“Summerset,” Book 4 in the Harbor Secret Series, set in Northern Michigan’s very own Harbor Springs, is now available in audiobook format! Now you can listen as you drive, exercise, paint, clean, or do yard work! This is historical fiction and romance based on the true, unsolved murder of the Robison family in Good Hart.
All four books, “The Tunnels,” “Devil’s Elbow,” “Leviathan,” and “Summerset” are all available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats. All are based on true pieces of Harbor Springs’ history and can be found on Amazon.
Number 168 on my goal list was to see humpback whales vertically lunge feeding. What is lunge feeding, you ask? Sounds like what I would do at a dessert buffet. Lunge feeding is a behavior in which a whale moves forward at a high speed and takes in a large amount of both food (usually krill or bait fish) and water. This causes its ventral pleats to expand 162% in girth and 38% in length. The whale then closes its mouth and forces the water out through its baleen, which is made of keratin, like our fingernails and hair. The plates of baleen hang from the top of the whale’s mouth in lieu of teeth. The food gets caught in the baleen before the whale uses its large tongue to remove and swallow it.
Humpbacks are most often seen vertically lunge feeding in Alaska, but it has also been reported in Monterey, California, which is a much closer drive for me.
In March of 2021, my friend and I ventured to Monterey, hoping to spot not only orcas but some vertical lunge feeding. Unfortunately, the only thing vertical was me tossing my cookies over the side of the boat as we motored through eight-foot waves that made me feel like I was on the last trip of the S.S. Minnow. Fortunately, we did learn that lunge feeding was most often seen in June, July, and August in Monterey. And so, this July, armed with a prescription motion sickness patch, we ventured back to Monterey in search of not only lunge feeding but maybe the elusive orcas.
The neat thing about this road trip is that there are all kinds of darling towns to stop at along the way. The most notable stops are Harmony with its population of 18, Solvang with its Danish-style architecture, Cayucos with its Brown Butter Cookie Company, scenic Santa Barbara, and Moro Bay with its famous Moro Rock and a harbor that has adorable sea otters floating on their backs. Just north of the castle named San Simeon, there is an elephant seal rookery that never fails to entertain. Not only are there also roadside fresh produce stands that turn the trip into a visit to the farmers’ market; but the California coastline is a destination in and of itself that, having been to both, I can say rivals the Amalfi Coast. Don’t get me wrong, the Amalfi Coast is still a notch above the Cali coastline, but it’s a small notch.
Although it was a gray day, which is bad for photography, we quickly noticed that there was no shortage of humpback whales, porpoising sea lions, and sea birds feeding in the harbor. We stopped next to two whales that were feeding on bait fish, along with sea lions, and watched them for most of our trip. Yes, they were fluking (showing their tails when they would dive), and, yes, they were relatively close to the boat, but this was not something new to me and not something I would declare to be worth the six-hour drive. That is until one of the humpbacks mugged our boat!
When a friendly whale is curious and comes over to check you out, it’s referred to as a mugging. This humpback whale swam under our boat, poking its head up on the other side. Then it just sat there with its head out of the water, checking us out! It would dip back down for a second and then come up to look at us again! This went on for probably ten to fifteen minutes before it rolled over in the water and rubbed its belly on our boat! When I held my phone camera over the exhaling whale, we could not only smell its breath (not so good smelling); but, as the exhaled air mixed with water droplets that shot into our faces, the naturalist on the boat yelled, “You’ve been snotted by a whale!” We were snotted quite a few times in one of the most amazing encounters of my life.
After about 45 minutes, the captain took us to some other nearby humpbacks and, well, well, that’s when the show went to the next level! The three whales would take a series of short breaths as they blew bubbles that encircled the bait fish into one spot. When it was time, the whales would dive deep, letting us know they were doing so by fluking. Things became eerily still while they were down as we looked around, trying to predict where they would surface.
The first thing to break the silence was the sound of thousands of tiny fish rising to the surface in one small spot before beginning to jump out of the water in an effort to escape their fate. Like something from a sci-fi movie, the huge, open mouths of three humpback whales rose straight up from below, breaking through the school of corralled, jumping fish. Their propulsion sometimes moved half their bodies into the air as they closed their mouths before sinking back into the ocean, only to repeat the process over and over until satiated.
This is one of the most astounding things I have witnessed, and I’m delighted to say that I witnessed it multiple times. When they rose from the water, their ventral pleats were expanded with water and fish, and it more than doubled their width, so they looked like giants from outer space. Once, they even emerged from the water with open mouths right next to the boat as tears of joy filled my eyes and I hugged my friend.
The following day, we chartered a private boat and, although we saw quite a few whales, we didn’t see lunge feeding but did see one breach out of the water once. Sadly, that evening, we found half the carcass of a long-deceased whale on the beach.
