Linda Crowder's Blog, page 7

Cover Reveal – Justice for Katie

It’s here! It’s beautiful! Thank you to a fabulous cover designer, Carla Garcia who has worked her magic with all three of my Jake and Emma books.

Remember, Justice is on pre-order right now and will release on March 20! You can reserve your copy here.

Street Team – Justice for Katie

It’s almost here! Just waiting for my final cover and Justice for Katie will be ready for street team reviews!

Interested in being on my street team?

All you have to do is:

1) Promise to read the free review copy I will send.

2) Promise not to share that copy without my permission.

3) Promise to post an honest review as soon as the book is released on March 20 – Goodreads, Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

4) Promise to give a “shout out” to Justice on your Facebook, website, blog, Twitter, Instagram – however you communicate about things you love.

And I do hope you’ll love it!

Interested? Make a comment!

Too Cute to Kill is 99 Cents Thru Feb 9

With the third book in my Jake and Emma Mystery series in pre-order on Amazon, I thought it was time to celebrate with a 99 cent sale on Too Cute to Kill. You can click on the title and buy the book. If you already have it, Amazon will now let you gift a Kindle book as long as you have the person’s email.

If you’re like me, you love to read and you love a bargain. Sometimes though, it’s hard to find the right books in the ocean that is Amazon. I’ve got a few sites to share with you that help cut through the sea of books and find ones that you’ll want to try.

Free Kindle Books and Tips is a great blog with easy on the eye graphics and loads of free or greatly discounted books. You can visit my listing or browse their blog. They also have a daily email you can subscribe to that puts great books in your inbox.

EReader News Today is a nice site and one of the best for finding a wide variety of books, again, that are free or discounted. Like FKBT, ENT has a daily email that delivers vetted books – an author has to apply and be approved to be listed.

Fussy Librarian is one of my favorites. I love that you can select “Cozy Mystery” as a category. All of the sites I’ve given you have genres you can select from but this is the only one I’ve found that breaks up Mystery/Suspense into very distinct subgenres. Fussy also lets you set the level of sexual content, violence and strong language you’re comfortable with. Remember, a mystery is PG by nature since you have to have some level of violence or you won’t have any murders to solve!

Read on, my friends!

 

Review: Reluctantly Married

I have read two books by Victorine Lieske and have a third rapidly rising on my TBR list. I enjoy reading her work for two reasons. First, she is a very good writer. Her characters are fully developed, her descriptions let the reader visualize the setting and her plots are engaging.  Second, she writes “flinch-free” romance and romantic suspense.  Everyone has their personal threshold of like and dislike when it comes to romance but for me, I love the romance of two people falling in love and navigating their feelings, deceptions, misunderstandings and circumstances.  Yes, her characters enjoy physical attraction but as a reader, I appreciate that there is no bed-hopping or explicitly described sexual scenes.

So let’s take a look at Victorine’s newest work, Reluctantly Married. Just a joy to read. Megan is one of my favorite characters – spunky, strong, feminine and uncertain all rolled into one. I find myself rooting for her throughout the book and I really cheered (believe me, I have the funny looks from my husband to prove it) during one scene.  Adam is a great hero. He’s handsome, of course because let’s face it ladies we want a handsome hero when we’re reading romance, but that’s the least of his charms. He deceives Megan but somehow you can’t seem to hold it against him. He’s just the most caring, compassionate man you’d ever want to meet and I found myself rooting for him too.

The dialog is wonderful. There were two passages between Megan and Adam that were so clever I read them to my husband, who laughed along with me. I enjoyed that none of the characters, major or minor, seemed two-dimensional. Everyone seemed to have both strengths and weaknesses.

While the plot was engaging, I did find it stretching just a little beyond the credibility zone a few times. I can’t tell you where the plot holes are without being a spoiler but a couple of them detracted a bit from the flow of the story. That said, these gaps did not detract from my enjoyment of the story.

I recommend you take a look not only at Reluctantly Married, but at all of Victorine Lieske’s work. I think you’ll be glad you did.

