Elena Hartwell's Blog, page 57

Saving Grace by D.M. Barr: Domestic Suspense/Thriller

Spotlight + Excerpt from Saving Grace by D.M. Barr for her Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour

Don’t miss any of the stops on her tour! Scroll down for the list.

Join the Rafflecopter giveaway by clicking the link here.


Saving Grace by D.M. Barr

Grace Pierrepoint Rendell, the only child of an ailing billionaire, has been treated for paranoia since childhood. When she secretly quits her meds, she begins to suspect that once her father passes, her husband will murder her for her inheritance.

Realizing that no one will believe the ravings of a supposed psychotic, she devises a creative way to save herself – she will write herself out of danger, authoring a novel with the heroine in exactly the same circumstances, thus subtly exposing her husband’s scheme to the world.

She hires acclaimed author Lynn Andrews to help edit her literary insurance policy, but when Lynn is murdered, Grace is discovered standing over the bloody remains. The clock is ticking: can she write and publish her manuscript before she is strapped into a straitjacket, accused of homicide, or lowered six feet under?

With a cast of secondary characters whose challenges mirror Grace’s own, Saving Grace is, at it’s core, an allegory for the struggle of the marginalized to be heard and live life on their own terms.

“A psychological thriller with more than enough twists, turns, and misdirection to keep even the most jaded reader turning pages all night long.” –Lori Robbins, author of the Silver Falchion Award-winning novel, Lesson Plan for Murder

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Domestic Suspense

Published by: Black Rose Writing

Publication Date: October 15th 2020

Number of Pages: 255

ISBN: 978-1684335565

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BlackRose Writing | Goodreads

D.M Barr, author of Saving Grace

By day, a mild-mannered salesperson, wife, mother, rescuer of senior shelter dogs, competitive trivia player and author groupie, happily living just north of New York City. By night, an author of sex, suspense and satire.

My background includes stints in travel marketing, travel journalism, meeting planning, public relations and real estate. I was, for a long and happy time, an award-winning magazine writer and editor. Then kids happened. And I needed to actually make money. Now they’re off doing whatever it is they do (of which I have no idea since they won’t friend me on Facebook) and I can spend my spare time weaving tales of debauchery and whatever else tickles my fancy.

The main thing to remember about my work is that I am NOT one of my characters. For example, as a real estate broker, I’ve never played Bondage Bingo in one of my empty listings or offed anyone at my local diet clinic. And I haven’t run away from home in fear that my husband was planning to off me.

But that’s not to say that I haven’t wanted to…

Catch Up With D.M. by clicking her name, photo or any of the following links: Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook!

Except of Saving Grace

One felony was all it took to convince Andrea Lin she was better suited to committing crime on paper than in person. As renowned mystery author Lynn Andrews, she understood conflict equaled good drama. Like her readers, she should have expected the hiccups, even relished them. What she hadn’t counted on was the accompanying agita, especially while sitting in her Bergen County kitchen, far from the action at the Bitcoin Teller Machine.

Her one job had been to place a single phone call when the money hit and tell the hacker to lift the encryption on Grace’s computer. Trouble was, her dozen calls remained unanswered until a few minutes ago, throwing their meticulous plan off schedule.

Andrea stroked the blue-gray Nebulung purring on her lap and tried to ignore the churning in her stomach. “Denver, the next time I consider helping a sibling with some crazy scheme, you have my permission to use my leg as a scratching post until I come to my senses. Agreed?”

Denver looked up, his green eyes filled with innocence, and answered with a single meow before leaping onto the table toward her plate of shortbread cookies. “

I’ll take that as a yes.” She sipped her tea, willing the sugar to sweeten the acrid taste in her mouth. The phone interrupted her meditation. No doubt a check-in from her brother, the extorter-in-chief.

“I figured you’d have called by now. Everything on track?” Joe’s strained voice conveyed his own jangled nerves. They’d agreed to be vague when communicating. In these days of Siri and Alexa, anyone could be listening.

“Finally. Took forever to get through to our friend, but she said she’d take care of ‘our project’ as soon as her meetings wrapped up. From here on out though, I’m sticking to fiction. Real-life intrigue is too stressful.”

Andrea missed Joe’s response, instead perplexed by her cats’ sudden change of behavior. Denver had tilted his head and leapt from the table; Vail and Aspen sat frozen, ears perked, staring toward the foyer. Then she heard it too, the sound of papers shuffling in the living room. She leaned forward, muscles taut, hackles raised, ready to pounce. “Joe, hold on a sec. I think someone’s in the house. I’ll call you back later.”

***

“Wait, what? Andrea??” Silence. The connection was dead.

After twenty minutes of weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic to travel one mile, Joe “Hack” Hackford pulled up outside his sister’s Ridgewood home. Adrenaline pumping on overdrive, he jumped from his car and sprinted toward the house. Door wide open—not an encouraging sign. He steeled his nerves and hastened inside. The living room looked like a hurricane’s aftermath, with furniture overturned and papers littering the carpets and floor.

“Andrea? Are you here?” He rushed into the kitchen, which lacked any signs of their celebratory dinner—no spaghetti boiling on the stove, no cake rising in the oven. Only the door to the backyard ajar and a shriek emanating from the next room, piercing the eerie silence. Hair stiffening at the back of his neck, he raced into the dining room where a redheaded woman stood frozen, staring across the room.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled.

The stranger remained wide-eyed and unresponsive. He followed her gaze to the floor, where he witnessed the unthinkable. His beloved sister lay in the corner, surrounded by a pool of blood, a kitchen knife stuck in her chest. Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. A trio of feline guards circled her lifeless body.

Hack’s knees turned to jelly, and he grabbed onto a chair for support, forcing back the remains of the snack he’d consumed only minutes earlier. Once the initial shock waned, he reverted his attention back to the intruder. At second glance, she did look somewhat familiar, though the woman he’d met a few weeks back—the missing heiress whose computer they’d just hacked—was brunette. Had she uncovered their con? With a bolt of fury, he reached forward and pulled the wig from her head. A thousand questions zigzagged in his brain, but only one forced its way past his lips:

“Oh my God. Grace. Oh my God. What the hell have you done?”

Don’t miss any tour stops for Saving Grace!

10/14 Review @ The World As I See It

10/15 Showcase @ The Book Divas Reads

10/16 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader

10/20 Showcase @ Reading A Page Turner

10/21 Interview @ BooksChatter

10/22 Review @ Robin Loves Reading

10/23 Showcase @ the bookworm lodge

10/24 Interview @ A Blue Million Books

10/25 Showcase @ EienCafe

10/28 Review @ Books with Bircky

10/29 Interview @ CMash Reads

10/30 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books

11/01 Showcase @ nanasbookreviews

11/02 Showcase @ Brooke Blogs

11/03 Review @ Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books!

11/05 Review @ Lynchburg Mama

11/08 Review @ Nesies Place

11/09 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews

11/10 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books

11/11 Review @ A Room Without Books is Empty

11/12 Review @ Christian Bookshelf Reviews

11/12 Review @ Sylv. net

11/13 Review @ Celticladys Reviews

12/10 Podcast @ Blogtalk Radio

12/10 Review @ Just Reviews

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Saving Grace by D.M. Barr: Domestic Suspense/Thriller appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Elizabeth Breck Launches Her Debut Novel

Elizabeth Breck launches her debut novel, Anonymous: A Madison Kelly Mystery.

I’m thrilled to host fellow Crooked Lane Books author Elizabeth Breck as part of her Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour. To visit all the stops along the way, click the link here.
Interview + Review + Rafflecopter Giveaway

Enter the Rafflecopter by clicking the link here.

Anonymous by Elizabeth Breck

Anonymous: A Madison Kelly Mystery

Traditional Mystery

1st in Series

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (November 10, 2020)

Hardcover: 320 pages

ISBN-10: 1643855646

ISBN-13: 978-1643855646

Digital ASIN: B0852P3YCX

The note was threatening enough–but its link to two cold cases and a sinister unseen presence sends P.I. Madison Kelly on a frantic search for the truth.

Madison Kelly, a San Diego private investigator, arrives home to a note stabbed to her front door: Stop investigating me, or I will hunt you down and kill you. The only problem? Madison hasn’t been investigating anyone–she’s been taking time off to figure out what to do with her life. But how does she prove a negative? The only way to remove the threat is to do exactly what “Anonymous”, the note writer, is telling her not to do: investigate to see who left it. Could this have something to do with the true crime podcast she’s been tweeting about, and the missing girls?

