Pearl’s Weekend GraciePress Newsletter for Friday, June 27th, 2025

Maybe It Was The Heat? Maybe It Was Meant to Happen? Maybe We Need a Wading Pool for a Chicken?

Oops!!! New Title and New Everything!!!

This isn’t our first goof, and it won’t be our last goof!!!

This was one we made over on Wordpress with My Life with Gracie Press.

We recently discovered that we were not working in a way that helped us or in a way that helped our readers. Because of this, we have had to delete a few items which we have posted recently and are working to replace them with newer items.

Our goal is to get more in line with how we did things in the very beginning of “My Life With Gracie.” We worked best then when we had 3 illustrations and three accompanying stories each week. With that in mind, we are going to present our books as closely to that scheme as possible from beginning to end. Here is an example of Three Images from the Archives of “My Life With Gracie” Featuring Pearl:

Each book will follow the same basic design: A Prologue, A Problem (with three chapters and illustrations), An Emotional Turning Point/Midpoint (with three chapters and illustrations), A Solution (with three chapters and illustrations), and an Epilogue.

What we realized is that Little Lucille, The Brat with curly hair and an unquenchable need to create chaos while chewing on metal objects such as keys, was a truly remarkable character. She needed more prominence in the story to present her serious transformation due her interactions with a gentle ginger cat named Ernest. (Seriously, Little Lucille is actually more memorable than Ernest or even The Hardy Hen detectives—but isn’t that the way it always seems to be with the truly rotten characters, those which incite wailing and the gnashing of teeth?!?)

So we have removed a few items from our Wordpress website, and are replacing them with new ones. We have even renamed our story!

We will keep everything here in beautiful sepia tones which are reminiscent of classic black and white photography, however when published in print, you will be able to see everything in exciting full-color! The sepia adds an air of classical reserve, quite appropriate for Pearl, my little white hen!

You will also notice that we will present a chapter title, its illustration and end it with a “Feathernote”—something unique to Pearly Drew, the Detective. (You might think of these as Detective Summary Notes, or the equivalent of “Footnotes.”)

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Let’s Jump Right in With the Prologue!

PROLOGUE: “In Which The Case Is Dusted Off (And So Is My Desk)”

It was on a particularly rainy Tuesday—just the sort of day when mysteries resurface like forgotten mittens—that I, Detective Pearly Drew, opened the old case file labeled “Ernest and the Bratty Little Girl.”

Now mind you, this wasn’t your average whodunit. There were no footprints to cast in plaster, no suspicious cheeses left at the scene (though I did once solve a mystery involving a very guilty Gruyère). No, this case was subtler—layered like a three-tiered cake with secrets between the layers. And it all began with a cat. A ginger one. Crooked ear, golden eyes, and a patience so vast it could’ve been listed on the map as its own country.

I reached for my spectacles—which had mysteriously perched themselves atop the cookie tin again—and leafed through the pages. Notes were scribbled in my familiar swirly scrawl: “Tail-tugging incident #7…harp toppled with suspicious twinkle in Lucille’s eye…witness (Ernest) silent, yet noble.”

Ah yes. Little Lucille Lexington. Equal parts ribbons and ruination.

If you’re reading this, I implore you to dust off your sense of curiosity. You’re about to meet a cat who bore injustice with grace, a girl who mistook mischief for charm, and a story where cookies may crumble, but truth holds firm.

Now then… shall we begin?

Feathernote: “Every case worth telling begins not with the facts, but with the feeling that something important has been overlooked. In this one, it wasn’t the cat’s tail—it was the truth, curled quietly beside it.”

Thanks for Reading,

Pearl and John (with Ernest, the Best Cat Ever!)