Category: Interview

A GHOSTLY REUNION by Tonya Kappes (Showcase, Interview & Giveaway)

A Ghostly Reunion

by Tonya Kappes

on Tour January 16 – February 17, 2017

Synopsis:

A Ghostly Reunion by Tonya Kappes

A Ghostly Reunion

Proprietor of the Eternal Slumber Funeral Home, Emma Lee can see, hear, and talk to ghosts of murdered folks. And when her high school nemesis is found dead, Jade Lee Peel is the same old mean girl—trying to come between Emma Lee and her hot boyfriend, Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, all over again.

There’s only one way for Emma Lee to be free of the trash-talking ghost—solve the murder so the former prom queen can cross over.

But the last thing Jade Lee wants is to leave the town where she had her glory days. And the more Emma Lee investigates on her own, the more complicated Miss Popularity turns out to be. Now Emma Lee will have to work extra closely with her hunky lawman to get to the twisty truth.

Book Details:

Genre: Cozy Mystery, Paranormal
Published by: HarperCollins / Witness
Publication Date: December 27th 2016
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN: 006246695X (ISBN13: 9780062466952)
Series: Ghostly Southern Mysteries #5
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Read an excerpt:

Sexy isn’t a firm fanny in a thong, ladies.”

Hettie Bell didn’t seem so sexy in her hot pink leggings and matching top as she gasped for breath in her downward dog position in the middle of Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky. Her butt stuck straight up in the air, right there on display for everyone to see. Her black, chin-length bob was falling out of the small ponytail on both sides and her bangs hung down in her eyes.

“Sexy is confidence and self-acceptance. It’s exactly what yoga provides.”

Hettie Bell curled up on her tiptoes with her palms planted on one of the mats she provided for us. The rickety old floor of the gazebo, in the middle of the town square, groaned as we all tried to mimic her pose. “Yes!” Beulah Paige Bellefry hollered out like we were in the first pew of the Sleepy Hollow Baptist Church getting a good Bible beating from Pastor Brown himself.

“Amen to a good pose!”

Beulah continued to adjust her feet and hands each time she started to slip. If she wasn’t a bit overweight, I’d say it was her eighties silk sweat suit that was slicker than cat’s guts giving her problems. Or it could’ve been those pearls around her wrist, neck and ears weighing her down. Beulah never took off those pearls. She said pearls were a staple for a Southern gal.

“You said it, sister,” Mary Anna Hardy gasped. She teetered side to side, nearly knocking into Granny. Her sweat left streaks down her makeup. Who on earth got up this early and put makeup on to do yoga? Mary Anna Hardy, that’s who.

“God help us!”

“That’s it.”

I pushed back off my heels and crossed my legs, staring at all the Auxiliary women’s derrieres at my eye level.

“I’m here to do some relaxing, not Sunday school.”

Sleepy Hollow was smack-dab in the middle of the Bible Belt and if God wasn’t thrown in our conversations, then we weren’t breathing. But the last thing I wanted to think about was my butt stuck up to the high heavens and everyone up in the Great Beyond looking down upon me.

Author Bio:

Tonya KappesTonya Kappes has written more than fifteen novels and four novellas, all of which have graced numerous bestseller lists including USA Today. Best known for stories charged with emotion and humor and filled with flawed characters, her novels have garnered reader praise and glowing critical reviews. She lives with her husband, two very spoiled schnauzers, and one ex-stray cat in northern Kentucky. Now that her boys are teenagers, Tonya writes full-time but can be found at all of her guys’ high school games with a pencil and paper in hand.

Q&A with Tonya Kappes

Writing and Reading:
Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Well, I’ve never killed anyone or attempted to, so I’m going to say that it’s not personal experience. I can’t help but stop and listen to the news when it’s on my television when they report on a murder. Especially a cold case. Those have little tidbits I can use and manipulate into my stories.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
In mysteries the plot always start in reverse. I always know the victim, killer, how, and why. From there I take the reader backwards to the the reason. It’s a lot of fun.

Are any of your characters based on you or people that you know?
Yes. Sort of. Every person who is killed is named after someone I truly love. Hahha. Strange. I killed them. BUT, it’s the covers of my Ghostly Southern Mystery Series that make up for me using their name because all the covers have a grave stone with the victim’s name on it. How many people can say their name is on the front cover of a book?

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I write every single day. I get up around 5:30 a.m. and grab a coffee. For the next hour I send emails, come up with my marketing plan for the day and start writing until I’ve got at least 3k words on the page.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Yeah…not answering this one. My author friends might send a hit man.

What are you reading now?
I’m in a cozy mystery only book club on Facebook. We are currently reading Scene of the Climb by Kate Dyer-Seely

Are you working on your next novel?
I am. I’m currently working through another series, my Kenni Lowry Mystery Series. I’ve just started writing the fourth book in a ten book deal. It’s a lot of fun. Can you tell us a little about it? Kenni Lowry likes to think the zero crime rate in Cottonwood, Kentucky is due to her being sheriff, but she quickly discovers the ghost of her grandfather, the town’s previous sheriff, has been scaring off any would-be criminals since she was elected. When the town’s most beloved doctor is found murdered on the very same day as a jewelry store robbery, and a mysterious symbol ties the crime scenes together, Kenni must satisfy her hankerin’ for justice by nabbing the culprits. With the help of her poppa, a lone deputy, and an annoyingly cute, too-big-for-his-britches State Reserve officer, Kenni must solve both cases and prove to the whole town, and herself, that she’s worth her salt before time runs out.

Fun questions:
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
I’m not sure if that’s a fun question! That’s a hard one. And I can honestly say that I never think about. I’m a writer, not a producer or screen writer.

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
I have a group of eleven friends I meet every Tuesday for snacks and crafting. Seriously. We have a weekly craft night. It’s so much fun and it takes my mind out of the story/plot for a few hours.

Favorite meal?
Hands down pizza!

Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads and spending time with us.

Catch Up with Tonya Kappes on her Website 🔗, Twitter 🔗, & Facebook 🔗

Tour Participants:



Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Tonya Kappes and Witness Impulse. There will be 1 US winner of one PRINTED set of The Ghostly Southern Mysteries #1-5 by Tonya Kappes. The giveaway begins on January 15th and runs through February 18th, 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

THE VISITOR’S BOOK by Sophie Hannah (Interview, Showcase & Giveaway) ~ PICT Presents

The Visitor’s Book

by Sophie Hannah

on Tour November 1 – December 17, 2016

The Visitor's Book by Sophie Hannah

A collection of spine-tingling ghost stories from one of today’s most acclaimed suspense novelists. In this small but perfectly formed collection of supernatural short stories, bestselling author, Sophie Hannah, takes the comforting scenes of everyday life and imbues them with a frisson of fear. Why is a young woman so unnerved by the presence of a visitors book in her boyfriend’s inner-city home? And whose spidery handwriting is it that fills the pages? Who is the strangely courteous boy still lingering at a child’s tenth birthday party when all the parents have gathered their children and left? And why does the presence of a perfectly ordinary woman in a post office queue leave another customer pallid and quaking with fear?

Book Details:

Genre: Short Stories, Thriller
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: November 1st 2016
Number of Pages: 120
ISBN: 0062562126 (ISBN13: 9780062562128)
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 Barnes & Noble 🔗 Goodreads 🔗

Sophie Hannah

Learn More:

Sophie Hannah is the New York Times-bestselling author of numerous psychological thrillers, which have been published in 27 countries and adapted for television, as well as The Monogram Murders, the first Hercule Poirot novel authorized by the estate of Agatha Christie.

INTERVIEW

Writing and Reading:
Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
I do draw from real life, all the time — especially personal experiences. These two short story collections contain my experiences of betrayal, obsession, annoyance at the parents of my children’s friends, the horror of hosting a birthday party for an 8-year-old… Writing is a form of therapy for me. It’s how I deal with difficult things from real life!

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
It’s one or the other. Either I think of an intriguing starting point that will hook the reader, and then work out where it will lead, or I come up with a surprising, hopefully unguessable solution, and then I work forwards or backwards.

Are any of your characters based on you or people that you know?
Lots! But as someone once said about someone else (I can’t remember who!) ‘If he didn’t want to end up in a book, he should have behaved better.’ No one ever recognises themselves anyway – we always imagine we’re wonderful and not particularly grotty, so when we read a grotty character, we don’t see ourselves, and think they’re nothing like us!

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I plan a lot and obsessively. I write in the afternoon — because I’m too tired in the morning — and late at night. Often I finish a book at Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge, where I’m a Fellow Commoner. There’s a lovely room there with an ace garden. It’s peaceful, and unlike my home there is no dog with a ball to distract me!

Tell us why we should read this book.
Because it contains all the weird dysfunctionality of real life – a lot of fiction tries to improve and tidy up real people and make them more lovely and normal. These stories don’t do that.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Agatha Christie, Tana French, Ruth Rendell, Iris Murdoch and Edna St Vincent Millay.

What are you reading now?
I’m reading a new British crime novel called The Taken by Alice Clark-Platts. So far, it’s very interesting. The leader of a church, who is said to have been able to perform miracles, has been murdered… and the detective investigating the crime senses that his wife and daughter aren’t exactly distraught to be rid of him.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I’m working on a standalone thriller set in Arizona, provisionally titled Did You See Melody? It will be published in Summer 2017. Here’s the blurb:

She’s the most famous murder victim in America. What if she isn’t dead?

Pushed to breaking point, Cara Burrows flees her home, husband and children. Fifteen hours later, she’s checking into a five star spa resort in the foothills of Camelback Mountain, Arizona. All she wants is space to think, far away from everyone and everything she knows. Instead, she gets a shock in the middle of the night after being given the key card for a room that’s already occupied – apparently by a father and daughter…

Philadelphia’s most famous murder victim, Melody Chapa, has been dead seven years. Her parents, Naldo and Annette Chapa, are serving ‘natural life’ sentences for killing their seven-year-old daughter, after a successful campaign by former-prosecutor Bonnie Juno whose TV show ‘Justice With Bonnie’ brought to light crucial facts missed by detectives. But if Melody’s dead – as the evidence suggests she is – then how can a guest at a spa resort in Arizona have seen her?

Putting Annette and Naldo Chapa behind bars is the greatest achievement of Bonnie Juno’s life. When she learns what’s happening in Arizona, she laughs it off…until she discovers that the sightings of Melody are starting to stack up. At first it was just one uncertain English woman who walked into the wrong room in the middle of the night, easily dismissed as exhausted and not thinking straight after her long journey – but it turns out that Cara Burrows is not the only guest at the resort claiming to have seen Melody.

Feeling as if she has no choice, Bonnie heads for Arizona – but by the time she gets there, Cara Burrows has disappeared…

Fun questions:
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Normal people from real life. The thing about famous actors that people have heard of is that everyone knows them already! I’d find new actors who had never been in anything before. And my dog, Brewster, would have to get a starring role!

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
I love swimming, and walking my Welsh terrier, Brewster.

Favourite meal?
Assorted dim sum from any brilliant Chinese restaurant.

Catch Up with Sophie Hannah on her Website 🔗 & Twitter 🔗!

Tour Participants:



Enter for a chance to WIN!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Sophie Hannah and Witness Impulse. There will be 5 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of The Visitor’s Book by Sophie Hannah. The giveaway begins on November 1st and runs through January 2nd, 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

FELIZ NAVIDEAD by Ann Myers (Interview, Showcase & Giveaway) ~ PICT Presents

Feliz Navidead

by Ann Myers

on Tour November 20 – December 31, 2016

Synopsis:

Feliz Navidead by Ann MyersHolly, jolly, and downright deadly—the third Santa Fe Café mystery unwraps surprises both naughty and nice… It’s the most picturesque time of the year in Santa Fe, and Chef Rita Lafitte of Tres Amigas Café hopes the twinkling lights and tasty holiday treats will charm her visiting mom. Rita is also planning fun activities, such as watching her teenage daughter, Celia, perform in an outdoor Christmas play.

What she doesn’t plan for is murder.

Rita discovers a dead actor during the premier performance but vows to keep clear of the case. Sleuthing would upset her mom. Besides, there’s already a prime suspect, caught red-handed in his bloodied Santa suit. However, when the accused Santa’s wife begs for assistance—and points out that Celia and other performers could be in danger—Rita can’t say no. With the help of her elderly boss, Flori, and her coterie of rogue knitters, Rita strives to salvage her mother’s vacation, unmask a murderer, and stop this festive season from turning even more fatal.

Book Details:

Genre: Cozy Mystery, Christmas
Published by: Avon
Publication Date: October 25th 2016
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN: 0062382322 (ISBN13: 9780062382320)
Series: Santa Fe Cafe Mystery #3

Feliz Navidead Can Be Found on: HarperCollins 🔗, Amazon 🔗, Barnes & Noble 🔗, and Goodreads 🔗.

