Fay Risner's Blog, page 10

The Wayward Preacher – Amazing Gracie Mystery Series – Book 9

The Wayward Preacher – Amazing Gracie Mystery – Book 9 – is another historical cozy mystery book in the series about Gracie Evans and her friends who live in a retirement home in Locked Rock, Iowa. This book was my entry in the National Novel Write Month contest (NaNoWriMo) in November 2016.

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Synopsis for book

Locked Rock, Iowa has a new preacher. Gracie Evans decides the man is way too young and inexperienced to be a preacher for elderly citizens set in their ways. Although, she admits he wasn’t too bad at preaching a sermon. It was when he said good bye after church to the congregation, Gracie objected to his familiarity with the unmarried women as they filed out. He latched onto each young woman’s hand and kept her talking to him as long as he thought he could get away with it. Gracie complained his behavior wasn’t seemly, but Melinda didn’t want to hear her bad mouth the preacher. She said so what if he was wife hunting. Nothing wrong with that. Gracie didn’t intend to drop her opinion so easily. She vowed to keep an eye on the preacher to keep him from making a fool out of the young women in town. Some mysterious things started happening after Preacher Mayfield arrived that might prove Gracie right. A few young women whispered among their family and friends that their pantaloons disappeared from their bedrooms in the night. Weirder yet, expensive porcelain dolls were found on the porches of the young ladies the preacher flirted with. Dolls that looked just like the young women. All evidence to Gracie that the town’s preacher’s past should be checked. She just might be right about him being a Wayward Preacher.

Links to book

Amazon – paperback

https://www.amazon.com/Wayward-Preacher-Amazing-Gracie-Mystery-ebook/dp/B06XFX1HH7/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489328990&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Wayward+Preacher

Kindle – ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Wayward-Preacher-Amazing-Gracie-Mystery-ebook/dp/B06XFX1HH7/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1489329109&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Wayward+Preacher

Smashwords.com – ebook

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/709034

Barnes and Noble – paperback

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wayward-preacher-fay-risner/1125932792?ean=9781544240008

I was enjoying this unusual Iowa winter that seemed like early spring most of the time until I heard the weatherman say we’re going to have four to six inches of snow dumped on us during the night. Tomorrow my sprouted flowers will be covered and it won’t look like spring for a few days. Good thing about this time of year is the temperature is coming up in a few days. The snow will melt fast. (I hope)

It has been a month since my last post. I’ve been busy editing this book and finishing another book. Now I have a Nurse Nurse Hal Book back from my proof reader. As soon as I have Joyful Wisdom edited, I’ll be back with links to that book.

For the readers who like my Amazing Gracie Mystery series,

Enjoy,

Fay Risner

A Break From Winter

Sometime back, I started putting what goes on around my country home on Facebook. I wrote a blog post about wild animals trying to make their homes under my front porch. Usually what I write about …

Source: A Break From Winter

A Break From Winter

Sometime back, I started putting what goes on around my country home on Facebook. I wrote a blog post about wild animals trying to make their homes under my front porch. Usually what I write about is probably no big deal to other country dwellers. I know others have their share of stories about wild critter invasions. Maybe it was my approach to the problems that interested others.

There are events that can be used in most of my stories if I take the time to realize it. Since I write stories about an Amish family living on a farm, it was easy to give the woman of the house the same problems with the skunks. The children had a pet raccoon for a while. Events that really happened makes my fiction seem more natural and real. The latest assault on the porch has been by the barn cats. When the barn was cold, the warmest place outside is our front porch with the sun beaming down to heat the boards. So I guess if I thought like a cat I’d say it would be natural cat thinking to turn the porch post into a scratching board. I tried sanding the splinters off and ignoring the problem. That didn’t change the cats habits so I sprayed the post with a hot pepper and water spray. That treatment doesn’t last long. My next idea was to wrap the post with a large garbage sack. The cat most offended by my actions was a black and white tom. I watched while he sniffed at the sack, touched it with his paw only to have the sack move. His irritation got the better of him, and he bit the sack. That’s when I opened the door and told him to go to the barn. The cats still come often to sit on the two park benches. I had hopes that they would forget about the post this spring so that I could take the plastic sack away. Today I found some tears in the sack. My guess is the black and white cat is getting used to the post. One of the days, he’s going to take that sack off for me, only it will be in pieces. The miniature wolf in the picture is a motion detector, but he wasn’t scary enough either.[image error]

