December Travels ... and Launch Date Announcement for "Rock Paper Scissors"!

If you're in the Chester County, Pennsylvania, area on Sunday, January 8, please join me and fellow suspense and thriller authors Merry Jones, Jane Kelly, and Sherry Knowlton at ​Kennett Brewing Company for the first "Drunken Poets Society" event: 4 authors, 4 KBC beers, and 4 local cheeses, at 4 o'clock, all for $10!

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For me, mid-December means ... Lizzy Ballard's fateful trip from her home in Parkesburg, in the far western Philadelphia suburbs, to New York City, and her life-changing encounter on the Keystone train as it approaches 30th Street Station. Curious? Then mark your calendars for March 3, 2017, the launch date for Rock Paper Scissors: A Lizzy Ballard Thriller!

30th Street Station, Philadelphia

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December also means the yearly trip my husband and I take to Charleston, South Carolina, for a quick escape from the Chester County cold. Several years ago, we discovered lodgings in an iconic Charleston single house on East Battery, with a view across Charleston Harbor. The home was built in 1836 (and has been in the current owners' family since 1900), and it's easy to imagine the residents and their neighbors standing on the long verandas, watching the Battle of Fort Sumter unfold.

Now we get to watch the carriage tours pass by, to the clop of the horses' hooves, and the (very) occasional reveler returning home from the downtown bars and restaurants. Charleston tip: When porch-sitting (one of my favorite Charleston pastimes), bring a wide-bottomed "snuggie" for your water bottle to avoid having it roll down the steeply pitched veranda floor and three floors down into the neighboring side yard. Happened to a friend. Yeah, that's it.

Photo by Wade Walton

What is your favorite historic destination? ​Post your thoughts in the Comments!