Read an excerpt:

Mom stopped mid-stroll, thumping one hand to her chest, gripping a hip-high adobe wall with the other.
“I need to catch my breath, Rita,” she declared, rather accusatorily.
I murmured, “Of course,” and issued my best good-daughter sympathetic smile.
I did, truly, sympathize. At seven thousand feet above sea level, Santa Fe, New Mexico, can literally take your breath away, and my mother had flown in only a few hours earlier from the midwestern lowlands. Adjusting to high altitudes takes time. About a week, the experts say, although I’ve called Santa Fe home for over three years and still blame the paltry oxygen when I pant through my morning jog and puff under overladen burrito platters at Tres Amigas Cafe, where I’m a chef and co-amiga. I’ve even postulated that the thin air makes my thighs look larger. Lack of atmospheric compression, that unscientifically tested theory goes. The more likely culprit is my steady diet of cheesy chiles rellenos, blue corn waffles, green chile cheeseburgers, and other New Mexican delicacies.
Mom took deep breaths beside me. I wasn’t too worried. If Mom was at risk of anything, it was overacting. I strongly suspected she was making a point, something she likes to do indirectly and with drama.
Things Mom doesn’t like? High altitudes, dry climates, hot chiles, and disturbance of her holiday routine. I knew she wasn’t thrilled to spend Christmas away from home. My goal was to win her over, and lucky for me, I had Santa Fe’s holiday charm on my side.
I leaned against the wall, enjoying the warmth of solar-heated adobe on my back. A group of carolers strolled by, harmonizing a bilingual version of “Feliz Navidad.” String lights and pine boughs decorated the porticos along Palace Avenue, and pinon smoke perfumed the air. To my eyes, the self-proclaimed “City Different” looked as pretty as a Christmas card. Once Mom got over the initial shock of leaving her comfort zone, she’d come around.
I hoped . . . Mom reached for a water bottle in her dual-holstered hip pack. “Hydration,” she said, repeating a caution she’d first raised nearly two decades ago, when I embarked for culinary school in Denver and its mere mile-high elevation. In between sips, she reminded me that proper water intake was the key to fending off altitude-induced illnesses ranging from headaches to poor judgment. She tilted her chin up and assessed me through narrowed eyes.
“You’re not drinking enough, Rita. I can tell. Your cheeks look dry. Your hands too. And your hair…”
Mom made tsk-tsk sounds. “Perhaps a trim would keep it from getting so staticky. You do look awfully cute when it’s short.”
I patted my shoulder-length locks, recently cut into loose layers that emphasized my natural staticky waves. I could use a drink. A tart margarita on the rocks with extra salt would do. My mouth watered. Behave, I chastised myself. It wasn’t even two in the afternoon, way too early for tequila. Plus, I loved my mother and her cute silver-flecked pixie cut. Most of all, I was delighted that she’d come to visit me and my teenage daughter, Celia. It was nice of Mom. No, more than nice. The visit bordered on maternal sacrifice.
As far as I knew, my mother, Mrs. Helen Baker Lafitte, aged sixty-eight and three quarters, of Bucks Grove, Illinois, had never left home for Christmas before, nor had she wanted to. Mom is a retired high school librarian, a woman of card-catalog order and strict traditions, otherwise known as doing the same thing year after year. Under usual circumstances, Mom keeps our “heirloom” artificial Christmas tree perpetually decorated and stored in the garage until the day after Thanksgiving, when she takes it out, dusts it off, and installs it to the left of the living-room fireplace. She places electric candles in each front window, hangs a wreath on the door, and wraps the holly bush in tasteful, nonflashing white lights. All of her holiday cards are mailed by the twelfth of December. Food traditions are similarly strict. The Christmas Day lunch begins promptly at noon and is typically attended by my Aunt Sue, Uncle Dave, Aunt Karen, and younger sister Kathy and her family. Kathy’s husband, Dwayne, watches sports in the den, while their three kids hover between completely exhausted and totally wired from their morning gift frenzy. My mother and aunts whip up a feast of roasted turkey and stuffing, scalloped potatoes, sweet potato casserole with mini-marshmallows, Tater Tot hot dish, amazing monkey bread, Aunt Sue’s famous (or infamous) Jell-O surprise featuring celery and cheese cubes, and my favorite dish: pie, usually apple, mincemeat, and/or pumpkin. It’s a lovely meal, which I truly miss when I can’t attend. However, I also love Santa Fe and want to make my own traditions here.
“That’s one benefit for your sister,” Mom said, polishing off her second water bottle. I swore I heard her stomach slosh. “The beach is at sea level.”
“Yep, that’s the beach for you,” I replied in the perky tone I vowed to maintain for the rest of Mom’s visit. “Kath and the kids must be loving it. What a treat! A holiday to remember!”
“I warned Kathy about jellyfish,” Mom said darkly. “Rip currents, sharks, sand, mosquitoes. . . . It simply doesn’t seem right to be somewhere so tropical for Christmas, but Dwayne went and got that package deal.”
Mom’s tone suggested Dwayne had purchased a family-sized case of hives. I gave Mom another sympathetic smile, along with the extra water bottle she’d stashed in my purse. Of course she was out of sorts. Once the kids learned that they’d get to open their presents early and go to Disney World and the beach, Mom and the holiday hot dish hadn’t stood a chance. I, meanwhile, saw my chance to get Mom to Santa Fe. I employed some of the guilt she usually ladled on me, telling her truthfully that Celia and I couldn’t get away this year between my work and Celia’s extracurricular activities.
Mom, the master of loving manipulation, countered with how much my Illinois relatives would miss us. I was also single, she needlessly pointed out, implying that I could easily uproot. Furthermore, I lived in a casita, a home with tiny in its very name. She wouldn’t want to put me out, she said. Mom then played her wild card, namely Albert Ridgeland, my junior prom date. Wouldn’t you know, Mom had said. She’d recently run into Albert and he was divorced just like me, and with his own successful dental clinic and a mostly full head of hair and he sure would love to catch up. Mom might be indirect, but she’s never subtle. Ever since my divorce from Manny Martin, a policeman with soap-opera good looks and accompanying philandering tendencies, Mom’s been after me to move back “home.” She sends me clippings of employment ads and monitors eligible bachelors. Peeved that Mom had dragged a divorced dentist into the debate, I went for the guilt jugular, reminding Mom that she was retired yet hadn’t visited in nearly two years.
My tactic worked, possibly too well. Mom was staying for nearly three weeks—to get her money’s worth out of the flight—and I’d feel terrible if she didn’t have a good time. I looked over and saw Mom eyeing a brown paper lunch sack perched a few feet down the adobe wall. The bag was open at the top and slightly singed on the sides. I could guess the contents. A votive candle nestled in sand. Mom stepped over to peek inside.
“It’s a wonder this entire state doesn’t burn down,” she declared. “Remember when your middle school band director, Mr. Ludwig, put on that world Christmas festival in the gymnasium? He almost set the bleachers on fire with one of these . . .” She paused. “What do you call them?”
“A farolito,” I said, proud to show off my local knowledge. “Some people call them luminarias, but Santa Feans are very particular about terminology. Here, luminaria refers to small bonfires. Farolitos are the candles in paper bags. There are electric farolitos too. You’ll see a lot of those along the rooflines of hotels and businesses. They’re pretty but nothing compared to the real ones on Christmas Eve. You’ll love it, Mom. You’ve never seen anything like it.”
Mom shuddered, likely imagining Santa Fe bursting into a spontaneous inferno rather than aglow with thousands of flickering lights. I decided not to tell her about the amazing three-dimensional paper lanterns I’d once seen soaring above the adobe city, lifted by the energy of the candles burning inside them. I needed to work on Mom before I exposed her to flying flames or peppers for breakfast. Mom was rooting around in her hip pack.
“I thought I had a granola bar. This time change and the lack of air are making me light-headed. You need to keep eating too, Rita.” Eating, I always had covered. I also had a better idea than a squished fanny-pack snack.
“It’s the holidays, Mom. Let’s get some pie.”

Ann Myers

More About Ann:

Ann Myers writes the Santa Fe Café Mysteries. The first book in the series, Bread of the Dead (2015), introduced café chef and reluctant amateur sleuth, Rita Lafitte. Rita and her friends stir up more trouble in Cinco de Mayhem (March 2016) and Feliz Navidead (October 25, 2016). Ann lives with her husband and extra-large house cat in southern Colorado, where she enjoys cooking, crafts, and cozy mysteries.

Q&A with Ann Myers

Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads and spending time with us.

Hi, Cheryl. Thank you so much for having me as a guest!

Writing and Reading:
Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
The first three Santa Fe Café Mysteries all feature holidays, Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, and Christmas, respectively. The holidays can be stressful, but thankfully I’ve never found a body or taken on killers. However, I do draw inspiration from the setting, Santa Fe, and its history, culture, and wonderful culinary scene. Like me, my protagonist Rita isn’t a native of New Mexico or the Southwest. However, we’re both enchanted by the “Land of Enchantment,” and I’ve incorporated some of my experiences, favorite things, and “discoveries” into her story.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
When I start plotting a book, I tell myself to first identify the killer and what sparked the crime. It never happens. To get started, I need to know the initial situation for my protagonist. What time of year is it? What is she worried or happy about? What’s she cooking? Then I can figure out what happens to her and the other characters.

Are any of your characters based on you or people that you know?
Some characters have bits of real people in them. There’s a dash of my grandmother in Flori, my protagonist’s tush-pinching octogenarian friend, boss, and sleuthing companion. And my mother swears she’s the visiting mom in Feliz Navidead. Not really. She and the fictional mom merely share common worries about dehydration in the desert and the fire hazards of farolitos, outdoor Christmas candles in paper bags.

My beloved family aside, I also keep notes of distinctive traits, like gaits or manners of speaking. Difficult people are useful too. It’s calming to think this if you’re stuck with one. Just repeat to yourself good material, good material…

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I usually write best in the morning. My only idiosyncrasy might be enforced sitting at the computer. (If my mother is reading this and worried I’ll die of sitting-induced blood clots, I do get up and stretch.) When I’m writing a first draft, I try to forge through quickly and meet word-count or scene goals for the day.

Tell us why we should read this book.
I love the characters and hope you will too! Rita isn’t perfect. But while she might flub up dancing or spill soup on customer’s laps, she’s always there for her friends and family. Flori and her Senior Center pals get into fun trouble in each book too, from deadly tai chi to rogue knitting. Then there’s the food. Rita and her friends whip up some fabulous dishes and you can too. Each book contains recipes for a complete meal, including treats like anise-spiced pan de muerto in Bread of the Dead, a yummy green chile and cheese soufflé in Cinco de Mayhem, and pumpkin pie with gingersnap crust in Feliz Navidead. Oh there’s also chocoflan cake, which might be my favorite cake ever (and I have a LOT of favorite cakes).

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Diane Mott Davidson’s wonderful culinary cozies were my first cozy-mystery loves. I also adore Kate Carlisle’s delightful Bibliophile Mysteries and the Cajun Country Mysteries by Ellen Byron. For regional flavor, there’s the incomparable Tony Hillerman. I also enjoy Martha Grimes’s Richard Jury series and Ann Cleeve’s Shetland mysteries.

What are you reading now?
Speaking of Martha Grimes, I realized I hadn’t read some of her early Jury novels. I’m reading the first book in that series, The Man with a Load of Mischief.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I’d love to write more Santa Fe Café Mysteries and have ideas for plots. While waiting to hear how the first three books do, I’m working on a mystery/thriller set in a fictional Colorado town. The heroine is inspired by a friend, a social worker who helps kids. Crimes are already underway…a missing foster child, a murdered social worker, and soon another killing.

Fun questions:
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
This was actually a hard one! I’m terrible with names of actors and rarely see movies. But it turned out okay because my aunt and I undertook Google research on “hunky male actors in their forties.” After making a list including Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig (with brunette hair dye), we chose Bradley. For Rita, we barely had to search: Amy Adams or Jenna Fisher would be perfect!

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
I love baking, especially bread. But I can’t do that every day unless I take up extreme exercise on the side, and who has time for that? I also enjoy dabbling in crafts. I’ve tried a lot, from soldering to sewing, but haven’t found “The One” yet. Recently, I’ve been into embroidery, paper-cutting, and rudimentary blacksmithing. By rudimentary, I mean three hours of pounding on hot steel to achieve a wobbly twist.

Favorite meal?
Easy. Lasagna, especially cheesy, gooey, saucy versions.

Thanks! This has been such a fun interview!

You can find Ann online on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AnnMyers.writer/; and her website http://www.annmyersbooks.com/

;

Tour Participants:



Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Ann Myers and HarperCollins. There will be 5 US winners of one (1) set of CINCO DE MAYHEM and BREAD OF THE DEAD by Ann Myers. The giveaway begins on Noveber 18th and runs through January 3rd, 2016.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

ESCAPE VELOCITY by Susan Wolfe (Review, Interview, & Giveaway ~ PICT Presents

Escape Velocity

by Susan Wolfe

on Tour November 1 – December 31, 2016

Synopsis:

Escape Velocity by Susan Wolfe

When does the Con become the Artist?

Georgia Griffin has just arrived in Silicon Valley from Piney, Arkansas on very bald tires, having firmly rejected her beloved father’s life as a con artist. Her father is in jail and a certain minister is hugging her mother for Jesus while eyeing Georgia’s little sister, Katie-Ann. Georgia desperately needs to keep her new job as paralegal for Lumina Software so she can provide a California haven for her sister before it’s too late.

While she’s still living in her car, Georgia realizes that incompetence and self-dealing have a death grip on her new company. She decides to adapt her extensive con artist training—just once—to clean up the company. But success is seductive. Soon Georgia is an avid paralegal by day and a masterful con artist by night, using increasingly bold gambits designed to salvage Lumina Software. Then she steps into the shadow of a real crime and must decide: Will she risk her job, the roof over her sister’s head, and perhaps her very soul?

MY REVIEW

4 stars

This author was “new to me”, but after reading the synopsis, I knew I had to read this title.

The book starts with a Prologue of 2 men discussing the past and mentioning each other’s name. One has done time, for a crime they were both involved with many years ago and now feels, that since the other person has done well in life, that he is owed in terms of monies. However, this meeting ends badly with one of them being murdered.

Chapter One, we meet Georgia Griffin, a very intuitive paralegal interviewing for a major company, Lumina Software. She needs this job since she is now responsible for her younger sister. Georgia has to go legitimate, after working in the family business running cons on “easy marks” after her father is incarcerated.

She learns quickly and becomes an asset to the company. However, there are some occasions and incidents where she feels a little con job will only help her position and some of her co-workers.

As I continued reading, I could not figure out what the Prologue had to do with the story, since those names mentioned in the Prologue, were never mentioned again. Until……..

And then it all comes together. She realizes that she is not the only one who knows how to run a con, and now she is in the middle of a con that has been going on for 30 years and another murder may happen, if she doesn’t stop it.

ESCAPE VELOCITY is a very entertaining read!

