It’s Saturday morning and time for my annual summer yard sale. Given how unpredictable the weather can be along the coast of Lake Michigan, and because I’ve been rained out more than once, I would much rather have a garage sale as opposed to a yard sale, but everything I want to get rid of is in the garage right now in boxes stacked to the rafters. I would have to provide miner’s helmets to prospective buyers and make them sign waivers before going in there to dig around. My goal, and it’s a modest one, is to be able to actually park in my garage for the first time in more years than I can remember. So I’m hoping the yard sale gods are with me, and that enough people will buy my clutter, and make it their clutter. And this year I’ve made a pact with myself. . . Whatever doesn’t sell is not going back. Either it’s going to the Salvation Army, or if they don’t want it, I’m driving straight to the dump.

My best friend Frances, whose garage is so squeaky clean you could perform surgery in it, calls me a hoarder. “I’m not a hoarder!” I told her, “I’m a collector.”

“Fred Sanford was a collector,” she said, “You are a hoarder.” After calling to tell me she saw me leaving Midge Mason’s yard sale last month carrying a coat rack, an electric fan, and a footstool, she barked, “It looked like you were looting the Goodwill!” But I will admit things have gotten a bit out of hand, given that a lot of what I hope to sell at my yard sale is stuff I bought at other peoples’ yard sales. And that includes that fan I bought from Midge for three dollars, never even plugged in, and plan to price at two dollars. “These are not the sort of investment strategies great fortunes are built on, Mom,” my daughter Carly, a bank manager in Boston said to me when we talked last night. My son Charlie, a Buddhist architect in San Francisco, used to have my “collecting” affliction, but after becoming a Buddhist he downsized and got rid of his collections. He later admitted he put everything in storage, “in case this Buddhist thing doesn’t work out.”

I usually get a pretty good turnout for my yard sales. It’s mostly friends, neighbors, and other locals who come by to shop and visit, but I get some summer people too. One thing I’ve noticed is that locals never haggle. If I’m asking a dollar for a desk lamp, they either pay the dollar, or they don’t buy the lamp. But a summer person who pulls up in a Mercedes will inevitably try to get it for seventy-five cents. Last summer Frances came by to help out. She was so incensed when she heard a very well-heeled Chicago woman try to talk me down on an antique bowl from five dollars to four dollars, she offered to loan her a buck. Frances has a low threshold of tolerance for summer people. I’m happy to share our little lakeside paradise for ten or twelve weeks out of the year, but I do wish there weren’t so many of them.

I rarely sleep past 7:00 am, and weather permitting, I like to take a thermos of coffee and go sit on my dock to watch the lake come alive. My dogs, Jackpot and Corky, usually join me, unless they’re feeling lazy and decide to sleep in. While I drink my coffee, they run up and down the dock stalking minnows, and patrolling the lawn for squirrels. I feel sorry for those poor squirrels. Just getting from tree A to tree B is a life or death race to escape the wrath of a Jack Russell terrier and a Cocker Spaniel. They are two of the sweetest most adorable dogs you’d ever want to meet, although the squirrels likely have a different take. There’s another ongoing conflict around the Puddles property, and that’s one between Jackpot and Corky and the Canadian geese who spend their summers on our lake. Sometimes a gaggle will swim a little too close to the dock for their liking and they go berserk. I don’t know if they’re trying to protect me from potentially dangerous water fowl, or if they just have something against Canadians, but their barking is so hysterical it’s almost embarrassing. When they’re finally exhausted from their morning duties protecting me from the geese, and making our local squirrel population nervous, they’ll plop down in front of me and stare, which is my cue that it’s their breakfast time, and the day officially begins. Daily life here on Gull Lake might be considered dull and uneventful for some people. What counts as a thrilling and life changing event for me is the prospect of a clean garage. But I can’t imagine living my life anywhere else, or any way else, and not a day goes by where I don’t count my blessings. Life here is good. . . even for the squirrels.

Meet Isabel Puddles is the first book in the NEW “Mitten State” cozy mystery series, coming November 24, 2020.

The only thing widow Isabel Puddles loves as much as her hometown of Gull Harbor on the shores of Lake Michigan is cozying up to a good mystery—but she never expected to be caught in the middle of one . . .

To the tourists and summer residents, Kentwater County is a picturesque community of small-town charm, fruitful farmland, and gorgeous freshwater beaches. To middle-aged widow Isabel Puddles, it’s where she enjoys breakfast every morning at a local café with her childhood best friend and spends her evenings cozying up with a good book and her devoted Jack Terrier, Jackpot. In between, Isabel makes ends meet through a variety of trades—preserving pickles, baking pies, working the counter at her cousin’s hardware shop, and occasionally helping “fix-up” the hair of corpses at the local funeral parlor.

When Isabel discovers a two-inch nail embedded in the skull of Earl Jonasson, it seems the octogenarian may not have died of a stroke. His son is quickly arrested when his alibi doesn’t check out. But Isabel has known Earl Jr. since they were kids and can’t believe he’d murder his own father, regardless of his financial difficulties. As gossip about Earl Sr.’s land and insurance policy money starts to spread around the county, Isabel finds herself conducting her own investigation to clear her friend’s name. But real detective work isn’t like what she sees on TV, and she’s meeting dangerous suspects who don’t like Isabel poking around in their business . . .

Purchase Link

Meet the author
M.V. Byrne was born in Lansing, Michigan while his parents were attending Michigan State University. Although he grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, when it was time to choose a college, he returned to his home state where he also attended Michigan State. Like the heroine of his new Mitten State Mystery Series, M.V.’s family has had a summer home along the shores of Lake Michigan for nearly 100 years. . . Despite a busy career, he returns to Michigan every summer to spend time with family and friends at “the cottage” his great-grandfather built.

M.V. Byrne has had a long career in television as a writer and producer, getting his start in New York City as a Page at NBC working on shows that included; The David Letterman Show and Saturday Night Live. After moving to Los Angeles, he went on to write and produce for Mysteries & Scandals at E! Entertainment, Behind the Music at Vh1, and Tyra Banks’ syndicated talk show. Over the course of his career he has also written and produced shows for Netflix, History Channel, Discovery, Bravo, Lifetime, the Food Network, and the Travel Channel. He later returned to New York City where he was a writer for Nancy Grace at CNN, and later for ABC’s Good Morning America.

M.V. Byrne currently lives in Los Angeles, where he continues to work as a writer/producer in unscripted television, although most recently he is writing a scripted series for the INSP network called The Wild West Chronicles.

All comments are welcomed.