Midnight at the Midtown Oasis is based on the real Hillside Gardens in Colorado Springs. We try to catch a concert there a couple times each summer. It’s a combination gardening center and special events venue on four acres in the middle of the city.

I have never experienced a crime at the heavily treed and wonderfully landscaped Gardens. But being a writer, of course I dreamed one up.

The Midtown Oasis is the equivalent of a country club for those of modest means. The Oasis is under attack by unscrupulous City Council members and developers who want the land rezoned, and the area gentrified. When a murder shatters the peaceful venue, the blues singer owner seeks a solution by inviting a white-haired woman in a straw sunhat to investigate. Grammy Fred has a talent for reading people and finding the truth. The elderly lady wanders around the Oasis to “see what I can see,” and finds danger instead.

Hillside Gardens is not just a place to me. I used to live in the neighborhood. Known for being an area for folks of modest means, I fit in well during that period of my life.

Hillside Gardens offers multiple musicians set up in different areas. You can wander around, buy a tasty meal from food truck-style vendors, and enjoy beer, wine, or non-alcoholic beverages. An evening out that costs far less than concerts by major popular artists in much less comfortable surroundings.

My story appears in the May/June 226 issue of AHMM, which is available electronically now. The physical copies of the magazine may be delayed slightly.
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To our print subscribers: we’ve recently selected a new printing provider to ensure the highest quality for our magazines going forward. We’re excited to release the latest issue and can’t wait for you to get your hands on it!

Find Midnight at the Midtown Oasis at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Wherever you live, there is sure to be a funky local venue with a unique flavor. Take a chance and check out your area’s version of Hillside Gardens.​

The original covers for the first two novels in my Rose Creek Mystery series are going away. There are still copies available at Basecamp Books & Adventure. 

Book Two in my Rose Creek Mystery series is currently - and briefly - unavailable anywhere else. The publisher and I had an amicable parting of the ways. I have the opportunity to revise this novel, which was written during a stressful time of my life.

The new and improved The Body in the Cornfield will be released this summer, with a new cover. As nice as the original cover is, I can’t justify paying to keep it.
​Book One - The Body in the Cattails - is currently available from Harlequin Worldwide Mystery.

Book Three - The Body in the Hayloft, is currently available in the usual places, as well as Basecamp Books.

Book Four - The Body in the Chuckwagon, will release this fall. 

It has been challenging keeping my Rose Creek world together. But it's not a series if readers can't access all the novels. And there's something quite annoying about series dropped mid-stream. Remember Firefly, or more recently, The Old Man? 

I hope you'll hang in there with me as I rediscover Cornfield, and continue the journey with the Rose Creek Reads club!

Part Nine: Restrictions. It would have been nice to get up close to the hoodoos. But pets were strictly forbidden from hiking the dirt trails. Two retirees, one new-to-us used RV, a seven-month-old puppy, and a two-month-old kitten. We were learning that traveling with pets comes with limitations.

Read more at
https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets-d70

Find the first installment here: https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets

Links to previous episodes are in my 3/15, 3/18, and 3/22 blog posts.

#nationalparksinwinter #RVtravelwithpets #travelwithacat #catsanddogscoexisting #nationalparkspetrules

Can two retirees go camping in their new-to-them used RV with freshly adopted pets? Or are they setting themselves up for chaos and disaster?

Today, episode four of Traveling With Pets appeared on my Substack: https://substack.com/@catherinedilts Don't worry if you missed any posts! Below are links to what I've covered so far.

Part One: I admit to having terrible timing. The tiny tuxedo kitten is available for adoption days before a road trip we had planned months before. https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets

Part Two: Careful planning will prevent any disasters, right? https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets-56b

Part Three: Day One of the camping trip brings big time doubts. https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets-856

Part Four: Maybe this traveling with pets idea might work out after all. ​https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets-988

There are six more episodes of Traveling With Pets coming soon!

Today, my ten-part Substack series on Traveling With Pets begins. Follow two retirees on their first trip in a new-to-us used RV with a seven-month-old English Springer Spaniel and a tiny two-month-old tuxedo kitten. Fun? Or a disaster waiting to happen?