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller / Suspense
Published by: Steelkilt Press
Publication Date: October 4th 2016
Number of Pages: 432
ISBN: 0997211717 (ISBN13: 9780997211719)
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗, Barnes & Noble 🔗, & Goodreads 🔗

Read an excerpt:

Georgia followed the bouncing ponytail into a silent conference room with an immense black table. She perched on the edge of a fancy leather chair, quietly sniffed the air, and followed the scent to a tray of food on a side table: rows of colorful ripe fruit, cheerful little pots of yogurt, a tray of meat and cheese alongside glistening rolls. They hadn’t mentioned it would be a lunch interview. She’d have to pace herself and not look greedy. Her empty stomach contracted in anticipation as she politely declined the offer of coffee.

“He’ll be with you in a moment,” the woman said. “Oh, sorry, let me get this out of here.”

She scooped up the food and carried it from the room, leaving only a scent of pineapple hovering in the air.

Well. Good riddance. The last thing Georgia needed was to get all gorged and sleepy right before an interview.

And this could be the interview. This could be the interview that landed the job that allowed her to bring Katie-Ann to California until her father got out of prison. Too bad her resume was sort of bare, but the economy was finally picking up and she only needed one solid foothold. It didn’t matter how many jobs she hadn’t gotten. What mattered was the one she did get, and this could be that one. So what if it had been more than three weeks since her last interview? That just meant she should make this one count.

As she moved her forearm slowly across the mahogany, she could see her pale skin reflected off the glistening finish. Sure was quiet in here. You couldn’t hear anything of the big company that was supposedly operating at breakneck speed just outside the walls. Fast-paced was what they called themselves. Self-starter is what she was supposed to be. Well, she was a self-starter. How else had she gotten here? All the way from Piney, Arkansas, to Silicon Valley on bald tires, a million miles from the sound of Mama’s sniffling, the acrid smell of her bright pink nail polish.

Georgia wasn’t wearing any makeup at all. The woman with the bobbing ponytail had on perfect makeup that made her skin look like a baby’s butt. Which was great if you also knew how to avoid making yourself a magnet for perverts, but Georgia hoped she could hold her own around here without makeup. Tall and lanky and fast-moving, like a colt, her father said. (He should know, he’d boarded enough of them.) She wasn’t an athlete, exactly, but definitely a runner. Dark pinstripe
pantsuit from the Now and Again shop up in Palo Alto, scratchy at the back of her neck. Blueberry-colored eyes against pale, freckled skin, shiny black hair in a blunt bob as even as her dull scissors could chew through it. A smile so wide it sometimes startled people, seemed to give the fleeting impression she was unhinged. Careful with the smile. Enthusiastic, but not alarming.

The guy coming to interview her was late. She could have peed after all. This big San Jose industrial park was confusing, with boxy cement buildings that all looked exactly alike. Set back from the street behind gigantic parking lots full of glinting cars so it was impossible to see any street numbers, making it clear they couldn’t care less whether a newcomer found her way. She’d ended up having to run in her heels just to get to the lobby on time.

Could she get to the john now? She squeezed her shoulder blades tightly and stretched the back of her neck away from the scratchy suit coat. The silence was making her jumpy. She left her resume on the polished table and opened the door just enough to look out.

The woman with the ponytail was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Georgia couldn’t see a living soul. She took a couple of tentative steps into the hall. What if the interviewer showed up before she got back? Screw it. With a last look around the vacant executive area, she darted down the hallway.
The hall opened abruptly into an area crammed with battle-gray, fabric cubicles that created a maze the size of a football field. Had she wandered into a different company? The only thing the two areas had in common was that here, too, it was quiet. People must really be concentrating. Either that, or they’d had a bomb scare and nobody had bothered to tell her.

She was relieved to see a bald head appear above the fabric wall a few cubes down like a Jurassic Park dinosaur. (Now, that was quite an image. Did she feel that out of place around here?) She heard a printer spitting out copies somewhere in the distance as she headed toward the dinosaur, rounded a corner and stopped cold.

An unattended donut was resting on the work surface just inside one of the cubes. Barely even inside the cube, less than a foot away, almost as if it had been set down and forgotten by some passerby.

The plate slapped down in a hurry, its edge sticking out precariously beyond the edge of the work surface. Yesterday’s donut, perhaps, abandoned, stale.

But no, the donut was still puffy and golden, with minuscule cracks in that shiny sugar glaze. A donut still wafting the faintest scent of the fat it had been fried in. She could almost feel her lips touching the tender surface as her teeth . . .

Had she whimpered out loud? She glanced both ways along the still-deserted hall and then returned her gaze to the donut resting on its lightly grease-stained white paper plate. Pretending to wonder if the cube was occupied, she leaned her head in and called a faint “hello?” resting her hand lightly on the work surface, a finger touching the paper plate. Staring straight ahead, she floated her fingers across the surface and up, until her palm was hovering just above the donut’s sticky surface. One quick grab . . .

“May I help you?” intoned a male voice.

Georgia snatched her hand back like the donut was a rattlesnake.

She turned and found herself face to face with the Jurassic Park dinosaur, who was looking distinctly human and downright suspicious. He looked past her and surveyed the vacant cube before resting his skeptical gaze on her most winsome smile.

“Oh, hi!” she said brightly. “I’m here for an interview, and I was hoping you could point me toward the restroom?”

“And you thought it might be in here?”

“Well no, but I thought a person . . .”

“Follow me, please.”

She heard her Arkansas twang vibrating the air between them as he led her down the hall a few yards, pointed a stern finger and said, “In there.” He crossed his arms, and she felt the heat of his disapproving gaze on her back as she pushed through the heavy door into the privacy on the other side.

Now, that was just downright mortifying. Caught in the act of stealing a donut? A donut?? If he told somebody . . . She cupped her palm over her closed eyes and dragged it slowly down until it covered her mouth.

Of course, she hadn’t actually taken the donut, so what precisely had the guy seen? A woman standing at the edge of an empty cube, leaning her head in politely to look for someone. He probably hadn’t noticed the donut, and even if he had he’d never imagine how desperately she wanted it. He’d probably had steak and gravy for breakfast, and thought a hungry person in Silicon Valley was as rare as a Jurassic Park dinosaur. If anything, he probably thought she was casing the empty cube for something valuable. Which was ridiculous, because what could a cube contain that was as valuable as a job?

But if he thought it was true, he might be waiting for her just outside the door with a security guard, planning to march her out of the building and away from this rare and essential person who could actually give her a job. Busted because of a donut.

The face that looked back from the mirror above the sink was staring at a firing squad as Georgia held her icy hands under the hot water.

But then the stare turned defiant.

She hadn’t driven all the way from Arkansas to live in her car and get this job interview just to become distracted at the critical moment by some prissy, no-account donut police. Who did he think he was? It wasn’t even his donut, and anyway, he wasn’t doing the hiring. Her only task at this moment was to deliver the interview of a lifetime and get this job.

She squared her shoulders, practiced her smile in the mirror two or three times and strode with her head erect back along the deserted corridor to the interview room.

The man who entered the conference room five minutes later had the stiff-backed posture and shorn hair of a military man. He was well over six feet tall, lean, in his late forties, wearing neatly rolled blue chambray shirtsleeves and a bright yellow bow tie. As he shook her hand and sat opposite her, she saw that his stubble of hair was red and his eyes were a muted green. Fellow Irishman, maybe. Could she forge some connection from that?

“I’m Ken Madigan, the General Counsel here. Are you Georgia Griffin?”

“Yes, sir, I am.” She offered her carefully calibrated, not-alarming smile.

“Appreciate you coming in today. Sorry to keep you waiting.” He tapped a green folder with her name on the tab. “I’ve read your resume, so I won’t ask you to repeat it. As you know, we have a key job to fill after quite a hiring freeze. Let’s start with what’s important to you in your next job.”

“Well, sir, I just got my paralegal certificate, and I’m looking for the opportunity to put my learning and judgment to use. I intend to prove that I can make a real difference to my company, and then I’d like to advance.”

His smile was encouraging. “Advance to what?”

This was a variant of the ‘five years’ question, and she answered confidently. “In five years I’d still like to be in the legal department, but I want to have learned everything there is to know about the other parts of the company, too. My goal is to become, well, indispensable.”

“Is anything else important?” Those gray-green eyes were watching her with mild interest. She decided to take a chance and expose a tiny bit of her peculiar background to personalize this interview.

“Well, sir, I’m eager to get started, because I need to make enough money to get my baby sister here just as soon as I can make a place for her.”

His raised his eyebrows slightly. “And how old is she?”

“Fifteen, sir, and needing a better future than the one she’s got. I need to move pretty fast on that one.”

“I see. Now tell me about your work experience.” Which was where these interviews generally died. She shoved her cold hands between her thighs and the chair.

“I don’t have a lot of glamorous experience, sir. I cleaned houses and worked as a waitress at the WhistleStop to get myself through school. And the whole time I was growing up I helped my father look after the horses he was boarding. In fact, he got so busy with his second job for a while that I just took over the horses myself. Horses are expensive, delicate animals, and things can go wrong in a heartbeat. With me in charge, our horses did fine.”

“Okay, great.” He ran his palm over his stubble of hair, considering. “Now tell me what kind of people you like to work with.” Not one follow-up question about her experience. Did he think there was nothing worth talking about? Just focus on the question.

“The main thing is I want to work with smart people who like to do things right the first time. And people who just, you know, have common sense.”

“I see. And what kind of people bug you?” This interviewer wasn’t talking much, which made it hard to tell what impression she was making. A bead of sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.

“Well, I don’t much like hypocrites.” Which unfortunately eliminated about half the human race, but she wouldn’t mention that. He waited. “And I don’t like people who can’t or won’t do their jobs.” She stopped there, in spite of his continued silence. No need to mention pedophiles, or that nasty prison guard who’d backed her against the wall on the catwalk. That probably wasn’t what Ken Madigan had in mind.

“Thank you.” He tapped his pen on her resume. “Now I’d like you to describe yourself with three adjectives.”

Was this guy jerking her chain? He didn’t much look like he’d jerk anybody’s chain, but what did adjectives have to do with job qualifications? Maybe he was politely passing the time because he’d already decided not to hire her.

“Well,” she said, glancing into the corner, “I guess I would say I’m effective. Quick at sizing up a situation.” She paused. “And then I’m trying to decide between ‘inventive’ and ‘tough.’”

“Okay, I’ll give you both. Inventive and tough. Tell me about a time you were quick at sizing up a situation.” This didn’t feel like the other interviews she’d done. Not only were the questions weird, but he seemed to be listening to her so closely. She couldn’t recall ever being listened to quite like this.

To her astonishment she said exactly what came into her head. “Well, like this one. I can already tell that you’re a kind person who cares about the people who work for you. I think you’re pretty smart, and you listen with a capital L. You might have a problem standing up to people who aren’t as smart or above board as you are, though. That could be holding you back some.”

Ken Madigan’s eyebrows were suddenly up near his hairline. Why on earth was she spilling her insights about him to him? Too many weeks of isolation? Was it hunger? She should have taken that coffee after all, if only to dump plenty of sugar in it. Or was it something about him, that earnest-looking bow tie maybe, that made her idiotically want to be understood? Whatever it was, she’d blown the interview. Good thing she wasn’t the sort of weakling who cried.

So move it along and get out of there. She dropped her forehead into her hand. “God, I can’t believe I just said all that. You probably don’t have any flaws at all, sir, and if you do it isn’t my place to notice them. I guess I need another adjective.”

“Which would be . . . ?”

“Blunt.”

He lowered one eyebrow slightly. “Let’s say ‘forthright.’ And I won’t need an example.”

“You know what, though?” There was nothing left to lose, really, and she was curious. “I’m not this ‘forthright’ with everybody. A lot of people must just talk to you.”

“They do,” he acknowledged with a single nod, his eyebrows resuming their natural location. “It’s an accident of birth. But they usually don’t say anything this interesting.” He sounded amused. Could she salvage this?

“Well, I’m completely embarrassed I got so personal.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’m impressed with your insight.”

“Really? Then maybe you see what I mean about being quick.”

He laughed. “I believe I do.”

“I mean, I can be quick about other things, too. Quick to see a problem starting up. Sometimes quick to see what’ll solve it. Like when my father had to go away and I saw we’d have to sell the stable to pay the taxes . . .” Blah blah blah, there she went again. She resisted clapping her hand over her mouth. Was she trying to lose this job?

The woman with the bouncy ponytail stuck her head in. “I’m so sorry, but Roy would like to see you in his office right away. And your next appointment is already downstairs.” She handed him another green folder. The tab said ‘Sarah Millchamp.’ “I’m going to lunch, but I’ll have Maggie go down for her in ten minutes. She’ll be in here whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Nikki,” he said, turning back to Georgia. “Unfortunately, it looks like our time’s about up. Do you have a question for me before we stop?”

Sixty seconds left to make an impression. “I saw your stock’s been going up. Do you think it’s going up for the right reasons?”

There went his eyebrows again, and this time his mouth seemed to be restraining a smile. “Not entirely, no, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have an opinion about improvements that would make your growth more sustainable?”

He allowed his smile to expand. “I have many opinions, and a small amount of real insight. Might be difficult to discuss right now . . .”

She held a hand up. “Oh, I understand. But do you think a paralegal could help make a difference?”
“A solid paralegal could make a big difference.”

“I’d like to know more about the issues, sir, but they’re probably confidential, and anyway, I know you have to leave.” She leaned forward, preparing to stand up.

“You’re a surprising person, Ms. Griffin, and an interesting one. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.”
Like he enjoyed a circus freak, probably. She made her smile humble. “Thank you.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to have somebody from Human Resources give you a call in the next day or two.”

Was he serious? “That would be fine.”

“If we decide to work together, could you start pretty quickly?”

The goal now was to leave without saying anything else stupid. “I’m sure I can meet your requirements.”

As he walked her out to the elevator he lowered his voice. “You know, Ms. Griffin, you’re an intuitive person, and you might have some insights about the Human Resources people you’re about to meet . . .”