One Facebook post was about the porcelain hand I found in the garden. Like many others, we live in an old farm house with outbuildings where once a family had an active farm. Other old outbuildings that were past repair and maybe treasures the buildings held were bulldozed and buried underground. So now years later, we till up a garden space each spring and fall. Whatever pieces of objects come to the surface wind up in plain sight. That’s how I found a rare coin and the porcelain hand. Most of the time it’s small pieces of old glass or crock bowls that might be a problem if I stepped on them barefoot. My imagination worked over time when I found the hand. What girl played with that doll? What did the rest of the doll look like? You never know. I might come up with a story some day.

[image error]Today, I’m enjoying the warm weather. It is too good to be true and not going to last much longer. By next weekend, we’re going to be wearing coats again. I usually reserve my walks by all the flower beds for late March and early April to see what bulbs are coming up. This morning, I checked out one flower bed and found resurrection lilies and mums are up. They are going to turn black as soon as it freezes again. Hopefully, that doesn’t stop the resurrection lilies from rising again. I noticed the large buds on the cherry tree, one of the first fruit trees to bloom in the spring. Sap is already running in trees, and usually that means we will lose some of the fruit trees or have less fruit.

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Whatever happens, I still think days like this one makes the rest of winter seems so much shorter. I even did my wash this morning and hung it on the clothesline. Never have I hung clothes out in February and without a coat on. I know others years ago hung clothes out all winter long and let them freeze dry. I have been spoiled by a modern appliance called a dryer.

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I thought for a moment I picked the wrong day to hang my wash out when I saw the farmer was burning the road ditches to get rid of the dead grass and weeds, but I lucked out. The wind was blowing the smoke away from my clothes.

Certain things make where I live seem like country. One of those things is being able to hear the crowing of a rooster running with his hens in the yard. The chickens are able to be outside. We’ve always have to wait for the snow to melt before we turn them loose. That usually doesn’t happen for another month yet, but not this winter. Of course, the roosters crow in the hen house, but the sound is muffled, not nice and loud like today. The chickens are free, and the roosters are crowing how glad they are to be able to scatter out. I know how the chickens feel. Today makes me feel like crowing, too.

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Poor Defenseless Addie-historical mystery-Large Print

Another book in the Amazing Gracie Historical mystery series is now in Large Print just in time for Christmas. I worked for years in a nursing home near me and we had many inservices on Elder Abuse…

Source: Poor Defenseless Addie-historical mystery-Large Print

Poor Defenseless Addie-historical mystery-Large Print

Another book in the Amazing Gracie Historical mystery series is now in Large Print just in time for Christmas.

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I worked for years in a nursing home near me and we had many inservices on Elder Abuse. That is the theme of this mystery. Who is abusing poor defenseless, hard of hearing Addie? Gracie Evans is her friend and determined to find the culprit and save her friend.

Synopsis of the book

Though Gracie Evans is tired of listening to all the town gossips, she begins to worry when they talk about a stranger in town. The man is living with a friend of Gracie’s, Addie Masters. Seems he is the elderly woman’s son that none of the gossips knew about. When Addie stops attending church, Gracie and the other residents from Moser Mansion wonder if she’s ailing. They decide to visit her. A first hand look at Addie’s rude son and seeing a wicked bruise on Addie’s hand gets Gracie and her friends putting two and two together. They come up with elderly abuse that they think should be reported to the law. Town Marshal Earl Bullock turns their complaint about Homer Masters over to Sheriff Ben Logan. He comes up with some disturbing information that has the sheriff and town marshal worried about Addie. They have to have proof that Homer is abusing his mother, or she has to confess which isn’t going to happen. Beloved Aunt Pearlbee is suddenly taken ill and needs attention. The residents of Moser Mansion have to let Addie fend for herself. Gracie worries that by the time they get back to helping Poor Defenseless Addie Masters, she will be dead.

My paperback books are on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. My ebooks are in kindle, nook and smashwords.com.

If you read my Amazing Gracie Mysteries or any other of my books I hope you enjoy them.

