Kate Collins's Blog, page 208

Ellery's Cozy Mystery Contest

Hosted By Ellery Adams

Happy New Year from the Cozy Chicks (including our newest Chicks, MJ Maffini and Mary Kennedy)

It's the first of the month! From now on, the 1st means cozies and contests (and a chance to win an e-gift card for $10 to the bookstore of your choice).

This is how it works: I post a few lines from a cozy mystery. You post the title and author in the comment section. If you can't figure out the title, I'll count your answer as being correct if you can pinpoint the author. Then, I'll draw a random name from the winning guesses and post that person's name on Facebook on the 7th of each month.

And remember, we still have Dru's Cozy Report on the 15th of each month. Boy, 2014 is going to rock!

Okay, here we go! Here are the lines from your first mystery cozy:

"Instead, I was tucked into my cozy kitchen on Cranberry Island, Maine, with my ginger cat, Biscuit, napping on the wood stove and a scene from Currier and Ives framed by my frosted window. Life as an innkeeper wasn't all coffeecakes and walks on the beach…"

Ellery's helpful hint - There's an artist's easel on the cover. Good Luck!

Happy New Year, 2014

by Maggie Sefton

This photo was taken in the Colorado High Country on December 24th during a sleigh ride behind two black Percheron horses.  Daughters Melissa, Serena, Maria and two friends came home to Colorado to celebrate Christmas and we scheduled a sleigh ride.  A light snowfall started while we were in the woods.  Crispy cold and beautiful.    


Along with the rest of the Cozy Chicks, I want to to wish all of you a Very Happy New Year. Tomorrow, January 1st, 2014, will be the start of an entirely new year.  I've already heard some people say that they plan to take some new directions in 2014.  I, too, feel that 2014 will be a very successful year.  It's just a feeling, but I pay attention to those.  And I heard today that 2014 will be the Year of the Horse or the Year of the Green Horse in the Chinese calendar.  I have no idea if this is true or not, but I love the imagery.   If many of us believe we'll be taking new directions in 2014, then maybe the Chinese calendar's message is we'll all be working like horses.  :)  

Best Wishes to Everyone!  And have a Safe and Enjoyable New Year's Eve!

A Pre-Wish

by Kate Collins

I'm taking a break -- standing and stretching and jogging to the kitchen to make a cup of tea -- from the long hours I'm putting in to finish my February 2015 mystery, A ROOT AWAKENING.  But I wanted to stop to wish all of you a very Happy and safe New Year.

My wish for you is that you will focus on those little things in life that make you happy, so the Law of Attraction will work for you and bring more of the same into your life.

See you in the new year!

Kate

P.S. Don't forget! THROW IN THE TROWEL arrives in bookstores on February 4, 2014, or is available for pre-order now.

Start the New Year With Pie!

By Ellery Adams

This is just a short post to announce the January 7th release of the 3rd Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery, PECAN PIES AND HOMICIDES. This book is fraught with peril, pies, romance, reunions, and wonder. And to give you a teeny, tiny peek into what's happening in this installment, here's a link to the debut of the PECAN PIES AND HOMICIDES book trailer (if you can't view it here, visit this link to my YouTube channel!




If you're excited by the trailer, feel free to pre-order!

Available at your local bookstore or Amazon.comIndiebound.com, Barnes & Noble Her Charmed Pie Shoppe is open for business, but baker Ella Mae LeFaye is about to discover solving a murder is not as easy as pie…

Owning the Charmed Pie Shoppe and serving enchanted treats in the magical town of Havenwood, Georgia, seemed like a little slice of heaven for Ella Mae LeFaye. But now her hopes for both a lasting romance with Hugh Dylan and business success are starting to seem like pie in the sky, and Ella’s left wondering: Where has the magic gone?

When an enchanted grove is set ablaze, Ella realizes she has more grave problems. With her magic waning, she’s going to have to sleuth from scratch to stop an arsonist who has no respect for sacred ground—or human life…
***This will be my last bi-monthly Saturday post. From now on, I'll be taking over Lucy's Cozy Cuisine with Ellery's Mystery Cozy Contest. On the first of each month, I'll post a line from a cozy mystery and you can post your guess. A random name will be drawn from the correct answers within 7 days and that lucky person will will a $10 ecard to his or her favorite bookstore. So keep an eye out for my avatar below. If you see her, you know a contest is afoot!

Meet the newest Chick!