The Joy of Writing

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has downloaded and read Too Cute to Kill and Main Street Murder. I hope that you are enjoying reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

People ask me all the time what inspires me to write. It’s hard to answer that question because I can’t think of a time in my life when I haven’t been a writer. I wrote my first short story in Second Grade and in Fourth Grade I wrote a play that became my class Christmas Play.  I wrote poetry, short stories and articles for the campus newspaper in middle school, high school and college. I even won an award for one of my articles in high school.

Then life happened – isn’t that always the way? I graduated from college and needed to earn a living. Since I majored in Sociology, not Journalism, I went into nonprofit human services. It was a “happy accident” because I loved the work. There is something very humbling about being allowed to help someone who is facing a crisis. For the next twenty years, I continued to write but now I wrote grant applications, fundraising letters, newsletters, public service announcements and endless reports. I found that I didn’t have any creative energy at the end of the day to write fiction.

Then my husband was given an opportunity to retire with enough income that I didn’t need to work 60 hours a week to get by. I was able to walk away from the career I’d spent so many years building and ask myself – What’s Next?  I love being a part-time career coach and I love that it gives me plenty of time for writing.  The more I write, the more I want to write and the more I want to write, the more I want to put the time and energy into my craft that quality writing demands.

Reviewers have mentioned my growth as an author from the debut novel in the Jake and Emma Mystery series to the second and I hope you will continue to see growth when the third book comes out sometime in February. I love writing mysteries so have no fear, Jake and Emma will be always have a next book coming.

I have started work on what I hope will become a series of Middle Grade short stories about the adventures of Ringo the Ghost Cat and I’ve got a YA/College series in the outline stage that will be light-hearted and just plain fun.  Finally, hovering in the background, is a Women’s Fiction novel that sings to me during quiet moments. It’s a funny thing what happens when you unleash your creativity!

I’d love to hear about your creative muscles and what you do to exercise them. Please leave me a comment to let me know!

Sneak Peek – Justice for Katie

Coming in 2015

She was the first person he ever killed. He had just turned nineteen when he saw her with her thumb out, standing on the side of the road in the fading daylight just outside of Wright, battered duffel bag at her feet. She looked to be in her early 20’s, her legs sheathed in well-worn jeans. A jacket far too heavy for the warm evening concealed a slender frame and her long blonde hair swirled around her in the ever-present Wyoming wind.

“Going to Rapid City,” he told her when he stopped and she’d cheerfully opened the door and jumped in, thanking him for the ride. He drove away from the setting sun and as he drove, she talked.

She held up a cross that she wore on a chain around her neck. It had been her grandmother’s, she told him. The old woman, who had raised her after her parents died, had given it to her on her deathbed. Her grandmother was all she had in the world, she told him, and now she was gone. After the funeral, she’d decided to leave town and try her luck in the world. She’d hitched all the way from Blackfoot, Idaho when the last driver had dropped her off in Wright.

He kept driving and she kept talking and an idea began to form in his head. He had been thinking about killing someone for more than a year. It didn’t matter who he killed, he just wanted to see how it would feel.

He’d researched criminal investigations and learned that a body left to the elements told few tales. Once he’d settled on how he would dispose of the body, he started looking for a victim. Everyone he knew would be missed by someone and that meant search parties. He didn’t want anyone raising an alarm for his victim so he needed someone nobody would miss.

Ten miles out of Newcastle, just shy of the South Dakota state line, he saw his chance. Now past midnight, there had been no other cars on the road since they left the small Wyoming town. They were surrounded by nothing but empty ranchland. Other than his headlights, he saw no lights, no houses, nothing but empty space. He pulled over.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are we stopping?”

“Tire feels flat,” he told her. He turned off the engine, killed the headlights then climbed out of the car and went to the open the trunk. He pulled out a length of thin rope and slipped it into his pocket. Closing the trunk, he walked around to look at the tire on the rear passenger side and waited.

