Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 21

Guest Blogger: Sue Ann Jaffarian – One Writer, Many Roads

One Writer, Many Roads by Sue Ann Jaffarian

When I first met Debra Goldstein, it was in February 2019 at Murder In The Magic City in Birmingham, Alabama. I was one of the guests of honor for the event, and I was just a few weeks into my latest adventure, that of being a nomadic writer. An adventure I call The Novel RV.

On December 31st, after buying a Winnebago Travato Class B RV, selling or giving away most of my belongings, and retiring from my decades-long career as a corporate paralegal, I hit the road full-time. I had been writing mystery novels for nearly twenty years and had several popular series under my belt. The best known are the Odelia Grey mysteries and The Ghost of Granny Apples mysteries. My goal for my post-retirement life was to write full-time while traveling this beautiful country.

I started in Los Angeles, California, and headed east. I had an adventure on my first day by running into a freak snowstorm. There have been several unplanned adventures in the six months I have been on the road. Some have been unpleasant, but most have been fun and exciting. I’ve met some different and interesting people, have checked items off my bucket list, and caught up with old friends. I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with many of my long-time readers and some of my writing colleagues.

But am I writing? After all, writers write. The answer is YES! I’m writing a lot. I write most every day. Some days I write for an hour. Most days I write for several hours. In addition to working on novels in my current series, I am working on some new projects. I keep a daily journal on Patreon of my journey, which will eventually become a travel book titled I Sleep Around. I also write articles for Winnebago’s GoLife Blog. Having only written novels and short stories before, I am really enjoying adding more diversity to my writing career.

So where do I write? EVERYWHERE! I have a small table in my van that serves as my “office,” and I have a portable table and camp chair that allows me to write outside. I’ve written at the beach, by lakes, in the desert, and in the mountains. I’ve written in Walmart and truck stop parking lots. I’m writing this at the kitchen table in the home where I am currently house/pet sitting in Utah.

I used to be one of those writers who could only write at my desk, on my laptop, in my apartment. I wouldn’t even write in a coffee shop. Those days are long gone. Now everywhere is my office. Every new town or road my inspiration. Now it’s one writer, many roads. Or maybe that should be: One writer, many opportunities.

One question I am asked often is: “How long do you plan on doing this?”

My answer every time is: “When it stops being fun or I am no longer able to do it.”

One of my favorite quotes, which I have fastened above my galley in my van is: “There will come a day when I can no longer do this. Today is not that day.”

That is true not only of traveling, but of writing.

Today is not that day!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sue Ann Jaffarian is the author of the popular Granny Apples Mysteries and the Odelia Grey mysteries, as well as other novels and short stories. As of January 1, 2019, she became a full-time nomadic writer, traveling the US while living in a Winnebago Travato camper van. She is also a free lance writer for Winnebago’s GoLife Magazine and sought after as a motivational speaker.

 

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Guest Blogger: Lynn Chandler Willis – The Fish, the Plane Crash, and the Coyote

The Fish, the Plane Crash, and the Coyote

By: Lynn Chandler Willis

In my former life, I owned and published a bi-weekly newspaper. Circulation 15,000, thank you. Not bad for a totally ad-supported paper that covered one incorporated rural town and a couple unincorporated surrounding communities. The paper lasted thirteen years and probably could have gone on a few more but I was tired. I was tired of small-town politics, the neighbor against neighbor, the curses of angry mothers because you misspelled their kid’s name in the Honor Roll report. Or worse, spelled the Mayor’s son’s name correctly in the police report.

The paper did have its bright side and they far outweighed the down sides. I met people I never would have met and was introduced to some of the most amazing experiences – like watching the Hinshaw brothers make homemade maple syrup, meet the Budweiser Clydesdales up close and personal (and they are MASSIVE), and get courted by a guy who brought me a fish. Dead.

The guy kinda had a crush on me and dropped by the office – we’re talking rural community so the office isn’t a skyscraper – and asked me to come outside with him for a minute. He said he had something to give me. I walk outside with him and he reaches into his Coleman cooler in the bed of his truck and pulls out this massive fish. It might have been a bass, I don’t know. It was big, and it was dead. He’d caught it earlier and knew I’d be impressed because I was such a down-home type girl. I told him I couldn’t accept it because my husband might not appreciate it so he took his fish and went home. And no, I wasn’t married.