The girls went missing, two years apart, after a night at the clubs in San Diego’s famed Gaslamp Quarter, and Madison had been probing the internet for clues. She discovers that someone has been one step ahead of her, monitoring her tweets to prevent her from getting too close. Soon Madison’s investigation brings up more questions than answers: are the disappearances connected? Are the girls dead or did they just walk away from their lives? And who is Anonymous, the person who will stop at nothing to keep Madison from learning the truth?

As she closes in, so does Anonymous. Set against a backdrop of surfer culture and coffee houses of San Diego, Anonymous follows Madison as she confronts the reality of the girls’ disappearance in a terrifying climax where the hunter becomes the hunted–and Madison is running for her life.

To buy the book, click on any of the following links:  – Amazon – Penguin Random House – B&N –BookShop

Elizabeth Breck: Author Interview
You are a licensed private investigator with the state of California. What’s the balance for you between keeping things authentic and the freedom in creating a fictional world?

Authenticity is priority one for me. When I’m reading mystery/thrillers, I hate it when the PI does something that is unrealistic. So when it came time to write my own series, I wanted to make sure that everything that happened would have happened in the real world.

That isn’t hard to do, because I’ve been a PI for so long that it is just second nature. When I create a fictional situation for the main character, Madison, I just put myself in that fictional situation and ask myself “What would I do in this situation?” and start writing. So everything is based in the reality of what it means to be a female PI.

Tell us about Madison Kelly.

Madison is thirty-five and has been a PI for years. She does the job better than most of the men who dominate her chosen field. She is five feet, eleven inches tall and loves all things Ralph Lauren. However, no one would call her girly: she doesn’t spend a lot of time fussing with hair and makeup.

She is often found wearing yoga pants, Chuck Taylor sneakers, and a jean jacket or Ralph Lauren flak jacket. That doesn’t mean she isn’t feminine; she is just her own kind of girl. She is confident, really smart, and quiet, which gives her an air of mystery. She is a loner who doesn’t have a lot of friends.

Her love interest is Dave, a champion surfer with a black belt, who surfs at the beach by her apartment. He appreciates her independence and the fact that she doesn’t need a guy to complete her—even if that leads to some difficult situations with them. Madison has a lot of what many would consider male attributes: strength, power, bravery, lack of crying over little things. She doesn’t “act tough,” because she doesn’t need to; she has a core strength and confidence that comes naturally to her. However, buried underneath it all is emotion that her stoic exterior belies: sadness that comes from too many losses in life.

Madison often says that she doesn’t cry, because “sometimes if you start crying you’ll never stop.”

In 2013, you went back to college to earn a bachelor’s degree in writing. What drove that decision?

I was getting older and looking for a way to move into a career that was less physically strenuous than being a PI; surveillance work is exhausting and I knew I couldn’t do it forever. I’d decided to become an attorney, so I went back to school to get my BA and then go to law school. That’s why I was getting straight As—I wanted a full ride to law school. I was still working full time, so I began writing about my work for some of my writing workshops, including nonfiction travel writing, as well as writing a short story about Madison Kelly for my honors thesis.

I’ve always been artistic, and that art has taken a variety of forms, including writing fiction throughout my life. And then I got breast cancer in my senior year, which derailed my plans to go straight into law school. I thought I’d take a year off, but during my recovery from surgery, I realized what I really wanted to do was be an author and write about Madison Kelly!

What role does Hubert play in your careers, does he ever go out on an investigation with you? Is he a good office mate when you’re writing?

Here is a photo from his tenth birthday, which we just celebrated!

When he was a puppy I took him on surveillance with me and he HATED it.

I couldn’t leave him at home when he was so little, and it was helpful to get a better look at a house if I was walking a dog in front of it. But we had to sit inside the car for hours, and he would look outside the window as if to say, “I want to be like the dogs that get to go outside.”

Now he can stay home by himself because he won’t eat my rugs anymore, and of course if I’m gone for any length of time someone comes to walk him. But now if I take him with me to even just to run errands, the second I turn off the car he starts to whine because he’s afraid we’re doing surveillance!

I can’t even finish a phone call before getting out of the car; once the car is turned off we have to get out or he starts to cry that he doesn’t want to do surveillance.

However, he loves to lie on my foot and lick peanut butter out of his Kong while I write every morning at my desk. It is our routine.

Oh my gosh – he’s so cute!!
Dogs make the best writing companions!

San Diego is also my hometown, but it’s changed a lot since I was a kid. What are the pros and cons of being a private investigator in San Diego?

There are only pros, no cons, to being a PI in San Diego: it is easy to get everywhere, no matter where you’re doing surveillance it is beautiful, and the weather is good (for the most part; this summer has been brutal).

I’ve done surveillance all over the country, and San Diego is the best city!

What are you working on now?

I’m working on edits for the second novel in the series, which is already written and due out in November 2021. So as soon as everyone has finished talking about Anonymous, you’ll have another book to read!

Want to learn more about Elizabeth’s road to publication? Visit her website by clicking the link here and sign up for her newsletter!

My Thoughts on Anonymous by Elizabeth Breck

With Madison Kelly, Elizabeth Breck introduces a strong female protagonist to the PI genre.

Breck’s background as a private investigator shines through in her understanding of how the job really works. Her details about what Madison can and cannot (legally!) do and how she thinks about her career provide an authentic voice often missing from fictional private detective novels.

Set in my hometown of San Diego, I enjoyed traveling through a city I lived in for more than twenty years and still visit regularly. Whether you know the city or not, the descriptions will take you on a tour around town as if you were hanging out with a local for the weekend.

Putting her PI in personal danger right at the beginning of the novel definitely increased my interest in Madison. I wanted to see how this smart, sassy young woman would deal with all the challenges that Breck would throw at her. And the challenges are plentiful!

Breck does a good job of keeping the obstacles big and raising the stakes throughout.

With a steady pace and enough excitement to build to a satisfying climax, Anonymous definitely held my attention to the end.

Elizabeth Breck

ELIZABETH BRECK is a state of California licensed private investigator.

A native Californian, she had read Harriet the Spy twenty times by the time she was nine, so it was no surprise when she grew up to become a PI.

She has worked mainly in the field of insurance investigations, making her the real-life version of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.

In 2013, she decided to go back to school, earning a bachelor’s degree in writing, summa cum laude, from the University of California San Diego. Anonymous is her first novel. She lives with a black Labrador named Hubert who is her best friend.

To learn more about Elizabeth, click on her name, photo or any of the following links: Twitter, Instagram, and GoodReads

Visit all the stops along the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour!

November 7 –  Diane Reviews Books  – GUEST POST

November 7 –  I’m All About Books  – SPOTLIGHT

November 8 –  Cassidy’s Bookshelves – GUEST POST

November 8 –  Sapphyria’s Book Reviews  – SPOTLIGHT

November 9 –  I Read What You Write  – GUEST POST

November 9 –  A Blue Million Books  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 9 –  Brooke Blogs  – SPOTLIGHT

November 10 –  Mysteries with Character  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 10 –  Ruff Drafts  – SPOTLIGHT

November 11 –  Author Elena Taylor’s Blog  – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW 

November 11 –  T’s Stuff  – SPOTLIGHT

November 12 –  Christy’s Cozy Corners  – REVIEW

November 12 –  Literary Gold  – SPOTLIGHT

November 13 –  My Reading Journeys  – REVIEW

November 13 –  Elizabeth McKenna – Author Blog  – SPOTLIGHT

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Elizabeth Breck Launches Her Debut Novel appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Noir Science Fiction and Mythology Collide

Noir Science Fiction and Greek Mythology collide in BJ Graf’s debut novel, Genesys X.

The Author: BJ Graf

B.J. Graf (aka Beverly Graf) lives in Los Angeles with her family and a menagerie of four-footers.

In her alternate identity Dr. Graf is an Adjunct Professor who teaches Film Studies and Classical Mythology at Pepperdine, UCLA, and CSUN.

Previously, she worked as V.P. of Development for Abilene Pictures where they produced several features and television projects including Primal Fear, Frequency, Fallen, Fracture and NYPD 2069.

To learn more about BJ click on her name, photo or the following links: Twitter & Facebook,

Genesys X: Noir, Science Fiction, and Greek Mythology rolled into one debut . . .

Part noir science-fiction and part twisted new-take on Greek myth, Genesys X is a page-turning police procedural featuring an unforgettable haunted detective.

