had trusted with our lives, I grew obsessed with trying to wake people up. Ignorance is the greatest enemy of loving parents, I believed, and my husband and I were living proof of that. So, I spoke to all kinds of groups, talked to the media, worked with many child advocacy organizations, and ultimately found myself standing in rooms with people who had the power to change things.

In other words, I put myself directly in the middle of it. I had to slog through a sewer day after day, but I was determined to make a difference – and I think I did. When I look back on that time now, as painful as it was (and still is), I know that we and our fellow advocates accomplished important things for children and families in distress, and I’m satisfied that we did the best we could.

But eventually, I burned myself out so completely that my body finally said, ‘Enough.’ I fell apart in the grocery store because I couldn’t remember how to write a check, and my husband had to come pick me up. My mother even had to move in with us for a while because I couldn’t care for any of us, and I spent a long time simply trying to put myself back together. I didn’t know then that the experience would eventually become the basis for a book.

But that’s the strange thing about stories. Sometimes they sit quietly inside us for years before they decide they’re ready to come out.

I’m often asked where my ideas come from, and sometimes the answer is easy. It can be a place, a person, or something I overhear in a restaurant. Sometimes it’s a strange little detail that refuses to disappear.

Other times, the answer is much harder.

Some stories come from places we’d rather not revisit. Some are connected to people we loved. Some come from experiences that changed us in ways we didn’t understand or even realize at the time.

And sometimes, the story doesn’t arrive as a fully formed idea. It arrives as a feeling. A question. A memory. A character who won’t leave your head alone. You may ignore it for a while. You may even convince yourself you’ve forgotten it. But then, years later, something happens and suddenly you’re thinking about it again.

That’s when you realize it never really left. It was just waiting in the wings for you to acknowledge it.

And so, I sometimes wonder if writers are simply people who don’t know how to let go of anything. Think about it: We collect things. We collect memories, conversations, faces, places, little pieces of other people’s lives. We may not know why we’re storing them away at the time…

But then, one day, something clicks and a memory becomes a scene. A question becomes a character. An old experience becomes the emotional foundation for an entirely new story.

That doesn’t mean every book is autobiographical. It certainly doesn’t mean every character is the author. But writers inevitably leave fingerprints on their work. We write from what we’ve seen, what we’ve felt, what we’ve feared, what we’ve loved.

And sometimes, we have to write what’s broken our hearts.

I’ve come to believe that some stories refuse to stay buried because they still have something to say. TIP THE PIANO MAN grew out of something painful in my family’s life, but it isn’t simply a story about pain. It’s about what happens afterward. It’s about survival. It’s about healing. It’s about the things people carry silently and the possibility that they can eventually find their way toward something better.

That’s one reason I think writers sometimes have to be willing to go places that aren’t particularly comfortable. If we only write what’s easy, safe, and familiar, we may never discover what the story was really trying to become.

And perhaps that’s true outside of writing, too. Maybe the things we keep avoiding aren’t always the things we should forget. Sometimes they’re the things we need to understand.

I’m still learning this, and every book I read (or begin to write) teaches me something different. Each character leaves something behind. And every journey, whether it happens on a page or somewhere out in the real world, has a way of changing the person who takes it.

Maybe that’s why I keep writing…because there are stories I still haven’t told. Places I haven’t explored. People I haven’t imagined. Questions I haven’t answered. And somewhere inside all of that, there may be another story waiting patiently for me to notice it.

So, I’ve stopped asking why certain memories stay with me, and, instead, I’m beginning to ask a different question: What are they trying to tell me? After all, sometimes you don’t choose the story. Sometimes, the story chooses you.

And when that happens, all you can really do is listen.

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Rosetta’s Whispers: The Velvet Prison of Comfort

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

*Written with Veridion Smart

There is something strangely deceptive about comfort. It feels safe. Familiar. Predictable. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need. After a difficult season, a little peace can feel like a gift. We all need places where we can breathe, regroup, and simply be ourselves.

But there is another side to comfort that we don’t always recognize. Sometimes our comfort zone becomes a prison. Not a prison with bars or locked doors, but one lined with velvet. A place so familiar and comfortable that we don’t realize we’re no longer moving forward.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

I’ve spent much of my life writing. When you’re a writer, you can spend an awful lot of time living inside your own head. Characters, memories, ideas, questions, possibilities, all of them are much easier to deal with when you can put them onto a page and close the door behind you. But eventually, the stories have to leave that room.

And that’s where things get uncomfortable.

My mother was an extraordinarily talented woman. She had gifts in music and comedic writing, among other things, but she was also a perfectionist – the kind who was rarely satisfied with anything she did. Looking back, that always saddened me because I knew how talented she was. I often wondered what she might have accomplished if she had allowed herself the freedom to simply try something without demanding perfection from herself first.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that some of that perfectionism found its way into me. I didn’t necessarily recognize it as perfectionism at the time. Sometimes it looked like I was just being careful. Sometimes it looked like I was just making a serious decision. Sometimes it looked like I simply knew what I did and didn’t want to do.

But sometimes it was fear wearing a much nicer outfit. It was fear of getting it wrong, fear of being judged, fear of looking foolish, fear of putting something out into the world and discovering that it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

And if you wait until you’re certain you can’t fail, you may spend your entire life waiting.