Author Fay Risner

 

Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders in Large Print

Title sounds like a real horror story. Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders, an Amazing Gracie Mystery in the Gracie Evans series. Actually, the closest the book has gotten to horror is becoming a pro…

Source: Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders in Large Print

Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders in Large Print

Title sounds like a real horror story. Locked Rock, Iowa Hatchet Murders, an Amazing Gracie Mystery in the Gracie Evans series. Actually, the closest the book has gotten to horror is becoming a prop for a movie – Outcast. However there are murders by hatchet in the book that makes it a who dun it story.

A book in the series Amazing Gracie Mysteries

 

 

Synopsis for the book

Locked Rock, Iowa is lively again with Gracie Evans and her friends antics. Enjoy this story about Moser Mansion Rest Home for women residents when they attempt to make conditions better for women in 1905. What do you know! Gracie Evans, Moser Mansion resident, has turned into a women’s activist which is going to get her in plenty of trouble. Locked Rock’s newspaper is full of news from back east and the women in town read all about it. Suffragettes are burning their corsets to draw attention to the fact they want the same right to vote as the men which due to their efforts gave women the right to vote in August, 1920. Women are trying to bring on prohibition with the help of Carrie A. Nation, Temperance Movement leader, by smashing saloons with hatchets. Gracie enlists the women’s bible study group to organize a Temperance march. She means well, but before she knows it, she’s turned the men in town against the women. The march gets Gracie and two others arrested. Her community service punishment as the town’s telephone operator puts her in the hot seat right where the men in town want her so they can threaten her. However, someone does more than threaten the town’s Temperance leader Ida Frank. A killer hacks Ida and her family to death with the Moser Mansion hatchet. Rafe Johnson’s blood hounds trail a scent to Moser Mansion. All of Locked Rock’s citizens are on edge and looking for someone to blame the murders on. Gracie Evans is the men’s prime suspect.

My books can be found on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and ebooks are in Kindle, Nook and smashwords.com

If you try this book or any other of the books I’ve written, Enjoy, and remember books make great Christmas present in any form.

Author Fay Risner

Tread Lightly Sibby – Serbina Ellen Monroe Story

Based on a true story Tread Lightly Sibby is a Historical fiction book set in Texas County, Missouri. The story is about a lawless time after the Civil War when north and south still felt divided. …

Source: Tread Lightly Sibby – Serbina Ellen Monroe Story

Tread Lightly Sibby – Serbina Ellen Monroe Story

Based on a true story Tread Lightly Sibby is a Historical fiction book set in Texas County, Missouri. The story is about a lawless time after the Civil War when north and south still felt divided. This story is about a brave woman who managed to endure the hard times for her family and find romance.

In keeping with creating my own book covers, I used this century old family picture. The wedding photo on the front cover is that of my father’s parents July 1902 in southern Missouri.

Serbina Monroe had high hopes at the end of the Civil War for life to be better than it had been during the last four strife filled years. Her husband, Brice, came home from the war wounded, but he had fully recovered. His grist mill and sawmill were busy. Sibby looked forward to the day when renegades in the area was replaced with law abiding citizens. She wanted Texas County, Missouri to be a safe place for her children to grow up in. A place where folks lived side by side without being labeled a Federalist or Confederate sympathizer. Suddenly, Sibby finds her world shattered. Two lawmen escorting two horse thieves stop to talk to Brice about traveling through the wilderness grove with them. Two weeks later, a young boy finds the horse thieves dangling from the end of ropes in the grove. Brice is the only one around to point a finger at. He says he’s innocent, but he knows he won’t be able to find an unbiased jury. There are men in Texas County that have their own reasons for wanting Brice Monroe out of the way. His only alternative is to run as far from Texas County as he can get and leave Sibby and their children to pay the consequences.

The book can be found on Amazon and Barnes and Noble plus in 12 font in those sites and as ebook on kindle, nook and smashwords.com

Books make wonderful Christmas gifts. Enjoy my books and other authors.

Fay Risner

Winner in Nanowrimo Contest

This afternoon I wrote enough words to make it over the finish line in the Nanowrimo contest. The book The Wayward Preacher has 51068 words and I have until the end of the month to add more words a…

Source: Winner in Nanowrimo Contest