Los Angeles, 2041. Derma ads have replaced skin tattoos; the Nike Swoosh is projected onto the full moon, and digital sponsor logos run along the side of every police sedan. But the city is under siege from a gang war which has flooded the streets with green ice, a drug more powerful and deadly than fentanyl. And there’s a new plague; Alzheimer’s disease has spawned a virulent new strain, Alz-X, that attacks children. No one knows why.

Eddie Piedmont, the youngest Homicide Special detective in LAPD history, has a lot to prove. Growing up with an abusive green ice junkie for a father, Eddie is determined to show he is nothing like his old man who was kicked off the force years ago. When Eddie takes on a case of a fatal overdose, he finds evidence that ties the dead woman to a geneticist working on the cure for Alz-X.

When another suspicious death occurs, Eddie is drawn into the nefarious world of cutting-edge reproductive technology, only to discover terrible secrets at the heart of his identity and his family’s history that will pull him much closer to the murderer than he could ever have imagined.

To buy the book, click on the following links: Amazon & Fairwood Press
The Interview
“…the patterns of Greek mythology dealing with human frailty still ripple through our society.”
Genesys X combines Greek mythology and noir science-fiction. That’s a fascinating combo, tell us about what that mix is like:

Genesys X is set in 2041 L.A. where genetic technology has advanced from where it is today, but human nature hasn’t really changed much over time, and the patterns of Greek mythology dealing with human frailty still ripple through our society.

But advanced technological society has cut itself off from our wisdom tradition represented by Greek myth, so those patterns go unobserved, even by individuals as clever as my Detective Hero, Eddie Piedmont. That sets him up for the noir side of things.

“…setting the story in 2041 let me have fun with some noirish-near-future sci-fi world building.”
What interested you about setting your mystery in the future?

I set the story in the near-future for a few reasons.

First, I wanted to make the genetic technology credible. With the CRISPR tech, we’re very close today to having that ability, but it’s still a bit of a stretch.

Setting the story in 2041 also allowed me, as a non-police officer, to make some fictional changes in the current L.A.P.D policies and practices (particularly in how Officer-involved-shootings might be handled in the future).

And finally, setting the story in 2041 let me have fun with some noirish-near-future sci-fi world building.

Hence the Nike Swoosh on the lunar surface, the way tattoos have given way to derma ads for products and every stadium, the wearable glove phones, and even police sedans have become digital billboards advertising their sponsors.

The relentless advance of advertising and monetization of products (which today already includes ‘users’ on the internet who are herded towards ads via addictive social media ‘click-bait). I remember when film stars wouldn’t be caught dead doing ads, but it’s been standard for years now.

Advertising is a necessary practice in a crowded marketplace. But like black magic it uses word and image to manipulate people into behavior that often isn’t for the consumer’s best interests. Think of the increasing rates of depression and other mental illnesses we’re seeing in young people who are addicted to social media.

We know these forces can be very destructive, but will we change course? I think all these trends will only increase in the future.

History informs the present as your detective faces his own personal demons during his investigation. What came first, the backstory or the investigation? or did they come to you simultaneously?

Simultaneously. I thought it would be fun and a bit novel to start a mystery with a traditional plot, i.e. the suspicious overdose, and then have the subplot about Eddie’s past flip things and eventually subsume the plot itself.

“My film background makes me very aware of visual story-telling and also constantly anxious about pacing.”
You also have a background in film, both in the industry and as an academic. How does that inform your writing?

My film background makes me very aware of visual story-telling and also constantly anxious about pacing. I know people have shorter attention spans than we used to.

My film students find watching older films difficult because the language of the camera (we now use many more close-ups and extreme close-ups for example) and the pace of editing is so different.

“The dream has become reality.”  
Tell us about your road to publication.

The germ of the story first came to me when I was a graduate student of the Classics studying for my PhD. But I didn’t have a lot of confidence about my own writing abilities, and via my film development and then academic teaching career, I spent many years helping others get their stories told instead of writing my own.

But this story had its teeth in me, and wouldn’t let go. So, finally I wrestled it onto the page. I joined a writers’ workshop (we meet every Saturday) and did several rewrites.

Then I went to Thrillerfest to pitch to literary agents. Twice.

I sent the manuscript out to interested agents, and just when I was about to give up and move on to the next book I’d already written, I heard back from my wonderful literary agent Sandy Lu.

She sent Genesys X out and we found our fabulous publisher, Fairwood Press. And now the book will be published 11/10/2020. The dream has become reality.

What are you working on now?

I have written a couple more short stories featuring Detective Eddie Piedmont and his partner Shin Miyaguchi (both already published this year in the CROSSING BORDERS and MYSTERY MOST THEATRICAL anthologies) and have started another E.Piedmont novel.

But I have already written the first volume of an epic fantasy trilogy called THE SHADOW WEAVER set in Bronze Age Greece in the last year of the Trojan War. While the heroes of the war are very active in the story, the trilogy focuses largely on Penelope and her cousins, the sisters Clytemnestra and Helen and their very dysfunctional families as they deal not only with the politics of that global palatial world, but with the supernatural forces at play.

“Don’t give up!”
Final words of wisdom for aspiring writers.

Don’t give up! Also, when you are rejected, and you probably will be before you succeed, don’t let depression swamp you. Take action instead. Rewrite and send out material the same day you’re rejected.

Pet Corner

Luddy

BJ’s beloved but deceased pooch Luddy who succumbed to cancer earlier this year and some of the fabulous felines who have inspired her to add fictional counterparts to Genesys X.

Jo’s a cat person, and Eddie, who is initially more of a dog person, learns to open his heart to the cats.

The baby/kitten pictures are of two formerly feral litter mates and also a pic of the rescue cat who became ‘Wolsey’ in the story (since he is handsome, charismatic, but also greedy and a bit of a bully like the Cardinal who is his namesake).

The felines all prefer to remain anonymous to protect their secret identities.

Thank you for sharing your writing journey and your wonderful animals with us!

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

The ebook is on sale for $1.99 during the entire month of November!

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Noir Science Fiction and Mythology Collide appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Emma Dakin Launches Crime In Cornwall

Emma Dakin joins us today on her Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour!

Guest Post & Rafflecopter Giveaway! Visit all Emma’s stops along the tour.

Click here to join the Rafflecopter Giveaway!

Crime in Cornwall by Emma Dakin

Crime in Cornwall (British Book Tour Mysteries)

Cozy Mystery

2nd in Series

Publisher: Camel Press (October 13, 2020)

Paperback: 228 pages

ISBN-10: 1603816100

ISBN-13: 978-1603816106

Patrick and Rita Stonning, Claire’s neighbors in Ashton-on-Tinch, dash down from London on weekends to host loud parties. They work in a publishing house and use their Ashton semi-detached home as a break from big city stress. Patrick arrives at Claire’s door distraught, reporting one of his partygoers, Olive Nott a best-selling author, dead. Claire discovers that not only is he dead, he’s been murdered.

Patrick is suspected of the murder and has enough motive to satisfy the police. Nott wrote mysteries set in Cornwall and had planned to take his lucrative contracts to a competing company. His latest book dealt with smuggling in the caves of Cornwall. The police, including DI Mark Evans from the newly formed Major investigations Team wonder if he learned too much from his research. Claire takes her six tourists, most from America, to the Cornwall coast in search of sites of mystery novels and hears the opinions of the Cornish people on smuggling.

She asks Patrick to meet her in Penzance to give a guest lecture on the smuggling in Oliver Nott’s novels. Claire finds Patrick self-aggrandizing and arrogant but doesn’t agree he would murder and sets out to find the one responsible.

Purchase Link – Amazon, B&N & IndieBound

Crime in Cornwall the British Book Tour Mysteries Book 2
Writing a Series: Guest Post by Emma Dakin

Crime in Cornwall has just been released.

As writers of series know, that means I wrote it over a year ago. I still like it, and I still enjoy talking about it. It seems some time ago that I did the research and created the characters. They have settled in my mind as real people and when I return to Cornwall, I almost expected to meet them on the streets of St. Ives.

The energy I put into researching and writing the book creates a package in some part of my mind where I can visit it and find everyone still engaged in the mystery.

But I have written Book III, Perils in Yorkshire lived through the editing, done the revisions on it and waved goodbye to it as it moved to the publishing house.

Again, when I returned to Yorkshire, I had my friends searching through the streets of Whitby looking for a particular restaurant and piling out of the van on the moor searching for a good place to put a body. That book is in its own place in my mind complete with the characters that inhabit the book.

I have the rough draft completed on Danger in Edinburgh. My brain is a bit crowded.

One of the difficulties of writing a series is the proliferation of bodies in one small village.