She held up her palm. “Don’t worry, sir. If I do, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Excellent. Great talking to you. Drive safely, now,” he called as the elevator door closed between them.

Thank God that interview was finished. In another five minutes she’d have told him anything, she’d have told him about Robbie. Drive safely? What a cornball. But she must have said something right. He gave her that tip about getting past the Human Resources people, which meant he must like her. Landing a first job with her resume was like trying to freeze fire, but this time at least she had a chance.

Her stomach cramped with hunger as she emerged into the lobby and saw a woman in her mid-thirties glancing through a magazine. Tailored suit, precision-cut blond hair, leather case laid neatly across her lap. Completely professional, and she had ten years’ experience on Georgia at least. No. No way. Georgia walked briskly over to the woman and stood between her and the receptionist.

“Ms. Millchamp?” she said quietly, extending her hand.

The woman stood up and smiled. “Sarah Millchamp. Nice to meet you. I know I’m early.”

“I’m Misty. So sorry to tell you this, but Mr. Madigan’s been called out of town unexpectedly. He’s headed for the airport now.”

“Oh!” The poised Ms. Millchamp quickly regained her composure. “That’s too bad. But of course I understand.”

“Thank you for being so understanding. This literally happened ten minutes ago, and I’m completely flustered. I know he wants to meet you. Are you parked out here? At least let me walk you to your car.”

She put a sisterly hand against Ms. Millchamp’s elbow and began steering her toward the exit. “Tell you what, can I call you to reschedule as soon as Mr. Madigan gets back? Maybe you two can have lunch. Just don’t take that job at Google in the meantime.”

“Google?”

“Now, don’t pretend you haven’t heard about the job at Google. In Brad Dormond’s department? They’re our worst nightmare when it comes to competing for good people.” The air in the parking lot mingled the spicy scent of eucalyptus with the smell of rancid engine grease, and her stomach lurched. “So, see over there? That’s the entrance to the freeway. Bye now. I’ll call you soon.”

Georgia waved as Sarah Millchamp backed her car out. Then she hurried back inside to the receptionist.

“Hi,” she said. “That lady, Ms. Millchamp? She just let me know she has a migraine and will call to reschedule. Will you let Maggie know?”

The receptionist nodded and picked up her phone. “That’s too bad.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

Done and dusted, as Gramma Griffin would say.

She still might not get the job, of course, she reminded herself as she pulled onto the freeway, nibbling a half-eaten dinner roll she’d squirreled away in the crack between her passenger seat cushions the night before. She’d gotten this far once before. And she didn’t have to get it. She had another dozen resumes out, and one of those might still lead to something. Her cousin at Apple had turned out to be more useless than a well dug in a river, but that didn’t mean she was desperate. If she continued sleeping in her car most nights her money could last for another five weeks. And Lumina Software might not be a great job, anyway. Ken Madigan probably just interviewed well. That’s probably all it was.

Author Bio:

Susan WolfeSusan Wolfe is a lawyer with a B.A. from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Stanford University. After four years of practicing law full time, she bailed out and wrote the best-selling novel, The Last Billable Hour, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. She returned to law for another sixteen years, first as a criminal defense attorney and then as an in-house lawyer for Silicon Valley high-tech companies. Born and raised in San Bernardino, California, she now lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband, Ralph DeVoe. Her new novel, Escape Velocity, will be published in October of 2016.

Q&A with Susan Wolfe

Welcome!

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Both of my books are firmly grounded in my career as a Silicon Valley lawyer. I want my readers to experience the inner workings of a Silicon Valley law firm (in The Last Billable Hour, my Edgar Award winning mystery) and then the inner workings of a high-tech corporation (in Escape Velocity, my new Silicon Valley thriller.) This includes the politics, the banter, the in-fighting, and even the speech patterns of the different characters, along with some authentic crises the organizations might face. I hope I convey a powerful sense of place, because I don’t think the books could be set anywhere else.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I seem to start with an atmosphere/environment and a point of view about that environment. Then I conceive a main character to guide the reader through the story, and then I write the first chapters until I can hear the main character’s internal voice. I can’t make any progress with the plot until I’ve done those things.

By the time I have the character’s internal voice, I already have certain vivid scenes in mind. At that point I get a pad of giant graph paper (my husband is a physicist, so we have this stuff lying around) make a post-it note for each must-have scene, and position it on the graph paper more or less where I imagine it will be. I also have some idea of how the story will end up, meaning I know whether my main character(s) are going to succeed or fail in their quest(s) and how I expect the character to change (or not change) by the end of the story.

Then I go to work on the plot. I start with the last chapter, think about what needs to happen to get the characters there, and then conceive a scene that will lead to that last chapter. Then I do the same with the next-to-last chapter and continue backwards until I feel I have an outline of the whole story. The plot is the spine of the book, from which I will hang these post-it scenes that make the characters bump up against each other in ways that reveal who they are.

Plotting is the hardest part of my planning process. Once I can see this whole cause-and-effect spine of the story, I can get down to business drafting the actual chapters.

Are any of your characters based on you or people that you know?
I think convincing characters are always “based on” the author herself or people she knows, because the author consults her personal beliefs about human nature to determine how her character will behave in a given situation. For example, in the opening scene of Escape Velocity, Georgia Griffin tricks a competitor in order to land a job she desperately needs. That doesn’t mean I would personally behave that way, or even that I know somebody who actually behaved that way. Part of the fun of writing (and reading) is having characters do things I might want to do, and can imagine doing, but wouldn’t actually do myself.

So is Georgia “based on” me or other people I know? Yes, because she issues from my own impulses and desires and beliefs about human nature. But then I transform her with my imagination.

One note: In the short time Georgia, has been out in public, I have had two different acquaintances recount doing something very similar to what Georgia does in that opening chapter. I love that. It tells me I my beliefs about human nature were on track!

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I have a pretty specific writing routine which I love.

I get up at 5:30, then “commute” four blocks to Peets Coffee at 5:50 or so, then return home and go straight into my writing room, which is my converted free-standing garage. This is how I signal my transition from home to work, and I suppose it could be considered an idiosyncrasy. I commuted every day for thirty-odd years and it did signal the transition, so I’ve just kept it up.

I try to start writing by 6:15 and do three 90-minute sessions each morning. (Some flexibility if I’m in the middle of a great scene.) On my two breaks between sessions I go for a jog, do a 20-minute meditation, eat and shower. Then I’m done for the day at 12:45 or 1. In the afternoons I try to be sure to see at least one friend to balance the solitude of writing, and then do everything else that needs to get done just to live my life: errands, reading, planning social events, hanging out with my two cats.

Tell us why we should read this book
From the early feedback I’ve gotten, people appreciate this book for several different reasons: 1) They like my quirky main character, Georgia Griffin, and want to find out if she’ll succeed or fail; 2) They love to see some extremely annoying people they’ve had to put up with at work get their just deserts; 3) They like learning what it’s like to work in a Silicon Valley high tech company; and/or 4) they think it is “wickedly hilarious” as one of my reviewers so kindly said. I do think the book operates on several levels, and hope readers can enjoy all these aspects of the book at once.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
My favorite living authors:

Hilary Mantel (the Thomas Cromwell Wolf Hall trilogy, or it will be a trilogy if we ever get that third book!)

Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch is one of my great reads of all time)

Ian McEwan (best ever author of literary creepy!)

Haruki Murakami (What’s not to love about Colonel Sanders come to life and talking cats?)

Tana French (I own every book in hardback because my daughter and I must read them immediately)

For my favorite authors of all time I would add:

William Faulkner (Thomas Sutpen of Absalom! Absalom! is to me one the great characters in all of literature)

Herman Melville (Love the whale!)

Jane Austen (Emma particularly)

Gustave Flaubert (I always root for Emma Bovary and hope it will come out differently)

Virginia Woolf (She made me determined to be a writer.)

What are you reading now?
I am now and for the foreseeable future reading the 1100-page Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. (My book group is fearless!) He might get added to my favorite authors, but I won’t know until I finish.

My next books will be: Tana French’s new book The Trespasser (my daughter is already ahead of me on this one); Ian McEwan’s new book Nutshell; and Memento Mori by Muriel Spark.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
My next novel is set in San Bernardino, California. San Bernardino was a working-class town when I grew up in it, and is now the second poorest large city in the country (after Detroit.)

The story begins when my protagonist is at the vet for a routine visit with his cat. A woman brings in a cat that has been badly mistreated and then races out the door before anybody can ask her about it. The terror in the woman’s eyes triggers memories from the protagonist’s childhood, and he is convinced the person who hurt the cat is an imminent danger to people as well. He decides to right an old wrong by finding the wrongdoer before it’s too late.

He manages to enlist the (somewhat skeptical) help of an animal control person and a forensics person in his unorthodox effort, because both of them have strong personal reasons for becoming involved. We now have four people (including the wrongdoer) who all badly want to succeed with conflicting goals in a race against the clock.

Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Fun to think about!

Saoirse Ronan or Nina Arianda for Georgia

Kyle Chandler or Matt Damon for Ken Madigan

Alec Baldwin or John Hurd or Timothy Spall for CEO

Anna Gunn or Tilda Swinton for HR person

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
Theater! I’m heading to NYC in a few days to see four plays and an opera in a week. Favorite plays ever: Sweeny Todd, Amadeus, Doubt, Book of Mormon, Hamilton, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 in the same day.

Favorite meal?
My favorite meal is from Trattoria Garga in Florence:

Bruschetta with Oven-roasted tomatoes

Pasta Magnifico (thin fettuccine with citrus zest)

Giant very rare Florentine steak

Chocolate tart

If you and a friend share the pasta and steak you will still have plenty. And if I had to keep it simple, I could make a whole meal of just the chocolate tart. Fun fact: I wrote to the owner, Sharon Gargani, and persuaded her to send me the tart recipe. I now make this tart myself!

Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads

P.S. That Chocolate Tart sounds delicious, but then, anything that has chocolate in it is my downfall. CMR

Catch Up with Susan Wolfe on her Website 🔗, on Twitter 🔗, and on Facebook 🔗!

Tour Participants:

Stop by the other hosts as well for excerpts, guest posts, interviews, reviews, and, of course, more great giveaways!


Join In on the Giveaway!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Author Guide and Susan Wolfe. There will be 1 US winner of one (1) $50 Amazon.com giftcard AND 5 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of Escape Velocity by Susan Wolfe. The giveaway begins on October 31st and runs through January 7th, 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

REVIEW DISCLAIMER
This blog was founded on the premise to write honest reviews, to the best of my ability, no matter who from, where from and/or how the book was obtained, and will continue to do so, even if it is through PICT or PBP.
DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review.
No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.

ADDENDUM

I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.  I am an IndieBound affiliate.  I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

THE NEARLY GIRL by Lisa de Nikolits (Interview, Showcase & Giveaway) ~ PICT Presents

The Nearly Girl by Lisa de Nikolits Banner

The Nearly Girl

by Lisa de Nikolits

on Tour November 2016

Synopsis:

The Nearly Girl by Lisa de NikolitsFans of “A Prayer for Owen Meany” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” will love this clever, fast-paced and enjoyable thriller.

Like a modern-day Joan of Arc, Amelia Fisher attempts to carve out a ‘normal life’, showing us how mythic the idea of ‘normal’ really is.

With a poetic genius for a father, an obsessed body builder for a mother, and an enchantingly eccentric group seeking the help of an unorthodox therapist, what could possibly go wrong?

A chance discovery propels Amelia and fellow therapy attendee, Mike, with whom she is in love, into a life-threatening situation instigated by the crazed doctor’s own dark secret but Amelia’s psychosis saves the day.

Told with warmth, humor and populated with vividly original characters, this sprint-paced novel has it all, from restraining orders to sex in office bathrooms, and a nail-biting ending.

A novel about an unusual family, expected social norms and the twists and turns of getting it all slightly wrong, the consequences of which prove fatal for some.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Published by: Inanna Publications
Publication Date: October 2016
Number of Pages: 301
ISBN: 1771333138 (ISBN13: 9781771333139)
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗, Goodreads 🔗, &INANNA 🔗

Read an excerpt:

Amelia lay still. Mike was next to her, snoring slightly.

Amelia wondered how much time had passed since she and Mike had vanished. She wondered how Dr. Carroll had covered up their disappearance but she was sure his story was airtight. She wondered if anybody was worried about them and looking for them. She hoped Ethel was out of hospital and she tried to send messages to Nana with her mind, telling her to look for them.

Amelia’s eyes were wide open and she was trying to make little growling noises in her throat and eventually she was able to make a sound.

She graduated to trying to form words. Ma….. Ma….. Mak….. Mak!

Mak? The word was hardly decipherable but she was grateful for the utterance.

Mike? She growled the guttural utterance as quietly as she could but there was no reply.

Amelia lay on her back and she closed her eyes and concentrated very hard on trying to roll over. It seemed impossible to do in one big motion and she broke it down, first just trying to move her right arm across her chest. When she achieved this gigantic feat, she was drenched in sweat and she felt exhausted.

She wasn’t sure why but the sedative was metabolizing in her system in a different way to the others, it seemed to be leaving her bloodstream much faster. She was worried that Dr. Carroll would notice and administer the next dose before the current one had worn off.

She was about to roll over onto her stomach when she heard a noise. Alarmed that Dr. Carroll had returned, she flopped over onto her back, and adjusted herself into the same position as he had left her.

No sooner had she done this, than the doctor pushed his way into the room.

He sat down on the floor and heaved a great sigh.

You two have caused me an inordinate problem, he said. Really and truly you have. Why did you have to come here? Why?

He sat cross-legged and put his head into his hands.

I don’t know what to do with you, he said, his voice muffled. I have to get rid of you but I don’t know how to do it. I’m not a violent man, I’m not. I never thought it would come to this.

