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road trips with the redhead a blog by Suzan Lauder SearchHome About Suzan Lauder A Happy Assembly Meryton Press My Facebook Page Dashboard Post navigation ← Older posts Are you interested in Secret Affairs? Posted on April 30, 2024 by Suzan Lauder Reply Secret Affairs? Does that mean I have a secret to tell? Well, I do have news! Mazatlán eclipse 2024 courtesy Kris Meaney I recently moved back from Mexico to Canada. For those who are unaware, I’m a snowbird, and I spend five months of the year in a 150-year-old casita in an historical city in Mexico. I do the same things there as I do here: write, edit, and go for coffee with friends. I do go to the beach once in a while, but I’m not a beachy person, really. But coffee with my friends by the ocean—that’s excellent! Also, we enjoyed a bonus to going south this winter: we got first dibs on the total solar eclipse while there this season. Now I get to see the spring blossoms as I go for walks along the oceans and streets of my historic city here in Canada, plus enjoy a view of the Salish Sea from my loft condo. I love the Japanese cherries and pink chestnut flowers this time of year. I have exciting news: The Cecilia’s Mismatches series of short novels/novellas will have a third book join An Accomplished Woman and The Reluctant Chaperon on May 3! This one is called Secret Affairs , and it’s Lexie’s story—that’s right, the clever, outspoken, argumentative Lexie who was mismatched to Reeve in Book Two gets another chance! But will Cecilia get it right this time? You will find a cover reveal and excerpt over at the Meryton Press blog https://merytonpress.com/secret-affairs-by-suzan-lauder/, plus a chance to win an e-book of Secret Affairs for those who leave a comment. I know lots of you are keen to win books! Best of luck! This book is as engaging as the others in the Cecilia’s Mismatches series, so hurry to get your copy of Secret Affairs as soon as it comes out. It’s a stand-alone novella, so you don’t have to have read the others, but you still have time to do so! You can’t go wrong. Share this: Twitter Facebook More Tumblr Email Pinterest Like this: Like Loading... Posted in Cecilia’s Mismatches Series , Secret Affairs | Tagged An Accomplished Woman , Cecilia’s Mismatches , Mazatlan Eclipse , Meryton Press , Regency , Regency romance , Secret Affairs , Suzan Lauder , The Reluctant Chaperon , Traditional Regency Romance | Leave a reply Cecilia’s been busy! Posted on September 3, 2023 by Suzan Lauder Reply For those readers who’ve enjoyed An Accomplished Woman , there’s good news on the horizon: Book 2 in the series Cecilia’s Mismatches, The Chaperon, is getting ready for publication! Leigh finished the content editing earlier in the summer, Brynn’s proofreading has just been completed, and the book is on to formatting. The Janet B. Taylor-designed front cover is complete, which is just as pretty as all my books! We’re in the process of finalizing the back cover art for those who adore the cover so much that they must have a hard copy. The Chaperon will also have Cecilia making a match that doesn’t quite fit, but the story is quite different from Book 1. The characters wouldn’t have it any other way. In this case, we’ll see Everett and Audra take minor roles, with the new hero and heroine in the foreground. Cassie and Reeve are both so sweet and kind because they’re channelling Jane and Bingley! And Lexie, the match,—well, she’s something else! You don’t have to have read Book 1, An Accomplished Woman , to enjoy Book 2, The Chaperon , though it wouldn’t hurt to get to know some of the characters ahead of time. Besides, Book 1 is excellent according to readers: a little nod to Jane Austen, with a pinch of Georgette Heyer in this Suzan Lauder original. I expect you’ll find Book 2 no different in terms of reading quality. The new cover and a generous glimpse of the story will be revealed in about a month’s time when Meryton Press offers a set of long excerpts prior to the release of The Chaperon . Watch the Meryton Press newsletter (sign up at the bottom of the page in the link) and blog for more information. In the meantime, delight in reading my seven other books , which have garnered accolades of their own! 2023 September 9: A quick update: Due to another book with the title The Chaperon,” Book 2 is now called The Reluctant Chaperon.” The cadence is much better! Share this: Twitter Facebook More Tumblr Email Pinterest Like this: Like Loading... Posted in Cecilia’s Mismatches Series , The Reluctant Chaperon | Tagged An Accomplished Woman , Cecilia’s Mismatches , Georgette Heyer , Jane Austen , Meryton Press , Regency , Regency romance , Suzan Lauder , The Chaperon | Leave a reply Foodie on a Mini-Vacation Posted on March 13, 2023 by Suzan Lauder 1 When you live for half the year in a place where most from the rest of the world comes for a vacation, it’s fun to go elsewhere for a mini-vacation within that time. This year, we went to Oaxaca (pronounced wah-HA-ka), the food and arts and crafts capital of Mexico. We chose to fly, since it would be about 20 hours by ground transportation. That meant we were in our hotel on the Zocalo (town square) within the UNESCO World Heritage Site within a few hours via Mexico City airport. Loud, fun music was playing on a stage outside our room, so we quickly got changed to a quieter room on the other side of the hotel, which was a hacienda-style historic building. The location on the Zocalo in the middle of Centro couldn’t be beat. We found the mercado and freshly roasted Oaxacan coffee quickly, and also a new treat to us: chocolate covered churros (long donuts)! They were still crunchy inside. We spent most of our trip wandering the 300-year-old streets of the heritage part of town, where the buildings are made of volcanic rock, so some have a greenish tinge to the stone. Glorious huge churches stood every few blocks, or so it seemed. We stepped inside each when they were open. (You can click on the thumbnails for larger images.) We were treated to fantastic food every step of the way. I happened to choose about half vegetarian meals—not that I’m vegetarian, just that the selection was good. It helped me to gain no weight on the trip. I wore my Jennyvi ( Jane Austen Couture ) dress out to dinner since it packed well and was the right weight for the weather, which is quite warm in the day and quite cool at night. Some of the specialties of Oaxaca include the sauce called mole that’s served over meat or vegetables (with at least two dozen ingredients, the best mole has chocolate in it!), a sort of hard tortilla pizza called tlayudas, tamales (filled corn dough inside a banana leaf), memelas (a simple fresh open-faced thick corn tortilla with beans and cheese), and toasted, seasoned grasshoppers called chapulines. The latter was the only thing we didn’t try. They’re supposed to be quite tasty, but I had to give them a miss. Also, Oaxacan chocolate is quite different: grainy and dark. Eggplant appetizer Tlayuda Ancho stuffed with huitlacoche Custard cone Two of the days we visited Oaxaca were for side trips out of town. One day, we went to small towns south of the city and looked at an historical village and another town known for its black pottery. We took the bus. There are also towns with weaving (we already have two Oaxacan rugs), Alibrije art (little animals that are supposed to come out of dreams), Amate art (made from tree bark), embroidery art, and other kinds of pottery. Often, when you’re in big Mexican tourist towns, the best art you see isn’t from that city, it’s from Oaxaca state, a testament to the hundreds of indigenous tribes and their traditional crafts. For the second day-trip, we hired a driver to head east and take us to see the frozen waterfall” and a thousand-year-old tree. We chose not to go to the pyramids since we’d seen Teotihuacán and Chichen Itza, and they’re now not much more than tourist traps, and besides, ruins are not our thing. We saw...