While I’m happy to accept that in other people’s series, I didn’t want to be restricted to one village in mine. Clare Barclay, the protagonist, lives in the small village of Aston-on-Tinch in Hampshire with her dog, Gulliver.

The first book in the series Hazards in Hampshire is set there and in the area around Hampshire. Readers get a thorough view of the village in this first book and the characters who inhabit it. It is the grounding book and Claire refers to her village in subsequent books, but she is a tour guide. That means she travels throughout Britain with her guests. Each book has a new setting.

Claire takes her guests to Cornwall in Book 2, Yorkshire and the surrounding area in Book 3 and Edinburgh and parts of western Scotland in Book 4.

Because Claire’s work takes her to different areas, the readers get a changing setting. Those different settings allow me to conduct interesting research and experience new dialects, attitudes and landscapes. I can go from the Queen’s Hotel in Penzance, where, bless them, they allowed me to photograph the interior, to a farm in Yorkshire. I can explore the hotels in Fowey (pronounced Foy, truly) and the Whiski Bar in Edinburgh. Claire brings those experiences to the books.

Claire’s tour business also allows me as the writer of the series to bring in new characters for each book as Clare welcomes a new set of tourists for each tour and therefore for each book. The main characters Claire, her lover Mark, her sister Deidre and her family, her sisters-in-law and the people of her village remain the same. The new characters, the tourists on each tour, provide vitality and help move the plot forward.

Aside from Detective Inspector Mark Evans, the police are new characters in each book as well. I am particularly fond of Superintendent Tregere who is decidedly a Cornishman. I like to give the reader the flavor of the accent, in this case the Cornish dialect, without bogging down the reading with too much of it. I find Dorothy Sayers, that marvel of the cozy, to become incomprehensible in her efforts to write a dialect.

The times were different when she was writing, so perhaps readers were willing to decipher it in those days, but I’m not, so I don’t expect you to be willing to do that. I hope that I have given enough of Tregere’s particular way of speaking so you can imagine him as a Cornishman. I’d quite like to meet him.

Do I get bored with my characters? Not at all. They don’t stay the same. Like most people, they change as they learn from experience and from the characters around them. They surprise me at times. I’m not sure what they have in store.

If you would like to know more about The British Book Tour series go to my website emmadakinauthor.com and click on the Join My Newsletter button. I send out information once a month. If everything is working properly, and the gremlins that haunt computers are latent, you should get a free chapter of a book when you join.

Emma Dakin

Emma Dakin lives in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia.

She has over twenty-five trade published books of mystery and adventure for teens and middle-grade children and non-fiction for teens and adults.

Her love of the British countryside and villages and her addiction to cozy mysteries now keep her writing about characters who live and work in those villages.

She introduces readers to the problems that disturb that idyllic setting.

To learn more about Emma, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Facebook & Goodreads

Visit all the stops along Emma’s Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour!

November 9 –  I’m All About Books  – SPOTLIGHT

November 9 –  Author Elena Taylor’s Blog  – GUEST POST

November 10 –  The Pulp and Mystery Shelf  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 10 –  Maureen’s Musings  – SPOTLIGHT, RECIPE

November 11 –  My Reading Journeys  – REVIEW

November 11 –  Sapphyria’s Book Reviews  – SPOTLIGHT

November 12 –  Ascroft, eh?  – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

November 13 –  Book Club Librarian  – REVIEW  

November 14 –  Literary Gold  – SPOTLIGHT, EXCERPT

November 15 –  Cozy Up With Kathy  – CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 16 –  My Journey Back  – SPOTLIGHT, RECIPE

November 16 –  Books a Plenty Book Reviews  – REVIEW, GUEST POST  

November 17 –  Mysteries with Character  -AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 17 –  Christy’s Cozy Corners  – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 18 –  Ruff Drafts  – SPOTLIGHT

November 19 –  Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic  – SPOTLIGHT, EXCERPT

November 19 –  Here’s How It Happened  – SPOTLIGHT

November 20 –  StoreyBook Reviews  – GUEST POST

November 21 –  Readeropolis  – SPOTLIGHT  

November 21 –  Reading Is My SuperPower  – SPOTLIGHT, EXCERPT

November 22 –  I Read What You Write – CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 22 –  eBook Addicts  – REVIEW

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Emma Dakin Launches Crime In Cornwall appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Third Degree: Spotlight on Three Novellas

Third Degree: 3 Authors, 3 Novellas, One Virtual Book Tour.

Welcome to the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for Third Degree!

Click the link here to enter the Third Degree Rafflecopter Giveaway

Third Degree by Ross Klavan, Tim O’Mara & Charles Salzberg
Cut Loose All Those Who Drag You Down

A crooked reporter who fronts for the mob and who’s been married eight times gets a visit from his oldest friend, a disgraced and defrocked shrink. The man is in deep trouble and it’s clear somebody is going to pay with his life.

Beaned

After smuggling cigarettes, maple syrup, and coffee, Aggie discovers a much more sinister plot to exploit what some consider a precious commodity: the trafficking of under-aged children for the purposes of sex.

The Fifth Column

Months after America’s entry into World War II, a young reporter uncovers that the recently disbanded German-American Bund might still be active and is planning a number of dangerous actions on American soil.

Book Details: Third Degree

Genre: Crime

Published by: Down & Out Books

Publication Date: October 5, 2020

Number of Pages: 320

ISBN: 978-1-64396-162-0

To buy Third Degree, click on any of the following links:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Excerpts from Third Degree
“The Fifth Column” by Charles Salzberg

I met with the managing editor, Bob Sheldon, and then he handed me over to Jack Sanders, the chief of the metro desk. Both nice guys. Both came from the same mold that gave us Dave Barrett and Bob Doering, my Litchfield bosses. I walked out of there thinking I’d done pretty good. As much as I hated to admit it, I think they were impressed with my having gradu- ated from Yale. “We don’t get many Ivy Leaguers wanting to work here,” the managing editor said. “I’d be happy to be the first,” I replied. And that was true.

That afternoon, it was the Herald Tribune’s turn and I didn’t think went quite as well. I could tell they were looking for someone a little older, a little more experienced. And I was sure my nerves showed, not especially what you want when you’re trying to impress someone and convince them you’re the right man for the job. 

That morning, as I was leaving for my interviews, my aunt asked what I’d like for dinner. “I’m sure you could use a home- cooked meal,” she said, then started to probe me for my favor- ite foods. 

“No, no, no,” I said. “I’m taking you out for dinner…”

“I appreciate it, Jakey, but you really don’t have to do that.” “Are you kidding? I want to do it. And believe it or not, they actually pay me for what I do at the paper. So, I’ve got money burning a hole in my pocket and what better way to spend it than taking my favorite aunt out to dinner. Just think about where you’d like to go. And do not, under any circumstances, make it one of the local luncheonettes. If I report back to my mom that that’s where I took you, she’d disown me.”

“You choose, Jakey. After all, you’re the guest.”

I got back to my aunt’s around 3:30. She was out, so I decided to catch a quick nap. I was beat, having been up before five that morning, meaning I got maybe three fitful hours of sleep. And even the excitement of being back in the big city didn’t keep my eyelids from drooping. And I had no trouble falling asleep, despite the sound of traffic outside the window.

I was awakened by the sound of Aunt Sonia unlocking the door. I looked at the clock. It was 5:30 p.m. I got up, straightened myself out, and staggered into the living room just as she was headed to the kitchen carrying two large paper bags filled with groceries.

“Remember,” I said, “we’re going out for dinner.”

“Are you sure, Jakey,” she said as I followed close at her heels into the kitchen.

“One-hundred percent sure. Here, let me help you put those things away.” She smiled. “You won’t know where to put them,” she said as she placed both bags down on the kitchen table.

“You think with all the time I spent here as a kid I don’t know where the milk, eggs, bread, flour, and everything else goes? And even if I didn’t, I’m a reporter, remember? I think I can figure it out.”

“I’m sorry, Jakey. I guess I can’t get the little kid out of my mind. I’ll put this bag away, you put away the other.”

“So, what’s new around here, Aunt Sonia?” I asked as I ferried eggs and milk to the icebox.

“New?” 

“I mean, it’s not the same old Yorkville, is it?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Jakey.”

“You do read the papers, don’t you? We’re at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan. This is Yorkville. It’s crawling with German-Americans, right?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.”

“I really don’t see much of a difference,” she said, stowing away the last of the groceries in the cabinet next to the stove. I got the feeling this was a subject she was not interested in dis- cussing, which made it all the more appealing to me. Maybe that accounts for my going into journalism. 

