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How to be an Older Woman for Beginners

Nobody warned you about this part.
When you were younger, you figured it out as you went. You always did. But this stage — the post-retirement, post-children-at-home, post-being-the-most-relevant-person-in-the-room stage — turns out to require its own entirely separate manual. One that didn’t exist.
Barbara Emodi writes about that.
How to Be an...

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Memo to Murder: An unintentional sleuth mystery

Heidi MacDonald is not qualified for her new job at the Legislature with Official Opposition.

She has never voted, or can’t remember when. Her research experience amounts to one letter published in a sewing magazine. She lives in her parents’ basement with a cat named Gilbert. Her direct supervisor considers her a useful fall guy, her chief of...

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Sew Over It

It’s winter in Gasper’s Cove, Nova Scotia. All Valerie Rankin wants is a life of her own and for her dream of a sewing school to come true. But when murder steps into the picture, Valerie and the Seaside Sewists have no choice but to stop their stitching and start detecting. It’s clear to them the Royal Canadian Mounted Police needs help, and...

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Latest Updates

Pre-order alert! New Release October 25 is a big day for me! The release of

October 25 is a big day for me! The release of Crafting a Cold Case. Book 6 in the Gasper's Crafters Mysteries

The long, frigid winters of Nova Scotia are perfect for crafting—...

First Chapters of my books

Read the First Chapter of Crafting a Deadline A federal deadline is bearing


A federal deadline is bearing down on Gasper's Cove: restore the town's crumbling old lighthouse by year's end, or watch Ottawa replace it with a soulless LED tower. While the community argues it out on a storm-strewn beach, Stuart's daughter turns up something the tide was not supposed to give back, a message in a bottle dated 1962 that reads, "Being watched. Help not coming." The coordinates on it point to the exact spot where they are standing. Crafting a Deadline is the eighth book in the...

Read the First Chapter of Crafting a Knock Off Craft shows can be


Craft shows can be dangerous. Valerie Rankin learns exactly how dangerous when the lights go out at the Thirteenth Annual Gasper's Cove Spring Craft Show and only a trolley piled with vintage quilts saves her from a nasty fall. Waiting on the other side of it is Louise Haggerty, a big-city "sustainable fashion" designer who has come to little Gasper's Cove hunting for local quilts and linens to upcycle, and who has her eye on Valerie's Crafters' Co-op. Never risk competition, she says, when...

Read the First Chapter of Crafting a Cold Case It is February in Gasper's


It is February in Gasper's Cove, the tourists are long gone, and Valerie Rankin is finally about to cast on a pair of socks for herself when the text arrives: Emergency. Get here ASAP before I kill somebody. It is from level-headed Catherine, which is exactly how Valerie knows it is serious. Someone has moved into the Bluenose Inn and shows no sign of ever leaving. Crafting a Cold Case is the sixth book in the Gasper's Cove Mysteries, a warm, funny Canadian cozy series about small-town...

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Other Writing

How to be an Older Woman for Beginners I also write a Substack on the

I also write a Substack on the positive and contemplative benefits of life as it advances. It's free to subscribe. Check out my latest post.