Find the first installment here: https://catherinedilts.substack.com/p/traveling-with-pets 

#nationalparksinwinter
#RVtravelwithpets
#travelwithacat
#catsanddogscoexisting
#nationalparkspetrules
​

Starting Sunday, March 15, I am running a series of ten articles on my recent adventure: Traveling With Pets. Subscribe to my Substack to follow along. It's free!

Part One: It's All in the Timing, and Ours Is Phenomenally Bad

Two retirees, one new-to-us used RV, a seven-month-old English Springer Spaniel, and a tiny two month old tuxedo kitten hit the road. Will we all survive over a week in the American West?

A new gluten-free Cookie Lady recipe!

Grandma’s Valentine Abduction is available starting February 28th. You can pre-order today. Grandpa's New Year's Relocation: sale ends soon!

In this post, I’m testing the new Cookie Lady recipe. Book two in The Ninja Grandparent Placement Mysteries is set around Valentine’s Day, Lovey Dearheart’s favorite holiday, so heart-shaped cookies were a must.

Once again, I am the perfect person for the test kitchen. My cooking skills are weak. If I can make these, anyone can! This recipe looks much easier than the January filled cookie, although the New Year’s Resolution cookies in book one do have a sophisticated look and flavor. They are worth the effort.

As with most good cookies, we start with butter. Add salt, baking powder, cream of tartar or arrowroot powder, and sugar.
The liquid ingredients are vanilla, almond extract, and eggs. Buzz this until well mixed.

Last mixing step - add the flour. I use gluten-free flour. The recipe calls for a dash of almond flour, but I didn’t have any. I used a gluten-free mix. Wheat flour also works fine. The recipe instructs to not make the dough too stiff.

Before you can roll the cookies, with the dough being a bit gooey, you need to chill it. I put it in the refrigerator, covered, for an hour. You could leave it overnight.

Roll and cut the cookies using a heart-shaped cookie cutter.

This dough was still fairly soft, but didn’t stick to the mat. That’s partially due to scattering a bit of flour before rolling. If you want a delicate texture, don’t add too much flour! I wasn’t sure how to attach the sprinkles. I baked a tray of plain hearts, then tried dipping the warm cookies in sprinkles. Big fail. 

The next tray, I dipped the raw hearts in sprinkles, then baked. They stuck much better, especially on the ones I moistened with a touch of water. But perhaps a frosting might be the way to go if you’re serious about your cookie decor.

My awkward attempt was a success. Pretty cookies. Delicate texture. Subtly almond flavor. If you are actually a competent cook, yours might look like the photo!
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The Cookie Lady’s treats come with a touch of magic. Will her Valentine’s Heart cookies bring love to Brie’s holiday? Find out in Grandma’s Valentine’s Abduction.

Catch up with the series with Book One: Grandpa’s New Year’s Relocation, available in the usual places, plus Now Available in Colorado Springs at an independent bookstore! 
https://bookshop.org/shop/basecampbooksandadventure
https://www.facebook.com/basecampbooks/
https://www.instagram.com/basecampbooksandadventure/​

Because life just has to be extra interesting.

What’s happening with the Rose Creek Mystery series? They will no longer be published by Encircle Publications. When the small press changed its business model, we had an amicable parting of the ways.

At the same time, I began a self-publishing adventure with my daughter’s press. The third book in A Rose Creek Mystery series, The Body in the Hayloft, was released by Top Hat Cat Publishing LLC in December 2025. The fourth book is planned for release later this year.

So what happens to books one and two? Eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, both will be released by Top Hat Cat. But we’re juggling so many projects right now, this has been placed on the back burner.

The good news is, you can find Book One: The Body in the Cattails, in paperback format for only $7.99 from Harlequin.

I’m truly going to hustle to get Book Two: The Body in the Cornfield, released via Top Hat Cat as soon as I can. But I want to give it a careful review first. A lot was going on in my life when Cornfield was released. I’m sure it can use a revision.