“There’s got to be a little tension, doesn’t there? I mean,  wasn’t there that big Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden a few years ago?” 

“I don’t really pay much attention to the news, Jakey. Of course, I read everything your mother sends me that you wrote. But the news, well, it’s very upsetting.” She shook her head back and forth slowly. 

“That’s putting it mildly,” I said as I pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. 

“Have you decided where we’re going?” Aunt Sonia said. I could see she was still uncomfortable talking about anything having to do with the war. And then it hit me. Her son, my cousin Bobby, who was several years older than me, pushing thirty, in fact, recently enlisted and was now somewhere in Eu- rope. No wonder she was reluctant to talk about it. 

“I thought the Heidelberg might be fun. I remember you taking me there as a kid. It was like one big party. I remember someone was at the piano playing these songs I’d never heard before. And this very strange music…” 

She smiled. “Oom-pah music. And you were so cute. You got up and started swaying back and forth.” 

My face got warm. “I don’t remember anything of the sort,” I said, embarrassed at the thought of doing something so attention-grabbing. 

“You can ask your mother if you don’t believe me. But just let me change and freshen up and we’ll get going.” 

“Cut Loose All Those Who Drag You Down” by Ross Klavan

There are people who don’t like to hear that I’ve been married eight times, but for myself, I don’t trust anyone who’s only been married once. 

Ex-Doctor Solly had only gone to the altar a single time, but he made up for it by having an obsession with hookers and by sleeping with at least three of his patients, which is a very bad thing to do especially for a shrink, hence the “ex” in ex-doctor. Women either can’t get enough of him or they immediately sense they’re standing beside Satan and they take off. But Ex-Doctor Solly has been married this one time and that was to the last woman that I’d married and why she agreed to that, frankly, to this day, I’ve never figured out. 

They’d even had a kid together. She’d never wanted kids, not with me. And Ex-Doctor Solly? To him, having a child sort of balanced out with finding a tumor who wanted toys. Maybe she had the kid to get at me. Maybe she married him to get at me. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. But here’s Ex-Doctor Solly, heaving for breath with his skinny ass in my chair and graced by the holy light of Netflix flashing across his face. 

“Jesus, gimme a fucking drink already, what are you waiting for, the Messiah?”

“I only have some…”

“Fine. Wait. Hold on, wait a minute.” What’s left of my Denver edible pops open his saucer eyes; he’s turning it round and round and round. “Where’d you get this?”

“Tanya brought it back for me from…”

“Good, great, OK, easy to get more,” as the rest of the cookie is crushed into his 

mouth, mercilessly, fingertips pushing, shoving. It all disappears. “ButIstill- needadrinkgivemeanythingyouhave,” he says. 

“I can’t understand you, schmuck, your mouth’s so full that…” 

“A DRINK!” like he’s chewing on stinging bees, forcing a swallow. “Dick! What kind of friend are you, don’t you see? This is as bad as it gets.” 

I come back with his drink, fit it into his hand, and Ex-Doctor Solly then slumps and slouches and leans forward, and if he could have X-rayed the floor, he would have. 

“It’s bad, Dick, really, really bad,” he says. “Not bad like all those bads before. This is, like, bad whether we say so or not.” 

“I’m not lending you money.”

“Dick. I’ve killed someone.”

“You’ve…”

“NO! Wait! Did I say ‘killed someone?’ Don’t listen to me, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m in a manic state…”

A small plastic box of meds makes rattling sounds in his hand, and he pops two of 

something, I don’t know what. Swallows with the scotch, leans back, and blows a breath like he’s doing his own, personal nor’easter. Let me also tell you this: he’s looking worse than lousy. Even worse now that he’s actually stepped into the room. Everything’s settled on him, all of it, settled on him like in his mind he’s sliding awake and open-eyed into the back of an empty hearse—and a cheap one at that. 

“It’s not exactly that I killed someone,” Ex-Doctor Solly says. “It’s that I was around someone who was killed. I was with somebody who died. Some people think I’m responsible for this death. Even if I’m not, they’re gonna make me responsible. Do you see what I’m getting at?” 

“No,” I say.

“Do you have any more dope?”

In the kitchen, I stare at my one surviving edible lying peacefully in the drawer, and I now hide that away after a weak moment, which means I was toying with the stupid idea of playing “good host.” 

I call to Ex-Doctor Solly, “Nothing left, I’ll get you another drink.” 

By the time I’m back to the ex-doctor, he’s shivering enough to make the ice in his scotch glass clatter. 

“You’re not gonna puke, are you?” 

“Probably later,” he says. “I’m mixing scotch with THC and two anti-anxiety medications. OK. I’m all right for…” he looks at his watch, takes his own pulse, nods professionally, and finishes, “…maybe the next three hours and 17 minutes. That’s my educated guess.” 

The Authors of Third Degree
Ross Klavan

Ross Klavan has published two other noir novellas with Down and Out: “I Take Care Of Myself In Dreamland” and “Thumpgun Hitched” both in collections with Charles Salzberg and Tim O’Mara. His darkly comic novel “Schmuck” was published by Greenpoint Press in 2014. Klavan’s screenplay for the film Tigerland was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and was directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Colin Farrell.

He’s written screenplays for InterMedia, Walden Media, Miramax, Paramount, A&E and TNT. As a performer, Klavan’s voice has been heard in dozens of feature films including “Revolutionary Road,” “Sometimes in April,” “Casino,” “In and Out,” and “You Can Count On Me” as well as in numerous TV and radio commercials. In other lives, he was a reporter and anchorman for WINS Radio, RKO Network and LBC (London, England) and a member of the NYC alternative art group Four Walls. He lives in New York City.

Catch Up With Ross Klavan On: Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook!
Charles Salzberg

Charles Salzberg, a former magazine journalist and nonfiction book writer, has been nominated for two Shamus Awards, for Swann’s Last Song and Second Story Man. He is the author of 5 Henry Swann novels, Devil in the Hole, called one of the best crime novels of 2013 by Suspense magazine, Second Story Man, winner of the Beverly Hills Book Award, and his novellas Twist of Fate and The Maybrick Affair, appeared in Triple Shot and Three Strikes.

His short stories have appeared in Long Island Noir (Akashic), Mystery Tribune and the crime anthology Down to the River (edited by Tim O’Mara).

He is a Founding Member of New York Writers Workshop and is on the board of MWA-NY, and PrisonWrites.

Catch Up With Charles Salzberg On: CharlesSalzberg.com, Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook!

 

Tim O’Mara

Tim O’Mara is the Barry-nominated (he didn’t win) author of the Raymond Donne mystery novels.

He’s also the editor of the short crime story anthology Down to the River, published by Down & Out Books.

Along with Smoked and Jammed, Beaned completes the Aggie Trilogy.

Catch Up With Tim O’Mara On: TimOMara.net, Goodreads, BookBub, Twitter, & Facebook!

 

 

 

Visit all the stops along the Virtual Book Tour for Third Degree!

10/03 Showcase @ Sylv. net

10/04 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader

10/04 Review @ Tome Tender

10/05 Guest post @ BooksChatter

10/07 Showcase @ The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

10/08 Showcase @ Reading A Page Turner

10/12 Showcase @ nanasbookreviews

10/15 Interview @ Blog Talk Radio

10/15 Review @ Just Reviews

10/20 Interview @ A Blue Million Books

10/21 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS

10/26 Review @ Quirky Cats Fat Stacks

10/27 Review @ Quiet Fury Books

11/01 Showcase @ EienCafe

11/04 Review @ Nesies Place

11/09 Review @ Jessica Belmont

11/16 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews

11/19 Review @ Books with Bircky

11/30 Review @ eBook Addicts

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Third Degree: Spotlight on Three Novellas appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Jennifer J Chow Launches Her Latest Sassy Cat Mystery

Jennifer J Chow launches her latest cozy mystery, Mimi Lee Reads Between The Lines

Welcome to her Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour!

Author Interview + Rafflecopter Giveaway

To enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway, click the link here.

1 Print Copy of Mimi Lee Gets a Clue

Mimi Lee Reads Between the Lines by Jennifer J. Chow

Mimi Lee Reads Between the Lines (A Sassy Cat Mystery)

Cozy Mystery

2nd in Series

Publisher: Berkley (November 10, 2020)

Paperback: 320 pages

ISBN-10: 1984805010

ISBN-13: 978-1984805010

Digital ASIN: B084V8MB5M

 

 

When a local teacher is found dead, LA’s newest pet groomer Mimi Lee finds herself in a pawful predicament—with her younger sister’s livelihood on the line.

