Former Brown County Democrat manager Helen C. Ayers has been keeping her skills sharp.
During the pandemic, she went back to writing, and has since released two books of very differing themes: A police thriller and a children’s book.
She also wrote about a dozen more books “for children to read themselves, each of which usually had a moral story about childhood safety at their center,” according to her “about the author” page of the police thriller, “Devil’s Halo.”
“Devil’s Halo,” a book for adults, is whodunit about a predator of women and children.
Ayers spent 21 years as a newspaper reporter, retiring from The Democrat in 1993. While her favorite thing was writing residents’ life stories, she also did a lot of crime reporting, and this book grew out of her experiences of being able to shadow local officers and learn about the circumstances of crimes.
The children’s book, “Granny Goes to the Cruise,” is one in a series about Granny Goosefoot’s adventures — again, with a lesson attached. “Even though her friends on the farm where she lives warn her not to go, as usual, she goes anyway,” the description reads.
The Granny Goosefoot books are meant for ages 3 to 6.
Both books are being sold on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle.
Ayers has published more than a half-dozen books and she’s not close to closing that chapter of her life. For her next one: “Santa is retiring,” she said. “It’s going to be a blockbuster.”
