Happy Coffee Day!
Did you know that October 1st is International Coffee Day? Now that’s a holiday we can all get behind and support.
Moreover, since 2009, National Coffee Day in the United States has been celebrated on September 29th. The holiday was first promoted by the Southern Food and Beverage Museum to kick off the New Orleans Coffee Festival.
This year’s festival is being held October 3-4, 2025. I think I’ve just added something to my bucket list! I’ve been to NOLA twice, for their famous Jazz Fest. It’s an extraordinary, multi-day music event. I learned on my first trip that the fruity drink called a Hurricane is well-named and is to be consumed cautiously.
But back to coffee. I don’t know about you, but I drink my coffee loaded up with flavor and cream. I guess coffee purists would not be impressed by my consumption method. But I still love to sit down each morning with a steaming cup and a great book in my lap. Doesn’t that seem like the perfect way to start the day?
Another Sneak Preview of The Madness of Moll Dyer!
I hope you enjoyed last month’s little tidbit from my next book in the Heart of St. Mary’s County series, The Madness of Moll Dyer. Here’s another snippet, this time from the time in her life where she worked for seven years as an indentured servant on a sugar plantation on St. Kitts:
March 1670 – Nevis Plantation, St. Kitts
Moll sat curled up in the tiny cabin she shared with two other women. There had been four of them in the one-room structure, but one had finished out her indenture soon after Moll’s arrival and left on a ship bound for the New York colony.
The cabin was one of dozens dotting the sugar plantation where she now lived. Like the others, this one was even draftier than her cottage back in Devon. That meant that air and light more easily permeated the building. It also meant that rain did, too.
Tears ran silently down Moll’s face, as they did every evening when the work was done and she was released for a few hours on her own before she would drop off to sleep, only to be wakened before dawn by the banging of a wood spoon against a metal pot. Then the tortuous work would begin again, day after day, until she was released on Sundays to attend church.
Moll had accepted an indenture contract with a Thomas Lugg in St. Kitts, after confirming that Lugg’s plantation was near that of William Salter, to whom her brother had signed an indenture contract.
The agent in Kenn had agreed to give her a contract after she had explained that she had ale-making skills as well as a good hand in elixirs, pain powders, and poultices.
“Yer not much to look at and yer not likely to survive the climate, but Mr. Lugg might make good use of you,” the agent had said, having Moll sign an “X” on the signature line.
At seven years, her contract was longer than William’s by two years. Ironically, her ship was to leave much earlier, on October 25th.
William had expressed disbelief, then outrage, then pleasure at knowing Moll would be in the West Indies with him, even if not on the same plantation.
Moll had merely announced to her other siblings that she was abandoning the meagerly furnished cottage, taking nothing but her spare dress, Dada’s potions case, and some of her hops and barley for brewing ale.
She had no idea what had happened to the cottage and she didn’t care.
Moll had walked for two days over hilly terrain to reach Bristol, where, starving, she’d boarded a small ship that took her along the River Avon to the mouth of the Severn River. From there, Moll had boarded a much larger ship for the journey west into the Bristol Channel and finally into the Atlantic Ocean.
At least there had been a bit of food provided on the journey.
The sailing had been every bit as tortuous as she had cautioned William it would be. Storms pitching the ship to and fro one day, utter calm preventing the ship from making distance the next. Women crying belowdecks, men vomiting above deck.
Moll herself had been sick on multiple occasions. Her shapeless dress became even more sacklike. None of it mattered to her, as this journey put her steps closer to a future near her beloved brother.
They had finally made it to the island of St. Kitts at the end of December 1669. As they sailed near the island, Moll thought she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. Green covered mountains, so much larger than the hills back home, dominated the small island, which was blanketed by warmth and sunshine, even in December. Puffs of white clouds dotted an impossibly blue sky.
It was as if she’d entered paradise.
Except she hadn’t.
I’m almost done with the manuscript and look forward to its release in February 2026!
Here’s my Book Signing Lineup
If I haven’t met you before, I’d love to do so at one of my signings. If you’ve been to a previous signing, I hope to see you again! Click here to see my calendar of appearances.
Prefer Large Print?
Did you know that many of my titles are available in large print? The books in both my Royal Trades and the Heart of St. Mary’s County series are all available in large print at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your other favorite retail outlet plus I keep a list of Shop Local locations here. I’m getting others added as fast as I can.