Then there was the plane crash. A small charter plane went down in a field near our neck of the woods. I head out there dressed for field trials and get right up to the crash site to take pictures. One of the large daily papers showed up but the reporter, in her high heels, couldn’t get anywhere near the site. They ended up using my pictures. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, unless you count the reporter’s ego and sprained ankle.

Often, people would drop by the office for a cup of coffee and some chit-chat, or to offer me a fish, or a photo op. This particular time, an avid outdoorsman wheels up to the office in his heavy-duty truck and rushes in to get me. Bring your camera, I’m instructed. We get outside and he drops the tailgate of his truck and there’s the largest coyote I’ve ever seen. Like the fish, dead. The thing stretched nose to base of tail across the tailgate. Coyotes in our area are considered a nuisance so it’s always open season. And we have had problems with coyotes in the past so people are a bit scared of them ‘round here. So this guy wants me to take a picture for the front page – above the fold – to warn people coyotes are in the area. The problem was, the coyote was dead. With very visible bullet wounds. And blood. I could not run that kind of picture on the front page of a family friendly newspaper. The guy accused me of doing a disservice to the people and their pets and every cat and Yorkie that got attacked by a coyote was on me. I’d have the blood of many small pets on my hands. At least a picture of blood wasn’t going on the front page.

I gave up the newspaper business in real life but write about it in my fiction. Ava Logan of the Ava Logan Mystery Series is – surprise—a small town newspaper publisher struggling with work-life balance, and the brutality of small-town politics. And the occasional murder.

Set deep in the Appalachia Mountains, The second book in the series, Tell Me No Secrets, involves serpent-handling churches, granny women folk healing, and muddy river baptisms. I never covered any of these in my newspaper but I did interview Prince WadaWada DuDu of the Great Zanbini’s Traveling

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The Fish, the Plane Crash, and the Coyote

The Fish, the Plane Crash, and the Coyote

By: Lynn Chandler Willis

In my former life, I owned and published a bi-weekly newspaper. Circulation 15,000, thank you. Not bad for a totally ad-supported paper that covered one incorporated rural town and a couple unincorporated surrounding communities. The paper lasted thirteen years and probably could have gone on a few more but I was tired. I was tired of small-town politics, the neighbor against neighbor, the curses of angry mothers because you misspelled their kid’s name in the Honor Roll report. Or worse, spelled the Mayor’s son’s name correctly in the police report.

The paper did have its bright side and they far outweighed the down sides. I met people I never would have met and was introduced to some of the most amazing experiences – like watching the Hinshaw brothers make homemade maple syrup, meet the Budweiser Clydesdales up close and personal (and they are MASSIVE), and get courted by a guy who brought me a fish. Dead.

The guy kinda had a crush on me and dropped by the office – we’re talking rural community so the office isn’t a skyscraper – and asked me to come outside with him for a minute. He said he had something to give me. I walk outside with him and he reaches into his Coleman cooler in the bed of his truck and pulls out this massive fish. It might have been a bass, I don’t know. It was big, and it was dead. He’d caught it earlier and knew I’d be impressed because I was such a down-home type girl. I told him I couldn’t accept it because my husband might not appreciate it so he took his fish and went home. And no, I wasn’t married.

Then there was the plane crash. A small charter plane went down in a field near our neck of the woods. I head out there dressed for field trials and get right up to the crash site to take pictures. One of the large daily papers showed up but the reporter, in her high heels, couldn’t get anywhere near the site. They ended up using my pictures. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, unless you count the reporter’s ego and sprained ankle.

Often, people would drop by the office for a cup of coffee and some chit-chat, or to offer me a fish, or a photo op. This particular time, an avid outdoorsman wheels up to the office in his heavy-duty truck and rushes in to get me. Bring your camera, I’m instructed. We get outside and he drops the tailgate of his truck and there’s the largest coyote I’ve ever seen. Like the fish, dead. The thing stretched nose to base of tail across the tailgate. Coyotes in our area are considered a nuisance so it’s always open season. And we have had problems with coyotes in the past so people are a bit scared of them ‘round here. So this guy wants me to take a picture for the front page – above the fold – to warn people coyotes are in the area. The problem was, the coyote was dead. With very visible bullet wounds. And blood. I could not run that kind of picture on the front page of a family friendly newspaper. The guy accused me of doing a disservice to the people and their pets and every cat and Yorkie that got attacked by a coyote was on me. I’d have the blood of many small pets on my hands. At least a picture of blood wasn’t going on the front page.