So, I’m learning to step outside. Recently, I’ve been doing something that doesn’t come naturally to me at all. I’ve been putting myself in front of a camera.

That may not sound particularly frightening to some people, but believe me, it’s not where I’m most comfortable. I’m much happier behind a keyboard, creating stories, than I am sitting in front of a camera wondering what everyone is thinking about me.

And yet, here I am. I recorded a video.

And then I watched it.

Well...I tried to watch it.

But something occurred to me while I was doing it. Maybe the goal isn’t to become completely comfortable. Maybe the goal is to become comfortable being uncomfortable.

Because if I wait until I feel completely confident, completely prepared, completely polished and completely certain that I won’t embarrass myself, I may never leave my comfortable little corner again. And there are too many things I still want to do for that to be acceptable.

I don’t think that real growth ever feels comfortable. The truth is, we sometimes imagine personal growth as something inspiring and beautiful. We picture the moment when everything suddenly makes sense, our confidence appears, and we walk boldly into our future without looking back.

But I’m beginning to think it’s usually much messier than that.

Sometimes growth looks like recording a video while wishing you could disappear. Sometimes it looks like trying something new and wondering whether you’ve made a terrible mistake. Sometimes it means allowing someone else to see a part of you that you’ve spent years keeping private.

Sometimes it simply means saying: I’m going to try.

And that’s enough.

The first video doesn’t have to be perfect. I get that now. The first attempt doesn’t have to be brilliant. The first step doesn’t have to look impressive.

It just has to be a step.

What might be waiting outside your comfort zone? Maybe it’s a book you’ve always wanted to write. Maybe it’s a conversation you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s a new career, a new relationship, a new adventure, or simply the courage to let people see more of who you really are. Maybe you’ve spent years telling yourself that you’re too old, too inexperienced, too busy, too afraid, or simply not that kind of person.

I understand. I’ve used all those excuses.

But I’ve also learned that our lives can become surprisingly small when we allow those justifications to make all of our decisions for us.

Comfort has its place. But it shouldn’t have the final say.

So, I’m stepping outside my own comfort zone. Not because I’m fearless. I’m not. Not because I’ve suddenly conquered perfectionism. I haven’t. I’m doing it only because I still have stories I want to tell, people I want to reach, and new journeys I want to experience. And I don’t want fear or perfectionism disguised as caution to decide how much of my life I get to live.

Maybe that’s what stepping outside a comfort zone really means: Not becoming a different person, but just giving the person you’ve always been a little more room to grow. And if you’re standing at the edge of your own comfortable little world right now, wondering whether you should take that first step...

Maybe we can take it together.

After all, comfort zones may be velvet prisons, but the door is usually unlocked.

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Rosetta's Whispers: When Life Interrupts the Story

Rosetta Diane Hoessli — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

*By Rosetta Diane Hoessli, written with Veridion Smart

There are seasons when writing flows so naturally that the words seem to know where they’re going before you do. Then there are seasons like this one, when life quietly closes your laptop, asks you to look up, and reminds you that some stories must be lived before they can ever be written.

The past several weeks has been filled with interruptions just like those.

Texas weather has reminded us that we’re never quite as much in control as we’d like to believe. Torrential rain, power outages, flooded roads, and the kind of storms that make you grateful simply to wake up to another morning have become part of our daily routine.

At home, Kevin has been dealing with health concerns that required more attention than either of us expected. Brock decided to remind us that dogs can be just as determined to keep us on our toes as children. For a brief moment, I even thought we might welcome another dog into our family, only to realize that sometimes wisdom means saying, “Not yet.”

My daughter spent a few precious days with us, reminding me once again that family isn’t an interruption to life; family is life.

Through all of this, JOURNEY OF THE HEART, my current Work-In-Progress, has waited patiently on my desk.

Years ago, that would’ve frustrated me. I would’ve felt guilty every day I wasn’t writing. I might even have convinced myself I was falling behind.

But age has a funny way of changing your perspective.

I’ve learned that stories aren’t measured by how quickly they’re written. They’re measured by the life that’s poured into them. Every conversation, every challenge, every unexpected detour eventually finds its way onto the page. Compassion deepens. Patience grows. Characters become more authentic because life has quietly taught the writer something new.

Looking back, I realize that all of my work has been shaped by seasons that didn’t go according to plan. The difficult moments didn’t stop the stories – they gave them their heart.

Perhaps that’s true for all of us.

We often believe our lives are moving forward only when everything is organized, productive, and under control. Yet some of our greatest growth happens in the interruptions – the hospital waiting rooms, the family dinners that last longer than expected, the unforeseen storms, the quiet mornings when all we can do is take a deep breath and begin again.

Those moments rarely feel important while we’re living them. Later, we discover they’ve become the chapters we remember most.

So, if you’ve been feeling as though life keeps interrupting your plans, maybe take heart.

Perhaps life isn’t interrupting your story at all. Perhaps it’s writing the next chapter. And when I finally sit back down to continue JOURNEY OF THE HEART, I have a feeling those pages will carry something they couldn’t have carried a month ago.

Not because I’ve become a better writer.

But because life has gently reminded me what the journey is really about.

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