Dear Reader Column 09-15-16

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Dear Reader,

While I'm on vacation this week, I'll be catching up on my "to read" list including reading some of this year's entries for the Write a DearReader Contest. I want to read your entry. Read about the contest at: http://www.dearreader.com/contest2016/index.html

John Clement is our guest author today. He's the son of Blaize Clement, who originated the Dixie Hemingway mystery series. Blaize lived nearby me in Sarasota, Florida for many years before she passed. I've met her son John, who lives in New York City, and he does indeed take after his mother. Such a talented storyteller, and one of kindest guys around--an amazing man. His latest book in the popular Dixie Hemingway series is The Cat Sitter and the Canary due out December 20th.

This weekend in St. Augustine, John will be a featured speaker at the Florida Heritage Book Festival, a three-day event that showcases Florida's rich and diverse literary legacy. It's free, so if you are nearby, stop by and say, hello. More at: http://fhbookfest.com

Email: [email protected] to say hello (he answers all of his mail) and when you do, you'll be entered in a drawing for an advance reading copy (ARC) of his upcoming book, The Cat Sitter and the Canary.

Welcome to the book club, John Clement...

"This one cures rabies," I said.

I poured a bit of the clear liquid from its tiny amber bottle into a small jar with a milky substance inside, then I screwed the lid back on and shook it vigorously.

"If a raccoon bites you and it has rabies," I continued, "then you drink this and it saves your life."

My best friend Philip Mendez, who lived three doors down, nodded solemnly. He was busy mixing his own concoction from the fifty or so medicine bottles we'd found in a garbage bin down the street.

"But you gotta kill the raccoon," Philip added. "It's really, really sad, but you have to."

I don't remember whose idea it was, or, for that matter, what we were doing rummaging around in somebody's garbage, but the moment Philip and I saw all those medicine bottles, we knew we'd hit the jackpot. Our little nine-year-old brains could barely wrap themselves around our good fortune. At first we decided to open a pharmacy, but that proved a little boring without any customers, so we opted for a top-secret laboratory instead. There were dark glass bottles full of strange liquids, clear squat jars packed with pills of every shape, size and color, and dozens of tiny vials revealing all manner of odd-smelling substances, each labeled with mysterious, indecipherable words. We lined them all up on the rails of the wooden fence that divided my backyard from the neighbor's, and then we embarked on our important work: creating new and exciting cures for man's greatest ailments.

Philip looked up and said, "Hey, how do we know it cures rabies?"

I thought for a moment. "We have to do some tests."

Luckily, we were smart enough not to drink anything ourselves. Instead we wandered around the yard, administering little droplets of our miracle potions on unsuspecting June bugs, ants, and grasshoppers. Some of our "inventions" fizzled like Alka-Seltzer. Others gave off an acrid smell that burned the insides of our nostrils. In other words, it's a miracle we survived unscathed. I can still see the look on my mother's face when she came around the corner and discovered our secret laboratory. She wasn't angry, at least not as much as she was dumbfounded. She kept saying, "What in the world were you thinking?"

I still don't know. Decades later, my medical research lab with Philip Mendez remains the single dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. But then, we all have a childhood story like this...right?

--John Clement

Email: [email protected] to say hello (he answers all of his mail) and when you do, you'll be entered in a drawing for an ARC copy of The Cat Sitter and the Canary.

* Congratulations to the winners of Ninth City Burning by Guest Author J. Patrick Black: Linda C., Noreen B., and Vicki E.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]

AUTHORBUZZ: With so many new books out every week, we promise these titles deserves your attention:

(Thriller)
THE SOUL OF THE MATTER by Bruce Buff

(Fiction)
NINE FACTS THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE by Ronna Wineberg

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

* This month's Penguin Classics book is PERCHANCE TO DREAM: Selected Stories, by Charles Beaumont. Start reading now and don't forget to enter the drawing for your chance to win a Penguin tote bag: http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqZ1AFE3FA745F&c=CLASSICS

Comments

[Storyteller Mary]

Ah, but you were smart enough not to drink it -- good for you!

[Diana]

One of my favorite new series from 2016. I would love an ARC.

Diana