A few minutes passed before she got out to see what he was doing. He stepped back, pointing at the tire in the darkness and she stooped down, trying to make out what he was looking at in the dim light from the open car door.

It was too easy. Her attention fixed on the tire, he slipped the rope around her neck and violently wrenched it tight. Stooped to better see the tire, the move threw her off balance. Her legs flailed wildly as she scratched with desperation at his hands on the rope. She screamed but the sound died in her throat for lack of air.

He fought to keep her off her feet and pulled the rope hard until her body went limp. He maintained his steely grip until he could be sure she was dead. Then he let go, her body slumping to the ground at his feet. He stood over her, waiting for the rush of emotion he’d anticipated but it never came. All he felt was emptiness.

He worked quickly, keeping a wary eye on the road in case someone chose this moment to drive by. He stripped her and carried her body as far off the roadway as he could manage. He heaved her body through a gap in the wire fence that lined the right of way and crawled through after her. He labored another fifty feet or so, up a small rise, before he decided he’d gone far enough.

He looked back when he returned to his car but the darkness had enveloped the area beyond the fence. He was confident he’d taken her body far enough that it wouldn’t be seen from the roadway. The natural scavengers would have to do the rest. He needed that body to disappear.

He stuffed her clothes into her duffel bag and tossed it into the trunk. Later he would look for a dumpster and dispose of it. Back in the car, he looked at the necklace he’d taken off her body. He’d read that killers kept trophies of their victims so this would be his.

He started the car and pulled back onto the road. The drive seemed empty and silent without her and he felt a momentary twinge of guilt over what he’d done. He knew now that he could kill. He would kill again if he needed to, but it held no more appeal for him. He stared at the scratch marks she’d left on his hands and realized he’d never even asked her name.

Copywrite Linda Crowder, 2014

Finding Great Books to Read

There are literally MILLIONS of books on Amazon – how do you find books that are worth your time to read?

One resource is Read Freely, which you can access here.

They list free and discounted books and give you author interviews so you can learn more about the people who write the books you love to read. Yes, look for me on their site but also explore the other authors there.

If you know of other resources, please post them in the comments

Public Appearance and Book Signing

I’ll be at the Sunrise Shopping Center on Poplar in Casper, Wyoming on Saturday, December 13 from 10 – 11 am Mountain time.  Bring your copy or buy copies at the event for me to sign.  If you buy the two-book Jake and Emma Mystery set that day, you’ll get 10% off the regular paperback price.  Can’t beat that!  A signed copy for less than you’d normally pay.

These sets would make a great Christmas gift!

Can’t make it to Casper?  Amazon has a new promotion where you can buy paperbacks as gifts and get the Kindle for yourself for just 99 cents.

Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway


Main Street Murder
by Linda Crowder

Giveaway ends December 07, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Clean Indie Reads Facebook Holiday Sale

 

Have you heard of Clean Indie Reads?  It’s a blog and a FB group that features flinch-free fiction.  These are books in a wide variety of genres – mystery (like mine), romance, sci-fi, children’s, middle grades, teens and young adults – and more! The only commonality is that the authors write without graphic violence, vivid sex scenes or R-rated profanity.  If you want books that focus on story, this is the place for you.

The week of December 7, CIR is having a holiday sale and FB party.  Just stop by the blog anytime that week and browse the array of books – including mine.  Here’s the link:  http://www.cleanindiereadsale.com/about.html

I’ll be hosting the FB party on Wednesday, December 3, for an hour starting at 6pm Eastern (that’s 4pm for those of us here in Mountain time).  I’ll be talking about how I started writing, why I set my books in Casper, Wyoming and giving you snippets of my soon-to-be-completed Justice for Katie, book 4 in the Jake and Emma Series.  I’ll also give you a taste of the middle grades book I’m working on, Ringo the Ghost Cat, and give you a chance to win a signed copy of Too Cute to Kill or Main Street Murder. 

Post a comment and let me know if you’re coming.  To join, just click here anytime during the sale – but especially when I’ll be there!