Next up: I will be giving several author talks throughout the day on Sept. 24 at The Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mt. Lake for their annual homeschool day.

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This middle grade novel has been published by North Country Books, an imprint of Globe Pequot Publishing and Rowan & Littlefield. It’s a book with strong 13-year-old characters finding their way, challenges with school and friendship, the impact of history, family issues, nature, and mystery. It all takes place in the Adirondack Mountains, where I grew up.

It’s a special time, when a book first comes out.

As a reader, I love buying a new book. Especially if it’s an author I already love, or a book that’s been recommended to me, or a novel I read about that I’ve been waiting to be released.

It’s so rewarding to see my books on the shelf in a bookstore. It happens long after the writing begins. Detour Ahead began with a story idea about identical twins and a family who lived on a lake and rented out cabins. I’ve always been fascinated by this type of business/lifestyle; I’ve rented cabins for decades in different locations while on vacations; and I grew up in the town featured in this book. While the story is fictional, I do have identical twin nieces and it’s been fun to be part of their lives. Quite a few years passed before I could confidently tell them apart. They were total mirror images of each other, and still can be mixed up.

I knew I wanted my book to be in part about Goodman Mountain and its namesake, Andrew Goodman, a civil rights activist who lived summers in Tupper Lake, and that I had written about as a reporter. I knew I wanted there to be a family that was living in a tent, homeless, because I’ve written about that as well as a reporter. It happens a lot, all over the country. Many people struggle.

I wanted to portray an interesting family, customers, lake life, diverse interests, a mystery, nature, a dog, and genuine characters. I love swimming, so I wanted that love to be shared by a character in the book.

As I wrote each chapter, I brought it to the critique group I was in for several decades. We met every month at a local library and helped each other with editing and feedback; each of us is a children’s book author. Writing a book takes working on different drafts of the book; being willing to toss out diversions that crop up in writing; staying committed; having fun and listening to your characters. Yes, that happens. If you have a well-developed characters, they unfold for you.

I hope you enjoy my book!

My first three books, Soft Shoulders, Dangerous Falls Ahead and Dead End, are also all available for sale. They are all set in the Adirondack Mts. and feature a main character who is 10 years old, along with her friends, boy neighbors, and adventures paddling and hiking. While the characters in the first three books are the same, the books are not a series; they can be read separately.

Detour Ahead, and my other titles, are available at, among other places:

The Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany

Open Door Bookstore in Schenectady

Tupper Lake Arts Center

The Wild Center Natural History Museum in Tupper Lake

Old Forge Hardware and Bookstore in Old Forge

Abenaki Studios in Indian Lake

The Book Nook in Saranac Lake

Barnes and Noble in Colonie

Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mt. Lake

Hoss’s Country Corners, Long Lake

Online

Please support your local bookstores!

For any questions, email me at lfrenette@nycap.rr.com

Thank you to The Book Nook, The Book House, Abenaki Studios, The Wild Center natural history museum, and Open Door Bookstore for hosting me for book signings! More to come!

My new book is here! Welcome to the world, Detour Ahead.

lfrenette@nycap.rr.com