Day 3 of our adventure took us to two lunge feeding whales that we watched for about an hour.
Day 4 of our adventure was whale watching in Santa Barbara. I didn’t think we could top what we’d seen in Monterey, but I was pleasantly surprised when we saw a humpback whale out near Santa Rosa Island breach out of the water over 17 times in an hour! After 17, we lost count because it just kept going and going and going. Breaching their body out of the water, into the air, and then slamming back into the ocean takes an enormous amount of energy, so to see it repeated so many times is very unusual!
As if the breaching weren’t enough, this humpback whale would roll and wave at us with its pectoral fin. Sometimes, it would slap its pectoral fin on the surface of the water multiple times.
As our boat finally headed back to enchanting Santa Barbara, our humpback continued to roll on its side and wave good-bye to us. Holding up my hand to wave back, I knew that weekend had been one of the most amazing marine mammal encounters of my life as not only had I witnessed out-of-this-world behavior, but I had looked into the eye of a whale. How many people can say that? Needless to say, I have successfully checked off #168 on my list, and my life is better because of it.
I’ll post some pics here as well as part of the mugging video and the waving video on my Facebook author page. May you all experience wildlife in its natural environment, and may it choose to witness you in your natural environment.
“Summerset,” the fourth book in the Harbor Secret Series, is now available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. The link is below. By next week, the audiobook should be available on Audible.
Summerset, the fourth book in the Harbor Secret Series, is now available on Amazon!
Harbor Springs, the epitome of purity, innocence, and safety, forever lost that image when, in 1968, a family was brutally murdered in their summer home. To this day, the Sheriff’s Office classifies this as a cold case, and the Prosecutor refuses to close the file. Nearly every year-round resident has a different theory as to who committed the crime that has been featured on TV shows, web sites, podcasts, YouTube, and in numerous books. Now, upon the fiftieth anniversary of the unsolved mystery, Kylie, Jason, and Cupcake set out to discover the truth.
Inspired by a true story.
“Summerset” is now available in an e-book format on Amazon! I’m hoping the hard copy will also be available this week. Below is the link.
Good morning! As you may have heard, the initial drafts of Summerset, Book 4 in the Harbor Secret Series, have been completed. I hope to have the book available for purchase in the next couple of weeks! Below, I’ve included Chapter 1 from the new book for your reading enjoyment. I’m excited to join Kylie, Jason, and Cupcake on another adventure!
CHAPTER 1
Kylie Branson sat at the desk in her cupcake shop, licking the frosting of a cupcake from her fingers. The Harbor Light newspaper lay spread on the desk in front of her. Her eyes moved from the left page to the right and then focused in on a photo of a family from the 1960s. She saw a mother, father, three boys, and a little girl who sat in the front and center of the group. Kylie leaned forward and studied the black-and-white photo before reading the title of the article. “Fiftieth Anniversary of the Robison Family Murders.” She skimmed parts of the article, mumbling to herself. “Entire family brutally murdered…bodies not discovered for weeks…unsolved mystery for fifty years.”
As she drew in a little gasp, Kylie’s hand moved over her mouth before her eyes moved up to the photo of the family again. She ran her fingertip lightly over the image of the little girl. “I’ll bet you were the apple of everyone’s eye.” Kylie looked at the boys and then the pretty mother. “You probably kept trying until you got your little girl,” she whispered as she studied the photo of the doomed family. Finally, Kylie leaned back, crossed her arms, and began to read the article. She was only a few lines in when the bell on the front door jingled. She looked up to see a pretty, blonde woman in her fifties enter and look around thoughtfully.
Tossing the cupcake wrapper in the garbage, she gave the large, black pit-mix dog lying on the floor a quick pat on the head. “You stay here, Cuppie.” Cupcake lifted her head. “Stay and be good,” Kylie repeated the command. Cupcake let out a groan and dropped her head back onto her paws. Kylie stepped over the baby gate that barricaded the office from the rest of the shop. “Good girl,” she whispered to the dog before stepping away.
“Good morning,” she greeted the woman cheerfully.
“Hi,” the woman said lightly, her eyes landing on Kylie and taking her in.
“Can I get you something?” Kylie asked.
The woman looked Kylie up and down, studying the owner of the only cupcake shop in Harbor Springs. “Huh?” she asked distractedly.
An uncomfortable, intuitive twinge pinched Kylie’s stomach. “Can I get you something? A cupcake?”
“Oh,” the woman said, moving her gaze from Kylie to the display case. “You make cupcakes?” she asked in a voice that hinted of a French accent.
Kylie’s eyes moved to the side and then back before answering slowly. “Yes. It’s a cupcake shop.”
The woman looked around again as if just realizing that fact. “Oh. Um, yes, I guess.”
