C.S. Harris's Blog, page 10

Another Great Review, This One from Publishers Weekly

In Harris’s satisfying 10th whodunit set in Regency England (after 2014’s Why Kings Confess), Bow Street magistrate Sir Henry Lovejoy asks aristocratic sleuth Sebastian St. Cyr to help solve the grisly murder of Stanley Preston, cousin to the Home Secretary. After severing Preston’s head, the killer perched it on an old London bridge known as Bloody Bridge. Sebastian discovers a metal strap near the bridge that’s inscribed “King Charles, 1648,” a clue that may connect with Preston’s macabre collection of the heads of historical figures. The presence in London of Stanley Oliphant, Sebastian’s longtime nemesis, whom he blames for the slaughter of innocents in Portugal, complicates the inquiry. The detective’s capable wife, Hero, assists him in unraveling the twisted truth as more bloodshed ensues. The solution, one of Harris’s trickiest, will appeal both to fair-play fans and those interested in a vivid evocation of the period. 

BOOKLIST Gives WHO BURIES THE DEAD a Starred Review!

A wonderful starred review from Booklist:

When Stanley Preston, a wealthy merchant with family political ties, is found beheaded, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is called to help. While he's repelled that Preston's wealth came from slave labor on Jamaican plantations, Devlin is more concerned about such a murderer on the loose in London in 1813. Subsequent murders, including another beheading, appear linked to Preston's. Among the suspects is Sinclair, Lord Oliphant, former governor in Jamaica, who made Devlin the unwilling catalyst in the brutal murder of innocent women and children years earlier during the Napoleonic Wars, an incident that still haunts Devlin and makes Oliphant his sworn enemy. Another suspect is Preston's banker, Henry Austen, whose spinster sister, Jane, while helping to care for her gravely ill sister-in-law, displays her keen observations and wry wit to Devlin. As Devlin's personal life has become richer and fuller, with his deepening love for wife Hero and infant son Simon, so has this novel, the tenth in the series featuring St. Cyr. With such well-developed characters, intriguing plot lines, graceful prose, and keen sense of time and place based on solid research, this is historical mystery at its best. --Michele Leber

Finished!

Finally, finally, finally finished Sebastian Book #11.

That's right; it STILL doesn't have a proper title. I came up with one I liked, but the Powers That Be didn't like it, and I must admit I wasn't wild about it myself. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come up with anything they like any better, and I'm terrified that I'm going to get stuck with something awful.

I already have the idea for #12 swirling around in my head, but it's going on the back burner while I take care of all the things I had to shove to the side during the last final push to get this thing done. This one ran a little long for reasons I will never quite understand. You'd think after writing eleven Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries--and more than twenty books all together--I'd be able to gauge a manuscript's length better, but obviously not.

And now I'm off to play with a kitten--who isn't so little any more!

Some News

The audio edition of WHAT ANGELS FEAR is now available. Davina Porter is once again the narrator. Recorded Books has purchased the audio rights to the entire series, so all the books they'd missed should come out over the next year or so. Their cover of Why Kings Confess has a Victorian gentleman lounging in a chair, so I'm very happy with this cover of Angels.

And my Aussie readers will be happy to know that WHAT ANGELS FEAR and WHEN GODS DIE will soon be available as ebooks in Australia (that's the old Australian trade paperback editions, above; I don't know if they'll use the same covers for the ebooks). I had no idea they weren't available until Alison Stuart happened to mention it on Facebook. So I did some investigating. You'd think the explanation would be simple; it wasn't. But the upshot is that the first two books in the series should be up sometime in January. That will still leave some books in the middle that aren't available in ebook form in Australia, but we're working on that. So, thank you, Alison!

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

I've put my book completely away for the holidays and plan to spend the next ten days simply enjoying my family. My younger daughter is home from graduate school and my older daughter is home from San Antonio, so we will all be together this year.

My family has a long, multi-generation tradition of seriously overdoing it in the decorating department. I put up two villages, one under the tree (which is in my office):
And one on the buffet in the dining room:
I also put up two nativity scenes, including this one carved of olive wood by a Palestinian refugee from Bethlehem I befriended in Amman:
And every year, Danielle makes a gingerbread house. This year she was really ambitious; this monster is  almost 20" tall and took the better part of four days:
But the one who enjoys Christmas the most is Huck, who spends all his time under the tree and seriously mourns its departure by Twelfth Night:
Hope you all enjoy the holidays this season, whatever you do or don't celebrate!

