I Just Got Rid of the Ultimate Book Hangover
I just got rid of the ultimate book hangover. It started in early March when I began the manuscript of the sixth West River Mystery. From then until the end of May, my days were spent time and space traveling between my real life as a 69-year-old resident of central Iowa in 1978 and Jane’s life as a 22-year-old resident of northwest South Dakota in 1978. The hangover finally shook it lose when I completed the manuscript of See Jane Stop, Drop, and Roll! on May 31.
See Jane Stop, Drop, and Roll! takes place during a drought*, which is why the book is chalk full of prairie fires. And dust. And grasshoppers. And absolutely no mud. Even so, the day I finished the manuscript was of the joy in Mudville* variety. Wahoo!
Now that the hangover is no more, I can think again and share a few final See Jane tidbits:
- Whenever I finish a See Jane manuscript, it feels like I’ve returned from a visit to the South Dakota town where we used to live. It makes me homesick every time.
- Midwestern Books has confirmed that the fifth book in the West River Mysteries, See Jane Ride!, will be released in the spring of 2026. Whether that’s March or April has yet to be determined.
- The publisher has also confirmed that See Jane Stop, Drop, and Roll! will be released in October of 2026.
- I’ve been invited to present at the 2025 South Dakota Book Festival. It will be held in Spearfish*** in September. More on that to come!
Finally, I picked up several tee-shirts and pairs of shorts for our tall, skinny,10-year-old grandson (think rubber band that keeps stretching up but never out) at a garage sale today. That has nothing to do with the See Jane books, so it didn’t warrant a spot on the bulleted list. But it’s the kind of stuff I love to do when not dealing with a book hangover.
*The photograph at the top of the page was taken in July during a drought year in northwestern South Dakota. The grass was brown and crunchy. Tens of thousands of acres of tinder just waiting for a lightning strike and wind. (More on that in See Jane Stop, Drop, and Roll! when it’s released in the fall of 2026. My apologies for the wait,)
**See Earnest Thayer’s poem Casey at the Bat to find out what that means.
***Fun fact: Our son was born in Spearfish in 1982.