Kylie watched from behind the display as the thin, blonde woman with a high ponytail appeared almost confused. Kylie decided to help her out. “Do you have any particular flavor in mind?”
The woman’s eyes read the flavors. “Black Cherry Pecan, Love Spell, Harbor Hummer?”
“That one is flavored like that ice cream drink called a Hummer,” Kylie volunteered proudly. “It’s my boyfriend’s favorite.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
Kylie held up her left hand. “Fiancé, actually.”
The woman leaned to look at the square-cut diamond. “Wow, that’s quite a ring.”
“He’s quite a guy.”
The woman looked at her again. “I’m sure.”
Kylie felt the odd twinge of her intuition again and cleared her throat. “So what can I get you?”
The woman didn’t look away from Kylie but said, “Oh, I don’t know. How about just a chocolate one?” She gestured with her hand to indicate that she really didn’t care about the flavor as long as she got a cupcake.
“Er, we don’t have plain chocolate.”
“No chocolate?”
“I like people to expect the unexpected. You can get plain chocolate at the grocery store,” Kylie repeated her mantra that was also a bit of a mission statement.
“I suppose so,” the woman said, still looking at Kylie. “You’re very pretty, you know.”
Kylie placed her hand on her abdomen to cover the nagging feeling that grew stronger each time she felt it. “Thank you.”
Finally breaking her gaze as well as the awkward moment, the woman said dismissively, “Oh, just give me that Hummer cupcake that your fiancé likes.”
The woman pushed some loose strands from her ponytail behind an ear, and Kylie hesitated for a moment studying her. “Do I know you?”
A faint smile darted across the woman’s mouth but quickly disappeared. “If you have to ask, then probably not.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Kylie said, dismissing the idea and leaning to remove the cupcake from the display case. “Do you need a box?”
The woman seemed confused almost to the point of being disoriented as her eyes looked around the shop for help before answering the simple question. “For what?”
“For the cupcake.” She held the delicacy up as if to remind the customer.
“Oh, no. I’ll just eat it on the way.” She dug into her purse and produced some dollar bills, laying them on the counter.
“Exact change. I love it,” Kylie said cheerfully. “Have a great day!”
The woman took the cupcake and stepped towards the door. Pulling the screen door open, she turned back and said, “I really like your shop. It’s,” she thought for a moment, searching for the right word, “quaint.” She flashed a weak smile that triggered a childhood memory for Kylie.
“Are you sure we haven’t met?”
The woman just widened her dimpled smile and drifted out the door.
Kylie tapped her index finger on her chin thoughtfully. “Where have I seen you before? Hmm.” She slid the display case door closed and returned to the open newspaper in her office. Cupcake lifted her head in greeting, and Kylie gave it a pat. “Good girl, Cuppie.”
Kylie sat down at her desk and refocused on the photo of the ill-fated family in the newspaper. Her eyes focused in on the woman in the classic suit who stared back at Kylie with sad eyes. Kylie’s gaze went from the woman in the newspaper and back to the closed screen door before the realization hit her, and she asked out loud, “Mom?”
Jumping up from the office chair, she leaped over the baby gate, ran around the display case, and out the front door of the gingerbread house that served as her shop in downtown Harbor Springs, Michigan. Running to the end of the whimsically-curved pathway, she looked up and down the street before softly calling, “Mommy?” A few summer tourists passing by slowed their walk to look at her as she looked frantically up and down the short block.
Feeling beads of sweat on her chest, she turned right and ran down to Main Street where a few early-morning dog-walkers and joggers made their way up and down the street of shops that had kept their original style from the previous century. Kylie looked both directions before resting her eyes on the cold, blue water at the end of the street and then Petoskey on the other side of the bay. “Mommy,” she whispered.
Kylie stood there, staring at the sparkling water of the bay for moments until she felt two hands on her waist followed by a whiskery kiss on her cheek. “Good morning, Sunshine. Is today the day?” He asked the question daily that Kylie had been avoiding answering.
Kylie continued to stare ahead while giving her head a small shake, indicating her answer to his question.
The man behind her snuggled his face into her neck for a moment before realizing something was wrong. Pulling back, he stepped to her side and turned her to him. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” When Kylie didn’t respond, he continued. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Kylie moved her eyes up the strong, uniform-covered chest, onto the stubbly cheeks, and then to the brown eyes of her fiancé, local fire chief Jason Lange. “Jason, I think I just saw my mother.”
Today, December 17, 2020, through Sunday, December 20, 2020, I’m giving away a free download of Nine Days In Greece. Merry early Christmas!
When a workaholic attorney travels to Greece for vacation, she meets a handsome, much-younger man on the plane to Crete. When he shows interest and she feels a spark, she wonders if he could ever be more than a vacation fling.