Summer Vacations in the City by Patty Blount

 I grew up in Queens, a borrough of New York City and yes, I pre-date the internet. When I was a teen, video games were still in arcades, though Atari was just starting to bring them into living rooms. So...whenever we had free time, staying indoors was the last thing we thought of doing. 

I've been a reader my whole life. Library days were special occasions. My mom subscribed to a Book-A-Month service. I can't even tell you how much I looked forward to that delivery. Every month, I got a hard-cover book containing not one but two full-length Nancy Drew mysteries. 

Every month, I promised myself I'd drag out my reading so the stories would last the whole month. 

Aaaaand, every month, I'd devour both stories in like, a week.

Summer was my favorite time because it meant I could do NOTHING but read those two mysteries all day long. Unfortunately, it also meant finishing both stories in a day or two.

But, yeah. It was a perfect Patty day, doing nothing else but reading. 

I got pretty creative. I'd take my book to any patch of shade I could find. Bus stops, parks, a front stoop -- it was all free game. 

At some point, I began pretending I was a teen sleuth. My friends and I had great fun solving mysteries we made up. 

You know where this is leading, right? 

This is when I knew I wanted to write books myself. It's funny how I haven't actually published a mystery of my own yet, but I'm working on it! 

DON'T BELIEVE A WORD is an adult cozy mystery with series potential about a former librarian converting her grandmother's house to a B&B but finds a body during renovation. 

In another manuscript, teen Riley Carter inherits his dad's muscle car and starts experiencing bizarre visions of his dad, who died along with his baby brother when Riley was eleven. Riley doesn't believe in supernatural stuff, but even he has to admit, his dad's ghost is impossible to ignore. As Riley learns to decipher his dad's cryptic messages, he discovers a six-year-old mystery that someone is STILL willing to kill to keep secret. 

FOR HIS HONOR is another adult mystery, this time, romantic suspense, in which Mayor Sam Grier's town has a serial killer attacking little boys. Journalist Elliott Carr is covering the story and captures the mayor's interest when she receives messages from the serial killer. 

I look back on my teenage summers filled with books and imagination and love how I get to make up my own now.