He rubbed his face. I could kill you very easily, that part is not the problem. It’s the disposing of the bodies. Hmm…

He fell into deep silence. If your bodies were ever found, the drugs in your system would lead you right back to me. But it’s very tough to dispose of bodies. Much harder than you would think. They make it look so easy in the movies but I wouldn’t even know where to start. Although, that said, I could drive north for a few hours, find a couple of side roads and dump you in the swamps. But I’d have to wade into them, carrying you, and you are both so heavy and there are snakes in those waters and frogs and god knows what, so no… that won’t work.

Oh, this is such a problem. I wonder if I should disappear instead. But why should I have to give up everything I have worked so hard to achieve? Why should I be the one to lose everything just because two nosy parkers poked their nosy noses where they shouldn’t have?

What about fire… I could try to burn you both, but bodies don’t burn entirely in fire and how and why and where would you have set yourselves alight? I don’t think I would be able to create a scenario in such a way that it would be believable to anyone.

There’s dismemberment of course. I could dismember you in the bathtub but the blood, ugh, blood. And I would have to buy saws and knives and plastic and containers and from what I’ve read, the evidence of blood is very hard to rid of. And how would I get rid of the body parts? I am back to square one. Disposal.

A lover’s pact? Suicide? Yes… but I’d need to get you both into a motel which would be a logistical nightmare. Slitting your wrists would be easy but I’d also have to make sure enough time passed for all the drugs to clear out of your system. And how am I supposed to carry you two lugs into a motel without being seen?

He gave a great sigh. I have to prepare dinner for my family. I don’t care about you two. You can starve to death for all I care.

He got up. I’m one of the top two percentile of brilliant geniuses, he said. I will think of something.

Author Bio:

Lisa de NikolitsOriginally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits has lived in Canada since 2000. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain.

Lisa de Nikolits is the award-winning author of five novels. Her first novel, The Hungry Mirror won a 2011 IPPY Awards Gold Medal for Women’s Issues Fiction and was long-listed for a ReLit Award. West of Wawa won the 2012 IPPY Silver Medal Winner for Popular Fiction and was a Chatelaine Editor’s Pick. A Glittering Chaos tied to win the 2014 Silver IPPY for Popular Fiction. The Witchdoctor’s Bones launched in Spring 2014 to literary acclaim and wide readership. Between The Cracks She Fell launched in Fall 2015 and was well reviewed by the Quill & Quire and was on the recommended reading lists for Open Book Toronto and 49th Shelf. Between The Cracks She Fell was also reviewed by Canadian Living magazine and called ‘a must-read book of 2015’. Between The Cracks She Fell won a Bronze IPPY Award 2016 for Contemporary Fiction. All books have been published by Inanna Publications.

INTERVIEW

Welcome!

Writing and Reading:
Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Absolutely yes! My exploration of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (a core theme in The Nearly Girl) came about when I was trying to untangle my issues with insomnia and claustrophobia. This led to the creation of my character Dr. Frances Carroll and his therapy called D.T.O.T. which is Do The Opposite Thing.

It was also my lifelong characteristics of nearly getting things right and also getting them very wrong that led to the creation of my protagonist, Amelia. For example, I used to file my manuscripts and papers in the oven (before I met my husband who said this was not such a sound practice since, even although I never baked, I did actually use the oven top and there having paper – reams of it – neatly stored inside was unwise).

But the things I do would sooner be classified as idiosyncrasies while Amelia suffers from a full-blown psychosis. So I used my small-time mistakes as seeds to grow the idea of her story-worthy malaise that led to her discovery of crimes. Because The Nearly Girl is a thriller, a past-paced one at that, as opposed to being a story about therapies and mental health issues.

And it is a funny book which is another thing I love about it. I am not funny. Or if I am, I am funny by mistake. I feel that I lack a sense of humour in general – I am always the last one to catch the joke and most of the time it has to be explained to me. I generally avoid watching comedies because I find them very stressful – the level of chaos upsets me and I just want it to be over and everything to be alright! Also the pressure to get the joke, to laugh — it’s all too much!

But this book, remarkably, is funny. Well, parts of it are. There are parts that are downright heartbreaking too and while I never fail to laugh at the funny bits, the heartbreaking bits are equally as wretched, no matter how many times I read them too.

Shortly before the book goes to press, the author has read and reread it countless times and sometimes one does weary. And sometimes, I admit that the thought of reading it yet again was daunting but then as soon as I started, I was delighted to be hanging out with these characters. It never got old.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I start with a single idea. For example, with The Nearly Girl, it happened like this. I was on a bus, in winter, going to a book event. I didn’t know if I was on the correct bus since I had not been to that area before and I was anxious. Then I realized how interesting it was, to be on an unfamiliar bus, on an unfamiliar route, with all kinds of interesting people. What was fascinating was how significantly visually collective they were as a group and how extremely different they were to the usual bunch on my regular bus. I wondered about their jobs, their families and their lives and I thought that I definitely should take more random busses.

At one point, I looked out the window as we drove past the beach and the sun had just set and it was snowing and I felt sad that we were prohibited by bodies that forced us to follow the seasons and obey the rules – what we could just have a picnic in the snow? Sit on the snow in shorts and a t-shirt, with the sleet hitting our bare arms while we made smores.
And there it was. The Nearly Girl. She would be out there, she would be doing exactly that.

And then I had to figure out the rest from there. But I had a protagonist, an idea and a name for the book.

Are any of your characters based on you or people that you know?
They are not based on people I know but if I have a character and I need to flesh him or her out and I am stuck, then I go and talk to people who remind me of my character. For example, in The Nearly Girl, Amelia falls in love with Mike. I knew Mike’s age and what he looked like but I had no idea what music he listened to, or what books he read or what he liked to do for fun.

I supposed I could have gone online but I cannot work out my characters that way. I have to be in the real world, looking at people, that’s the only way my characters can come to me. So I kept an eye out at work (I work in a building of 3 000 people) and I finally saw ‘Mike’. I followed him and explained who I was and I asked him if he would be interested in helping me develop my character.

Fortunately for me, he was extremely helpful. I interviewed him and later I sent him a questionnaire and we emailed back and forth.
(I thank him in the back of the book).

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I wear a hat but I don’t think that’s very unusual. I need to nap here and there – sometimes only half-an-hour in between chapters. I think the brain needs to recharge! I snack on chocolate-covered peanuts. I always light a candle. I make notes on scraps of paper as I go. I talk to the cat. If I am stuck for a bit and I go and have a bath and usually struck by inspiration without a piece of paper in sight (and no, I never learn to take a notepad with me!).

Tell us why we should read this book.
The Nearly Girl is my sixth published novel and of the six, it is my favourite. I love it because if I could live my life according to the philosophies or ethos of any of my books, it would be this one. That, and the fact that this book features my favourite bunch of misfits thus far! The book is also a love story and it’s a story about family, about not-fitting in, in the world and learning to live with that. The book is about unlikely friendships and how sometimes the vicissitudes of life can come gift-wrapped with surprises.

There is a purity and an honesty to the emotions and actions in this book, a simplicity that I would liken to John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany and, before readers leap up in horror to protest the comparison of my book to John Irving’s, let me get there before they do! Alas, I am no John Iriving but he is one of the writers that I strive to emulate.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Jess Walter (The Financial Lives of Poets), Margaret Atwood (The Heart Goes Last), Garth Stein (A Sudden Light), David Adams Richards (Principles to Live By), Richard Flanagan, (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)

What are you reading now?
I am on a panel with Steve Burrows and Dietrich Kalteis so I am reading both of their books; A Cast of Falcons and Triggerfish, respectively. I have Annie Proulx Barkskins lined up, along with The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies and Magic by Migene Gonzalez-Whippler (research), The Odyssey by Homer (research), Paradise Lost by Milton (research)

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
The book is titled The Occult Persuasion (hence all the research into spells and magic mentioned above.) This will be my book for 2019 as I have two novels lined up, one for 2017 (No Fury Like That), which is a revenge novel set in Purgatory and here on earth and Rotten Peaches (2018), which is a story about two sets of couples living on opposite ends of the world, whose complete lack of morality causes an implosion of lives when they finally intersect.

Fun questions:
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Just for fun, I’d take the cast of Thor and set them to The Nearly Girl!

Henry the Poet and father – Chris Hemsworth
Megan the body builder mother – Jaimie Alexander
Amelia – Natalie Portman
Ed – Colm Feore
Dr. Frances Carroll – Paul Giamatti – and yes I know he’s not in Thor but he’s the only person who could play Dr. Carroll!
Mike – Josh Dallas

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
Playing my guitar, talking to my cat, taking naps (with my cat)

Favorite meal?
Birthday cake!

Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads and spending time with us.

Don’t Forget to Visit Lisa de Nikolits’ website 🔗, her Twitter Feed 🔗, & her Facebook Page 🔗!

Tour Participants:



Don’t Miss This Awesome Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Lisa de Nikolits. There will be 1 US winners of one (1) Amazon.com $15 Gift Card AND 3 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of The Nearly Girl by Lisa de Nikolits. The giveaway begins on October 31st and runs through December 4th, 2016.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

THE LAFAYETTE SWORD by Eric Giacometti, Jacques Ravenne, Anne Trager (Interview, Showcase & Giveaway)

The Lafayette Sword

by Eric Giacometti, Jacques Ravenne, Anne Trager

on Tour October 24 – December 3, 2016

Synopsis:

The Lafayette Sword by Eric Giacometti, Jacques Ravenne, Anne Trager

Gold. Obsession. Secrets.

Following the murder of a Freemason brother, Antoine Marcas uncovers unsettling truths about gold and its power to fascinate and corrupt. A priceless sword is stolen and deaths ensue setting the Freemason detective on a case of Masons turned bad. A clue points to mysteries and conspiracy about elusive pure gold, launching a frantic, deadly race between two symbolic places—the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower.

A captivating plot weaves alchemy and the Middle Ages into a modern-day thriller. Part of an internationally best-selling series that has sold 2 million copies worldwide, with “vivid characters, an evocative international setting and history darker than midnight.”

For readers who love ancient myths, secret societies, chilling narrative and modern speed.

INTERVIEW

Eric Giacometti and Jacques Ravenne are best-selling French authors of the Antoine Marcas mysteries, a ten-book series that has sold 2 million copies worldwide and is translated into 17 languages. These high-action thrillers that combine meticulous historical research with unusual plots and a compellingly complex hero. The series is made its debut in the US with Shadow Ritual, an electrifying thriller about the rise of extremism. Now, The Lafayette Sword is available in English, an action-packed tale about gold and its power to fascinate and corrupt with a captivating plot that weaves alchemy and the Middle Ages into a modern-day thriller. Giacometti is a former investigative journalist. Ravenne is a literary critic, a specialist on the life of the Marquis de Sade, and a Freemason. Here they answer a few questions.

In The Lafayette Sword, did you draw from real events?
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the French sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty, was a Freemason. As he played a large role in the building of the statue both in France and the United States, it is easy for lovers of conspiracy theories to perceive some omnipotent, tentacular Freemason power being expressed in the Statue of Liberty, making it not a symbol of liberty, but one of evil. Add to that Eric’s fascination with the Eiffel Tower, a carryover from his childhood. For the historical element, Nicolas Flamel, a real medieval scribe surrounded by a long-lasting legend about his achievements in alchemy, was a perfect character for a novel: his biography was sufficiently porous to be filled by our imagination, and the stories already told about him marvellous enough to find a destiny in such a thriller.

When did both of your interests in history begin, and what eras are you each most interested in?
We have always been fascinated by history, be it official history from the textbooks or more obscure history woven into the texture of big events. In high school, our schoolmates were playing rugby while we shared a fascination with novels recounting Templar knights, esoteric secrets, alchemy and Rennes-le-Château, where the Holy Grail was said to be hidden in the depths of the Cathar citadel. We used to wander the streets of Toulouse together, exploring that city, which is so full of history and marked by the Cathars. We would haunt libraries in search of spell books, and adventure out to Montségur and Rennes-le-Château in search of lost treasures. Jacques has a passion for the Middle Ages and the eighteenth century. It is not by chance that he wrote a novel on the life of the Marquis de Sade.

Tell us something about your writing partnership.
We take about nine months to write a novel: one month for the outline, two months of research, and the six remaining months for writing. When we come up with the outline, we see each other nearly every day. We set up the plot, balancing narration and characters, weaving in suspense, planning the cliffhangers. When we go into the research phase, the work is very solitary, because we have already defined who does what. Then comes the longer, harder work of writing. The novels in the series are built around two plot lines—one is set in modern day times with our protagonist, Inspector Antoine Marcas, while the other is historical. We each are responsible for one of the plot lines, but then we each rewrite what the other wrote. This requires a delicate touch, as writers are always very sensitive about their writing. Fortunately, we have known each other since we were teenagers, and we resolved our ego problems some time ago.

Is your hero Antoine Marcas based on you or people you know?
As a Freemason he believes in Freemason values, but he has a realistic understanding of the brotherhood and its faults. This isn’t the Mason of popular imagination whose initiation gave him instant access to arcane knowledge. He’s a divorced cop who has problems with his ex-wife and who evolves in a realistic universe. But it’s a universe where occasionally a more esoteric reality appears. Marcas was born from our disagreements. Eric had a negative image of freemasonry marked by its scandals, while Jacques was fed up with reading reductionist articles about the brotherhood. Over the years—we have written ten novels in the Antoine Marcas series in French—Eric has become “Mason-friendly,” but he maintains a critical distance from its influences. Antoine Marcas is an ideal, principled Freemason.

Why do you think the Masons are such a fascinating subject?
The Freemasons have intrigued the public since their creation in England at the end of the seventeenth century. Part of the fascination is political, as freemasonry often brings together wildly different people and personalities, which always unnerves the powers that be. People are also fascinated with the more esoteric side, the symbols and codes, and the fact that, because the masonic lodges in Europe have always been the keepers of occult traditions, such as alchemy.

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller
Published by: Le French Book
Publication Date: August 15, 2015
Number of Pages: 266
ISBN: 1943998043 (ISBN13: 9781943998043)
Series: Antoine Marcas Freemason Thrillers Book 2

Purchase your copy of The Lafayette Sword on Amazon 🔗, Barnes & Noble 🔗, Apple iTunes 🔗, and Add it to your Goodreads 🔗 TBR list!

