Ready, Not Ready (A tribute to Cathy Perkins)

by: Donnell Ann Bell

On December 21, 2021, The Stiletto Gang lost a blog partner and friend. Cathy Perkins passed away. She was able to celebrate her 41^st wedding anniversary with her husband, and I know firsthand how proud and delighted she was with her daughters, spouses, and grandchildren. These people were her world.

For the most part, Cathy Perkins was a private person. In this blogpost, I’d like to celebrate the dynamic person I knew, and why I enjoyed her company so much. Cathy Perkins had a soft Southern drawl, a great laugh, a terrific sense of humor, and a gleam in her eye. She enjoyed exercising and was serious about her health. Her myriad interests spanned from finance and science (chemical engineering was her first degree), to walking her dogs, to working with stained glass, and, of course, writing. 

I met Cathy at the start of her writing career, after judging her unpublished entry, The Professor, in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. Later, we would serve on committees and a board together, and we periodically texted or phoned to catch up on the goings-on in our careers.

Whether close by or across the country, she loved to attend writing retreats, places where she was in her element and her most productive. Before COVID-19, the women in her retreat group met yearly and were very special to her.

I attended two Left Coast Crime conferences, one in Monterey, California, the other in Portland Oregon. Cathy and I roomed together in Portland where the staff stashed us next to an obnoxious chiming elevator filled with coming-and-going attendees. Didn’t matter, we spent the whole night gabbing anyway. 

Cathy Perkins on a panel at Left Coast Crime

Authors D.V. Berkom, Donnell Bell and Cathy Perkins

Authors Donnell Bell, Susan Boyer, Cathy Perkins & Allison Brennan

Cathy was not one to brag about her education or her successes. The only time I heard her beyond excited was the night she called me from Nashville to tell me The Body in the Beaver Pond had just won the prestigious Killer Nashville contest. That was so cool because I had beta read two versions of the book–the first draft was good—the final version, was outstanding. “This manuscript is ready,” I told her. “You need to get it out there.”

“Soon,” she promised, “When I’m ready.”

I also beta read Calling for the Money, book three of her Holly Price Financial series. In this book, I discerned a better understanding of this financial whiz behind the words and why she was the perfect author to write this series. She traveled constantly during her financial career, and did much of her writing on airplanes. More than once I asked her when she planned to retire.

“Working on it,” she’d say. “When I’m ready.”  

Always a planner, she and her husband had purchased a secluded property in Washington state, they were clearing a tree-filled lot, and were building their dream home. I never got to see the property in person, but trust me, I saw it in my mind’s eye when I read The Body in the Beaver Pond. Cathy occasionally described the labor-intensive maintenance and the construction woes, mostly laughing when she relayed the drama. 

The dilapidated cabin that her protagonist Keri Isles inherits is an exaggerated structure for the real deal. In its place, stands the Perkins’s long-awaited home with its stunning vistas, which eventually came to fruition.

In March of 2020, the Perkins came to visit my husband and me in Las Cruces. COVID was just starting to rear its awful head, and I’m grateful we had these few days to spend together.

Author Cathy Perkins in Monterey

In closing, Cathy Perkins did more living in her six decades of life than many people do who are granted an additional thirty. She loved, lived, traveled, and gave of herself to numerous volunteer organizations and charitable causes. I still have her text messages and I confess I’ve saved her last voicemail. At some point I’ll probably delete it. Maybe . . . when I’m ready. For now, I’m not ready. Rest in Peace, Cathy.

Donnell Ann Bell is an award-winning author, including finalist in the 2020 Colorado Book Award, and the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards for her first straight suspense Black Pearl. Book two is on her editor’s desk and she’s working on Book Three. You can learn more about her other books or find her on Facebook, Twitter, or BookBub. Sign up for her newsletter at www.donnellannbell.com

 

 

 

A Tribute and a Review

 Hi, folks. Today is Cathy Perkins's day to blog with The Stiletto Gang. She’s ill, and not up to blogging, so I volunteered to take her day. Since it is her day, I thought I’d tell you a story about Cathy, then do a review of her latest, The Body in the Beaver Pond.

Years ago, I judged an unpublished mainstream entry called, “The Professor” in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense contest. That entry did very well and led to her publication with Carina Press. What I didn’t know then was that entry, and the subsequent connections surrounding it, would lead to the start of a decades-old friendship.

From that point, if Cathy had a release, I bought the book. Mainly because I enjoy her first-person voice, dry wit, and love a good mystery. In addition to writing, she also has an eye for graphic design. When getting ready to publish, Calling for the Money, her fourth Holly Price financial mystery, she was at my house, sitting at my kitchen counter trying to draft a design idea to give to her artist.

 “Something like this,” she said, showing me her handiwork on her iPad.

After I regained my voice, I said, “This is so good! Why are you paying a cover artist?”

But I digress.

Some time ago, Cathy contacted me and said she wanted to do a spin-off of her Holly Price series--this one featuring Holly's half-sister Keri Isles. Cathy already had the setting. It was the property she and Chuck had bought in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state.

She asked me to do a beta read. I did, and told her in my subjective opinion the manuscript was ready for publication. Obviously, others agreed. At Killer Nashville in March of 2020, Cathy won the Claymore Award for The Body in the Beaver Pond.

It’s been a while since I read the unpublished version, so I bought the published version. Trust me, The Body in the Beaver Pond was just as much fun reading the second time around. 

What's the book about? Here goes: 

Newly divorced Keri Isles has left her home and event-planning job in Seattle and moved on to a property she acquired in the divorce. Problem is the division of assets is far from equitable as her ex is on friendly terms with the judge. While a Christmas tree farm, rustic cabin, and beaver pond sound idyllic and look good on paper—in reality the acreage includes a 1940s cabin with poor plumbing, an ancient tractor, constant treating of trees, as well as back-breaking work to keep the place operational and out of the red.

What’s a woman to do in this situation? Spiff up the place, keep it running, hire a realtor and hope it sells!

Cathy’s internal narrative and dialogue are so witty and so much fun to read. She places you firmly in the head of a down-and-out protagonist—one you are rooting for from page one. If running a Christmas tree farm isn’t laborious enough for a single thirty-two-year-old woman, imagine an archeological dig  next to the property. One in which dimwitted students park a van on Keri’s newly planted Christmas trees. When Keri complains to the excavation head, a pompous academic who inasmuch tells her to get lost, Keri has no intention of standing down.

Great secondary characters and a yellow lab named IRA who has a penchant for digging up bones, you can see where this is heading, right? 

This is a terrific start to a series, and call it a hunch, I think Keri may just learn to love her little tree farm, her zany neighbors, new friends, and potential love interest. I know I  enjoyed spending time there and can heartily recommend The Body in the Beaver Pond, a Keri Isles Event Planner Mystery by Cathy Perkins.   

Finally, a note to my friend. Thinking of you, Cathy. Get well!!