I gave up the newspaper business in real life but write about it in my fiction. Ava Logan of the Ava Logan Mystery Series is – surprise—a small town newspaper publisher struggling with work-life balance, and the brutality of small-town politics. And the occasional murder.

Set deep in the Appalachia Mountains, The second book in the series, Tell Me No Secrets, involves serpent-handling churches, granny women folk healing, and muddy river baptisms. I never covered any of these in my newspaper but I did interview Prince WadaWada DuDu of the Great Zanbini’s Traveling

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A Picture Tells A Story – Beats Writing A Blog This Week

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Bittersweet Life Cycle Moments – a Reason Not to Write

Bittersweet Life Cycle Moments – a Reason Not to Write by Debra H. Goldstein

Sometimes, life gets in the way of writing. This is one of those weeks that my thoughts are more concerned with life cycle events than they are with “writing.” By the end of this week, my sister and I will both welcome grandchildren. She knows hers will be a girl; my daughter and her husband opted to be surprised.

I always have referred to my daughter and her twin brother as being my miracle children. Having them wasn’t easy – my pregnancy, while successful, also forced this type A person to spend almost eight months on my back or in and out of hospitals (I empathize with Princess Kate and Amy Schumer). Although the holy terrors were due on April 1 (it seemed appropriate for me at the time), they arrived in February, but they thrived. They now are grown, and my daughter is having her own child.

Talking to my friends who are in the same position, we all agree our children’s pregnancies are a time of excitement and fear. We want the pregnancy to go well and the baby to be born healthy. We can’t wait to hold our children’s babies and we pray we can still remember and have the endurance to feed, burp, diaper, and do the other chores — like running up and down the stairs, associated with a newborn.

This is another time of miracles.

But I’m also saddened that my sister and I can’t share our moments of joy with our mother. Perhaps our daughters will memorialize her (or our father) by naming their babies after them, but it isn’t the same as it would be to see the excitement and happiness these children would have given their great-grandmother. The picture at the top of this blog was taken of my mother at my daughter’s wedding. Mother’s face radiates her thrill of sharing in that life cycle event. Can you imagine how she would have felt this week?

By this time next week, my sister and I will both be beyond Cloud 9, but I’m sure as we count fingers and toes and check out hair and eye color, a momentary thought of whether the babies bear any resemblance to their great-grandmother will flit through our minds. What about you – any bittersweet wonderful life cycle moments?

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Guest Blogger: Grace Topping – The People You’ll Meet

The People You’ll Meet by Grace Topping

When I think about my journey to publication, Dr. Seuss’s words often come to mind, “Oh the places you’ll go!” A terrific line, but to me, a more important thought was “the people you’ll meet.”

As a budding mystery writer, I traveled to Orlando to attend Sleuthfest, Boston to attend Crime Bake, Bethesda to attend Malice Domestic. As nice as it was visiting those places and attending the conferences, it was the people I met that made the biggest difference.

I attended my first Malice Domestic, a conference for fans of traditional mysteries, as a fan. I enjoyed hearing authors talk about some of the books I’d loved, but I went home after a pleasant weekend and didn’t think much about it. Little did I realize that I would attend Malice again one day with the goal of becoming a mystery writer, and that many of the attendees would become dear friends.

Years later, when I again attended Malice Domestic, I actually got to spend time with some authors. I had met author Janet Bolin online through the Sisters in Crime (SINC) chapter, the Guppies. That weekend at Malice, Janet showed me the ropes and took me to lunch with other cozy authors, including Avery Ames and Krista Davis, who made me feel at home. If it hadn’t been for Janet, I probably would have wandered around feeling a bit lost.

It was the generosity of authors like Susan Froetschel, who at a Chesapeake SINC meeting told me to send her my manuscript and gave me encouraging feedback that kept me going. Another chapter member, Elaine Douts, invited me to join her group blog, Writers Who Kill, conducting interviews with mystery writers. Through WWK, I met more writers.

I continued “meeting” writers online through the Guppies, but it was when I attended Sleuthfest, a writers’ conference in Orlando, that I met more Guppies in person—writers like Debra H. Goldstein, Marilyn Levinson, Karen Duxbury, and Betsy Bitner. Little did I know at the time how instrumental Debra and Marilyn would be in my career.