Read an excerpt:

PROLOGUE

A thick layer of fog shrouded the capital. It wasn’t bad enough to keep people inside, but it was still vaguely unsettling. Teens on scooters, who usually slalomed with ease along the narrow streets, took their time, unsure of what lay ahead. The few high points of the city, including the dome of Sacré Coeur, had vanished altogether. Only the revolving light of the Eiffel Tower managed, more or less, to pierce the opaque surroundings.

Léo, an independent taxi driver in Paris for twenty years, dropped off his customer on the Avenue de La Bourdonnais. The damned pea soup was making it impossible to find another fare. Everyone was taking the metro. He parked his dark blue Mercedes on the Rue du Général Lambert and listened to the weather forecast. More precipitation. He grumbled and turned off the radio. Until today, the spring weather had been pleasant. Feeling sullen, Léo got out and stretched his legs. The damp cold hit him right away. He shivered, pulled up his collar, and headed toward the Eiffel Tower. The atmosphere, enchanting on any other night, was unreal and ghostly.

A second later, he heard a scream rise up from tourists gathered under the Iron Lady.

“Damned tourists,” Léo muttered. “Always getting pickpocketed.”

As he got closer he could see thirty or so Japanese sight- seers in red plastic ponchos staring up at the tower. Next to them, two young women in black T-shirts and ripped jeans were pointing at something. No, the commotion wasn’t about someone getting her purse nabbed.

Leo followed their fingers. Three meters above them, a dark figure was appearing and disappearing in the fog, like a string puppet, its head tied to a rope—a life-sized toy gracefully oscillating in the white cloud.

The tourists applauded.

“Nothing serious,” Leo said to himself, ready to turn away.

“Just another street artist.”

But as the sway of the rope began to slow, the figure’s face came into full view. The two young women were the first to realize the terrible error they had all made. They cried out in shock.

Léo felt bile rising in his throat.

The puppet was a man, red in the face, tongue hanging out, arms slack.

The crowd stepped back in unison and let out a wave of shrieks.

1

RUE LAFAYETTE, PARIS PRESENT DAY

Antoine Marcas was sipping a sweet brandy on the terrace of Le Régent café. The night before, he had celebrated his forty-second birthday. It was nothing like the shock of forty—a mere step away from a half a century. In the two years following that disaster, the affronts of time had been minor.

Sure, life had sucked after the breakup with Jade. The idyllic love had turned to vinegar after a few months of living together. She was too independent, too loud, too different—and yes, even too beautiful. Too much for Marcas. The relationship had gotten stuck in mounds of pettiness, and they were both saved at the last minute by separation. She accepted a position at the French embassy in Washington, leaving him alone one night in his vast apartment on the Rue Muller in Paris.

For a while, resentment and doubt ate away at him. His doctor, a Freemason brother, suggested some rest. Marcas thought he might try therapy. Would he have to choose a Freemason shrink? The question seemed both strange and meaningful. Only a brother could understand the personal development offered by regular temple attendance. If he had to explain the transformation of uncut stone into polished cubes to a profane, he’d never get better. Did Freemason-specific therapy even exist? He had considered asking his worshipful master. Then the need passed.

He examined himself in the mirror just inside the café. His hair was beginning to gray at the temples. His son, Pierre, had recommended the new style, which made him look younger and less serious. Or at least that’s what Marcas told himself. There were a few wrinkles around his brown eyes, but his natural expression was always pleasant. His smile became more pronounced when he was feeling sure of himself. Those who didn’t know him sometimes interpreted it as mockery.

Marcas straightened in his chair and checked his leather briefcase, making sure he had brought his master’s apron. The Masonic meeting was scheduled to begin in a half hour at the Grand Orient Masonic Hall. He’d never have time to go home and come back. He grinned. He hadn’t been forced to let out his belt by a single notch in the four years he’d been wearing the apron. He had maintained a steady seventy-seven kilos, the ideal weight for his size, according to his doctor. Not an easy task, considering the feasts that followed their meetings every second Thursday.

The hubbub in the café rose as new customers arrived for happy hour. Marcas gestured to the waiter. He want- ed to pay his tab. Just then, two thirtyish men in suits, their ties loosened, plopped down in chairs at the next table.The older one, who had carefully groomed blond hair, ordered two beers.

“Did you hear the news?”

The other one shook his head and grabbed a fistful of peanuts.

“ISIS is making something like eighty million euros a month on the oil wells it’s seized, and now it’s bragging that it can get its hands on nuclear weapons from Pakistan. We’ll never be able to get the better of these guys. They’ll be riding into Paris in the back of their pickups the same way the German troops came marching in.”

Marcas leaned in a little closer. He loved café talk, especially when it was laced with paranoia. Yeah, ISIS was a threat. But France had seen worse—the Gestapo and the storm troopers, for example. And France had prevailed.

The younger man, who had brown hair, nodded while giving the waitress a visual once-over.

“TV news is full of crap,” he said. “It’s all controlled by the establishment. If you want the truth, you’ve gotta go to the Internet and find the right sites. I’m following a great blog now that claims the Freemasons are behind a lot of the havoc we’re seeing now.”

“Come on. In with the terrorists? You’ve got to be kidding. I’m all for conspiracy theories, but that’s too much. Look around Paris, and you can see all the good work they’ve done.”

“Just go to the blog,” the blond-haired man said. “You’ll understand. The newspapers and TV stations are full of liars. But they’re all Freemasons anyway. What do you expect?”

Marcas sighed. So many assholes and so little time. When would everyone just drop the Masonic conspiracy thing? It was one conspiracy after another—for centuries now. Every year, he and some brothers from his Freemason lodge would get together over dinner to discuss the latest and craziest conspiracy theories. The brother who told the most off-the-wall story would win twelve bottles of Haut Brion. Last year, his friend Jean-Marc had taken the prize with a story that claimed the Freemasons were descendants of extra-terrestrials that had abducted Jesus in a flying saucer.

The blond-haired man continued. “Listen, those guys control the European Union and our French elections. You have no idea.”

Marcas couldn’t take it any longer. “Excuse me,” he said, leaning over. “I couldn’t help but overhear. And I have to say that I agree. The Antichrist is among us, and guess what. He’s a Freemason.”

Marcas smirked and stood up. The two men glared as he tossed a bill on the table, gathered his things, and walked away.

If only they knew that his oddly shaped briefcase held a ceremonial sword.

Marcas looked at his watch. It was nearly eight. The meeting would begin in exactly twenty minutes. He hurried up the Rue Lafayette and turned right on the Rue Cadet.

Delicious aromas wafted from the rôtisserie on the left, and the Detrad Bookstore next to the lodge headquarters was still open. He had just enough time to take a look. Three customers—brothers, he assumed—were leafing through books in the central aisle. He nodded to the affable-looking man and the smiling blonde behind the counter and glanced at the new releases. The huge number of books about Freemasonry published every year always impressed him. One would think that everything had been written already, but no, there were always new books.

And there it was. The book he was looking for: La Chevalerie Maçonnique by the French historian Pierre Mollier.

His brothers had spoken highly of it. He picked it up and headed to the back of the store, which had a showcase of Masonic objects, including aprons, canes, glasses, and plates. A rectangular box adorned with a mother-of-pearl eye in a triangle caught his attention. Another Masonic cigarette lighter for his collection. He had more than twenty of them now. His ex-wife, son, and friends teased him about this hob- by of his. Even after he quit smoking, he always carried one. They reminded him of his childhood, when he spent much of his time in his father’s woodworking shop on the Rue Saint Antoine.

The cashier rang up the sale and handed him his purchases in a plastic bag. They exchanged a few words about upcoming events at the lodge and said good-bye.

Marcas hurried over to the lodge headquarters, a Spartan and somewhat unsightly building that hid a fascinating secret. Behind its modernistic metal and glass façade, elaborate and mysterious ceremonies were routinely orchestrated in any number of magnificent Masonic temples.

2

RUE SAINT JACQUES DE LA BOUCHERIE,PARIS MARCH 13,1355

Nicolas Flamel heard the clamor rising from the banks of the Seine River and decided to shut his shop. People were already running toward the water. Shouts and the sound of horse hooves hitting cobblestones filled the air. The wind was picking up, too, carrying the acrid smell of resin. All of Paris seemed electrified.

As Flamel closed his shutters, he saw that other bourgeois were doing the same thing. One could never be too careful. The English were encamped a few leagues from the city and could attack at any time. And then there were the common people, the poor who lived in the faubourgs, whose fever of revolt, exacerbated by famine and taxes, always ended in pillages and blood baths.

Flamel took down the parchments displayed in front of his shop and put each fine work away. He had something for everyone: war chronicles, prayer books, and stories of chival- ry, all illustrated in fine gold powder. Every day, his workers plumbed their imaginations to create angelic Virgins, warriors with bloody weapons, and dragons spitting fire in the shadowy depths of caverns.

“Neighbor, do you fear for your paintings?”

Flamel turned around. Master Maillard, a furrier, was staring at him with mockery in his eyes.

“My kind neighbor, I don’t like the air we breathe tonight. And I certainly don’t like to take any risks. There are rumors of a riot.”

“True, true. They lit the fires a little too early tonight,” the furrier answered. “But one must keep the people entertained even before the show begins.”

“My neighbor and friend, I fail to understand. Your language is as obscure as a tree in a pitch-black night.”

“What? You haven’t heard what’s happened? What world do you live in, with your nose always in your books? For that matter, you should…”

Master Maillard lowered his voice. “It’s not good to spend too much time with books these days. One doesn’t know what could be hidden in them. Our Holy Mother Church cannot check everything. Who knows? An apprentice could be copying one of the Devil’s gospels in your very own shop.”

“Master Maillard!”

“Lower your voice, my neighbor. I was just giving you some advice, that’s all. Books are under suspicion these days. Too many heretics are spreading their doctrines on parchment. Too many witches are writing down their accursed rites. You’ll see. Soon we’ll be burning books, along with their authors.”

“Yet, my dear Master Maillard, none of that explains what’s happening at the moment.”

The furrier looked at him with incomprehension written all over his face. “So you really don’t know?”

“No, I don’t. I spent all week with my aids recopying a volume of Aristotle’s Physics for the university. The illustrations were very costly, and not only in man hours. I had to import a special blue powder from the Orient. There—”

Master Maillard made the sign of the cross. “Don’t talk to me about those monsters. Those black-skinned Saracens are damned to hell. Don’t you know they worship a goat- headed god named Baphomet? The Templars, cursed as they are, adored that impious idol and paid for it with their lives.”

3

GRAND ORIENT MASONIC HALL, PARIS PRESENT DAY

Antoine Marcas smoothed his apron and made sure his double-edged sword was secure at his side.

Next to the elevator, a display system similar to the ones at airports informed him that the meeting would be in Lafayette Temple. The 9 p.m. initiation ceremony was the only gathering scheduled for the night. The seventeen other temples in the building were closed. Marcas checked his watch. Only five more minutes.

“Well, my brother, I see you’re a fan of modern technology. So what’s next? Skyped initiation ceremonies?”

Startled, Marcas turned around. A man in a wheelchair was smiling at him.

“Paul! I didn’t hear you.”

Paul de Lambre, a physician who had lost the use of his legs in a car accident, was a descendant of the illustrious Marquis de Lafayette and a high-ranking Freemason.

“You wouldn’t believe what they’re doing with wheelchairs these days,” Paul said, tapping one of the wheels. “This one’s made of carbon fiber: strong, flexible, and darned-near silent. Four detachable components, and the footrests even have LED lights. That means I can see you in the dark, but you can’t hear me coming.”

“As long as you’re being sarcastic, that’s a good sign, my brother.”

A shadow seemed to cross the man’s face, and his eyes became serious. “The signs are not very good right now. I have something on my mind, Antoine, and since you’re a police detective and a brother, I think you’re the person I should be talking with.”

Marcas studied the man. “Of course. The ceremony is about to begin. Why don’t we get together afterward? Right now it’s time to go to the temple of your glorious ancestor. That must be quite an experience for you.”

Paul de Lambre’s jaw stiffened. “You could put it that way,” he said as he spinning his wheelchair around.

***

The hooded man wearing the Masonic apron waited in the darkness of the closet. He fiddled nervously with the ceremonial sword as he ticked off the minutes. Finally, he took a deep breath, opened the closet door, and made sure the hallway was empty. He stepped out of the shadows.

“I am the Sword of Light. I march in the night,” he chanted in a low monotone.

He advanced noiselessly. Slipping through the dark corridors was child’s play. Tricking the security system had been a joke. It was even intoxicating. He’d been exploring this prodigious labyrinth for at least a dozen nights. Each time he’d stop just before reaching the chamber of reflection. Then he’d leave. Only one time had he crossed paths with a brother, and that hadn’t caused any problems. He knew the building’s strange topography by heart, and now he could make his way over it blindfolded. The tangle of hallways, the crooked floors, and the myriad temples in this vast structure made him feel like he was moving on a gigantic movie set.

But this would be the last night he’d go unnoticed. His quest would begin with sacrifices.

He could hear the voice again. Perhaps it was his. “I kill, and I die. I kill, and I am born again.”

He took the stairs two by two and reached the next floor in a matter of seconds. He smiled in the darkness.

“I am the chosen one.”

He was on pins and needles as he recited the ritual words.

The taste of blood filled his dry mouth.

Author Bio:

Eric Giacometti & Jacques RavenneJacques Ravenne is a literary scholar who has also written a biography of the Marquis de Sade and edited his letters. He loves to explore the hidden side of major historical events. Eric Giacometti was an investigative reporter for a major French newspaper. He has covered a number of high-profile scandals and has done exhaustive research in the area of freemasonry. Translator Anne Trager has a passion for crime fiction that equals her love of France. After years working in translation, publishing and communications, she founded Le French Book.