Book Four: The Body in the Chuckwagon, is still in development. I thought it would be the final book in the series, but my characters may demand more space to continue telling their stories. We’ll see . . .

If you’re a writer looking for a hybrid publisher, you can’t go wrong with Encircle Publications. You will pay for the services, but I can vouch for this outfit being honest folks. Deirdre creates the most amazing book covers. (When my books were published by Encircle, it was operating in a traditional publishing model.)

But when you have an ambitious, tech-savvy daughter who is also an artist, it’s an obvious choice for me!

Get your copy of The Body in the Cattails from Harlequin Worldwide Mystery. Hang in there for the return of The Body in the Cornfield.

Book Three: The Body in the Hayloft, is available via Kindle Unlimited, in exchange for a review via BookSirens, and in paperback and ebook from Amazon.

Support your local independent bookstore! If you are in the Colorado Springs area, you will find paperbacks of the entire series at Basecamp Books and Adventure.

Visiting the Iconic Denver Restaurant Casa Bonita

Casa Bonita is not merely a restaurant. It is an event. An adventure. The pink building is a Colorado landmark.

Generations of Colorado residents were heart-sick when the world-famous restaurant declared bankruptcy and closed in 2021, a victim of the pandemic. It’s a part of our shared experience. Our heritage. Like the mountains to the west, it seemed to occupy a permanent place in the landscape.

No ordinary restaurateur or entrepreneur could afford to purchase the building and restore it to its former glory. This was not a mere Mexican restaurant. It’s nearly a theme park. The future dimmed just a little at the thought of such a great loss.

Renovations were certainly needed. And I’ll just say it out loud here. The menu was infamous. Be honest. The food was terrible. As my son-in-law noted, it didn’t matter what you ordered; your plate would be drowned in orange nacho cheese sauce. There were only a few options. None of them good. Except maybe for the sopapillas. But you didn’t go there for the food.

Who could possibly come to the rescue? This had to be a labor of love.

Casa Bonita was featured in a 2003 episode of the animated TV show South Park. When they learned the landmark was going away, Colorado natives and South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker began the effort to purchase the restaurant in the fall of 2021.

Casa Bonita reopened in June of 2023. Matt and Trey were determined to do some upgrades. I am happy to report that they succeeded.

My family went this month to celebrate a granddaughter’s birthday. All of us had been to the restaurant years ago. We were eager to see the changes.

It looked almost exactly the same! Except cleaner. This is a good thing. We were going for nostalgia. It would have been tragic if the South Park boys had remodeled the interior into something unfamiliar. And the exterior is the same pink, with the fountain and the bell tower on top.

I’m happy to report that one important thing changed: the food was vastly improved. Previously, you picked up your chosen tray of slop before entering the restaurant from a pass-through window. This time, we were seated and given menus! The choices included vegetarian and gluten-free options. Our table had the sort of lighting that allowed you to see what you were eating. Always a good sign.

One other thing changed. Matt and Trey are determined to pay Casa Bonita employees a living wage. So the price was a bit daunting. But this isn’t a restaurant you pop in on for a quick lunch. It’s a special-event sort of experience. Out-of-town company, birthdays, anniversaries, that sort of special. Cliff divers, puppet shows, a live mariachi band, Black Bart’s cave, and more. All those folks have to be paid!

One caveat: we went on Superbowl Sunday. I imagine the restaurant was not as busy as may be typical. Not being a fan of crowds, my family was happy with the extra elbow room.

Will we go again? Certainly! Do I recommend Casa Bonita? Absolutely.
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Make reservations well in advance. It’s that sort of popular.
Casa Bonita

Will Casa Bonita inspire my fiction writing? My co-author and daughter Merida Bass agrees, the Casa Bonita experience deserves to be included in a future Ninja Grandparent Placement Mysteries novel. Currently, the series is set in Colorado Springs. One of our lonely grandparents in need of a family could wind up at the famous restaurant in nearby Denver!
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Grandpa’s New Year’s Relocation is available now at Basecamp Books and Adventure, and in the usual places online. Grandma’s Valentine Abduction is coming soon! Available for pre-order now.