Mimi Lee is on top of the world. She has a thriving pet grooming business, the sweetest boyfriend, and a talking cat to boot. When she arrives at the elementary school where her sister Alice works, she’s expecting a fun girls’ night out—but instead finds a teacher slumped over in her car, dead.

Alice was the last one to see Helen Reed, which instantly marks her as the prime suspect. Unable to sit quietly and let the authorities walk all over her sister, Mimi starts snooping and talks to Helen’s closest contacts, including one jumpy principal, a two-faced fiancé, and three sketchy teachers. With the help of her sassy but savvy cat, Marshmallow, and a cute kitten named Nimbus, the clock’s ticking for Mimi to get to the bottom of yet another case before her sister gets schooled.

To buy the book, click any of the following links: Amazon – Penguin Random House – BookShop – B&N  – Kobo – Google Play – IndieBound

Author Interview with Jennifer J Chow
Your latest novel, Mimi Lee Reads Between the Lines, involves a dead elementary school teacher. Was this novel a little payback for a bad teacher in your history? Or just a fun place to set a cozy mystery?

Ha! I don’t think I even had a horrible elementary teacher. Middle school, on the other hand . . .

Seriously, I used the school setting because Alice (Mimi Lee’s younger sister) works there.

As a writer of both Multicultural Mysteries & Fantastical YA, your characters range from senior sleuths to talking cats, plus immigrants, mothers, and pet groomers. How do you find your way into such a vast array of characters?

I’m not sure. Usually, the characters spring to my mind. I suppose I like meeting all sorts of people in real life, and that interest translates into my writing.

You write both series and standalone novels. How do you know if a novel is going to be the start of a series or a single story?

For series, I can usually see an arc across different books. Sometimes, a finished novel will also call out to me for further expansion. (And if I’ve got a multi-book deal, that definitely sways my decision!)

In addition to writing novels and short stories, you also blog about delicious treats, do you like to cook and bake? Or just enjoy the fruits of other chefs?

I love cooking and baking. There’s something wonderful about starting off with ingredients, mixing them together, and then ending up with a fulfilling (and filling) product. That’s not to say, though, that I’m not a foodie and delight in the labors of other chefs.

You recently joined Chicks on the Case, a group of female mystery writers who blog. How did that relationship develop? And how much fun is it to be a chick?

This was such an out-of-the-blue blessing. I did a guest post for Chicks on the Case. Soon after that, I attended an online writing convention. In the chat box, I mentioned how much I loved being in the warm atmosphere of a writing community. What timing! Because a founding member of the blog was stepping down, so a spot had opened up, and one of the Chicks reached out to me.

The Chicks are an amazing group of supportive women. They’re like the sisters I never had. Here’s one of our fun group posts: https://chicksonthecase.com/2020/10/02/chick-chat-hobbies/

Tell us about the wonderful animals who help you write.

I grew up with pet chickens, birds, and bunnies.

My most recent writing inspiration came from Wonderous, my friend’s pet Chihuahua, who inspired the tiny dog breed in the first book of the Sassy Cat Mysteries, Mimi Lee Gets A Clue.

What are you working on now?

Book 3 in the Sassy Cat series. It’s called Mimi Lee Cracks the Code and involves a Catalina Island vacation gone sideways.

Great to have you visit with us today. Best of luck with your latest novel!

 

Jennifer J Chow

Jennifer J. Chow is the author of the hiss-terical Sassy Cat Mysteries, the Winston Wong cozies, Dragonfly Dreams, and The 228 Legacy.

She lives in Los Angeles, where she hunts for all things matcha.

Connect with her online and sign up for her newsletter at www.jenniferjchow.com. You can also find her on social media under @jenjchow.

To learn more about Jennifer, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

 

Visit all the stops along the virtual book tour for Jennifer J. Chow!

November 6 –  I’m All About Books  – SPOTLIGHT

November 6 –  Diane Reviews Books  – REVIEW

November 6 –  Thoughts in Progress  – SPOTLIGHT

November 7 –  Brooke Blogs  – GUEST POST

November 7 –  MJB Reviewers  – SPOTLIGHT

November 7 –  Books a Plenty Book Reviews  – REVIEW, CHARACTER INTERVIEW

November 7 –  Author Elena Taylor’s Blog  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 8 –  Maureen’s Musings  – SPOTLIGHT

November 8 –  Literary Gold  – CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 9 –  My Journey Back  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 9 –  Sneaky the Library Cat’s blog  – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

November 9 –  Brianne’s Book Reviews  – REVIEW

November 9 –  Reading Is My SuperPower  – SPOTLIGHT

November 10 –  Cozy Up With Kathy  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 10 –  The Avid Reader  – REVIEW

November 10 –  Baroness’ Book Trove  – SPOTLIGHT

November 11 –  Hearts & Scribbles  – SPOTLIGHT

November 11 –  Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book  – REVIEW

November 12 –  Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic  – GUEST POST

November 12 –  Mystery Thrillers and Romantic Suspense Reviews  – SPOTLIGHT

November 12 –  My Reading Journeys  – REVIEW

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

All We Buried E-book on sale for $1.99 the entire month of November!

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Jennifer J Chow Launches Her Latest Sassy Cat Mystery appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Secrets of a Serial Killer by Rosie Walker

Secrets of a Serial Killer by Rosie Walker

Check out the latest ITW Debut Author and her creepy new thriller!

Author Interview + Author & Book Info

Secrets of a Serial Killer

An edge-of-your-seat serial killer thriller that you won’t be able to pause!

There it is: fear. It’s crawling all over her face and in her eyes, like a swarm of insects, and it’s all because of him.

A serial killer has been terrorising Lancaster for decades, longer than should ever have been possible. The police are baffled, eluded at every turn by the killer whose victims span generations.

Speculation is rife among the true-crime forums; is someone passing on their gruesome trade?

Every local mother’s worst nightmare has become Helen Summerton’s reality: he’s taken her daughter, Zoe. As the clock runs down, so do her chances of survival. Can Helen unearth the secrets of the killer before it’s too late?

Perfect for fans of The Whisper Man, What You Did and Don’t Even Breathe.

To purchase the book click on any of the following links: Amazon UK, Google Books, Waterstones, HarperCollins UK, and Amazon US

SONY DSC

Rosie Walker: Author of Secrets of a Serial Killer

Rosie gained a Masters in Creative Writing with distinction from the University of Edinburgh in 2011, where she learned to talk about writing over a gin and tonic, and accept critical feedback with grace.

She also has an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Lancaster University, where she learned how to pull an all-nighter to hit a deadline right at the last minute.

She lives in Edinburgh with her husband Kevin and their dog Bella.

To learn more about Rosie, click on her name, photo or any of the following links: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

Author Interview: Secrets of a Serial Killer
“Writing in the voice of such a distinctive character is such an adventure… “
What drew you to writing a thriller about a serial killer?

I’ve always been interested in working out why people’s minds work the way they do, particularly people who are very different to me. With people who exhibit abhorrent behaviours, like killing other people, I find that writing about them— really getting into their heads—helps me understand them a little more, or at least use my imagination to try to do so.

That’s how I got started writing Secrets of a Serial Killer: the voice of the killer himself came to me first, and then the rest of the story and its characters slotted in around him. Writing in the voice of such a distinctive character is such an adventure, it’s really interesting to put yourself in those shoes and walk around for a little while.

Tell us about Lancaster, where Secrets of a Serial Killer is set.

My favourite parts of Lancaster are its landscape and its history.

Although it’s a city, it’s within a short distance of amazing countryside: the sea and hills are a short bike ride away, and there’s a lovely river running through the centre, and beautiful canals: lots to explore. It’s a very old city with a lot of historical buildings dating back to its days as a bustling trading port, a few of which combined in my mind to create the derelict Lancaster Lune hospital that features in Secrets of a Serial Killer.

Back in the 19th century, much of the north of England sent their mentally ill patients to Lancaster, where there were numerous huge asylums to accommodate the vast numbers of patients they didn’t know how to deal with in normal society at that time.

By the time I lived there (around 2004-2008), those huge asylums were either derelict or repurposed: the Royal Albert Asylum was a girls’ school, and the Moor Hospital had closed down to patients and stood empty at the beginning of the process of being developed into apartments—the inspiration for what’s happening to the Lancaster Lune Asylum in the book.

Want to see some creepy photos of the old Moor Hospital? Click the link here.
What was your road to publication like?

