Hello and Happy Autumn!

As many of you know from following my reports over the years, I love my fish. Goldfish, that is. I have goldfish and a few pet-store-quality koi who have grown to enormous sizes in my backyard pond, and who annually present me with dozens of large, healthy, hungry, unwanted fish grandchildren. Thus every spring the Dear Hubbie and I go wading in green water armed with nets and buckets to rassle dozens of adolescent fish into captivity. Then we put an ad for free fish in the local paper, and give the fish away.

While I suspect that a few of our crustier old-guy adoptive parents are secretly using my pet goldfish for bait, I feel confident that most of the adoptive parents are nice people who truly do give the fish good homes.

Be that as it may.

For years I've joked darkly that I wished a heron would land at the pond and solve my fish over-population problem. Great Herons are very common, even in the mountains of north Georgia. Surprise, surprise--they don't need warm weather, oceans, coastal breezes, etc. They're perfectly happy to live at a mountain pond.

Well, finally my wish came true. A few weeks ago we spotted this ENORMOUS gray-blue heron in the yard. I'm talking three-feet tall if he's an inch. A beak like a razor-tipped spear.

He'd flap languidly away when we spooked him, but he never went far, and every day he came back -- early morning and again at dusk.

"Perfect!" I told the DH. "He'll only eat the smaller fish, because the bigger ones are more than a mouthful. And then he'll probably migrate to his winter condo in Florida. No more heron and no more unwanted baby fish. My dream has come true!"

Sure enough, the cluster of small goldfish in one of my puddle ponds began to shrink. Within a week only a few hardy hiders survived from the 30 or more original inhabitants.

I felt a little guilty, (like a bad mother, not protecting her young!) but also relieved. After all, herons are God's creatures just like goldfish, and they deserve to have a good meal.

Besides, like I said, the heron was only going to eat the baby fish, and then leave. Right?

Wrong.

He cleaned out the babies, then he moved to another puddle pond and cleaned out the medium-sized fish. I was beginning to get a little worried, but still, no big deal.

My precious older fish, the big guys in the big pond, were safe, right?

Wrong.

One day, a day that shall live in the annals of horrified fish ownership everywhere, I found Whitey and Speckles floating fin up in the big pond.
My huge, sweet, waddling fantail children! I'd had them for years. Nasty wounds showed where the heron had skewered them. Apparently they'd escaped from his clutches, only to die later.

The murderer. This was war.

I searched the Internet for heron information. Rats. Herons are a protected species. You can be fined up to $10,000 for blasting one with a shotgun. Besides, I really didn't want to kill this feathered Soprano. I just wanted him to leave.

Egads. I discovered that herons don't head south in the winter. They consider my Georgia backyard "south enough." It was quite possible the big killer would perch beside my pond until not a single fish remained, even if it took him until spring.

"Cover your pond in netting," the fish people advised.

Right. I have six cats. What would be worse--dead fish or half-drowned kitties tangled in nylon netting?

No netting.

"Put in a fake floating alligator," I was told next. "Herons hate alligators."

Okay. So I got a five-foot plastic alligator who looks so real he scares off pizza delivery boys. The next day I saw the heron LAND ON THE ALLIGATOR. He perched on it. Great. Now I had given the Hannibal Lechter of birds a floating dinner table.

"Sprinklers," the pond expert advised this time.

Huh? Was I supposed to give the heron a bird bath?

But no, the pond expert meant special sprinklers -- ones with battery-operated motion detectors built in. You set the sprinkler up, it senses movement and/or heat, and it squirts a short, high-pressure shotgun volley of cold water in every direction.

Voila! I bought two of the gadgets. Set them up on opposite sides of the pond. Full coverage. Like watery Gatlin guns.

But I wasn't taking any more chances. I had a back-up system in mind. Armed with all the ingenuity of my redneck heritage, I traipsed to Home Depot and bought a stack of styrofoam insulation boards. Giant, lightweight, floating obstacles with the added weaponry of shiny, reflective coatings, so they flash in the sun.

Yes, now my beautiful, bucolic, woodsy pond is covered in silvery siding pockmarked with dents where acorns have thumped it and stained with puddles left by the ever-squirting motion sprinklers. My pond looks like somebody launched a fleet of hillbilly pontoon boats on it. Plus it fries our retinas when the sun hits the reflective siding just right.

But the heron hasn't been sighted in over a week now. Hurray!

The bad news is, the cats are getting squirted every time they walk outside and the nearby Army Ranger camp is using my giant mirror of a pond as a landmark during their Black Hawk helicopter exercises.

But every time I see the safe, happy face of a fish smiling at me from under the frayed edge of the water-sprayed siding, I'm content. I am a good mother.

In completely unrelated news, I'm happy to report that I have a fabulous new agent, the mega-successful Suzanne Gluck of William Morris, and even as we speak she's confabbing with all manner of New York editors and publishers on my behalf. Next month I hope to announce a fine new home for my future books.

In the meantime, I'm as happy as a goldfish under flashy siding.

Happy September!

Deborah Smith

Jill Marie Landis Launches into “Home Improvement”

My husband and I were planning a trip to Ireland, but since our Long Beach abode needed some repairs, we shifted plans and have launched into “Home Improvement” mode. (Did I tell you that Upton Sinclair used to live in this beach house? Sometimes I feel as if he’s looking over my shoulder!)

Men in tool belts start showing up at the crack o’ dawn and are crawling around on ladders and swinging hammers. As I write this, there are three of them on the roof, and it sounds like they’re having a hoedown up there! I sure hope one of them doesn’t drop through the ceiling onto my desk!

That’s the trouble with being a writer. Too much imagination! So many possibilities!

Speaking of writing, the other day the cover copy for my next hardcover, HEARTBREAK HOTEL, arrived! As you may know, it’s the third book in the Twilight Cove trilogy. Not only will Kat Vargas from HEAT WAVE make a cameo appearance, but so will Jake and Carly Montgomery from LOVER’S LANE.

You may remember my new heroine, Tracy Potter, from her small role in LOVER’S LANE. Her son, Matt, ran away with Cary’s son, Christopher. Well, Tracy’s back, and now she’s recently widowed. And suddenly broke. On top of all of that, she’s got to contend with a mysterious stranger who shows up at The Heartbreak Hotel, a psycho, and a resident ghost.

Let’s just say, Tracy has her hands full!

For a sneak peek of the cover copy, visit www.jillmarielandis.com. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for a chance to win my Twilight Cove contest!

Jill Marie


ps. On Halloween note, if a witch in a hula skirt shows up at your door, it just might be me! Can you think of a better way for an author to get her chocolate?