With Valentine’s Day just a few days off, I remembered this post, which originally appeared on Debra Goldstein’s website on October 31, 2022. The timing of it had amused me, because I’ve never been much of a Halloween person. Even as a kid, I dreaded the thought of dressing up and knocking on neighbor’s doors asking for candy, then coming home and watching while my dad inspected every piece for signs of tampering before a single morsel could cross my lips.

As a teenager, I transitioned from door-to-door canvassing to at-home Halloween parties. I recall one party where I went with my boyfriend of the day, he the farmer, me the wife. My costume consisted of painting some freckles on my face and putting my hair in braids. There may have been a plaid shirt and blue jeans involved. Possibly a tuft or two of hay. Imagination, not so much.

Later, as a homeowner, I found myself on the giving end of the tradition. This caused me no end of stress. If I bought things I liked (chocolate), I lacked the willpower not to eat it before the big night arrived. If I bought things I didn’t care for (licorice or potato chips), I would be stuck with them if I couldn’t give it all away.

First world problems, I know, but my dislike of Halloween in general is the main reason that none of my books are centered around it. Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, has played a significant role in two of my books: Skeletons in the Attic, book 1 in my Marketville Mystery series, and the recently released Before There Were Skeletons.

In Skeletons in the Attic, Calamity (Callie) Barnstable, my protagonist, 36 at the time, inherits a house in Marketville from her father, who has died in an “unfortunate” occupational accident. The catch? She must move into the house, a house she didn’t know existed, and find out the truth about her mother, Abigail Osgoode Barnstable, who disappeared on Valentine’s Day 1980, when Callie was six.

In Before There Were Skeletons, Callie, now on the cusp of turning 43, has been hired to find out the whereabouts of an eighteen-year-old single mother who disappeared on Valentine’s Day 1995. Her client? The infant left behind, now twenty-eight.

So why Valentine’s Day, you might be asking. After all, isn’t that a day for love and romance? Maybe for some. For me, not so much. My first boyfriend (not the farmer) dumped me by phone (by phone!) on Valentine’s Day, and this after I’d been expecting a ring, having spent hours looking for the perfect card for him (two porcupines kissing with the message, “I love you so much it hurts.” – who says fate isn’t ironic?). Decades later, I was able to use that memory for a scene in Skeletons in the Attic, and it was wonderfully cathartic.

But back to Before There Were Skeletons, which is a story not only of the missing mother, but of Callie’s attempts to come to terms with her unresolved issues surrounding her own mother. And so, Valentine’s Day just seemed like the right place to start. Here’s a brief excerpt from Chapter 2, told from Callie’s point of view:

Rule number one. Don’t ask a question if you don’t want an honest answer.
I asked Ben anyway. “I take it we’re still fighting?”
“We’d have to be in a relationship to be fighting.”
And there you had it. Ben Benedetti was the man I thought I might have a future with, at least until now. It would appear the Barnstable Valentine’s Day curse was alive and well.
At least he didn’t kiss me on the forehead on his way out.
I hated when men did that.

What about you, readers? Love or hate Valentine’s Day? Halloween? Any other occasion that hasn’t always worked out the way you’d hoped? Share your stories in the comments!