I had to take everything one tiny step at a time by setting small goals along the way.

If I hadn’t done that, an end goal of ‘get published’ would have been too insurmountable and I probably would have given up before I even started!

So the small goals went like this: finish a draft novel; polish that novel until it shines; get an agent; edit the novel with that agent; go out on submission to publishers… etc.

Each time I hit one of the goals, I’d find the next small one to aim for—but the important part when you’re shifting your own goalposts like that is to always remember where you started too: remind yourself that the ‘you’ from the beginning of this process just wanted a completed first draft. Everything else is a bonus.

“I manage full-time work alongside writing by implementing small goals…”


You juggle a full-time job with writing, how do you manage that?

I work in Communications, so I get to write and think creatively in my day job too, which is important to me.

I manage full-time work alongside writing by implementing small goals again: 500 words a day when I’m drafting (more, if I can), usually on the commute or during a lunch hour. Editing is a little trickier, so I grab bigger chunks of time at weekends and on annual leave so I can really get my head in the right place.

It’s not easy to write novels alongside a full-time job, and I certainly don’t want to do that forever, but in the meantime, it’s do-able.

You have a second book coming out next year. Is it a standalone? Or a sequel to Secrets of a Serial Killer. How did your writing process differ for the second book compared to your debut?

My second book is a standalone. I did pitch a prequel to my publisher, but they preferred Secrets of a Serial Killer to be left as a complete story as they felt it has more impact like that, which I totally understand.

The second novel was a lot quicker to write, I think because working with both my agent and my publisher during the editorial process had taught me so much about plotting, structure and planning.

I outlined a very detailed plan, so I was less likely to get stuck along the way and hammered out the first draft in just a few months. We’re in the editing phase with my publisher at the moment.

I hope it’s a good one: I certainly feel like I am a better writer for book two, and I hope I will improve with every subsequent book!

What are you working on now?

Once I finish my edits for book two, I have a pretty detailed plan for book three which I am really excited to launch into!

The premise really gives me the creeps, so I hope readers will feel the same way when they hear more about it at some point in the future.

“Keep going, a little bit at a time.”
Final words of wisdom:

Keep going, a little bit at a time. You don’t have to write full time, or even write every day: but each day you get words on the page increases your word count and takes you closer to having a completed novel. If you don’t give up, you will get there.

Pet Corner!

Bella!

Bella is a 6-year-old Labrador/mix who was abandoned in Cyprus when she was about a year old.

After a shaky start in life, she’s a little nervous around loud noises and sudden movements, but she has settled well into life in Scotland.

She loves walks every day, sniffing everything, and adventuring through woods and along beaches. When she’s at home she is at her happiest when she’s curled up in a cuddle with one of her humans.

She’s the cuddliest dog on the planet and loves to snooze.

Thank you for joining us today and sharing thoughts about your writer’s life. Loved meeting you and Bella!

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

The ebook is on sale for $1.99 during the entire month of November!

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Secrets of a Serial Killer by Rosie Walker appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Empathy and Compassion Moving Forward From Covid

Empathy and compassion: two states to carry forward as we leave Covid behind.

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes.
Compassion is the ability to recognize the suffering of others and make a choice to help.
Consider Some of the Empathy Covid has Taught us.

If you have struggled with anxiety about catching the disease, that’s what people with auto-immune conditions feel every time a healthy person chooses not to get a vaccine to prevent an illness like the measles or the flu. The fact that you might have no trouble surviving one of those illnesses doesn’t mean your neighbor can, and they may not be able to get a vaccine.

If having to wear face masks feels like an invasion of your body, think about how you would feel if the government forced you to bear a child.

Did the store running out of toilet paper freak you out? Consider what it would be like to be homeless and not have easy access to a bathroom.

Does someone in your household choose not to practice the same safety measures that you do, which makes you feel your life is in danger? Now you know something of what it’s like to live with domestic violence.

It’s incredibly hard to have all of these fears—and more—combined at one time, but each anxiety the pandemic brings can give us the ability to find empathy for others in the future.

Empathy for those who lose their jobs, through no fault of their own.

Having a hard time getting to the doctor? Think about what it would be like without health insurance.

Don’t like the inability to travel? People living in poverty without disposable income don’t have that ability in normal years.

Empathy can lead us to Compassion.
What are we going to do as Covid ends?

Will we choose to get the vaccine that will protect our neighbors?

Make a different decision about whether or not a woman has a right to choose?

See the homeless person as a human being with needs just like our own?

It’s understandable during the pandemic and the lockdowns to think inwardly. We’re doing the best we can to endure a scary and difficult time.

We don’t know what the future will bring us, how long the pandemic will last, which of us it will kill. But we do know that for most of us, it will end. We will return to a life not unlike the one we had before March 2020. It might be a year or two, or even more, but it will happen.

But those with chronic illness will still struggle.

Those living in situations of domestic violence will still not know security in their own homes.

Those living in poverty will still not have access to so many things the luckiest among us get to take for granted.

When we face the new world, post-covid, we all have choices we can make about what we take forward.

I just hope some of what we carry is empathy and compassion.

Want to start today? Donate blood this holiday season. You can find a local donation center, or visit the Red Cross online for a location near you. Click the link here.
We’re all in this together

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

The ebook is on sale for $1.99 during the entire month of November!

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

Header photo by Pavlofox on Pixabay.

The post Empathy and Compassion Moving Forward From Covid appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Murder in the Piazza: Spotlight on a New Cozy

Murder in the Piazza by Jen Collins Moore launched September 22.

Welcome to a stop on her Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour!

Spotlight on Murder in the Piazza

Click the link here to enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway!

Murder in the Piazza: A Maggie White Mystery

Murder in the Piazza: A Maggie White Mystery

Cozy Mystery

1st in Series

Publisher: Level Best Books (September 22, 2020)

Paperback: 278 pages

ISBN-10: 1947915533

ISBN-13: 978-1947915534

Digital ASIN: B08FBL9GV8

Maggie White, a downsized American executive stuck in Rome on her husband’s expat assignment, is finding the dolce vita isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. She’s taken a job offering painting instruction to well-heeled travelers and her boss-a rather unpleasant English lord-has turned up dead in his penthouse.

Maggie’s left with a palazzo full of suspicious guests, a valuable painting her boss might have stolen, and a policeman who’s decided she’s the prime suspect. Now Maggie must keep the tour up and running while she tracks the killer and works to clear her name.

To purchase the book, click on any of the following links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

Jen Collins Moore, author of Murder in the Piazza

Jen Collins Moore is the author of the Maggie White Mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly, and she is the editor of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest newsletter.

She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, as well an established marketer and entrepreneur.

A transplanted New Englander, she lives in Chicago with her husband and two boys.

To learn more about Jen, click on her name or photo.

Visit all of the stops along the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour!

MURDER IN THE PIAZZA TOUR PARTICIPANTS

November 2 –  Books a Plenty Book Reviews  – REVIEW

November 2 –  Author Elena Taylor’s Blog  – SPOTLIGHT

November 3 –  Ruff Drafts  – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 3 –  I’m All About Books  – SPOTLIGHT

November 4 –  Elizabeth McKenna – Author Blog  – SPOTLIGHT

November 4 –  Maureen’s Musings  – SPOTLIGHT

November 5 –  Christy’s Cozy Corners  – CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 5 –  Sapphyria’s Book Reviews  – SPOTLIGHT

November 6 –  Hearts & Scribbles  – SPOTLIGHT

November 7 –  Reading Is My SuperPower  – GUEST POST

November 7 –  Baroness’ Book Trove  – SPOTLIGHT

November 8 –  eBook Addicts  – SPOTLIGHT

November 8 –  Diane Reviews Books  – SPOTLIGHT

November 9 –  My Reading Journeys  – REVIEW

November 9 –  T’s Stuff  – SPOTLIGHT

November 10 –  Here’s How It Happened  – SPOTLIGHT

November 11 –  Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic  – GUEST POST

November 12 –  Mysteries with Character  – REVIEW

November 12 –  My Journey Back  – CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 13 –  Cozy Up With Kathy  – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW

November 13 –  View from the Birdhouse  – SPOTLIGHT

November 14 –  Cassidy’s Bookshelves  – REVIEW

November 14 –  Literary Gold  – CHARACTER GUEST POST

November 15 –  I Read What You Write  – GUEST POST

 

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

The post Murder in the Piazza: Spotlight on a New Cozy appeared first on Elena Taylor.