Learn More at: lefrenchbook.com 🔗

Tour Participants:

Stop by the other sites on this tour for more great interviews, guest posts, review, and giveaways!


Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Eric Giacometti, Jacques Ravenne, and Anne Trager. There will be 5 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of The Lafayette Sword by Eric Giacometti, Jacques Ravenne, Anne Trager. The giveaway begins on October 22nd and runs through December 4th, 2016.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

 

REVIEW DISCLAIMER
This blog was founded on the premise to write honest reviews, to the best of my ability, no matter who from, where from and/or how the book was obtained, and will continue to do so, even if it is through PICT or PBP.
DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review.
No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM

I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.  I am an IndieBound affiliate.  I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

THE TROUTBECK TESTIMONY by Rebecca Tope (Review, Interview and Giveaway) PICT Presents

The Troutbeck Testimony

by Rebecca Tope

on Tour October 24 – November 23, 2016

Synopsis:

The Troutbeck Testimony by Rebecca TopeA huge funeral for Windermere’s popular resident, Barbara Dodge, is taking place and florist Persimmon ‘Simmy’ Brown and her new assistant, Bonnie Lawson are busy compiling wreaths in preparation. There’s word of a series of sinister dognappings occurring in nearby Troutbeck and whilst taking a walk up Wansfell Pike, Simmy and her father, Russell, stumble on a dog, strangled to death – it’s not long before Simmy reluctantly finds herself caught up in a murder investigation…

MY REVIEW

4 stars

I recently read THE CONISTON CASE, 2nd in this series, so was delighted that I had the chance to read the sequel, THE TROUTBECK TESTIMONY, #3 in this series. And I was not disappointed.

Persimmon Brown, florist, finds herself unwillingly in the midst of another murder mystery. Plus having her father go missing and the kidnapping of dogs.

Ms. Tope’s writing is fluid, as is the suspense, which made this reader not wanting to put this book down to see how it was all related. And was quite surprised when it was all pulled together with an ending I never saw coming.

Rebecca Tope is now on my cozy mystery “authors to read” list. Totally enjoyable and highly recommend this author if you enjoy Cozy Mysteries! An entertaining read!!

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery & Detective, Cozy
Published by: Morrow/Witness Impulse
Publication Date: October 2016
Number of Pages: 384
ISBN: 9780062567468
Series: Persimmon Brown #4

Grab a copy of The Troutbeck Testimony on Amazon 🔗, Barnes & Noble 🔗, & Add it to your TBR list on Goodreads 🔗!

Read an excerpt:

The first anniversary of Persimmon Brown’s opening of her florist shop in the Lake District had almost coincided with Easter and an explosion of spring flowers and blossom. Wordsworth’s daffodils performed to their greatest strength and pussy willow attracted hosts of honey bees who had failed to notice that they were meant to be in terminal decline. A month later, on the first long weekend in May, walking along a sheltered footpath to the west of Troutbeck, Simmy – officially Ms Persimmon Brown – could hear an energetic buzzing and murmured ‘something something something in the bee-loud glade’ to herself. Not Wordsworth, she was sure, but somebody like Yeats or Hardy. She would ask her young friend Ben, who knew everything.

The sun was warm on her shoulders; the light so clear that she could pick out numerous fast-growing lambs on the fells far above the village. Every weekend throughout the coming summer, she promised herself, she would get up at first light and go for an early walk. The anniversary had been a time for resolutions and one of them was to make much better use of the natural delights that surrounded her.

She felt an almost pagan euphoria at the burgeoning landscape, vibrant with flora and fauna at the start of another cycle of life. Her mother would say it was a mark in Christianity’s favour that it had been clever enough to superimpose all its biggest rituals onto far more ancient moments in the natural year, with Easter an obvious example.

There was now a bonus Spring Bank Holiday that Simmy was savouring with complete abandonment.

The late morning, with a sunny afternoon still ahead of her, brought feelings of richness and privilege that were almost shameful. But she had earned it, she reminded herself. The winter had been grey and protracted, interspersed with a number of unpleasant adventures. She had been repeatedly drawn into events that demonstrated the darker side of human behaviour, forced to confront far too much reality.

Now that spring had arrived with such a colourful crash, she was determined to shake all that off and concentrate on her flowers.

The plan for the day was to meet her father, Russell Straw, for a long-promised fellside walk after a modest lunch at the Mortal Man. The full walk, along Nanny Lane and up to the summit of Wansfell Pike – and back – was easily four miles in total, with some steep sections of stony path. ‘By rights, we should go across to the Troutbeck Tongue at the same time, but that’s rather ambitious,’ Russell conceded.

‘I shall want some fortification first,’ Simmy had warned him. ‘And if there’s the slightest risk of rain, I’m cancelling the whole idea. Neither of us is fit enough to do anything rash.’

There was no suggestion of rain, the sky a uniform blue in every direction. It was, in fact, the most perfect day for very many months and Simmy was duly thankful for it. Her father would bring water, map, and dog. She would provide a camera, mobile phone and two slabs of Kendal mint cake.

The fells above Troutbeck were stark, dramatic and uncaring. There were barely any flowers or trees adorning them, other than the tiny resilient blooms that crouched underfoot. More than happy to accommodate her father’s wishes, Simmy nonetheless preferred the softer and more moderated lower levels.

This explained her morning stroll, taking a zigzag route from her house to the hostelry along lanes that had been colonised by humanity, with gardens and houses taking their place in the picture. The bees at least agreed with her. Azaleas and rhododendrons were in bud, reminding her of her startled surprise at the vibrant colours, the year before. Not just the natural purples and pinks, but brilliant orange, deepest crimson and a wide array of other hues shouted from gardens all over the relatively balmy area around Windermere and Ambleside. Even the wilder reaches of Coniston boasted spectacular displays. Aware that it might be foolish to expend energy on this pre-walk stroll, she nonetheless felt the need to exploit the sunshine and the flamboyant floral displays. It was semi-professional, too – she ought to be apprised of the full range of seasonal blossoms in gardens, in order to echo and embellish them in the offerings she stocked at the shop. Flowers were her business, and any lateral information she could acquire would always come in useful.

Her father was waiting for her at the pub, sitting at an outside table on a lower level, with his dog. She kissed the man and patted the animal. ‘Is he going to cope with such a long walk?’ she wondered. It was a rather ancient Lakeland terrier, officially named Bertie, but mostly just called ‘the dog’. His forebears had failed a purity test, it seemed, and poor Bertie had found himself rejected as breeding stock and consigned to a rescue centre until eventually rescued by kindly Russell Straw.

‘Oh yes. And if he doesn’t we’ll have to carry him.’

‘When did you last take him on a jaunt like this?’

‘About eighteen months ago. We’ve been waiting all this time for you.’

‘Dad! That’s ridiculous.’ In spite of herself, she laughed. ‘Poor old chap. He won’t know what’s hit him. His feet will be sore for weeks.’

‘Not a bit of it. He spends all his time digging up stones. His feet are as tough as iron. He could easily outwalk both of us. Now let’s get on with it. I want to set off by one at the latest.’

That gave them forty-five minutes to eat a hearty pub lunch with beer to wash it down. ‘We shouldn’t walk on full stomachs,’ Simmy remarked. ‘We’ll get a stitch.’

‘Better than trying to do it empty. We need the food to give us stamina.’

‘At least we’ve got the weather for it. And listen to those birds!’ A pair of collared doves cooed at them from an overhead wire, the gentle three-note song a backdrop that Simmy always loved, despite the blatant lack of musical variety. Her habit of feeding garden birds had attracted another pair of doves to her own little patch, a few hundred yards from the pub, and she had grown used to waking to their call, imagining that they were deliberately asking her for some breakfast.

Russell cocked his head. ‘They’re not native, you know. They’re quite recent immigrants. I mean recent. I was about ten years old when the first ones settled here. The BBC put them in a medieval radio play by mistake not long ago. Lots of people wrote in about it.’

‘Well, they’re very welcome as far as I’m concerned.’

‘I agree with you. I also like grey squirrels, even if I get lynched for saying so.’

She laughed again, after a wary glance around. In Troutbeck, the red squirrel was verging on the sacred and the grey accordingly considered devilish. Anyone overhearing Russell was liable to take exception to his views. But nobody at the neighbouring tables was reacting. Nothing could sully her delight at the carefree afternoon ahead with the best of all possible fathers. It took a lot to disturb Russell Straw – but then a lot had happened in recent times, and his daughter had certainly caused him some worry over the winter. His wife was the powerful half in the marriage, leaving him to contented pottering and sporadic researches into local history. They ran a somewhat eccentric bed-and-breakfast business in Windermere, in which Angie Straw broke a lot of rules and earned a lot of profound gratitude in the process. Her reviews on TripAdvisor veered from the horrified to the euphoric, depending on how much individuality her guests could stomach. She was a capricious mixture of old fashioned and hippy, refusing to use guests’ first names unless they insisted, and cheerfully producing full breakfasts at ten-thirty, if that’s what people wanted.

‘Let me just pop to the lav and then we can be off,’ Russell said. ‘Mind the dog, will you?’

She took the lead attached to Bertie and nodded.

The sun was as high as it was going to get, and the afternoon stretched ahead of them with no sense of urgency. The sky remained an unbroken blue.

The views from the summit of Wansfell Pike would be spectacular. At least two lakes would be visible, and any number of fells on all sides. Russell knew the names of most of the main landmarks, and had a map with which to identify others. Simmy had only a rudimentary and theoretical knowledge of any of it.

Bertie whined and pulled annoyingly. ‘He’ll be back in a minute,’ Simmy told him. ‘Don’t be silly.’ Dogs were generally annoying, to her way of thinking. So dreadfully dependent and needy all the time. It had come as a surprise when her parents rescued this little specimen, and even more so when Russell developed such a fondness for it. To Simmy’s eyes, the animal lacked character, which Russell insisted was a consequence of his harsh life, full of betrayal and confusion. ‘He just wants everything nice and peaceful from here on,’ he said.

Which was generally what he got, apart from a never-ending procession of B&B guests, who mostly patted his head and then left him alone.

‘You were a long time,’ she told him, when her father eventually returned.

‘I know.’ He was frowning distractedly. ‘I overheard something, outside the gents, and I have no idea what to make of it. I kept out of sight for a minute, just in case they didn’t like the idea of anyone hearing them.’

‘Oh?’

‘Two men talking. It sounds a bit wild, I know, but I think they were planning a burglary.’

Author Bio:

Rebecca TopeRebecca Tope is the author of four murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective, Drew Slocombe, Undertaker; Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds and now Persimmon Brown, Lake District florist. She is also a “ghost writer” of the novels based on the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme.

Q&A with Rebecca Tope

Welcome!

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
To some extent, yes I do. In ‘The Troutbeck Testimony’ I describe a walk up Wansfell that a friend and I did shortly before I started writing the book. We did get slightly lost in boggy ground, just as Simmy and her father do. In other stories, I have included occasional references to current events, but they can sometimes be a bad idea. It makes the novel quickly seem dated, and I prefer to keep the precise chronological time rather vague.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the storyline brings you?
Almost always, the latter. Only three or four times (out of over thirty) do I have any idea of the ending. In ‘The Troutbeck Testimony’ I simply started with the walk, and told myself the story. The theme of ‘dognapping’ was there from the outset, but that’s all.

Are any of your characters based on your or people you know?
A complex and basically unanswerable question. All the characters come from my imagination, and that surely means that aspects of myself appear in them, in one way or another. I’m a very ‘instinctive’ writer, which is really saying I don’t think very hard about this sort of matter. The characters are thoroughly fictional, which is to say they’re not very similar to living breathing human beings.

Writing routine?
The great majority of my working days follow the same pattern. I get up at first light, walk the dogs around my fields, and then settle down to write 1000-2000 words. This generally takes under an hour. I might check emails once or twice during this time, as well. The rest of the morning, I am generally still at my computer, dealing with ‘business’ aspects of the job, as well as contacting friends, organising trips, buying books, playing games.
In the afternoon I go outside for ‘gardening’. This is often cutting down thistles, lopping trees, cutting firewood or mowing grass.

Tell us why we should read this book.
Simmy Brown is an appealing character, and her young friends Ben, Bonnie and Melanie are every bit as enjoyable to read about. Anyone who likes dogs will be engaged with the story. There is added interest from Simmy’s parents, who are rather quirky. The local landscape forms a beautiful backdrop – the English Lake District is the setting for all the Simmy Brown books.

Some of your favourite authors?
Lee Child is firmly number one. Lesser-known Victorian writers are much loved by me. George Gissing, Arthur Morrison, Sabine Baring-Gould, Eden Philpotts, Fanny Trollope – and more.
Contemporary favourites are Kate Atkinson, C.J.Sansom, Donna Tartt.

What are you reading now?
‘The Whirlpool’ by George Gissing. Written in the 1890s, it gives a comprehensive picture of a group of very well-rounded characters and their concerns.

Are you working on your next novel?
Yes, I am over a third of the way through ‘Peril in the Cotswolds’. This is the 15th in my very popular series set in this small and highly individual region of England. Thea Osborne, house-sitter, is now Thea Slocombe, married to an alternative undertaker. She hopes her new life will see an end to the violent and mysterious crimes she has so often encountered. But her hopes are unfounded…

Favourite hobby?
I have recently become very enthusiastic about antique auctions, and go as often as I can. As a result, I also find myself selling items at car boot sales. Another spin-off has been a return to stamp collecting, which was a great passion for me over 50 years ago.

Favourite meal?
Takeaway Chinese.

Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads and spending time with us.

Catch Up with Ms. Tope on rebeccatope.com 🔗 or on twitter at @RebeccaTope 🔗.

Tour Participants:

Visit other tour stops for reviews, guest posts, interviews, and more giveaways!