Over the next few years, I exchanged manuscripts with fellow Guppies Diane Vallere and Kendal Flaum, who gave me valuable feedback. I eventually obtained an agent, but kept rewriting, getting input from writers like Debra, Marilyn, Connie Berry, Linda Reilly, Shari Randall, Kait Carson, and Barbara Ross, who I met at Crime Bake. Each helped me make my manuscript better and they bolstered me up when I got discouraged.

Finally, when I realized that my current agent had done all she could, it was Debra and Marilyn who encouraged me to query their agent. I did, and she was able to sell my manuscript in two months. Thank you, Debra and Marilyn.

On April 30, my cozy mystery, Staging is Murder, was released. I’m thankful every day that as I traveled the road to publication that all the wonderful writers I mentioned and many more walked along with me, pulled me out of holes, and pointed me in the right direction. I can’t thank them enough. The “people you’ll meet” was definitely the best part of the journey.

Staging is Murder

Laura Bishop just nabbed her first decorating commission—staging for sale a 19th century mansion that hasn’t been updated for decades. But when a body falls from a laundry chute and lands at Laura’s feet, removing flowered wallpaper becomes the least of her duties. To clear her young assistant of the murder and save her fledgling business, Laura’s determined to find the killer. Turns out it’s not as easy as renovating a manor home, especially with two handsome men complicating her mission: the police detective assigned to the case and the real estate agent trying to save the manse from foreclosure. Worse still, the meddling of a horoscope-guided friend, a determined grandmother, and the local funeral director could get them all killed before Laura props the first pillow.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Grace Topping is a recovering technical writer and IT project manager, accustomed to writing lean, boring documents. Let loose to write fiction, she is now creating murder mysteries and killing off characters who remind her of some of the people she dealt with during her career. Fictional revenge is sweet. She’s using her experience helping friends stage their homes as inspiration for her Laura Bishop mystery series. The first book in the series, Staging is Murder, is about a woman starting a new career midlife as a home stager. Grace is the current vice president of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and a member of the SINC Guppies and Mystery Writers of America. She lives with her husband in Northern Virginia.

http://www.gracetopping.com

https://www.facebook.com/GraceToppingAuthor

https://twitter.com/gtoppingauthor

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Returning to Childhood

Returning to Childhood by Debra H. Goldstein

Last Friday was Passover’s first 2019 Seder. At one time, our extended family’s Seders averaged 20-30 attendees, but in the past few years the death of the older generation, the different cities our children have settled in, and the activities of our children and grandchildren significantly decreased that number. This year, only four of us – my husband’s sister and her husband and my husband and me – were at the table.

Even though our number was low, we celebrated the holiday in the traditional manner. We went through the Haggadah saying the prayers and reciting the story of Passover, we ate too much food, and we enjoyed being together. At other homes throughout the city and the world, the same rituals were followed.

After the evening ended, I exchanged an e-mail with a friend, who attended a much larger family Seder. She told me about an interesting occurrence during their meal. Traditionally, the youngest at the Seder, is asked to recite the four questions. This year, for the first time, the six-year-old grandchild of the host and hostess skyped from New York to recite the four questions in Hebrew and English. The family was thrilled, while the child took great joy from participating so successfully in her grandparents’ Seder.

Our Seder was a little different. No child skyped in. Because I was the youngest in attendance, I asked the four questions. It seemed funny not to have a child asking the questions, but at the same time, it felt right. The moment of the four questions passes quickly, followed by the family taking turns giving the answers or explanations, but it is the moment from this year’s Seder that will stick with me.

It has been a long time since I recited the four questions. It has been even longer since I was a child. But, for a moment, I again was both. Have you ever had a moment that returned you to your childhood?

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Barb Goffman – Guest Blogger – With a Little Help from My Friends

With a Little Help From My Friends by Barb Goffman

Ah, the perennial question: Where do you get your ideas? Mine spring from all kinds of places. Newspaper articles. Overheard conversations. Advertisements. Sometimes they seemingly spring from nowhere, a random product of the weirdness that is my brain. But even those out-of-nowhere stories likely had some seed from which they grew—something I saw or heard or thought that stuck in my brain, waiting for me to realize its potential.

As the meme goes, everything is fodder. It’s why it’s good to read widely, to eavesdrop with abandon, and to always, always listen to your friends.