As you know, our dear Heather is leaving the Cozy Chicks.  While we're sorry to see her go, we're happy to announce our new Chick.

Starting January 4th, Mary Kennedy will be stepping into the Saturday spotlight. Mary is a national best-selling author, and a clinical psychologist in private practice on the east coast.  She has sold forty novels, all to major New York publishers, and has made the Waldenbooks, BookScan, and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists.  Her early novels included middle grade fiction and young adult fiction for Scholastic and Penguin.

Currently she's writing an adult mystery series. She writes the Talk-Show Mysteries and has a new mystery series that will debut this summer.


As of January 1st, Ellery Adams will be stepping into the First of the Month spot with a monthly contest.  We guarantee it'll be fun and challenging.

So please welcome Mary, and look out for Ellery's first contest. 

December 26th - The Best Day of the Year

Today is the best day of the year!
It’s here at last. Boxing Day! December 26th is an official day off here in Canada, if you leave out parts of the retail sector. Depending on what you read, Boxing Day started out in England as the time, right after Christmas,  when the lord and lady of the manor would give Christmas boxes to their deserving servants. Or it may have originated from ‘alms’ boxes and giving to charity or it may have been the day that the well off ‘boxed up’ food for the needy.  

Today’s lord and lady of the manor have been working like canines (sorry you felines) to get ready for the holidays: gifts, baking, visiting and all that. If they are making charitable donations, most likely they will have made them before the holidays so that people in need will have something in time.

Don’t get me wrong: I love everything about the season, but I love December 26th best.. Up here, Boxing Day sales have been the equal of Black Friday.  But they could be paying me to take stuff away (even shoes) and I wouldn’t budge.

This is the day when there’s lots of food in the fridge. If you cooked a turkey, chances are there's lots left over  for sandwiches.






There are baked goods and wine and with luck there are chocolates.




Dogs - small or large may be waiting for you to settle down and cuddle on the sofa!




You have plenty of  books to read, music to listen to, and movies to watch. There are the familiar family jokes to be trotted out and the recap of whatever drama happened on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There are post-Christmas naps to take. There could even be conversations that don’t revolve around rushing about or getting things done or what is left to do. There is relaxing to be managed. There’s lots of leftover love and goodwill toward all.


But the big thing is that it’s all over. Everything’s done that’s getting done until next year.  I have my book picked out and my sofa selected.
We’re having a wonderful Boxing Day and I hope you are too!
Enjoy your books and treats and pets and favorite reading spots.
Much love to all you readers!MJ and Daisy and Lily

A Very Merry Christmas

by Maggie Sefton




Wishing all of you a wonderful and happy holiday!  The Cozy Chicks will not be posting today or tomorrow, Christmas Day, so that  we may spend time with our families, friends, and others who are dear to us.  The following days through New Years will see some of us posting and others simply sending holiday wishes.  We will return after New Years Day with news and updates for the brand new year.   Again, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

SCAMMED -- Almost!

by Kate Collins

Recipe for a scam:

1 woman who loves fine purses
1 website purporting to be Louis Vuitton
1 GIGANTIC sale at said website

Mix together and cook for one hour. Serves: no one.

Luckily for me, my mystery radar was tripped before I hit the Buy button or I would have been out a lot of money. All I lost was an hour's worth of time and suffered a bruised ego.

I had been wishing for a Louis Vuitton purse for awhile now, but couldn't bear to part with over a thousand dollars to buy one when I already have lovely bags. But a woman can dream, can't she?

So when an email appeared in my inbox yesterday purporting to be from Lois Vuitton, my eyeballs widened. Was it meant to be? Could it be a Christmas gift to me? And what a sale! Certain bags were 80% off, end of year clearance.

So I poured over the choices and finally narrowed it down to just the right style, size, color, etc. I went to checkout and carefully made sure there was a Verisign notice. Well, it wasn't Verisign, but something European, and since LV is French, I figured it was international. Maybe it really is. I'll never know now.

Something made me take it a step further. I went to the link that said "About Us" and started reading. It seemed legit except that the phrasing was off. In my head, I could hear the French accent coming through. But would an amazingly sophisticated company like LV not have the best website available?

Next I typed in LouisVuitton.com and got a completely different site, a gorgeous site, that had no strange phrasing, but did have a warning that they sell their merchandise only through stores and through that very site. That was it!

I then Googled the other website and it came up in a scam page. Turns out, the website is a mere 24 days old and already has had complaints.

Whew! I dodged a bullet and relearned a big lesson. When it seems too good to be true, it usually is.