Priscilla Paton Launches Should Grace Fail

Priscilla Paton brings back her dynamic duo—Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger—in her latest Twin Cities Mystery, Should Grace Fail, launching December 8. I’m thrilled to chat with her dueling protagonists. Read further for the full interview!

Love mysteries that pack a punch? Read my interview with August Norman on his latest Caitlin Bergman novel!

Priscilla Paton: The Author

Priscilla Paton writes mysteries set in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

Priscilla grew up on a dairy farm in Maine. She received a B.A. from Bowdoin College, a Ph.D. in English Literature from Boston College, was a college professor and taught in Kansas, Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Minnesota. She has previously published a children’s book, Howard and the Sitter Surprise, and a book on Robert Frost and Andrew Wyeth, Abandoned New England.

She married into the Midwest and lives with her husband in Northfield, Minnesota. When not writing, she participates in community advocacy and literacy programs, takes photos of birds, and contemplates (fictional) murder.

To learn more about Priscilla, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Goodreads

Should Grace Fail by Priscilla Paton

When a man who saves lives has his own brutally taken, Greater Metro Detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger have their strengths pushed to the limit. The murdered man rescued trafficked teen addicts from a vindictive crime boss, but he was also an alcoholic who left the police force under suspicion.

Is his murderer a drug dealer, a pimp, a corrupt police colleague, all of the above? Or could the killer be a victim who lashed out at her savior?

In the mix is the imperious matriarch of a hotel chain who is blind to incidents on her properties. The best friend of the dead man yearns to help but shows up in the wrong place at the wrong time with his therapy dogs. And a biracial eighteen-year-old pianist, haunted by drug abuse, finds herself protecting a charming sweetheart from the draw of crime.

To solve the case, blunt Deb has to ingratiate herself with the hotel matriarch while resisting her attraction to the woman’s foxy assistant. Reserved Erik needs to earn the trust of a wrongfully accused teen. The detectives are pushed over a riverbank, pushed off a golf course, and pushed into a tiger enclosure. If they don’t catch the killer, the best friend and the young pianist are as good as dead. Erik and Deb, working with and against each other, must move fast before helping others proves fatal.

To buy the book, click on the following links: Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Character Interview
Hi, Erik, Thanks for chatting with us today. My readers would love to know a little bit more about your background. Tell us something about yourself:

Erik: “Thank you for your interest, Elena. I’m Erik Jansson—yes, that’s a Scandinavian name—a homicide detective with Greater-Metro Investigative Unit, G-Met, which serves the Minneapolis/St. Paul region. G-Met is, well, called the bastard offspring of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the BCA. The BCA was made famous by a fictional detective who thinks he can get away with shooting people. At G-met, we’re about not shooting people (most of the time), but about headwork, legwork, and unusual strategies. Now you’re an experienced interviewer, and I’d like hear about your techniques—”

Deb: “Partner, you haven’t said a thing about yourself except you’re a Swedish/Norwegian porridge. Typical. Or introduced me. I’m his partner, Detective Deb Metzger. We stick together like gum to a shoe. I’m lesbian and 6’2” in boots. Erik here is 6’2” in shoes, his legwork is running marathons, and I bet he’s charming you with his smile. Be careful there. He looks like a straight arrow but is more of a curve ball. With me, what you see is what you get.” 

Hi, Deb, Great to have you here as well. What else should readers know about you?

Deb: “I focus on crimes against women and children, which too often includes murder. Heartbreaking cases. In our latest, someone is trafficking disadvantaged young women, and these women have serious trust issues with the law. It’s a devil to connect with one girl in this case. I also have to get on the right side of a stubborn old rich woman. You have to build trust, and, um, I’m working on that.”

Erik: “Tact helps.”

Deb: “Did I ask for advice? BTW, I grew up in Iowa, as did Erik, so we’re grounded. A lot of ground in Iowa. If we get hungry during this interview, he’s probably got snacks squirreled away—one of those skinny people who eats all the time. We’re both fit. He does activities where you need bug-spray—hiking, kayaking. I like civilized stuff—golf, swimming, tennis. Now our boss, ‘Almost Allwise’ Ibeling says—”

Erik: Deb, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’re on a schedule.

The two of you have teamed up before, what are the strengths and weaknesses you each bring to the team?

Deb: “I have to admit, Erik can get around people who think they’re too smart to be caught, like arrogant CEO’s and streetwise con artists, because he’s a schemer himself. He’s good looking so women open up to him, but they might play him, too. He’s physically quick, and so far, knock on wood, we’ve both survived potentially fatal situations. I suppose I should say he’s thoughtful when you don’t expect it and dotes on his little boy.”

Erik: “Deb’s a relentless advocate for the underdog, for the marginalized. She has insight into abusers and their destructiveness. She has to deal with parents’ grief. She’s also a spiky blonde Xena warrior princess. And she’s funny, even when she doesn’t mean to be.”

Deb: “Ha ha.”

This latest investigation has you looking into the death of one of your own. Did that have an impact on your feelings about the case?

Deb: “I’ll take this one, Partner, cover your ears. You see, Elena, Erik’s not one for ‘feeling’ talk, but finding the body of a former policeman hit him hard. I think the guy looked a little like Erik’s dad, and the guy was in the act of rescuing a girl when he was killed. A reminder that it can be fatal to get in a criminal’s way, as we do all the time. Me—I saw the dead man through the filter of his angry daughter. He’d been a violent alcoholic when he was on the force and virtually deserted her. I wish things were simply good or bad, but there are many sides to this dead man’s story.”

There’s been a lot of turmoil in policing in the United States. What’s it like to be a detective in the Twin Cities right now?

Deb: “Black Lives Matter.”

Erik: “Yes, Black Lives Matter. Recent events involving police killing of—it’s. . . I’ll start again. I’ve been. . . demoralized is the word, by the atrocities. I thought we—the police—were better than that. I’ve been a whistle-blower on colleagues’ bad behavior and found that was a terrible position, lose-lose. And, I’ll admit it, I love Minneapolis and St. Paul, and to see what happened to the people, the places—”

Deb: “Don’t take it all on yourself, Partner. As for me, I’m stuck on a committee to make structural changes. Committees, where hope turns crazy. I have to remind my partner here that we’re fictional characters, hated by fictional enemies.”

Erik: “Still, I should’ve been more aware. In our current case, which in a time warp occurs before 2020, one line of inquiry involves a biracial pianist and her seventeen-year-old Black cousin. I’m worried.”

Deb: “Yeah, scary serious. But a big chunk of our fictional duty is to lighten things up for the reader, take on cases that, uh, cases that—”

Erik: “Go well with a glass of wine?”

Deb: “Right. Or a latte. With a brownie.”

Your author has given both of you obstacles to overcome in your personal lives. Has she treated you fairly? How do you feel about the flaws she’s worked into your characters?

Erik: “She could throw in more sex.”

Deb: “Definitely, she could throw in more sex.”

Erik: “Instead she goes into why we aren’t getting sex. She implies my moodiness contributed to my divorce and impedes working well with others.”

Deb: “By ‘others,’ Erik means me.”

Erik: “The author has me take things to heart, which is good if it’s concern for Ben, my son. Bad if it’s resentment. Maybe I’m not as mature as I should be. She has me play petty tricks on a fellow officer, Drees.”

Deb: “Drees is a tool. I like that the author lets me speak my mind. Except when she doesn’t let me think first. I’ve put my foot in it. My ex-girlfriend said I had a chip on my shoulder the size of a concrete block. That’s harsh. True, but harsh. I mean, because I’m an overly tall non-cisgender female, this author implies that I’ve had shit thrown at me. Okay, that’s true, too. So—I say ‘so’ a lot—as an author, she’s not too bad.”

Erik: “I’d say still learning. We all are.”

What do readers have to look forward to next? Will you two be back to solve another crime?

Deb: “I need to find a place to live (long story), but there’s a housing crisis everywhere, homeless encampments. Eviction fears. Then there are properties people would kill for. Oops, I’ve said too much.”

Erik: “I’ve been talking with several real estate agents, women, one a single parent, like me. I’m sensing deep jealousies, a hidden fatal attraction.”

Deb: “You’re hoping they’ll have a cat fight over you.”

Erik: “The possibilities remain open. Thanks, Elena. Our chief is buzzing us.”

Deb: “Yup, thanks. Oh, is it true you’re married, like, to a man? Darn. Well, you have my number.”

Erik: “We’re going, Deb.”

Deb: “Yup, bye.”

Erik and Deb! Thanks for visiting with us. And thank Priscilla Paton for me as well!

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