Focusing

I can't believe how long it's been since I put up an new blogpost. My excuse is that I've been focusing on getting this $#%& book finished in time for Christmas. But I've resigned myself to the fact that's not going to happen, and now I'm simply trying to get it to a good stopping point. Angel's been helping by draping himself over my arm while I'm trying to write.


I've decided to do the ARC giveaway for WHO BURIES THE DEAD after Christmas, when life will be more sane. Hope that doesn't disappoint anyone too much. I'll be putting up another post soon, I promise! Now back to work...

WHO BURIES THE DEAD Book Tour!

Yes, it's really happening: Penguin is sending me on a book tour the first week of March, 2015, for the release of WHO BURIES THE DEAD. Here are the bookstores, cities, dates, and times:

NEW ORLEANSTuesday, March 36:00PM to 7:30 PM CTGarden District Bookstore2727 Prytania St. New Orleans, Louisiana
PHOENIX Wednesday, March 47:00 PM MTPoisoned Pen4014 N Goldwater BlvdSte 101Scottsdale, Arizona
HOUSTONThursday, March 56:30 PM CTMurder by the Book2342 Bissonett StreetHouston, Texas
PORTLANDFriday, March 67:00 PM PTPowell's City of Books3415 Cedar Hills BlvdBeaverton, Oregon
SEATTLE-TACOMASaturday, March 712:00 PM PTSeattle Mystery Bookshop117 Cherry StreetSeattle, Washington
So what do you think? I think that at the end of that week, I'm going to be dead.

Hurry and Enter to Win!

Hurry and enter to win a copy of the ARC for WHO BURIES THE DEAD on Goodreads     here . As of 9:00 New Orleans time, you have just five hours left to enter.

Sorry for the late notice but I only just found out about it myself. Thanks to Le Fleur for the tip.

A Chance to Win Free Books!

Penguin's Binge Reads page on Facebook is running a big giveaway to promote the Sebastian St. Cyr Series. The idea is to put free books in the hands of readers who already love the series so that they can give the books to friends and relatives. Or as Penguin puts it:
"Mystery fans! We're looking for some of C.S. Harris's most rabid readers to help us recruit *new* fans for her amazing Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series. We'll choose 20 of you at random and send you each five copies of the very first book in the series, WHAT ANGELS FEAR, so you can share with friends and family who haven't read C.S. Harris before. Click the photo below to enter. (And please feel free to share on your own page!) U.S. fans only; must be 13 years or older." 
So if you want a chance to enter and you're on Facebook, here's the link to their page:  https://www.facebook.com/BingeReads/posts/1585756091647904.
I was planning to do my own ARC giveaway for WHO BURIES THE DEAD today, but since I've just learned about this, I'll wait a few more days. Yes, that's right: no one told me in advance that this was happening.

I've also just learned that Sweepstakes (evidently the people who handle these for Penguin) will collect information when you enter, including your public profile, friend list, email address and "likes," so I understand totally if some are not comfortable with that.

WHY KINGS CONFESS Nominated for RT Reviewer's Choice Award

I've just heard that Why Kings Confess has been nominated for RT's Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Historical Mystery of 2014 , which is nice.

I was gone most of this past week visiting my daughter in Texas (that's me with Zydeco, her latest rescue). I'd hoped to get the climax of #11 written before I left, but that didn't happen. So now I think I might go back and revise the rest of the book before I push through to the end. I do still intend to do the Who Buries the Dead ARC giveaway, but I'll have to do it next week as this week is turning out to be a tad bit hectic.

It was beyond wonderful to get to spend time with my daughter, who is a doctor with the Air Force in San Antonio. But I came home to a bunch of clingy, unhappy cats, a sick kitten, a pile of laundry, a dead landline, and my Internet access in disarray as everyone from Google to Facebook locked me out when I tried to log on from San Antonio. And now it is freezing here in New Orleans, which means dragging all the frangipani into the garage for the winter, and wrapping up vulnerable plants, and generally whining a lot.