Have you ever been the victim of a scam? Or almost were?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Kate

Christmas On the Road

by Leann

When I was a kid and lived near LOTS of relatives, we would make the
rounds and visit everyone on both Christmas Eve and again on Christmas. Presents were modest but card games and jigsaw puzzles and singing were plentiful. Though I have plenty of unpleasant memories, I am trying to focus on the positive. (My mother was an alcoholic, and for children of alcoholics the holidays often bring back pain.) But not this year!

I have a great crew of cousins (yes, that picture is of me, my brother the redhead and several of my cousins--but nowhere near all of them). We are all pretty close in age. And we had the same wicked
sense of humor that my dad's family possessed. There were a lot of laughs. And the penny poker games were great. A couple of us were always chasing my grandparents' cat Inky. He didn't like kids much and I usually came home with plenty of scratches. Didn't matter! My love for animals goes way back and it was a great part of the celebration--a celebration mostly filled with laughter.

Decades followed where we have done very little traveling at Christmas. Last year, with the arrival of a new granddaughter, we took a long plane ride to Seattle. It was worth the looooooong trip. With traveling more than 2 hours to the airport, the delays, the 6 hour plane trip, getting the rental car and then driving to my sister's place, we put in an 18 hour travel day. That's like going to Australia. Well, almost. But wonderful memories were made.

This year, because our house isn't finished and I wouldn't invite anyone to this rental house EVER, my daughter suggested they could drive down from NYC and we could meet somewhere in between and stay at a house--the kind people rent out by the night. She did all the work and that's what we're doing. A nice drive with all the pets included. I am so looking forward to it!

What about you? Travel plans? Staying home? Memories of travels and celebrations in the past? Tell me about it. Memories are so important!

A Few of My Favorite Things

By Heather

One of questions I’m asked most is “What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?” Questions like this throw me into a tizzy, because there are just so many options to choose from. Which to pick? Working in my jammies if I want? Not having to battle rush hour traffic? Seeing my books in stores? Getting wonderful reader email? Hearing that my book touched someone’s heart? SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM.
But…I chose.
A little backstory: If you’ve ever met me, you know how soft my voice is. I feel as though lots of times I should carry around a microphone to be heard. When I speak up, I feel as though I’m shouting. And even then sometimes people still can’t hear me. I can tell by the way they nod absently or murmur “mmm-hmm.” I’ve tried to learn to speak louder, but it’s just not natural. I don’t like yelling all the time. Which leads me to my number one favorite thing about being a writer.
By reading my words, you hearme. You hear every word. And sometimes those words make you cranky, and sometimes those words make you cry, but most of the time they make you happy. And that makes me happy. See why it’s my favorite?
And that leads me to another favorite thing: You, my wonderful readers, my friends. For eight years now you’ve visited me here at the Cozy Chicks. You’ve been with me through my kids growing up and moving out, through three different publishers for my books, three different series, moving houses, hair troubles, a monkey on a plane, my love of planners, and so much more. But now it’s time for me to do one of my un-favorite things: say goodbye.
In a quest to devote more time to fiction writing, I’ve decided to leave the Cozy Chicks. Today will be my last official post (though I’m sure I’ll pop in from time to time). It’s been an amazing ride.
That being said, I will still be around. I’ll still post on my personal blog from time to time (www.booksbyheather.net) and you can find me on Facebook (www.facebook.com/heatherblakebooks& www.facebook.com/heatherwebberbooks) and also on Twitter (@booksbyheather). (Honestly, I’m trying to cut back!!!)
So now that we got that all out of the way, it’s time for some fun! Choose your piece of virtual cake (any flavor you want, no calories), and let’s have a giveaway for some of my favorite things! Books! Coffee! Chocolate!
Giveaway!
I’m giving away a $25 gift card to either Barnes & Noble OR Amazon (winner’s choice), a $25 Starbucks OR Dunkin’ Donuts gift card (winner’s choice), and a bag of Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark. Three separate winners will be chosen and notified via email within 48 hours.
To enter, just fill out the form. U.S. residents only (foreign friends, see below). 
***This form doesn't play well with some tablets/mobile devices. You may have to use a PC to enter.***
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Foreign friends, I’m braving customs red tape and giving away a signed set of Wishcraft Mysteries! Use the form below to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for hearing me all these years! Xo        
Heather

PS: Stay tuned to the blog to see who the next "Saturday" Cozy Chick will be!