Lexie and the Book Fair

The West Hollywood Book Fair was held last Sunday. I was there all day, and so was Lexie, my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who happens to look exactly like, and have the same name as, the dog owned by Kendra Ballantyne, protagonist of my Pet-Sitter Mystery series.

Oops! I shouldn’t say Kendra owns her Lexie, any more than I own mine, since we visited West Hollywood, nicknamed WeHo. There, people are officially, by law, pet guardians. I brought another guardian along especially for Lexie--my husband, Fred, who took care of her at times when I couldn’t.

I participated in a panel on cozy mysteries along with fellow mystery writers Joanne Fluke, Susan Kandel and Linda Palmer, moderated by Sue Ann Jaffarian, with a signing afterward. It went great! I also signed at the Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America booths. Fellow blogger Kathryn Lilley was there, too. And when I wasn’t scheduled for something else, I had the great joy of hanging out at the Arfriend booth, where Lexie and I were featured attendees.

Arfriend is a wonderful local organization that is a resource for people and pets. I held a drawing for the benefit of Arfriend, with the winner’s pet to appear in the 7th Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery. But I requested that a donation be made to Arfriend to enter and there were quite a few entries. The winner was Mooch, a terripoo mix. I’ll be receiving more info about Mooch soon.

Also at the Arfriend booth most of the day were the delightful Arfriend founder and coordinator Janet Cole and her wonderful adopted pug Humphry, as well as veterinarian Dr. Karen Halligan, author of Doc Halligan’s What Every Pet Owner Should Know. It was utterly enjoyable hanging out with them, and Doc Halligan gave me lots of good pointers for caring for Lexie’s health.

Lexie and Humphry weren’t the only dogs at the WeHo fair. In fact, there were quite a few. We didn’t get to meet them all, but I did admire many of them from afar. Lexie even got nose to nose with one or two, which is a wonderful thing for her. She isn’t as well socialized as I would like, since her dear friend Sparquie, whom we recently lost, used to nip at canines of all sizes, so when we had the two of them out together (which we did most of the time so one wouldn’t be left behind and feel bad about it) we kept them apart from other pups. As a result, Lexie is a bit timid when it comes to other dogs. She’s much more of a people pup, but I want her to get along with pets of other persuasions as well.

In any event, a good time was had by all. And I got to pass out bookmarks for my new release, now officially available since it’s October: THE FRIGHT OF THE IGUANA.

Thanks, Arfriend and WeHo and everyone else who helped to make this a really fun and memorable day.

--Linda