I met Pat Detmer last year at the Whidbey Island Writers Conference. We were in the same Fireside Chat and spent much of the weekend together, then e-mailed several times over the year. Very funny lady! Last year, she was trying to find a publisher for this collection of her humor columns from a W.I. newspaper, and she was about to decide to self publish. I told her to make sure she told me if she did self-publish because I’d be in line to buy a copy. Imagine my delight and surprise when I was browsing the bookstore at this year’s conference and looked up to see Laughing All the Way. Apparently it had literally just come off the presses; she’d barely had a glimpse herself before hauling a stack of the books to the bookstore. The book is hysterical. Pat has a sardonic humor that is deadly, and I found myself roaring with laughter. I especially loved the visual image of a set of deer hunters made from wire and white Christmas lights, strategically placed to fire with mechanical regularity at her neighbors herd of grazing reindeer. Although some of the humor is definitely targeted to Whidbey (South Island versus North Island), odds are you’ll find most of it funny, especially if you happen to be female and riding over the Big M hill.