A Time to Swill

Yesterday I sent off the copy edits for A Time to Swill. It’s the second Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon mystery. Sending off the copy edits is always nerve-racking business for me. I want to smooth one more sentence. I want to read it one more time to see if I missed anything. I want ONE more day.

Copy edits are the last chance to make big changes and I did this time. The opening scene is an action scene. I realized that I’d slowed the action in several spots. It resulted in a complete rewrite of twelve pages of the manuscript.

I’d made some major changes in several sections before I turned it in last fall. I found a couple of errors in the copy edits because of that. Whew–at least I found them before it was too late. Now A Time to Swill is back at Kensington where it will get typeset–or whatever they call that process these days. Then I’ll get one last chance to go over the manuscript when the page proofs arrive, but at that point you can only make minor changes. (They send you a note with dire warnings about trying to make major changes at this point.)

Here’s the cover copy:

Saloon owner Chloe Jackson is after a murderer with skeletons in the closet–and one on a boat.

BAD TO THE BONE

Chloe loves her new life pouring beers and mixing cocktails at the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle town of Emerald Cove. But on the job, the only exercise she gets is walking from one end of the bar to the other, so in the mornings she loves to run on the beach. On this morning’s foggy run, she spots a sailboat washed up on a sandbar. Hearing a cry, she climbs aboard the beached vessel to investigate and finds not only a mewling kitten–but a human skeleton in the cabin.

The skeleton is tied back to Chloe’s friend Ralph, whose wife disappeared on a sailboat with three other people twelve years ago. Believing his wife was lost at sea, Ralph remarried. Now he finds himself a murder suspect. Chloe is determined to find out who’s been up to some skulduggery, but her sleuthing will lead her into some rough waters and some bone-chilling revelations…

A Time to Swill is up for preorder and releases on July 27, 2021. Signed copies will be available at One More Page Books in Arlington, Virginia.

Part of the story is based on a real life happening in Destin, Florida, but I’ll write more about that later. Readers: Do you like books when the author uses something factual but then twists it?