For instance, a few years ago I spent Thanksgiving with my dear friends Sherry and Bob Harris and their daughter, Elizabeth. (Yes, Sherry of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries series.) Bob spent some of his formative years on a ranch out west. We ended up talking about his ranch days and somehow we got on the topic of exploding cows. (Lovely dinnertime conversation, no?) I’d heard of exploding cows, but I’d always thought they sounded like a myth. Why would a cow suddenly explode? God bless, Bob. He knew all about them. Why they explode. When they explode. How to try to keep them from exploding. If it hadn’t been for this unusual conversation, I never would have written “Till Murder Do Us Part,” which involves—as you can imagine—exploding cows. (You can read this murder-mystery story in the anthology Chesapeake Crimes: Fur, Feathers, and Felonies. Wildside Press, 2018).

My friend Donna Andrews (yes, she of the Meg Langslow mystery series) has been a good source of inspiration, too. We used to live about two miles from each other, so we’ve driven together a number of times, often passing a Catholic Church near her home. One day as we drove Donna mentioned that the church used to be a nudist colony. If that weren’t enough for a conversation starter, she added this tidbit: In the 1940s, a murder happened there. Hello! Oh, the ideas that sprung from that. Where a nudist would hide a murder weapon was the question I kept coming back to. So I addressed it in my story “Murder a la Mode,” in which a proper young southern woman ends up having Thanksgiving at … you guessed it … a nudist colony and, of course, someone dies during dessert. (You can read this story in the anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Second Helping (Untreed Reads Publishing, 2012).

If you know Donna at all, you know she likes to talk about her twin nephews. They’re in high school now, but when they were much younger, she relayed a story of taking them to an ice cream shop that offered all kinds of toppings. The boys had finished their chosen toppings and wanted more, and they let this be known by yelling so the whole store (and maybe the whole state) heard: “Worms! We want more worms!” (Gummy worms, I’m told.) I filed that tidbit away in my memory bank, and when I sat down to write a story years later, those worms surfaced. What, I thought, if a Thanksgiving guest entered a home to hear the children clamoring for more worms. And my imagination took off from there, resulting in “Bug Appétit,” my short story currently nominated for the Agatha Award. (You can read it online here: https://www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/assets/3/6/Goffman_Bug.pdf.)

So this all goes to show, author friends, pay attention to your friends and your surroundings. You never know when something interesting will cross your path … or your plate.

` ` ` ` `

Barb Goffman has won the Agatha, Macavity, and Silver Falchion awards for her short stories, and she’s been a finalist for national crime-writing awards twenty-three times, including a dozen Agatha Award nominations (a category record). Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, among others. Her book, Don’t Get Mad, Get Even, won the Silver Falchion for the best short-story collection of 2013. To support her short-story habit, Barb runs a freelance editing service, focusing on crime fiction. Learn more at www.barbgoffman.com.

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There Simply Isn’t Enough Time in the Day by Debra H. Goldstein

There Simply isn’t Enough Time in the Day by Debra H. Goldstein

Have you ever wondered why so many Type A people only sleep a few hours each night? I’m positive there is a scientific explanation, but I’ve got my own (and I’m sticking with it). There simply isn’t enough time in the day.

I’ve been doing a little survey on this topic respecting women. Personally, I average four to six hours of sleep a night until my body insists on crashing for an eight to ten-hour period. My body clock hates six a.m., but has no problem being fully awake between two and four a.m. My low point is at three p.m. One of my dearest friends has a similar body rhythm – which makes for wonderful e-mail exchanges at one in the morning.

One of my daughters gets up between three and four a.m., but we don’t call her house after nine. An attorney I had lunch with today told me she keeps a similar schedule. I don’t know how they do it.

I feel the same way about an internet writing group who banded together to have a morning sprint. By the time I wake up, they’ve all put in a few hours of solid writing – and some of them don’t even need coffee before they sprint.

The one thing that all have in common is they are overachievers. There’s no way they could maintain their homes, shop, do the laundry, write books, make presentations, put in ten-hour days at the office, be at everything for their children, and pay attention their spouses or pets if they limited their activities to the twelve hours of daytime. What each juggles and accomplishes is only achievable by encroaching into the other twelve hours. There simply isn’t enough time in the day. What about you? Do you have enough time?

