Originally published: Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981.

A critical survey of over 150 years of Texas women writers, including fiction and nonfiction authors, poets, and dramatists.

Retreads tells the middle of the story begun in Thundering Sneakers and concluded in Sneaking Out. In this collection of essays, Prudence Mackintosh follows her sons through the "tween" years between little boyhood and adolescence. Vividly portraying the chaos that descends on a house full of active children, she also records the many first times and last times that give poignancy to the middle years of motherhood.

In many ways, the history of domestic humor writing is also a history of domestic life in the twentieth century. For many years, domestic humor was written primarily by females; significant contributions from male writers began as times and family structures changed. It remains timeless because of its basis on the relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, houses and inhabitants, pets and their owners, chores and their doers, and neighbors. This work is a historical and literary survey of humorists who wrote about home. It begins with a chapter on the social context of and attitudes toward traditional domestic roles and housewives. The following chapters, beginning with the 1920s and continuing through today, cover the different time periods and the foremost American domestic humorists, and the humor written by surrogate parents, grown children about their childhood families, husbands, and Canadian and English writers. Also covered are the differences among various writers toward traditional domestic roles--some, like Erma Bombeck and Judith Viorst, embraced them, while others, like Caryl Kristenson and Marilyn Kentz, resisted them. Common themes, such as the isolation and competitiveness of housework, home as an idealized metaphysical goal and ongoing physical challenge, and the urban, suburban, and rural life, are also explored.

Stirring Prose: Cooking with Texas Authors is a delightfully revealing look at some of Texas's best writers. Initially conceived as a Who's Who of Texas authors, Deborah Douglas quickly realized that asking authors to write about their favorite recipes freed them from "the big toe-digging constraints of having to talk directly about themselves. The resulting off-center reflections are brilliant slices of their personalities and their writing styles." A traditional cookbook this is not. Each author contributed to Stirring Prose in a personal, distinctive way. Billy Porterfield reveals his fantasies about a voluptuous restaurant owner and a dream-enhanced recipe for "game hen fricassee with a French New Guinea twist." Sunny Nash gives us an enticing snapshot of her grandmother, Bigmama, and divulges the secret to beautiful skin with Bigmama's Mysterious Rose Water Splash. And John Erickson shares his Bachelor Cowboy's Delight, the meal he eats over and over when his wife and children are out of town, and which consists of steak, lettuce salad, and green peas. Robert Flynn, Liz Carpenter, Elmer Kelton, and thirty-three others also share their recipes and food stories. Some of these recipes, such as Dr. [Larry L.] King's Asian Flu Hot Liquid Life-Saver, almost beg for a "do not try this at home" warning. Others, such as Cindy Bonner's Bohemian Kolaches and Clay Reynolds's Tex-Mex Breakfast, will inspire readers to start cooking. All are enticing for their tasty prose. Each recipe is accompanied by a photograph, a publication list, and an engaging, personalized introduction by Douglas, herself a fine writer, funny and charming. Although not an exhaustive collection of Texas writers, Stirring Prose: Cooking with Texas Authors is a tantalizing peek at thirty-nine talented Texas writers and their work.

Everywhere Monona Quinn goes, people turn up dead - and Mo ends up confronting their killers! First there was Charlie, owner of the town diner and Mo's first friend after moving to little Mitchell, Wisconsin (Murder over Easy). Then there was the parish priest (Murder at Midnight). And now, even a trip to the family farm yields corpses. Mo's twin sister, Madison, is already under plenty of pressure taking care of her mother and keeping the family farm going, with her husband serving in Iraq. So when her son (also one of twins) is arrested for drug possession, Mo drops everything - including her 80-hour-a-week job as editor of the weekly Mitchell Doings - and drives down to the farm, outside Summersend, Iowa, to help. The simple possession charge turns to suspicion of murder when not one but two locals, who are running a meth lab out of an abandoned barn outside town, are killed. Add to the mix a troubled marriage - when she leaves home, Mo's husband, Doug, tells her he can’t promise he’ll still be there when she returns - and you have tons of trouble for our amateur sleuth.

The love between them is the only thing that hasn't changed… Once upon a time, designer Emma Lockhart and rancher Tom Reid were each other’s one true love. Until their dueling ambitions drove them apart. Now Emma has a do-or-die opportunity that could bring the success she craves. When Tom offers his assistance in exchange for her help with his triplets, Emma can’t resist the cowboy’s pull on her heart…or his three little sons. Maybe her real success lies in taking a chance on happily-ever-after. From Harlequin Special Edition: Believe in love. Overcome obstacles. Find happiness. Lockharts Lost & Found Book 1: His Plan for the Quintuplets Book 2: Four Christmas Matchmakers Book 3: The Twin Proposal Book 4: Their Texas Triplets Book 5: Their Texas Christmas Gift Book 6: The Triplets' Secret Wish