Hi. Chris Durand here.
I was born and brought up in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, the prettiest village on the Maine coast. Though most young people leave in search of more opportunity, I never have and I never plan to. Of course, I have to hustle like crazy in the summer to make ends meet, working three jobs–my landscaping business, driving my cab and as a bouncer in the town’s noisiest tourist bar. And I rent out my cabin to a summer family and move onto the Dark Lady, my antique sailboat.
This crazy summer was even more complicated. I fell in love. And I fell hard.
I remember Julia Snowden from Busman’s Harbor High. She was in eighth grade. I was a senior. Our lockers were next to each other. She had braces on her teeth and was skinny in all the wrong places. I was co-captain of the football team. She was so tongue-tied around me she could barely get the words out, but she always asked how I was doing and seemed genuinely interested in the answer. There was something about her, but I had a girlfriend, Julia was too young, and by the next year I had graduated and she was off to boarding school.
So imagine my surprise when I walked into Gus’s restaurant last March and there she was, all grown up. The braces were gone, and now she was skinny in all the right places and filled out in the rest. We started having lunch together twice a week and just like in high school, found we could really talk to one another. Julia was trying to save her family’s clambake business. She was living with her family, working with her family and socializing with her family. There were times when they drove her crazy. I think I was the only person she could talk to about it.
Before we knew it, the season took off and we were working eighteen-hour days, but we did manage to squeeze in some time in together. On top of running the Snowden Family Clambake, Julia solved two murders this summer. She says she simply aided the police with their inquiries, but, in my book, she prevented two innocent people from spending their lives in prison. One of them was me. She’s the smartest, most determined, most honest person I know.
The first time I told her I loved her, she pretended she didn’t hear me. The second time, she took a phone call from a murder suspect right after I said it. It’s ironic after all these years of trying to avoid unwanted entanglements, I’m the one left hanging. What goes around comes around.
I know Julia loves me. But she worries about whether she can make a life in little Busman’s Harbor. She worries about how enmeshed she is with her family, and how that might eventually turn me off. The truth is, I love her relationship with her family, even my former buddy, her pain-in-the-neck brother-in-law. My parents have moved to Florida and my sister’s in southern California. There’s a reason we’re all in opposite corners of the country. I haven’t told Julia about that yet. Her love and her loyalty is part of what attracts me.
There’s another issue, too. My job. Not the landscaping or the cab or the bouncing. The other job–where I go off for days at a time on my sailboat. I can’t tell anyone I’m leaving. I can’t say where I’ve been and I can’t say no. I know she worries I’m doing something dangerous or illegal or both. I’ve proposed a compromise. I quit doing it and we treat it like an old lover, something in the past not to be discussed.
I can tell she wants to get past it. She’s trying and I have to give her credit for that. It’s fall now, and we all have more time. Maybe, if I’m patient enough, she’ll come around, leave the past in the past, and make a life here in Busman’s Harbor with me. Maybe.
You can read more about Chris in Musseled Out, the third book in the “Maine Clambake” mystery series, published by Kensington. The first two books in the series are Clammed Up and Boiled Over.
GIVEAWAY: Leave a comment by 12 a.m. eastern on May 6 for the chance to win a copy of Musseled Out. The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. Winner will be notified within 48 hours after giveaway closes and you will have three days to respond after being contacted or another winner will be selected. Make sure to check your SPAM folder.
About the author
Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries. The first book in the series, Clammed Up, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel, the RT Book Reviews, Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Amateur Sleuth and was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Boiled Over was published in 2014, and Musseled Out came out in April, 2015.
Barbara blogs with a wonderful group of Maine mystery authors at Maine Crime Writers and with a group of writers of New England-based cozy mysteries at Wicked Cozy Authors. She and her husband own the former Seafarer Inn at the head of the harbor in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where she writes her Maine coast mysteries. Her website is www.maineclambakemysteries.com. You can like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter or Pinterest.
This book sounds great and I love the setting! Maine is beautiful. Thank you for a terrific post and contest!
Well, that’s interesting. I wonder what his secret is.
Yes please Dru, I’d like to be entered in the contest. I checked both local county libraries and they don’t have it on order.
How fun! A few years ago I was fortunate enough to travel through Maine in September. How gorgeous it was! I would love to read this series.
What a good storyline. Thanks for the opportunity to win this.
I’m looking forward to reading the next installment in this series. Mussels are waiting to be cooked during😀
Can’t wait to read this next book, love this series!