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Guest Bloggers: T.C. Lotempio and Rocco – Can a Cat Be Inspirational? Oh yes, especially if his name is ROCCO

Can a Cat be Inspirational? Oh yes, especially if his name is ROCCO….

By T. C. Lotempio

I have always been an animal lover, especially of cats. When my calico died a few years ago, I went to my local Animal Shelter and adopted a handsome tuxedo cat named ROCCO. It soon became apparent that he is the “boss” of my family, which includes three other cats! But never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever expect him to be the driving force behind our blog, www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com, or end up as the star of his own mystery series!

Well – to clarify – the series isn’t named after ROCCO. He was just the inspiration for one of the main characters, a feisty tuxedo cat named Nick. Nick’s a cool cat, one with a sharp mind who likes to play SCRABBLE, and spell out clues so his human, Nora, can solve mysteries! Here’ a brief synopsis of book one, Meow if it’s Murder, taken from the cover back:

Nora Charles doesn’t believe in fate, even if she is a crime reporter who shares a name with a character from The Thin Man. In fact, she’s moving back to Cruz, California, to have a quieter life. But after finding an online magazine eager for material, and a stray cat named Nick with a talent for detection, Nora’s not just reporting crimes again. She’s uncovering them…

Back in her hometown, Nora reconnects with old friends and makes some new ones, like Nick, the charming feline who seems determined to be her cat. But not everything about Cruz is friendly. Writing for a local online magazine, Nora investigates the curious death of socialite Lola Grainger. Though it was deemed an accident, Nora suspects foul play. And it seems that her cat does too.

Apparently, Nick used to belong to a P.I. who disappeared while investigating Lola Grainger’s death. The coincidence is spooky, but not as spooky as the clues Nick spells out for her with Scrabble letters—clues that lead her down an increasingly dangerous path. Whether fate put her on this case or not, solving it will take all of Nora’s wits, and maybe a few of Nick’s nine lives.

Granted, ROCCO wasn’t the only inspiration for the series – but he was and is a large part of it! And he reminds me, every day, in his own catly way…I mean, you would think HE wrote the book! Although….in many ways, I think he did. But let’s keep that OUR secret.

ROCCO isn’t my only source of inspiration, either. His brother Maxx was the prototype for Toby in the Cat Rescue mysteries! Maxx was a stray that my friend Barbara found in South Jersey; in the book Toby’s a stray too, and a very particular one. He’s been deliberately chasing away people who might adopt him, waiting for, as one of the volunteers put it, “his perfect human”. Well, Syd McCall seems to fill the bill!

A one-eyed Persian cat that was owned by a former neighbor of mine was the inspiration for the character of Purrday in the first Pet Shop mystery, The Time for Murder is Meow. And the popular Princess Fuzzypants is the inspiration for yet another character in an upcoming series!

So I suppose when people refer to me as the “Lady who writes those cat mysteries” they’re not far off the track!

What are some things your pets do that inspire you to do different things? ROCCO and I would love to know! Visit my website, www.tclotempio.net and drop us a line!

You can keep up with Toni and ROCCO at www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com, where they interview authors and have giveaways every month!

You can also sign up for Toni’s newsletter on her website: www.tclotempio.net

You can purchase the Nick and Nora Mystery Series and the Cat Rescue Series here:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_bylin...

Rocco and Toni are giving away one copy of either the Nick and Nora or Cat Rescue Series.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

While Toni Lotempio does not commit – or solve – murders in real life, she has no trouble doing it on paper. Her lifelong love of mysteries began early on when she was introduced to her first Nancy Drew mystery at age 10 – The Secret in the Old Attic. Toni is also passionate about her love for animals, as demonstrated with her four cats: Trixie, Princess, Maxx and, of course, ROCCO, who not only provided the inspiration for the character of Nick the cat in the Nick and Nora mystery series, but who also writes his own blog and does charity work for Nathan Fillion’s charity, Kids Need to Read! She (and ROCCO, albeit he’s uncredited) pen the Nick and Nora mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime – the first volume, MEOW IF ITS MURDER, debuted Dec. 2, 2014. She, Rocco and company make their home in Clifton, New Jersey, just twenty minutes from the Big Apple – New York.

Where to find them:

ROCCO’s blog: www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com

Website: WWW.tclotempio.com

Amazon- Meow if its Murder

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