Every novel I’ve written has started as a NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month) project, but this November I decided to do something a little different. Instead of writing a novel I’m writing a collection of short stories, one of which will bridge the gap between Small Things and Threads.

Here’s an excerpt from the Small Things novella:

Summer, 1976

In a town the size of Carthage, you notice when someone new moves in — especially when they’re driving a 1937 black Ford Coupe. But it wasn’t the car that worried sixteen-year-old Shawn Spencer, it was the pair of men who owned it: Mr. Kingfisher and Mr. Quarry, who had taken up temporary residence at the Hotel Carthage overlooking the town squarecoupe

Kingfisher was nearly as tall as famed professional wrestler Andre the Giant, while Quarry was maybe 5’2″ on a good day. They wore identical matching black suits, and were supposedly housing developers looking to perhaps build in Carthage.

What made Shawn nervous wasn’t the thought of rising real estate prices or cottages being built around the lake, but that the pair had shown a particular interest in the old Spencer house on Randolph Street, the very same house where he and his girlfriend Jenny McGee had almost been murdered last summer.

 

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His head spinning with theories – God, how he enjoyed working on something challenging for a change, like his old days in Chicago – the Sheriff decided to pay a visit to the hospital and hopefully talk to whoever had been Spencer’s nurse on the night in question. If the boy had left the hospital, the nurse would know; and if Jenny McGee had been lying about going to see her sick friend, maybe someone would have picked up on that as well. Relishing the challenge of once again breaking a case, Ruskin crammed himself into his cruiser and headed for the hospital.

— Small Things, Chapter 17