Don’t Miss Out On Your Chance to WIN!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Rebecca Tope & Harper Collins – Witness/Impulse. There will be 3 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of The Troutbeck Testimony by Rebecca Tope. This is subject to change without notification. The giveaway begins on October 22nd and runs through November 25th, 2016.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

REVIEW DISCLAIMER
This blog was founded on the premise to write honest reviews, to the best of my ability, no matter who from, where from and/or how the book was obtained, and will continue to do so, even if it is through PICT or PBP.
DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review.
No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM

I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.  I am an IndieBound affiliate.  I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

AMONG THE SHADOWS by Bruce Robert Coffin (Review, Interview, Showcase & Giveaway)

Among the Shadows

by Bruce Robert Coffin

on Tour September 12 – October 14, 2016

Synopsis:

Among the Shadows by Bruce Robert CoffinFall in Portland, Maine usually arrives as a welcome respite from summer’s sweltering temperatures and, with the tourists gone, a return to normal life—usually. But when a retired cop is murdered, things heat up quickly, setting the city on edge.

Detective Sergeant John Byron, a second-generation cop, is tasked with investigating the case—at the very moment his life is unraveling. On the outs with his department’s upper echelon, separated from his wife, and feeling the strong pull of the bottle, Byron remains all business as he tries to solve the murder of one of their own. And when another ex-Portland PD officer dies under suspicious circumstances, he quickly realizes there’s much more to these cases than meets the eye. The closer Byron gets to the truth, the greater the danger for him and his fellow detectives.

This taut, atmospheric thriller will appeal to fans of Michael Connelly and John Sandford.

Reviews:

“Compulsively readable, Among the Shadows is that rare cop novel that’s chock full of blood-and-guts detail while taking you on a ride of a lifetime. —Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins

“Bruce Robert Coffin knows cops — how they talk, how they act, how they think — and he deploys that knowledge to devastating effect in Among the Shadows. A tense, twisty tale of greed, betrayal, and revenge, it heralds the arrival of a powerful new voice in crime fiction.” —Chris Holm, author of The Killing Kind

“Bruce Robert Coffin is the real deal: not just a veteran homicide detective, but an incredibly gifted storyteller. Among the Shadows is the best debut I’ve read in ages, filled with suspense, great writing, a perfectly realized setting in Portland, Maine (this is probably the most accurate depiction I’ve seen of that big little city), and an intriguing main character. Detective John Byron promises to become a break-out favorite among readers of crime fiction. He’s already one of mine.” —Paul Doiron, author of Widowmaker

“With the twists and racing pace of a thriller and the profound authenticity of a police procedural, Among the Shadows is the kind of debut crime novel that could only be written by an ex-cop.” —Brian Thiem, author of Red Line

“Bruce Robert Coffin’s debut crime novel is a compelling page-turner that keeps you guessing – and rooting for his determined investigator – until the very end.” —Kate Clark Flora, author of Finding Amy

REVIEW

My Thoughts and Opinion: 5 stars

Thirty years ago, members of the Portland PD, were assigned to the Special Reaction Team, one being John Byron’s father. After a deadly shoot out with the SRT during an investigation of a million dollar heist, Byron finds his father after he committed suicide, which has affected him emotionally after all these years.

Now Byron is assigned to an investigation involving the death of another member of the SRT. But soon finds out that it is murder. As the case is progressing, another member is also found dead. Are these murders connected? Who wants the members of the SRT dead and why?

A captivating read! Full of tension and ticking of the clock to find out who is behind these murders. Riveting plot that had this reader on the edge of my seat. Surprises and twists and turns to the very last page with an ending that wasn’t expected.

I am looking forward to reading the next book by Mr. Coffin.

Highly recommend this thrilling read!!

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: September 13th 2016
Number of Pages: 400
ISBN: 9780062569462
Series: Detective Byron #1
Don’t forget to grab your copy of Among the Shadows on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or add it to your TBR list on Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

The bitter stench of urine and impending death permeated the small dingy bedroom. Hawk stood next to the bed, looking down at O’Halloran. The ancient warrior lay withered and gaunt. Patches of dull white hair clung to his age-spotted scalp. Eyes, once calculating and sharp, were now yellowed and dim. O’Halloran was dying.

Hawk moved quickly, snatching the pillow from beneath the old man’s head. He covered O’Halloran’s face and pressed down firmly, his well-developed forearms flexed.

O’Halloran thrashed about, nearly toppling the chrome IV stand, but Hawk caught it easily. Muffled screams vibrated up through the pillow. He held fast as O’Halloran’s bony legs slid back and forth like eels under the coverlet, kicking the sheet free on one side. Hawk closed his eyes, attempting to block out the image before him. The old man’s feeble struggles, no match for Hawk’s strength, tapered off, then ceased.

In the next room a clock chimed, shattering the silence and signifying that the hour was at hand.

Warily, Hawk lifted the pillow. The warrior was gone. O’Halloran’s eyes were lifeless and wide, projecting a silent narration of shock and fear. He closed them with a gentle hand, smoothed the disheveled hair, then fluffed the pillow and restored it to its rightful place. Lastly, he slid the old man’s bony white foot back under the sheet and retucked the bedding.

Standing upright, he surveyed the room. Everything appeared in its proper place. O’Halloran looked serene, like he’d simply fallen asleep. Satisfied, Hawk walked from the room.

******

Detective Sergeant John Byron parked his unmarked Taurus behind a black-and-white cruiser. Neither the heat nor humidity were helping his foul mood. Only seven-thirty in the morning and the temperature displayed atop Congress Street’s fourteen-story Chapman Building already read eighty-four degrees. Though September had nearly passed, summer wasn’t quite

ready to release the city from her sweltering grasp.

Portland autumns were normally cool and comfortable. Normally. Tourists returned to whichever godforsaken corner of the globe they had come, kids returned to the classroom, and the days grew increasingly shorter.

Byron’s poor attitude had more to do with the day of the week than the weather. Wednesdays always put him in a bad mood, because it was the day Chief of Police Michael Stanton held his weekly CompStat meeting, a statistical midweek tough-mudder designed to give the upper echelon an opportunity to micromanage. Today’s administrative migraine was accompanied by one of Byron’s own creation. He knew of no better cure than a little hair of the dog, but nothing would land him in hot water with Lieutenant LeRoyer faster than the scent of Irish on his breath. Instead, he opted for the mystical healing properties of ibuprofen and caffeine, with a breath mint chaser. He closed his eyes and swallowed the pills on a wave of black coffee, pausing a moment before giving up the solitude of his car. On his game as always, in spite of his current condition.

Officer Sean Haggerty sat behind the wheel of another police cruiser, parked further down the street under a shady canopy of maples. The veteran officer was speaking with a young auburn-haired woman. Byron guessed she was the nurse, primarily because she wasn’t in hysterics, as most relatives would’ve been. He was pleased to see Hags on the call. Hags did things by the numbers. The same could not be said of every beat cop. They exchanged nods as Byron headed up the driveway.

A skinny uniformed rookie stood sentry at the side door to the Bartley Street home. Byron knew they’d crossed paths before, but couldn’t recall his name. What had once been a phenomenon was occurring with far greater frequency, a clear indication the cops were either getting younger or he wasn’t.

“Morning, Sarge,” the rookie said as he recorded Byron’s name into the crime scene log.

“O’Donnell,” Byron said after stealing a glance at the name tag. He gestured with his thumb toward the street. “That the nurse with Haggerty?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Who’s inside?”

“E.T. Pelligrosso and Detective Joyner. First floor, back bedroom.”

Evidence Technician Gabriel Pelligrosso, a young, flat-topped, ex-soldier, was known for being methodical, thorough, and dependable, traits Byron’s own father had harped on. “If every cop on the job had those qualities, sonny boy, it’d be a sorry fuckin’ day to be a criminal.” Byron stepped inside.

The odor assaulted him upon entering the kitchen. An all too familiar blend of bladder and excremental expulsion, which, thanks to the humidity, would undoubtedly linger in the fabric of his clothing all day.

He listened to their footsteps on the hardwood floor along with the occasional click of Pelligrosso’s camera as they recorded the scene. Not wanting to interrupt them, he waited in the kitchen, making mental notes of everything he saw.

A 2015 Norman Rockwell calendar depicting several boys and a dog running past a No Swimming sign hung on the wall beside the refrigerator. Notations had been made with a red pen in what resembled the flowery script of a woman, perhaps the nurse. The days of the month had been crossed off up to the twenty-third. Someone had been here yesterday. Maybe a family member or one of the nurses. He’d check with Hags.

“Sarge, you out there?” Diane called from down the hall.

Diane Joyner, Portland’s first female African-American detective, was a tough-talking New Yorker. Tall and attractive, she’d lulled more than one bad guy into thinking he could get over on her. Prior to arriving in Portland, she’d worked homicides in the Big Apple for seven years. Byron didn’t know if it was her confidence or thoroughness that made some of the other officers insecure about working with her, but those very same traits made Diane his first choice for partner on murder cases.

“Just waiting on you,” Byron said.

“We’re all set in here.”

Byron walked down the hall and entered the bedroom. “What’ve we got?”

“One stinky stiff,” Diane said. “Formerly Mr. James O’Halloran.”

“O’Halloran?” he asked. Byron had known a James O’Halloran. Was this the same man? The emaciated corpse lying in the bed bore little resemblance to the squared-away Portland police lieutenant from his memory. “Did we find an ID?”

Diane handed him an expired Maine driver’s license. The photo, taken seven years and at least a hundred pounds ago, was definitely Jimmy O. The same man who had sat beside him in the church, on the worst day of Byron’s life.

Don’t Miss Bruce Robert Coffin!

Bruce Robert CoffinBruce Robert Coffin is a former detective sergeant with more than twenty-seven years in law enforcement. At the time of his retirement, from the Portland, Maine police department, he supervised all homicide and violent crime investigations for Maine’s largest city. Following the terror attacks of September 11th, Bruce spent four years working counter-terrorism with the FBI, earning the Director’s Award, the highest honor a non-agent can receive.

Q&A with Bruce Robert Coffin

Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Yes and no. The plots I create in my novels are fictitious but I draw on personal experiences when describing the actions and thoughts of my characters in order to make the story as realistic as possible. As far as current events are concerned, it really depends. I may insert things that I deem relevant if they’re a good fit with my story. I haven’t designed an entire plot from a current event yet, but who knows, that may change. The ideas for my novels usually begin with ‘what if?’ and proceed from there.

Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I start at the beginning. When I sit down to write a novel, I’ll already have a general idea in mind. I’ll also know where I want the story to go. What I try to avoid is locking down the synopsis so tightly that nothing is left to chance. I find it’s far better to let the story evolve naturally. Often, in spite of my best attempts at controlling the storyline, the characters may begin speaking loudly about a different direction the story should take. If it makes sense to change course, I do.

Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
Ha! An author friend of mine is fond of saying you should never let them see how the sausage is made but, if you promise not to tell him, I’ll give you a peek. I normally write in the morning. My brain seems to function best earlier in the day. Hard to say why. Could be the coffee. I may pick up the manuscript and begin by editing the previous session or, if the ideas are flowing, I may simply start writing anew. If the writing goes well I shoot for the magical threshold of one thousand words. Some days, when it’s like chiseling stone, I may only get four or five hundred written, other times I’ve banged out thirty-five hundred without breaking a sweat (wish there were more days like these)..

I don’t think I had any real idiosyncrasies when I began writing, but now… It really depends upon the season and the level of outside distractions. During the winter months, I find I have no problem staying home and writing in my studio. Summertime is a whole different animal, with plenty of distractions. For starters, it’s nice outside. Then there are things to do. Hiking. Kayaking. Going to the gym. Mowing the lawn. Washing the car. The beach. You get the picture. I have finally figured out that the best way to beat summer is to pack up my IPad, get in the car, and drive to one of the local libraries. For me it’s like driving to work. The minute I arrive at the library and walk through the door, I’m at work. No distractions, just work. Of course all of those distractions are still there, but for me the trip to the library cures all.

Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
Writing is my full time job now. At least when I’m not out promoting. I retired from police work in 2012 and wrote part time. I started my own handyman business, doing home improvements, and did some consulting, but never stopped writing. Now writing is my career.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
There are many but I’ll give you a few. I enjoy reading Stephen King, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Ken Bruen, Robert B. Parker, Kate Flora, Paul Doiron, Brenda Buchanan, and James Hayman. Of course you realize all of my author friends are gonna be miffed that I left them out…

What are you reading now?
At the moment, I’m reading Benefit of the Doubt by Neal Griffin and Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger.

Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I am. The first draft of book number two in the Detective Byron Mystery Series is nearly complete. I haven’t decided on a title yet, but it will definitely be something cool. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that not all murder victims are beloved. John Byron and his detectives look to track down a killer after a prominent local attorney is found swimming with the fishes.

Fun questions.:
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
I’d pick Daniel Craig to play John Byron and Jada Pinkett Smith to play Diane Joyner. Any chance I could get a walk on roll?

Manuscript/Notes: hand written or keyboard?
I’ve written notes for several novels on scrap paper, in notebooks, on receipts, on my cell phone, literally everywhere. The manuscripts I write on my IPad, using a Bluetooth keyboard. I love using the IPad, I’ve written three novels on it.

Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
Oil painting, woodworking, and hiking, not necessarily in that order.

Favorite meal?
Shepherd’s pie and Guinness.

Thank you for stopping by!

Catch Up with Bruce Robert Coffin on his
Website, on Twitter, and on Facebook!

Tour Participants:

Visit these great sites on the tour for reviews, features, and giveaways! You won’t want to miss out!


THANKS TO HARPER COLLINS, I
HAVE ONE (1) eBOOK TO GIVE AWAY.

FILL OUT RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM BELOW
GIVEAWAY ENDS OCTOBER 17th AT 6PM EST
WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN BY RAFFLECOPTER AND NOTIFIED
VIA EMAIL AND WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO RESPOND
OR ANOTHER NAME WILL BE CHOSEN

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

REVIEW DISCLAIMER
This blog was founded on the premise to write honest reviews, to the best of my ability, no matter who from, where from and/or how the book was obtained, and will continue to do so, even if it is through PICT or PBP.
DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review.
No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.