Musseled Out sounds like a great book. Please enter me in the contest. Thank you.
myrifraf(at)gmail(dot)com
I love this series. Looking forward to this next book.
Love this series and can’t wait to read this one. Thank you for the opportunity to enter your giveaway.
This sounds really good, look forward to reading it
I’m already hooked! Can’t wait to read this one.
Would love to read. hope to win thanks for.chance.
OH MAAAAAAAAAN!!!! talk about a tease. 😀
Sounds like a good read. This would be a new series for me.
thanks.
Looks like a fun read, thanks for the chance.
Looks like a good book
This looks like a good series to get started with.
This book sounds soooo good!! Love the cover too!! That actually had me before I read anything. Thanks for the chance to win!
Love this series!
New series for me-and boy does it sound interesting! Can’t wait to read the first two and then this! Thanks Barbara and Dru for the opportunity to win a copy! It is definitely on my to read list. 🙂
Mysteries in Maine always remind me of the Murder She Wrote Series. Always wanted to visit a town like Cabot Cove so I’m sure
That I will love Musseled Out. Sounds like a fun read. Hoping to win
Thanks for the chance
Hi everbody. Just dropping in to say thank you to Dru Ann for having me and to wish everyone good luck with the contest.
Delightful series. Love Maine. Thanks.
A mystery in Maine sounds interesting to me. I’ve always wanted to visit that area. I look forward to reading this series.
This sounds like a great series! Have to get the first books now – and hope to win the third in the series! Thank you for the chance!
I’d love to win this book as Maine has been on my bucket list but I now know it will be thru books. Enjoyed the other two books in this series..
I love this series, even if I do walk away hungry all the time, LOL. I can’t wait to read this, thanks so much for the chance to win it.
The best vacation I ever had was a summer in Maine–can’t wait to start this series.
Mussled Out sounds so good and I love seafood and Maine sounds so pretty so can’t wait to read and review this on a few book sites . Thank you for a chance to win!
I enjoyed the first two books in this series. Would love to win a copy of Musseled Out. Thanks for the chance to win.
Time to play catchup!
I enjoyed reading the first two books of this series and have been looking forward for the third. Thank you for a chance to win a copy of Musseled Out.
I miss my frequent visits to Maine when my daughter attended college there . . . sigh. But this wonderful story, so full of mystery and promise (like Maine) could certainly take me back.
This sounds like a fun read! Thanks you for once again introducing me to a new author. Would love to win this book.
I can’t wait to read Muscled Out! I always want to live in Maine after reading your books!
I love this series. Thanks for the opportunity to win this newest release!!
I can’t wait to read this newest installment! Awesome series!
I want to know what Chris is doing in that sailboat!
Thanks, and good luck, everyone!
I love this series and can’t wait to read this new installment. Plus I want to know where Chris was going in the sailboat!!
I want to start reading this series
Sounds like a perfect series for me,
Thanks for the chance
This sounds exciting! I would love to read it, and find out what these mysterious trips are. And find out more about the series. Can’t wait to try it!
I’d really like to read this one. I hope I win!
What a great cozy mystery. Love the book cover. Makes me wish I was at the lake.
Great series that I truly enjoy reading!
Thanks for the giveaway! Love this series!
Oooh, where does he go??
Love, murder, and secrets—what more could I want in a book? Thanks for the contest.
suefarrell.farrell@gmail.com
Just dropping by to say thank you for your interest and good luck with the contest.
What a cute title & I LOVE the cover!!!!
Thank you for the giveaway….
Cannot wait to read it!!!!
Just started this new-to-me series! Thanks so much for the post and chance to win!
I follow this author on two blogs and always enjoy her Maine sharings. Have not read her latest book yet, so put me in the draw, please.
Thanks for the opportunity to read this book!
Sorry Chris, but if your trips on your boat are legit, Julia should learn to adapt!
Sounds interesting. I would like to finish the story. 😊
Great series.
I haven’t read one of these books, but I would like to. Thank you for the opportunity!
I have always wanted to visit Maine thanks for having the giveaway
I love this series. Can’t wait to read it.
Sounds like a wonderful series. Thank you for the giveaway
Sounds wonderful. 🙂 I’d love to win a copy of this book. 🙂
Sounds great!
Another great new book to put on my list.
I’ve read the first two in the series and enjoyed them very much. Can’t wait to go back and visit again.
have read the first two, dying to get the 3rd!!!love the series!!!
Would love to read this, I love the series.
I wonder if Chris is doing secret stuff for the government? I want to read this and find out.
contest is closed.