Giveaway, Interview, Partners In Crime Tours, Showcase

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

CMash December 16, 2016 Leave a Comment

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.

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Book Review, Giveaway, Partners In Crime Tours, Showcase

THE FANTASTIC BOOK OF EVERYBODY’S SECRETS by Sophie Hannah (Review, Showcase & Giveaway) ~ PICT Presents

CMash December 15, 2016 Leave a Comment

The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets

by Sophie Hannah

on Tour November 1 – December 17, 2016

The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets by Sophie Hannah

A collection of ingenious suspense stories from one of today’s most acclaimed novelists in the genre. Everybody has their secrets, and in Sophie Hannah’s fantastic stories the curtains positively twitch with them. Who, for instance, is the hooded figure hiding in the bushes outside a young man’s house? Why does the same stranger keep appearing in the background of a family’s holiday photographs? What makes a woman stand mesmerised by two children in a school playground, children she’s never met but whose names she knows well? And which secret results in a former literary festival director sorting soiled laundry in a shabby hotel? All will be revealed…but at a cost. As Sophie Hannah uncovers the dark obsessions and strange longings behind the most ordinary relationships, life will never seem quite the same again.

MY REVIEW

4 stars

This was a “new to me” author so I thought I would start off with this book. Glad I did because I now want to read more by Ms. Hannah.

THE FANTASTIC BOOK OF EVERYBODY’S SECRETS is a compilation of 10 short stories.

Did you ever wish you could read someone’s mind? To see what they are really thinking. This book does just that.

Like Friendly Amid The Haters, where a very passive agressive timid woman has murderous thoughts. Another was The Nursery Bear where a woman has conflicting thoughts about a neigbor and The Tub where the reader gets a look into their inner most thoughts.

Some of the stories left the reader wanting more, other stories having the reader wondering what exactly was going on.

A quick read, that is a bit eerie, and because of that, the pages kept turning.

Book Details:

Genre: Short Stories, Thriller
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: October 11th 2016
Number of Pages: 120
ISBN: 0062562096 (ISBN13: 9780062562098)
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 Barnes & Noble 🔗 Goodreads 🔗

Sophie Hannah

Learn More:

Catch Up with Sophie Hannah on her Website 🔗, Twitter 🔗, or Facebook 🔗

Tour Participants:

Giveaway:

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 Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets 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

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.

Book Blast, Partners In Crime Tours

CONCRETE SMILE by Bernard Maestas

CMash December 13, 2016 1 Comment

PICT PRESENTS

Concrete Smile

by Bernard Maestas

Book Blast December 13, 2016

on Tour February 1-28, 2017

Synopsis:

Concrete Smile by Bernard Maestas A crooked conglomerate makes a move on fictional Newport City by first attempting to incite a war between its existing criminal organizations before taking over with its own “in-house” group. Hired by a major gang leader to avert the war, freelance information broker Kevin recruits his ex-enforcer, ex-con brother Chance, and Kaity, a reporter with a vendetta, to uncover the conspiracy.

Book Details:

Genre: Crime, Thriller
Published by: Rebel ePublishers
Publication Date: December 15, 2016
Number of Pages: 270
ISBN: pending
Series: Internet Tough Guys, #3
Purchase Links 🔗: Coming Soon!

Read an excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE
BUSINESS HOURS
Lost somewhere in Newport City’s densely crowded, late-night skyline, six bulky bodies packed into some unimportant restaurant’s musty storeroom.
Bulging with prison muscles and bulletproof vests, their dark skin branded with black tattoos broadcasting their gang affiliation, the men were silent. They crowded around a single rickety card table, the room’s only furniture, and toiled under the dim glow of a single yellow bulb dangling from the ceiling. A masonry bucket full of glittering brass ammunition sat centered between them. None spoke. The rhythmic clicking of guns and bullets was the only soundtrack accompanying the tension.
Aside from their silence and the grim, practiced precision with which they pressed the unstamped cartridges into their magazines, they each had one other detail in common: Each man, whether dangling from a pocket, knotted around a wrist, or cinched across his brow, displayed a deep crimson bandana. That bandana, the gang flag of The Reds or Red Nation – the umbrella under which all the African-American gangs in Newport City fell – was the most crucial accessory.
Durel Rivers, better known as Bones, set aside his last loaded magazine and grabbed his weapon. Exceedingly illegal, the fully automatic Tec-9 machine pistol, with its taped grip and folding stock, actually had a Federal law banning it by name. A loud slap cut the stifling air as he locked a magazine into the receiver and jacked the first round into the chamber.
Bones covered his body armor with a baggy sweatshirt, loose enough to conceal the illicit firearm beneath it, its papoose pocket stuffed with the ready reloads he’d prepared. Behind him, the rest of his crew wrapped up their own loading tasks, donned jackets and hoodies of their own and then followed him out of the storeroom.
The creaky storeroom door swung open into the deep gloom of a deserted kitchen. The restaurant’s legitimate business hours long over, the white-coated cooks and staffers long gone, Bones and his crew had special access. He led them past the stainless steel appliances and shelves to and then through the back door.
Windows down, keys in the ignitions, a pair of black SUVs waited in the greasy shadows of the narrow alley behind the restaurant. Bones climbed into the shotgun seat of the leading truck while the rest of the crew split up between them, wordlessly sliding into their plush leather seats.
Bones gave a simple and wordless nod to the man who took the driver’s seat beside him. Engines came to life with deep rumbles but the music that came on in the cabins was low. They were on a mission and there would be no distractions.
As one, the pair of SUVs rolled out of the alley and onto the darkened Newport City streets. While the bustling city of nearly five million had plenty of nightlife, Bones’ crew stuck to the quiet streets of closed businesses, darkened storefronts, and slumbering apartment dwellers. It was late, or more precisely, early in the morning, and only the creatures of the night were out haunting the streets. Moving patiently, always five miles per hour over the speed limit – no more, no less – they rolled to their first stop at the fringe of a housing project complex, a U-shaped cluster of old tenement towers.
Silent and pensive, Bones scanned every inch of the block around them, scrutinizing each of the people who made up the sparse nighttime populace. A pair of teenagers with Reds’ flags
on display occupied one corner while a homeless man wandered the block further down.
No police, no “jackers,” Bones was as certain as he could be of that. He twisted in his seat and said it all to the gangster in the back with another wordless nod.
The back door popped, as did that of the trailing SUV, two men emerging into the street and crossing, their hands beneath their shirts and gripping the handles of their guns. As they disappeared into one of the building lobbies, Bones let his attention slip for just a moment. He plucked a cigarette from his pack, set it between his lips, bringing it to life with the click of his lighter, and blew the fumes from his nose.
He had only taken two deep drags when the gangbangers emerged. The one from the trailing truck led the way, alert and ready. The man behind had a small gym bag slung over his shoulder. Bones turned to look as the man climbed back aboard the SUV.
“All there,” he said simply, ripping open the zipper to give Bones a look inside at the bricklike bundles of cash.
Bones straightened in his seat, his cigarette hand pushing out through the open window and waving the trailing SUV forward. Together, they pulled away from the curb and rolled off into the city.
It was after three when they finally pulled away from their last pickup in East Charity, a sleepy neighborhood on the southeastern side of the City’s eastern borough. Bones lit up a third cigarette and then threw a glance into the backseat. Aside from the burly gangster riding with them, more of those bulging bags of cash now packed the seat to shoulder height. Over the last hour and change, they had stopped everywhere from drug dens to basement casinos, collecting the week’s deposits.
With the trucks laden with money, the first half of the job, in some ways the easy half, was done.
Alert, mind focused, Bones allowed himself to relax just a little, let the flood of nicotine calm his blood slightly. From here on, it was a straight drive to their final destination where they would turn over the money to be cleaned. No more stops, no more tense minutes of waiting on the street like sitting ducks. That said, he also knew that the best time to hit the convoy would be
now, when it was flush and the crew had backed off the razor’s edge of their nerves.
The bold glow of their headlights swung down a street heavy with shadows, most of the streetlights out except for some pale yellow ones at the far end. Bones’ hackles came up and he was just about to order them off the street when shrieking tires sang their discordant chorus into the night as something flashed out of the driveway ahead. No headlights had offered any warning.
“Shit!” Bones’ driver seethed as he stood on the brakes, grinding them to a hard halt.
In the glare of their SUV’s headlights, Bones now made out the form of the battered minivan that had darted across their path and stopped. He was already pulling his Tec-9 from beneath his shirt when the van’s sliding door scraped aside with a raspy grind of worn metal.
Crouched tightly in the back of the van, shoulder-to-shoulder, a pair of masked men took aim and opened up torrents of fully automatic gunfire.
The driver beside Bones jerked and flopped violently, his body riddled with relentless fire. Bones himself managed to duck down below the dash, behind the protection of the engine block, the only part of a normal car that would actually stop a bullet. Jagged pebbles of shattered glass rained down on the back of his neck.
Behind Bones, the back door kicked open and the armed gangster ducked out as he sprayed the van with his own vicious rake of fire.
Without rising from behind the dash, Bones reached out, shoving open the driver’s door and rolling the bloody, shredded corpse of the driver into the street. He was halfway over the center console when he saw his doom.
From behind the row of parallel-parked cars lining the far side of the street, cloaked in the heavy shadows, more gunmen popped up, bracing and steadying their rifles on the hoods, trunks or roofs of the parked cars. Bones threw his machine pistol into line but it was too late.
The last thing Bones ever saw was the hellish strobes of the muzzle flashes popping in the darkness as they poured another withering hailstorm of copper-jacketed death into the street.
***
Don’t shit where you eat. Words to live by in Kevin Wyatt’s book. So, even at three in the morning, making the drive across the Admiralty Bridge into the peninsular eastern borough was just smart business. Polished black paint gleaming, throaty engine growling melodically, Kevin’s ’67 Mustang fastback made short work of the trip, weaving only occasionally around slower moving traffic.
An oasis in the night of closed businesses on an otherwise nondescript street in East Charity, a brightly lit parking lot snipped off the corner of the block. It wrapped around two sides of a large diner that, despite its size and popularity with the late-night crowd that knew of its existence, still looked like a greasy hole in the wall.
Kevin had grown fond of the place, though. Referring to it as his office, he conducted those meetings there that required a certain degree of public exposure mixed with only a modicum of privacy. He’d chosen the spot for the food initially and had quickly adopted it as a regular haunt. Despite this, no one greeted him by name as he entered and left the biting air of the early November chill in the parking lot.
The diner was warm inside, full of the aroma of food frying in grease. At least a half-dozen parties of three or four twentysomethings in nightclub attire were scattered among the booths and tables. His regular booth, the one at the far back corner, just on the fringe of the last overhead bulb’s halo of light, was unclaimed, he noted with a smile.
Kevin took another moment to scan the diner’s patrons and confirm that his clients hadn’t arrived yet. He pivoted and swung down the row of booths running along the diner’s storefront of greasy picture windows. As he went, he sloughed his black leather jacket, a dark T-shirt with a stylish designer logo beneath.
Though he could have melded into one of the packs of club goers in the diner with his age and good looks, he wasn’t here to socialize. He had a narrow face of mildly chiseled features decorated with a light dusting of freckles that went appropriately with the rusty copper color of his short hair. He was above average height at just under six feet, but his fit and trim frame was not particularly remarkable.
A waitress, mopping the countertop with a rag, glanced up as he passed her. She made
contact with his bright hazel gaze and a faint smile of passing recognition turned up the corners of her mouth. “The usual?” she asked, getting a nod and a smile in reply.
Kevin dropped into his booth’s far side, his back to the wall, his face to the door, and slid into the corner. It was a good spot, behind the wall and out of the frame of the big window while still giving him an excellent line of sight into the parking lot and the establishment.
Kevin scanned with intent while taking care to seem oblivious, just another late night customer out for a midnight snack. A nondescript sedan, gray, neither old nor new enough to be noteworthy, coasted to a halt outside. Three young men, cautious and patiently panning their gazes over every angle of surrounding night, sat in the car for a few long moments before dismounting and approaching the diner door.
The waitress returned and slid Kevin’s order in front of him just as the trio filed through the front door. She turned and left the table while he raised an arm, brushed with a sleeve of freckles, and waved them over.
In a moment’s pause of prudent appraisal, they sized Kevin up from the door before sliding down the row. They were dressed to slip under notice, plain jeans and plainer hooded sweatshirts, but that didn’t fool Kevin for a second.
“You the guy?” the first, a deeply tanned Hispanic in his late twenties, asked with no discernable accent.
“I am,” Kevin confirmed with a nod. “Have a seat.”
“How’d you know it was us?” asked the second, a black man of the same age as the first, as the whole trio – rounded out with a smaller and younger Asian man for diversity – took the opposite side of the booth.
“Lucky guess,” Kevin replied plainly. He lifted his steaming cup of black coffee and nursed a sip, careful to keep his eyes above the rim to watch the three of them. “You have something for me?” He set the cup beside the plate holding his so far untouched “Heartstopper” sandwich.
The trio exchanged glances before the leader threw one back over his shoulder at the rest
of the diner. Kevin didn’t have to look so obviously to know no one was paying them any mind. Satisfied, the leader nodded at the Asian at the end of the booth. He slipped an envelope from the papoose pocket of his sweatshirt, laid it on the table and slid it across.
Kevin took the envelope and peeled it open in his lap, leafing through its stack of crisp twenty-dollar bills. He kept his poker face firmly in place as he did, lifting his head to nod to his clients in approval. He reached across the booth, stuffing the envelope into the inner pocket of his jacket and slipping out a coin-sized SD card. He slid it across the table the same way he’d received his payment.
The Asian man took it, plugging it into a small tablet and scanning through it.
“As promised,” Kevin said, his focus on the leader. “Truck routes, communications protocols and duty rosters for Allied Armored Couriers. Good until the end of the month.”
The leader looked from Kevin as he finished, to the Asian, who had completed his scan and nodded. Kevin scooped up his mug and took another sip of his coffee, watching as the leader turned back to him.
“How’d you get this?”
Kevin smiled a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he lowered the mug. He offered his hand across the table for a shake. “A pleasure doing business with you.”
The leader’s eyes narrowed, but he clasped Kevin’s hand in a brief squeeze before he and his crew exited the booth. He watched them leave, as did the waitress, who glanced over at him and met his eyes. This time, his smile was a little warmer as he offered her a shrug and dropped his attention to his plate.
***
The Heartstopper was an egg sandwich, in simplest terms. To be more exact, however, it was a heaping serving of scrambled whole eggs capped with a slice of full-fat American cheese and enclosed in two slices of grilled and buttery bread. It was decadently delicious and so worth the bloated feeling in Kevin’s gut as he left his booth, leaving cash, including a generous tip, on the table top and exited the diner.
He mounted up the Mustang, kicking it to grumbling life, and swung out of the parking lot, aiming for home. Business for the night finished, it was late and, crucially, he had a very early and very important errand awaiting him in the morning.
Blue and red strobes blazed through the Mustang’s rear windshield as the howl of a siren drowned out even the healthy rumble of his powerful engine. Kevin’s heart nearly stopped as his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror framing the police sedan rushing up on his bumper.
“Fuck me,” he breathed, hands tightening around the wheel. For half a second, he considered running. Lean fingers coiled around the shifter, his dress boots settled over the pedals, and Kevin sketched out a plan for his flight for freedom. It started with a downshift and a ferocious bellow of acceleration but he had no idea where it went from there. Instead, he reminded himself he wasn’t carrying anything illegal, nor did he have any warrants out for him. At least, as far as he knew. Easing toward the first gap in the row of cars lining the curb, Kevin blinked as the patrol car blew past him.
Before he had a chance to relax, crack a smile of relief, three more cops in roaring sedans, their emergency lights screaming their urgency, sirens wailing, blasted down the road. They were moving fast, fast enough that their passing rocked Kevin’s heavy car as they went.
Kevin stared after them as they faded into the distance before whipping around the corner at the end of the next block. His hands squeezed the wheel tightly and his mind reached, pondering the possibilities. Slowly, his thin lips spread in a smile.
Something big had happened. He had a pleasant influx of new business to look forward to.

From CONCRETE SMILE, A novel, By BERNARD MAESTAS
© BERNARD MAESTAS

Bernard Maestas

Author Bio:

Bernard Maestas lives in paradise. A police officer patrolling the mean streets of Hawaii, he has a background in contract security and military and civilian law enforcement. When not saving the world, one speeding ticket at a time, and not distracted by video games or the internet, he is usually hard at work on his next book.

Catch Up With Bernard Maestas on
His Website, Twitter, or Facebook!

Book Blast Participants:

Tour Participants:

In February 2017 Bernard will be touring with his book Concrete Smile at these stops and more! Visit for reviews, interviews, guest posts, & more great giveaways!

Don’t Miss This Snazzy Giveaway!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Bernard Maestas. There will be 2 winners of one (1) eBook copy of Concrete Smile by Bernard Maestas. The giveaway begins on December 11th and runs through December 18th, 2016.

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BAD ROAD TO NOWHERE by Linda Ladd (Book Blast)

CMash December 8, 2016 1 Comment

Bad Road to Nowhere

by Linda Ladd

December 8, 2016 Book Blast

Synopsis:

Bad Memories

Not many people know their way through the bayous well enough to find Will Novak’s crumbling mansion outside New Orleans. Not that Novak wants to talk to anyone. He keeps his guns close and his guard always up.

Bad Sister

Mariah Murray is one selfish, reckless, manipulative woman, the kind Novak would never want to get tangled up with. But he can’t say no to his dead’s wife sister.

Bad Vibes

When Mariah tells him she wants to rescue a childhood friend, another Aussie girl gone conveniently missing in north Georgia, Novak can’t turn her down. She’s hiding something. But the pretty little town she’s targeted screams trouble, too. Novak knows there’s a trap waiting. But until he springs it, there’s no telling who to trust…

Book Details:

Genre: Thriller, Suspense
Published by: Lyrical Underground
Publication Date: December 6th 2016
Number of Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781601838568
Series: A Will Novak Novel, #1
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Read an excerpt:

Will Novak swung a leg over the starboard gunwale of his sailboat, got a good firm grip on the railing, and then stretched down far enough to reach the layer of salt and brine crusted at the waterline. Novak was a big guy with big fists and big shoulders and an intimidating look to him. People usually gave him a wide berth if they didn’t know him well, and that’s the way he liked it. It was a beautiful afternoon, late September in South Louisiana, and still hot as hell.

Unseasonably so. He was shirtless, muscles straining with effort, sweat shining on his torso. His body was in peak physical condition, banded with thick, powerful muscles that he knew how to use and that he wasn’t slow to put to good use if anybody messed with him. He followed the rigid daily workout he had mastered a long time ago while in the military, and still adhered to it almost every day. He wasn’t quite as fit as when he ran special ops missions with the SEALs, but he wasn’t too far off. He liked that kind of order and rigidity and purpose in his life, especially now when little else he had meant a damn thing to him.

The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 379 on which he labored was a sleek and powerful craft, practically new and spotless after an entire day spent scrubbing her after over a week spent at sea. She was a forty-footer that he’d had for almost three months, new out of the factory and built to his own specifications. He’d made sure that the boat was perfectly suited to him. Everything was somewhat oversized, enough to comfortably accommodate his six-feet-six-inch frame. He’d sailed her from South Carolina on the Intracoastal Waterway to his home deep in the bayous of Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes. He’d worked hard all day making her look like new again. Everything was spotless, inside and out, his gear clean and orderly and stowed in the proper places. That kind of thing was important to him.

On the eve of September 11, he had steered his gleaming boat down the wide Bayou Bonne that edged the back side of his property and eventually sailed her out into the deep royal blue waters of the vast Gulf of Mexico. He’d spent ten full days out there, completely alone, as was his habit every year on the anniversary of that day of infamy for all Americans. He had stayed out on the rolling waves, working through the most catastrophic event in his life, a trauma that he had fought to accept daily for so many years that he no longer kept count. It didn’t matter how long it had been. Not if he lived to be a hundred. He wasn’t going to get over it. He had accepted that now. He just forced himself to live with it. Endless day after endless day.

Out there, though, completely by himself in the dark, quiet, everswaying, ever-restless sea, under untold billions of glittering stars spangled across ink-black skies, he had suffered alone and wept fresh tears for his dead family while he fished for bonito and sea bass and flounder and mourned to the depths of his soul and studiously drank himself into oblivion every single night. But that’s the way he liked it during his own personal, self-inflicted hell week, far away from every other living being on earth, alone and buffeted by ocean winds and rocking waves and the merciless sun, and most of all, the silent solitude where he could work through the grief that never left him, not for one hour, one minute, one second of conscious thought.

But now, on this sunny day, Novak was back at home, ready to live his miserable existence once more, an empty, futile objective that he never really accomplished. But that’s the way it was. Swiping his sponge a few more times down the wide blue stripe painted along the length of the white hull, he took a few extra minutes to scrub the giant silver letters naming his boat. He had called her Sweet Sarah, in memory of his dead wife. Another way to keep Sarah close when she wasn’t close and never would be again.

Once Novak was satisfied with his efforts, he hoisted himself back up and straddled the rail. He raised his face, shut his eyes, and felt the fire of the sun burn hot into his bare skin. He was already sunburned from his time out on the drink, his skin burnished a deep, warm bronze. After a few minutes, he shifted his gaze down onto the slow, rippling bayou current. It was good to be back home, good to be sober, good to be able to think clearly. He had wrestled his demons back under control, at least for the moment. He left his perch, stooped down, and pulled a cold bottle of Dixie beer from the cooler.

He twisted off the cap and took a deep draft, thirsty and tired from a full day of hard physical labor. That’s when he first heard the sound of a vehicle, coming closer, turning off the old bayou road and heading down through the swampy woods to his place.

Grimacing, annoyed as hell, not pleased about uninvited guests showing up, he lowered the beer bottle, shielded his eyes with his forearm, and peered up the long grassy field that stretched between the bayou and the ancient plantation house he’d inherited from his mother on the day he was born. He had not been expecting company today. Or any other day. He did not like company. He did not like people coming around his place, and that was putting it mildly. He was a serious loner. He liked to be invisible. Anonymous. He liked his privacy. And he was willing to protect it.

The sun broiled down, the temperature probably close to ninety, humidity hugging the bayou like a wool blanket, thick and wet and heavy. Drops of perspiration rolled down his forehead and burned into his eyes. Novak grabbed a towel and mopped the sweat off his face and chest. Then he took another long drink of the icy beer. But he kept his attention focused on the spot where his road emerged from the dense grove of giant live oaks and cypress trees and magnolias.

The sugar plantation was ancient and now defunct, but it was a huge property, none of which had ever been sold out of his family. It took a lot of his effort to keep the place even in modest repair. The mansion on the knoll above him had stood in the same spot for over two hundred years. And it looked like it, too, with most of the white paint peeled off and weathered to gray years ago.

Once upon a time, his wealthy Creole ancestors, the St. Pierre family, had sold their sugar at top price and flourished for a century and a half on the bayou plantation they’d named Bonne Terre. They had been quite the elite in Napoleonic New Orleans, he had been told. They still were quite the elite, but mostly in France now. The magnificence with which they’d endowed the place was long gone and the house in need of serious renovation. Someday, maybe. Right now, he preferred to live on his boat where it was cooler and more to his liking.

Minutes passed, and then the car appeared and proceeded slowly around the circular driveway leading to his front gallery. It was a late model Taurus, apple-red and shiny clean and glinting like a fine ruby under the blinding sunlight. Probably a New Orleans rental. He’d never seen the car before. That meant a stranger, which in Novak’s experience usually meant trouble. Few visitors found their way this far down into the bayou. Ever. That’s why he lived there.

Claire Morgan was the exception and one of the few people who knew where he lived, but he trusted her. She was a former homicide detective who’d hired him on as a partner in her new private investigation agency. But it wasn’t Claire who’d come to call today. She was still on her honeymoon with Nicholas Black, out in the Hawaiian Islands, living it up on some big estate on the island of Kauai. They’d been gone around eight weeks now, and that had given Novak plenty of time to do his own thing. Especially after what had happened on their wedding day. The three of them and a couple of other guys had gotten into a particularly hellish mess and had been lucky to make it out alive. Novak’s shoulder wound had healed up well enough, but all of them deserved some R & R. Other than Claire, though, only a handful of people knew where to find him. He didn’t give out his address, and that had served him well.

Novak wiped his sweaty palms on his faded khaki shorts and kept his gaze focused on the Taurus. Behind him, the bayou drifted along in its slow, swirling currents, rippling and splashing south toward the Gulf of Mexico. As soon as the car left his field of vision, he headed down the hatch steps into the dim, cool quarters belowdecks. At the bottom, he stretched up and reached back into the highest shelf. He pulled out his .45 caliber service weapon. A nice little Kimber 1911. Fully loaded and ready to go. The heft of it felt damn good. Back where it belonged. He checked the mag, racked a round into the chamber, and then wedged the gun down inside his back waistband. He grabbed a clean white T-shirt and pulled it over his head as he climbed back up to the stern deck. Picking up a pair of high-powered binoculars, he scanned the back gallery of his house and the wide grassy yard surrounding it.

Nothing moved. He walked down the gangplank and stepped off into the shade thrown by the covered dock. He moved past the boatlift berths but he kept his attention riveted up on the house. The long fields he’d mowed the day before stretched about a hundred yards up from the bayou. The big mansion sat at the far edge, shaded by a dozen ancient live oaks, all draped almost to the ground with long and wispy tendrils of the gray Spanish moss so prevalent in the bayou. The wide gallery encircled the first floor, on all four sides, twelve feet wide, with a twelve-feet-high ceiling. No wind now, all vestiges of the breeze gone, everything still, everything quiet. He could see the east side of the house. It was deserted. The guy in the car could be anywhere by now. He could be anybody. He could be good. He could be bad. He could be there to kill Novak. That was the most likely scenario. Novak sure as hell had plenty of enemies who wanted him dead, all over the world. Right up the highway in New Orleans, in fact. Whoever was in that Taurus, whatever they wanted, Novak wanted them inside his gun sights first before they spotted him.

Taking off toward the house, he jogged down the bank and up onto a narrow dirt path hidden by a long fencerow. Then he headed up the gradual rise, staying well behind the fence covered with climbing ivy and flowering azalea bushes. He kept his weapon out in front using both hands, finger alongside the trigger. Guys who were after him usually just wanted to put a bullet in Novak’s skull. Some had even tried their luck, but nobody had tried it on his home turf. He didn’t like that. Wasn’t too savvy on their part, either.

When he reached the backyard, he pulled up under the branches of a huge mimosa tree. He crouched down there and waited, listening. No thud of running feet. No whispered orders to spread out and find him. No nothing, except some stupid bird chirping its head off somewhere high above him. He searched the trees and found a mockingbird sitting on the carved balustrade on the second-floor gallery. Novak waited a couple more minutes. Then he ran lightly across the grass and took the wide back steps three at a time. He crossed the gallery quickly and pressed his back against the wall. He listened again and heard nothing, so he inched his way around the corner onto the west gallery and then up the side of the house to the front corner. That’s when he heard the loud clang of his century-old iron door knocker. He froze in his tracks.

Directly in front of him, a long white wicker swing swayed in a sudden gust of wind. He darted a quick look around the corner of the house. Three yards down the gallery from him, a woman stood at his front door, her right side turned to him. She was alone. She was unarmed, considering how skin-tight her skimpy outfit molded to her slim body. While he watched, she lifted the heavy door knocker and let it clang down again. Hard. Impatient. Annoyed. She was tall, maybe five feet eight or nine inches. Long black hair curled down around her shoulders. She was slender and her body was fit, all shown to advantage in her tight white Daisy Dukes and a black-and- white chevron crop top. She turned slightly, and Novak glimpsed her impressively toned and suntanned midriff and the lower curve of her breasts. She was not wearing a bra, and her legs were naked, too, shapely and also darkly tanned. White sandals with silver buckles. She looked sexy as hell but harmless.

On the other hand, Novak had known a woman or two who’d also looked sexy and harmless, but who had assassinated more men than Novak had ever thought about gunning down. Keeping his weapon down alongside his right thigh but ready, he stepped out where she could see him but also where he’d have a good shot at her, if all was not as it seemed. The woman apparently had a highly cultivated sense of awareness because she immediately spun toward him. That’s when Novak’s knees almost buckled. He went weak all over, his muscles just going slack. His heart faltered mid-beat. He stared at her, so completely stunned he could not move or speak.

Then his dead wife, the only woman he had ever loved, his beautiful Sarah, smiled at him and said in her familiar Australian accent, “How ya goin’, Will. Long time no see.”

Author Bio:

Linda Ladd is the bestselling author of over a dozen novels. Head to Head marked her exciting return to publishing with a debut thriller after almost a decade’s hiatus. Linda makes her home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where she is at work on her next novel. Bad Road to Nowhere is the first in a new series featuring Will Novak.

Catch Up with Linda Ladd on her Website 🔗 & on Facebook 🔗!

Tour Participants:

Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Linda Ladd and Kensington Publishing Corp. There will be 5 US/CANADA winners of one (1) eBook copy of Bad Road to Nowhere by Linda Ladd. The giveaway begins on December 7th and runs through December 14th, 2016.

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

CMash December 7, 2016 8 Comments

Feliz Navidead

by Ann Myers

on Tour November 20 – December 31, 2016

Synopsis:

Feliz Navidead by Ann Myers Holly, 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/

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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.

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CAT IN THE FLOCK by Lisa Brunette (Book Blast)

CMash December 6, 2016 1 Comment

PICT PRESENTS

Cat in the Flock

by Lisa Brunette

December 6, 2016 Book Blast

& on Tour March 1-30, 2017

Synopsis:

Cat in the Flock by Lisa Brunette A sexy murder-mystery with a spiritual edge.

For most people, dreams are a way to escape reality. But for Cat McCormick, they’re a way to get closer to the truth. Cat can ‘slip’ into other people’s dreams.

After graduating college with a degree in criminal justice but little in the way of real-life experience, Cat moves from the Midwest to Seattle to apprentice with her Granny Grace, who shares the ability. Granny uses dreamslipping as a private investigator, and Cat plans to follow in her footsteps.

But forced to take work as a security guard, Cat discovers a mother and daughter on the run. Following the clues, she goes undercover in a Midwestern megachurch, where she finds redemption and goodwill amidst repression, hypocrisy, and murder.

Praise:

“A fascinating tale of mystery, romance, and what one woman’s dreams are made of. Brunette will keep you awake far into the night.” — Mary Daheim, bestselling author of the Bed-and-Breakfast and Emma Lord/Alpine mysteries

“Already hooked, this reader intends further sojourns in Cat’s dreamslipping world. Highly recommended.” — Frances Carden, Readers Lane

“Gripping, sexy and profound, CAT IN THE FLOCK is an excellent first novel. Lisa Brunette is an author to enjoy now and watch for the future.” — Jon Talton, author of the David Mapstone Mysteries, the Cincinnati Casebooks and the thriller Deadline Man

“A little Sue Grafton and a dose of Janet Evanovich… is just the right recipe for a promising new series.” — Rev. Eric O’del

“The launch of an intriguing female detective series… A mystery with an unusual twist and quirky settings; an enjoyable surprise for fans of the genre.” — Kirkus Reviews

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: Sky Harbor Press
Publication Date: December 27th 2014
Number of Pages: 197
ISBN: 0986237701 (ISBN13: 9780986237706)
Series: Dreamslippers #1

Don’t Miss Your Chance to Purchase Cat in the Flock at Amazon 🔗, at Barnes & Noble 🔗, & Add it To Your List on Goodreads 🔗!

Read an excerpt:

Prologue

Sherrie marched into her daughter’s bedroom and dragged a child-sized roller bag suitcase out of the closet. The girl stood in the middle of the room, still in her pajamas. Milk from breakfast had dried around the edges of her lips.

“Ruthie,” the mother said. “I need you to get dressed. We’re going to take a…trip.” Sherrie tried to make her voice sound cheery, but the desperation she felt came through in her tone.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

Sherrie set the suitcase on the bed. The bubble- gum pink had once seemed innocent but now looked fleshy and indecent. She glanced at the clock over the bed. He’d been golfing for a good fifteen minutes by now, long enough for her to make sure he didn’t come back for a favorite club or the right gloves. She wanted to be on that morning flight by the time he got home and discovered them gone.

She flung open the chest of drawers and grabbed all of the girl’s socks and underwear, a pair of corduroy pants, black cotton tights, a sweater the color of a Midwestern sky. Nothing pink. Only warm things. Seattle in her memory was cold and wet. It was a grey city; grey clouds over grey buildings. Even the water was grey.

One doll would fit. Made of cloth, it could be folded in on itself and slid down the backside of the suitcase.

“Can I bring the ballerina skirt?”

Any other day, she would have corrected her daughter, who needed to learn the precise names of things. Tutu. There it was in the closet, hanging because it took up too much room in the drawer. She yanked it free, sending the hanger to the floor. Ordinarily, she would pick that up; her house was so clean it hurt her eyes with its spareness—as if theirs were a showroom house, not lived in. She left the hanger there, aware of the thrill this fraction of disobedience gave her. She shoved everything into the little pink case, but with the fluffy tulle taking up so much space, the zipper would not close. The choice was clear. The doll would be a comfort to Ruthie in Seattle, but the tutu would not.

“We’ll come back for this later,” she said, tossing the tutu onto the bed. The zipper closed, the sound of it satisfying.

“No, Mommy!” Ruthie stomped her foot. “I want it now!”

“Then you’re going to have to wear it. Now get dressed while I pack my clothes.” But she felt a pang of guilt for her reprimanding tone, and for having to leave the tutu. Bending down, she used her thumb to wipe some of the milk crust from her daughter’s face. “I’ll let you wear anything you want on this trip, okay, sweetheart? And clean your face with the cloth in the bathroom, like Mommy showed you.”

The girl nodded, as if sensing this was not the time for a tantrum.

Sherrie’s own packing, she did with even less consideration. Under things, shirts. A fleece hoodie. Warm socks. She remembered she needed layers in Seattle. Sometimes it could seem warm even though it rained and the sun had not come out for weeks. Her keepsakes in their tiny, locked chest would not fit. They were the only things she had to remind herself of her life before this, but she would have to leave them behind.

Sherrie kept watch on the clock and glanced out the window twice to make sure his car wasn’t out front even though she knew he wouldn’t be home for another hour. The sun had risen blood-red over the cornfields in the distance, lighting them as if on fire. She’d miss that. And she thought of thunderstorms, which seemed never to occur in Seattle. She’d miss those, too.

Ruthie appeared in the doorway. Her face was clean, but none of her clothes matched. She was wearing pink high-tops that seemed wrong for the city they were going to, the situation, and everything else, but she had apparently decided not to wear the tutu.

“Time to leave.” She took the girl’s hand, promising to herself she’d never let go.

Author Bio:

Lisa Brunette Lisa was born in Santa Rosa, California, but that was only home for a year. A so-called “military brat,” she lived in nine different houses and attended nine different schools by the time she was 14. Through all of the moves, her one constant was books. She read everything, from the entire Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery series to her mother’s books by Daphne DuMaurier and Taylor Caldwell.

A widely published author, game writer, and journalist, Lisa has interviewed homeless women, the designer of the Batmobile, and a sex expert, to name just a few colorful characters. This experience, not to mention her own large, quirky family, led her to create some truly memorable characters in her Dreamslippers Series and other works, whether books or games.

Always a vivid dreamer, not to mention a wannabe psychic, Lisa feels perfectly at home slipping into suspects’ dreams, at least in her imagination. Her husband isn’t so sure she can’t pick up his dreams in real life, though.

With a hefty list of awards and publications to her name, Lisa now lives in a small town in Washington State, but who knows how long that will last…

Lisa publishes a bimonthly newsletter. Sign up and receive a free book!

You can also visit Lisa on her Website 🔗, on Twitter 🔗, & at Facebook 🔗.

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

CMash November 30, 2016 1 Comment

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 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!

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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.

Book Review, Giveaway, Partners In Crime Tours, Showcase

SKIN OF TATTOOS by Christina Hoag (Review, Showcase & Giveaway) PICT PRESENTS

CMash November 23, 2016 2 Comments

Skin of Tattoos

by Christina Hoag

on Tour October 17 – November 24, 2016

Synopsis:

Skin of Tattoos by Christina Hoag Los Angeles homeboy Magdaleno is paroled from prison after serving time on a gun possession frameup by a rival, Rico, who takes over as gang shotcaller in Mags’s absence. Mags promises himself and his Salvadoran immigrant family a fresh start, but he can’t find either the decent job or the respect he craves from his parents and his firefighter brother, who look at him as a disappointment. Moreover, Rico, under pressure to earn money to free the Cyco Lokos’ jailed top leader and eager to exert his authority over his rival-turned-underling, isn’t about to let Mags get out of his reach. Ultimately, Mags’s desire for revenge and respect pushes him to make a decision that ensnares him in a world seeded with deceit and betrayal, where the only escape from rules that carry a heavy price for transgression is sacrifice.

Kirkus Review:

Hoag tells the story of a gang member’s attempts to flee his life of crime in this debut novel.

After 26 months in prison, 20-year-old Magdaleno “Mags” Argueta knows he can’t go back to his previous life as a member of the Cyco Lokos, one of Los Angeles’ most notorious Salvadoran street gangs. He’s hoping his time served will earn him veteran status, allowing him to walk away without repercussions. Unfortunately, his crew is now under the command of his chief rival, Rico, who’s less than sympathetic to his aspirations to go straight. What’s more, the only jobs available to a tatted-up ex-con like Mags are demeaning, such as passing out fliers on the sidewalk while dressed as a clown. At home, his family relationships remain strained: his mother sees him as a disappointment, his father as a source of shame, and his fireman brother makes him look irresponsible by comparison. His sister, Lissy, still treats him with affection, but he’s heard rumors that she’s hooked up with a member of a rival gang. Despite his pledges to stay out of trouble, Mags finds that no one believes he’s up to the task. His parole officer tells him, “The life’s not going to let you go so easy.” As hard as that is to hear, Mags knows that it might be the truth. Hoag is a talented writer, summoning Mags’ world on the page with remarkable empathy and detail: “The sidewalks were crammed like a giant flea market—people selling jeans, pots and pans, plastic bags of mango slices….Everything looked familiar and strange at the same time, old and new, I belonged and I didn’t.” Despite a story that feels a bit well-trod, none of the characters seem hastily constructed or come off as clichés. Their pressures and motivations are clearly stated and genuinely felt, and readers will quickly become invested in Mags and his confrontation with an uncertain future. A sense of melodrama flares toward the end as events start to feel less realistic and a little more heightened and Hollywood-ish. But the overall experience is surprisingly nuanced and wholly enjoyable.

A well-crafted, engaging novel about an ex-con trying to break free.

MY REVIEW

4 stars

We have all seen on TV, read about and/or heard about gangs in today’s society but Ms. Hoag brings us inside the gritty world of gangs with SKIN OF TATTOOS.

Magdaleno, aka Mags, has just been released from jail, after taking the fall for one of his “homies” from the Cyko Lokos gang, which he is a part of. But this time it will be different. He is ready to leave the gang life but soon realizes it’s harder to leave than it was to join. Is death the only way out?

A compelling, and at times chilling, tale of the inner workings of what it is to be entrenched in a gang lifestyle. The “codes”, the rules, the crimes and even the betrayals.

Ms. Hoag has written a truly extensive and intensive story that will have you turning the pages.

Book Details:

Genre: Literary Crime
Published by: Martin Brown Publishing
Publication Date: September 2016
Number of Pages: 267
ISBN: 9871937070663

Get Your Copy of Skin of Tattoos on Amazon ⇗, Barnes & Noble ⇗, & add it to your Goodreads ⇗ list.

Read an excerpt:

“Ay yo, homes!” A familiar voice sliced through the bustle. “Mags!”

I twirled faster than a ballet dancer, my stomach clenching. Fuck. It was him. Rico. Slashing across the street aiming the shopping bag in his hand at me. His baggy shorts slung so low the waistband of his boxers showed. Socks, white as fluorescent light, pulled neatly to his knees. Ink flowing out of the arms and neck of his plaid shirt. Exactly how he looked the last time I saw him.

The memory of that day bore down on me. We were kicking it at a street corner, and Rico was bragging about how he shot a trey-eight into the ceiling of a liquor store he was jacking, and the storeowner pissed his pants. As he was talking, he took the .38 out of his waistband in a live re-enactment, and I just had to take the piece, feeling its cold weight in my hand for just a second or two before handing it back to Rico. That second or two cost me twenty-six months of my freedom.

When Tweety yelled “five-o,” Rico took off like an Olympic sprinter. I never even saw him throw down the cuete. I had no reason to run. As Morales was giving me his routine hassle, he kicked the edge of a bush behind me. Then he crouched down. When he straightened, he was dangling the piece with a pen hooked through its trigger guard. He busted me on possession of a firearm. It got worse. They matched the cuete to the robbery, and my fucking prints were the only clear ones on it. I had no alibi. The fact was, I was doing a drop with Chivas to the big jefe that night.

Lissy signed a statement saying I was watching TV with her at home that night, but nobody believed her, seeing as she had said that before when I got busted. I couldn’t drop Rico’s name or I’d have a green light on me as a snitch. My P.D. told me to take the D.A.’s deal even though the storeowner couldn’t positively identify me in a lineup. I took the hit for possession, and they dropped the robbery, as well as the ADW charge, which they tacked on since “I” waved the piece around and shot it during the robbery. Like I would ever pull such a dumbass move.

Rico threw his arm around me. A thick gold chain shone around his neck. I had a cord with an orange arrow slung around mine.

“Ese.” My voice had as much life as a three-day-old soda.

I never knew if he dropped that thirty-eight by accident, as he said, or if he saw his chance to set me up. I kinda figured the latter. Someday, somehow, I’d get him to admit the truth to me.

“I thought that was you. But I said to myself, ‘Mags, in that fuckin pendejada? Couldn’t be.’ But I looked again and *simón,* it was. Whatup with this shit?” He flicked the red nose ball. I caught his wrist in midair and stared him down in his swamp eyes. “Easy, fool,” he said.

I dropped his wrist. “Just making a few bones.”

“I heard you was back. We been waiting for you at the garaje, but you ain’t showed up.” Rico drilled my eyes. “You avoiding your homies or what?”

The ball was itching my nose like an oversized mosquito bite. “I got parole and all that. I just wanted to get set up first.”

“I figured you needed a couple days to get readjusted, get some pussy.” He shook his head. “But damn, this shit?” He shook his head. “You ready to get crazy again?”

“Keeping it lo pro, Rico.”

Rico studied me. I suddenly glimpsed myself in his eyes—I had become a small brown man.

Author Bio:

Christina Hoag is a novelist in Los Angeles,. She is the author of “Girl on the Brink” (Fire and Ice YA/Melange Books, August 2016,) a YA romantic thriller about an abusive relationship, and “Skin of Tattoos “(Martin Brown Publishing, August 2016), a literary thriller about the gang world.

She also co-authored “Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence,” a groundbreaking book on gang intervention (Turner Publishing, 2014).

A former staff writer for The Miami Herald and The Associated Press in Los Angeles, she was also a correspondent in Latin America, where she reported from 14 countries on issues such as the rise of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Colombian guerrillas, Guatemalan human rights, Salvadoran gangs, Nicaraguan landmine victims, and Mexican protests, for Time, Business Week, Financial Times, Houston Chronicle, the New York Times, and other publications.

She has had numerous short stories, poems and creative nonfiction published in literary magazines and journals, Her short story “My Mother’s Knives” was included in a horror story anthology, “And Now the Nightmare Begins” (Bear Manor Media, 2009) and her literary short story “Life Stories” is forthcoming in the anthology “100 Voices” (Centum Press, 2016)

Catch up with Christina on her Website ⇗, Twitter ⇗, or on Christina Hoag’s Facebook ⇗.

Tour Participants:

Visit these other Skin of Tattoos tour participants for more giveaways, reviews, guest posts, and interviews!

Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Christina Hoag. There will 1 winner of a $15 Amazon.com gift card & 5 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of Skin of Tattoos by Christina Hoag. The giveaway begins on October 15th and runs through November 27th, 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.