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Reading is my relaxation time of the day.
My favorite character on Big Bang Theory is ? since I don’t watch this show.
I could set a world record for all of my oops.
Picking up a cigarette after having quit is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.
Vegan Brie Hooker lives and works with her feisty Aunt Eva at Udderly Kidding Dairy, a hop, skip, and jump away from South Carolina’s Clemson University. Brie’s fun farm outreach attempt backfires when religious extremists decide goat yoga is a form of devil worship. Believing one of the zealots might be persuaded to see reason, Brie’s free-wheeling friend Mollye convinces her they should call on the young woman. Big mistake.
Picketers at Udderly’s gates soon become the least of Brie’s troubles. Not only is she accused of murder, she worries the death might actually be her fault. Danger mounts when an old family friend’s visit ensnares Brie in a high-stakes feud between a U.S. Supreme Court nominee and the woman determined to expose his secrets. In her personal life, Brie’s still torn between the town’s two most eligible bachelors. While she’s edging toward a decision, she must first survive a cunning killer adept at crafting murders that look like tragic accidents. Will Brie be another “accident” victim? Pay a visit to Udderly Kidding Dairy and find out!
“There’s such a lot to enjoy in Linda Lovely’s third Brie Hooker mystery Bad Pick. Of course, I came for the goat yoga and the religious extremists (I’m only human), but I stayed for the love triangle, the female friendships, the family members rubbing along so realistically, the sidelights on vegan cooking and the rich depiction of small-town life. And what kept me flicking the pages fast enough to cause a draft? The twisty, knotty, killer plot underneath all that charm. Bad Pick is a good un!”—Catriona McPherson, Multi-Award-Winning Author of the Last Ditch Mysteries.
“Wow! In Bad Pick, Lovely wrote an amazing novel only to see one part of the plot come to life in headlines all over the country. A fringe religious cult, a Supreme Court nominee, and goat yoga combine together in a tale that fans of mysteries won’t want to miss. –Sherry Harris, Agatha Award Nominee and Author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mysteries.
“The Brie Hooker mysteries from author Linda Lovely continue to entertain, this time with extremists who really don’t like the farm’s new goat yoga offering. You’ll find yourself muttering, “What the feta?” as you follow the action around not one but two murders from the edge of your seat. Fix yourself a chevre sandwich and sit down to enjoy a delightful – and suspense-filled – read.”—Edith Maxwell, Author of the Local Foods Mysteries and the Quaker Midwife Mysteries.
Book Details:
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Published by: Henery Press
Publication Date: April 16, 2019
Number of Pages: 270
ISBN: 9781635114744
Series: Brie Hooker Mystery Series
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Hundreds of mystery writers have met Linda Lovely at check-in for the annual Writers’ Police Academy, which she helps organize. Lovely finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and ad copy. She writes a blend of mystery and humor, chuckling as she plots to “disappear” the types of characters who most annoy her. Quite satisfying plus there’s no need to pester relatives for bail. Her new Brie Hooker Mystery series offers good-natured salutes to both her vegan family doctor and her cheese-addicted kin. Bad Pick is her eighth published mystery novel. She served as president of her local Sisters in Crime chapter for five years and belongs to International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America.
Writing:
Which of your characters do you dislike the most and why?
Jeannie Nickles. She’s a sweet-smiling, kindly-grandmotherly-appearing hypocrite who projects an image of Christian virtue but manipulates everyone in her orbit to do decidedly un-Christian things.
Which of your characters was the hardest to write and why?
Ursula Billings. She’s a celebrity judge on a reality TV show. It was hard to imagine her day-to-day life and mesh it with her history.
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned through writing?
Once you have even a hazy idea of your plot and characters just start writing. You can’t edit and improve on a blank page. After you start writing, your characters will get in the act and suggest plot twists and options that never occurred to you when you began.
What has been your biggest challenge to your writing career?
There are so many books written each year—many of them excellent—that it’s very hard to be “discovered.” I also handicap myself in this regard by my ineptness at social media. I don’t get Twitter, and I resent spending a lot of time on social media posts when I could be working on a book.
What was your biggest challenge writing this book?
Bringing together the main plot with two different subplots and finding ways to ensure all the villains were brought to justice. That’s one of the reasons I write crime fiction—to show that good can triumph over evil and to make sure villains get their just desserts. That’s what I call a happy ending.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
I hope they enjoy reading my books as much as I do writing them. I try to balance the crimes and villains in my mysteries with humor and romance. When they turn the last page of one of my books, I want them to feel every loose end has been tied up and they have a reason to smile. Of course, I’d also love it if they’d leave reviews, which are so important to authors in this age of algorithms that often determine a book’s online visibility.
Fun Questions:
Which actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?
Emma Stone would make an excellent Brie Hooker. I loved Stone in the movie, The Help.
Give us an interesting fun fact or a few about your book or series
I owe the Writers’ Police Academy and the many subject experts I’ve met and made friends with there over the years for both giving me ideas for plots and for helping me with forensics and other details to make my books as realistic as possible. For example, in BAD PICK, WPA friends provided me with several alternate scenarios when I wanted a tainted dish served at a luncheon to prove fatal to one person while only making the other guests sick. This August I’ll attend my seventh Writers’ Police Academy, which I’m helping to organize. It’s a unique once-a-year, four-day event that gives authors and fans of crime fiction a chance for hands-on learning with instructors who normally teach law enforcement professionals from around the world.
Favorite foods?
I love most pasta dishes, the entire Thanksgiving menu including turkey, gravy and all the sides, and, of course, I love chocolate.
Favorite activities?
Reading, tennis, walking with my husband, kayaking, gardening, spending time with friends and family.
“How many people did you con into trying this goat yoga?” Aunt Eva asked as she slapped two strips of cold bacon in a skillet.
“No conning needed,” I answered. “Everyone’s looking forward to the class.”
“You sure goat yoga’s a good idea?”
I laughed. “I’m sure. People love it. Admittedly, a sense of humor’s required, but it’s caught on all across the country. Why don’t you join the fun? Class starts at three. We don’t have many Sunday customers this time of year. We’ll probably have the farm to ourselves by then. You up for some downward-facing dog?”
“No.” Eva harrumphed. “Don’t go insulting our noble dogs. Bad enough you’ll expose our baby goats to human pretzels. It’s bound to confuse the poor kids. Won’t know which human end is supposed to be up. They’ll think all us two-legged beings are bonkers. So who’s coming?”
“Jayla, our yoga instructor, wanted to limit the trial class to four students so it’s just Mollye, Fara, Mimi, and me.”
I pulled out a bag of frozen blueberries I’d picked at the Happy Berry Farm last summer. While Udderly Kidding Dairy, my home for the past seven months, boasted dozens of blueberry bushes, our four-hundred goats called first dibs on the fruit.
“Oh, and Paint’s shooting video to promote the class,” I added.
Aunt Eva chuckled as she flipped her sizzling bacon strips. “Not a hardship for Paint, videoing young ladies in nothing but skivvies and tutus.”
I glanced heavenward. “We don’t wear tutus. Our workout clothes show less skin than you do on the Fourth of July.”
Eva cocked an eyebrow. “Could be you’re helping Paint select babes for the weeks he’s not your designated beau.”
I opened the cupboard and grabbed a microwave packet of steel-cut oatmeal. “Paint sees a variety of ladies when we’re not dating, and he knows everyone in this class. No behind-the-camera scouting required.”
“Maybe, but as far as I know, he hasn’t seen any of them with their ankles up around their ears.”
“And he won’t today.”
“If you say so, but I swear my old bones creak just looking at some of those yoga contortions.”
Eva cracked two eggs in the hot bacon grease, while I used our microwave—a new kitchen addition—to thaw my frozen berries and heat the oats. My usual February morning fare. At Udderly, we didn’t chow down until the morning chores were done. That meant I was starved and in dire need of a caffeine injection.
Eva glanced over. “So how’s that boyfriend-for-a-week plan working? Who’s ahead in the Brie Hooker heart throb race? Any close calls on the clothing discard clause?”
I smiled. “Paint and Andy try to outdo each other in dreaming up ways to initiate a striptease. Despite their enterprising efforts, the nude- default clause remains unchallenged.”
Last November, I’d agreed to this bizarre boyfriend pact with Andy Green, our veterinarian, and David “Paint” Paynter, an entrepreneurial moonshiner. Though strongly attracted to both thirty-four-year-old hunks, I’d sworn I’d date neither. Didn’t want to lose them as friends or come between them. They’d been best buds for thirty years, practically since they left diapers.
The boys came up with an alternative. I’d date Paint one week, Andy the next, until either I selected a fulltime beau, one of them opted out, or a ridiculous nudity clause kicked in. If I disrobed on any date, the magician who assisted in making my clothes disappear would win by default. Both men swore the arrangement would not affect their friendship.
Me? I felt like I’d been locked in a chastity belt. Foreplay’s a lot less fun when there’s no after.
“You know it can’t last, don’t you?” Aunt Eva asked, giving voice to my own misgivings.
“Yep, I do. But like today’s sunny warmth—way too early for mid- February—I’ll enjoy it while I can.”
Jayla Johnson, our tall, willowy teacher waved as she walked toward me. Had to admit Paint would get an eyeful watching her stretch every which way. He was male, and Jayla was a stunner. As a shorty—I’m five four—I’d always envied long-legged ladies like Jayla. Somehow those extra inches made them look cool and sophisticated.
Luckily, Jayla wasn’t in the running to join Paint’s off-week harem. She was happily married to one of Clemson University’s football coaches and had a darling three-year-old son.
“Do we have a plan B?” Jayla glanced up at the Carolina blue sky. “It’s really warm for February, but the ground’s too muddy to put our mats down in a pasture. After five minutes, we’d look like we’d been mud wrestling.”
“Agreed. It’d be a shame to get that outfit muddy.” Jayla looked like an Oreo cookie, her ebony skin a sharp contrast to her snowy outfit. “I did warn you baby goats aren’t potty-trained, didn’t I? Accidents can happen.” “Not to worry.” Jayla smiled. “My laundry room has one whole shelf devoted to stain removers for husband-son accidents. So where are we setting up?”
“The horse barn. Plenty of room and it will be easier to keep Curly, Moe, and Larry contained.”
“Who?”
“Curly, Moe, and Larry are the baby goats—five-day-old triplets. We named the kids after The Three Stooges. Full of energetic hijinks. They’re also super cuddly.”
We turned as Mollye Camp’s psychedelic van crunched down the gravel drive. Her van’s midnight blue paint job served as a backdrop for a galaxy of glittering stars, a super-sized harvest moon, and a broom-riding witch. Moll, my best friend since childhood, was a gifted potter who sold her creations along with an eclectic hodgepodge of homeopathic remedies, herbs, and astrological doodads in her Starry Skies shop.
Moll jangled as she hopped down from her ride. She adored jewelry and had more piercings than a rapper. A vibrant purple streak adorned her white-blonde hair. She chose a new neon hue every month.
Mollye hustled over. “Who we waiting for?”
“Mimi and Fara,” I answered. “We’re keeping the group small for the test run. Paint’s shooting video.”
Mollye checked the amount of cleavage revealed by her scoop-necked purple top and inspected the seams of her orange leggings as they meandered south of her shorts. “Glad I didn’t wear anything too revealing. Don’t want folks thinking I’d participate in some racy video.”
Mimi and Fara’s arrival cut short Jayla’s and my eye rolls. Racy might not be Mollye’s middle name, but outrageous could be. I loved Mollye and her adventurous spirit though it sometimes landed me in hot water. Okay, in one case, freezing water.
With rolled mats tucked under their arms, the class newcomers looked like an odd couple. Mimi, who’d emigrated from Vietnam at age two, stood four feet nine on tiptoe, while Fara, a busty blonde with long braids, topped out at five ten. Mimi was a pharmacist; Fara grew up in her family’s funeral parlor and was now the town’s youngest funeral director.
Hard for this class to be more diverse. Paint would enjoy himself. “Hey, Fara, you boxing anyone up today?” Mollye joked.
“Maybe you after class,” the funeral director quipped. “You want the deluxe mahogany coffin or a pine box? I’m thinking you and Brie have used up eight of your nine lives. Better not exert yourselves today.”
Jayla clapped her hands. “Now children. Snarky is not the proper frame of mind for yoga. Think serenity. We want to clear our minds, be one with nature.”
I chuckled at the good-natured kidding. “Follow me to our classroom. We have the horse barn to ourselves. The smell alone will remind you we’re one with nature. I evicted Rita and Hank. They’re grazing in the pasture. Figured Lilly’s mule and Eva’s horse were more inclined to nicker than meditate.”
“Where are the goats in this goat yoga?” Fara asked.
“Eva will bring Curly, Moe, and Larry in after we start. We need to leave the barn door open for the light. Jim, our Border collie, will keep the little goat Houdinis from escaping.”
The triplets’ antics drove Jim nuts. Yesterday Moe pranced on top of a picnic table for five minutes taunting the poor herd dog. Jim ran circles around the table, barking in protest, unable to figure out how to nudge Moe back to her pen. After we placed our mats, Jayla led us through a series of simple warm-up stretches and breathing exercises. I’d been an avid runner and swimmer for years, but yoga was a new pursuit. I was pleasantly surprised to find its emphasis on breathing and mindfulness and its practiced movements helped me shed stress and fall asleep faster.
Believe me, falling asleep quickly is a prized skill for anyone required to rise before the sun. At Udderly, one of my jobs appeared to be waking the roosters.
Jayla announced the cat pose. I knelt on my mat and set my arms to provide four-point support. Then I arched my back like cats do when threatened. I lowered my head, giving my neck muscles a pleasant stretch.
“Looking good, ladies.” With my head down I heard the man’s voice before I saw him.
“Don’t mind me,” the newcomer continued. “I’m gonna wander around and take photos.”
The sexy baritone belonged to Paint. It should be outlawed.
“Have fun, kids—human and goat.” Eva laughed as she let the baby goats loose in the barn. Moe immediately darted under my arched back, executed a one-eighty, and raced back again as if she were playing a game of London Bridge.
My concentration faltered as Curly discovered she had easy access to one of my earlobes and began to nibble with her lips. It tickled.
Fara broke out laughing as Larry scrambled up her arched back and danced a little jig on his newly discovered perch.
“I’ve got a miniature geisha doing a four-footed massage.” Fara giggled. “Actually feels kind of good, though very strange.”
“No talking,” Jayla admonished. “Concentrate on your breathing, your muscles. Be one with nature.”
Paint hooted. “Nature’s winning.”
Paint obviously felt he was exempt from Jayla’s no-talking reprimand. The instructor began laughing, too. Moe had curled her body around Jayla’s legs as she attempted to hold the Big Toe pose.
We were all bent in half, butts in the air, when a loud voice brayed, “Oh dear God, save us. They are bowing to the devil, mocking the Lord Jesus by thrusting their bottoms at heaven above.”
What the feta?
I snapped around to see who was calling us devil worshippers. Was this a joke?
Flipping out of downward dog, I body slammed the mat. A second after hitting the plastic, a furry comedian bounced against my side. Curly shook her head as she attempted an impressive four-legged hop. She’d taken my tumble to the ground as an invitation to play. The little goat butted my side again.
“Lord Jesus, help us keep these devil worshippers from claiming more souls!” the stranger bellowed.
I was flabbergasted. No other word for it. Then my shock morphed into anger. Who did this woman think she was, calling us devil worshippers? Who invited her to our private workout? How did she even find out about it?
The plump leader held a super-sized wooden cross before her as if she were fending off a clutch of vampires. I figured her for mid-fifties. Gray streaks wound through her mousy brown hair. Light glinting off oversized spectacles lent her the look of an alien with round yellow bug eyes.
Two cross-carrying acolytes hovered about a foot behind her.
Were these people serious? I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. My heartbeat raced. Angry? You betcha.
I almost yelled one of my old-time favorite curses. Years back, I cleaned up my salty language for dear old Mom. As a vegan, processed- meat-and-cheese exclamations had become my exclamatory substitutes. But Cruddy corndogs! didn’t quite express my outrage.
Mollye, closest to the barn door, marched toward the scowling leader. “Susan, what in blazes do you think you’re doing?” she growled. “I got a restraining order to keep you and your looney-tune zealots off my property. Now you’re following me?”
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” the intruder raged, “though I’m not surprised. Goat yoga! What blasphemy. At church this morning, one of our faithful told me you were planning this abomination. I prayed on it, and decided we had to stop the spread of this evil in Ardon County.”
She waved her cross at us. “In the name of the Father and the Son we demand—”
“You need to leave,” Paint spoke through gritted teeth. “The only evil here is you.”
Susan closed her eyes and rocked back and forth on her heels. “You are Satan’s handmaidens duping people into believing Baphomet goat worship is fun.”
Susan’s diatribe was accompanied by a murmur of “Amen, Sister, Amen” from her backups. The sidekicks still wore church-go-to-meeting dresses, nylons, and heels. They kept sneaking peeks at the ground. Worried their high heels might sink in goat doo-doo during their barnyard sortie?
One of the acolytes looked to be Susan’s age; the other much younger, about my age.
“Knights Templar worshipped Baphomet as a deity.” Susan’s tone changed. Her words flowed in a singsong chant. “These monsters with their snake eyes are his descendants.”
“Are you nuts?” Jayla broke in. “How can you think these adorable babies are evil?”
Susan’s rant hadn’t cowed my friends.
The harpy wasn’t deterred. “Open your eyes. The Satanic goat is a source of evil.” Her yellow bug eyes flashed at each of us in turn. “You worship the Devil. We won’t allow your sickness to infect the pious people of Ardon County.”
Aunt Eva appeared in the barn door carrying two pails of goat milk. “You’re trespassing and you’re scaring the baby goats.”
My aunt’s face flamed red.
“We’ll leave,” Susan said. “But this isn’t over. We will fight to the death for the soul of Ardon County. Goat yoga will not corrupt our world.”
Curly made a break for it. The tiny kid ran pell-mell toward the barn door, which happened to be a few feet beyond where the intruding trio stood. Susan screeched. Did she really believe the Devil inhabited the itty- bitty creature?
The woman raised her leg to kick Curly.
Eva flung both buckets of goat milk, drenching Susan. The white liquid plastered her beehive hairdo to her scalp and her puffy blouse to her chest.
Oh my, was she really wearing a flaming red teddy under her prim white cotton?
A laugh bubbled up. I laughed so hard I doubled over.
Susan shrieked like a storm-warning siren and ran. Though only a few drops of goat’s milk spattered her companions, they caterwauled like they’d been doused with acid as they scurried after their leader.
The entire Udderly Kidding Dairy crew exploded in laughter.
Eva halted her hee-haws long enough to imitate a cackling witch. “You’ve been baptized with the milk of Baaa-Phooey. Your souls belong to us!”
Susan spun when she reached a shiny Chevy van. “You’ll pay for this!” she yelled. “Laugh all you want. You’ll see Hell sooner than you thought.”
I quit laughing as abruptly as I’d started. It was Susan’s tone not her words that gave me the heebie-jeebies. We’d embarrassed the woman. Humiliated her. Perhaps she’d started this protest as some form of ecclesiastical theater, art for show, a way to rally the troops.
Now it was personal. Susan had been scorned.
***
Excerpt from Bad Pick by Linda Lovely. