Have you ever wondered what your favorite authors are doing when they aren't writing those wonderful cozy mysteries that we love so much?

Do they have other jobs, hobbies, hidden talents?

Now you can find out!

Stop by the blog on Thursdays for delightful guest posts from our amazing authors! 

They're going to be sharing all sorts of things that they do when they're not writing.

Today's special guest author is 

Kathleen Bridge!

Kathleen is the author of the wonderful 

Hamptons Homes & Garden Mysteries

So, what does Kathleen do when she's not writing?

When I’m Not Writing...

Cozy Mystery Author and Antiques Dealer 

Kathleen Bridge

Besides being the author of the Hamptons Home and Garden Mystery series from Penguin Random House/Berkley Prime Crime, I am also an antiques and vintage dealer at Backstreet Antiques in Huntington, Long Island. Like my protagonist, Meg Barrett, I LOVE going on treasure hunts, finding fixer-uppers, then upcycling them so they can go into someone’s cozy home. I’m also a home and garden magazine-aholic, HGTV and DIY addict, and don’t even get me started about Pinterest (check out my boards at Kathleen Bridge). I have my own tool box, drill, workbench, sander and saw, but my go-to tools are wood glue, spray paint, a trio of wood stain markers and the green scrubber side of a 3M yellow sponge.

In Long Island, where I live, we have epic estate sales. On any given weekend from spring to fall, you can find dozens and dozens of sales, and we’re not talking things sold in homeowner’s yards, garages, or driveways, we’re talking huge homes with so much square footage my house could fit inside their garage. At Long Island estate sales, you have access to the entire house, including my two favorite spots--attics and basements.

My mother was, and still is, an antiques dealer and when I was a child I dreaded when she’d drag me from shop to shop. I told her, “I will never have antiques when I grow up.” Lesson learned. Never say never. Years later, my mother and I went on to write a hardcover coffee table-sized book on antique toys circa the late 1800s, filled with photographs I took (another passion of mine--photography) of items from our collection. We even flew to Virginia so we could add a top collectors antique toy collection to the pages of our book. My mother is a dealer at Mountain Creek Antiques in Young Harris, Georgia. She specializes in primitive Americana. I am more eclectic and look for one-of-a-kind things that inspire me. I love mixing antique, vintage, and modern at Backstreet Antiques. Stop by if you are in the neighborhood and say hi. You never know what you might find!

I need to start hitting more little shops, and sales to search for some hidden gems!

I want to thank Kathleen for letting us take a peek into what she does when she's not writing. 

You can thank Kathleen too by reading and reviewing her books. 

You'll love the Hamptons Home & Garden Mysteries!

After Meg Barrett found her fiancé still had designs on his ex-wife, she decided it was time to refurbish her life. Leaving her glamorous job at a top home and garden magazine, she fled Manhattan for Montauk, only to find decorating can sometimes lead to detecting…

In between scouring estate sales for her new interior design business, Cottages by the Sea, Meg visits the swanky East Hampton home of her old college roommate, Jillian Spenser. But instead of seeing how the other half lives—she learns how the other half dies. Jillian’s mother, known as the Queen Mother of the Hamptons, has been murdered. Someone has staged a coup.

When she helps a friend inventory the Spensers’ estate for the insurance company, Meg finds herself right in the thick of things. Cataloging valuable antiques and art loses its charm when Meg discovers that the Spenser family has been hiding dangerous secrets, which may have furnished a murderer with a motive. As Meg gets closer to the truth, the killer will do anything to paint her out of the picture…
FIRST IN A NEW SERIES

A Hamptons interior designer deals with skeletons in the closet in the new mystery from the national bestelling author of Better Homes and Corpses.

To keep her mind off the legal battle over the oceanfront cottage she’s trying to buy, Meg agrees to help her friend inventory and clear out furniture from the massive Montauk estate of wealthy art broker Harrison Falks. But the job takes a terrifying turn when Meg discovers a skeleton in a hidden room in one of the estate’s many bungalows. The remains turn out to be those of Harrison’s son, who went missing nearly twenty years ago—along with one of his father’s Warhol paintings. 
 As Meg delves into the Hamptons’ pop art past, she gets drawn into the sketchy goings-on and family drama at the estate. But when Meg makes no bones about solving the crime, she just might become the subject of the killer’s next installation. 
 
INCLUDES RECIPES AND DECORATING TIPS

www.KathleenBridge.com @KathleenBridge on twitter, AuthorKathleenBridge on Instagram and KathleenBridge on facebook. Book 1 in the Hamptons Home and Garden Mystery series, Better Homes and Corpses, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes books, www.Penguinrandomhouse.com, Book Depository, Books-A-Million and independent book shops. 

Hearse and Gardens will be released May 3, 2016 and is available for pre-order. 

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

Follow my blog by 

clicking on the link in the 

upper right hand corner of this page.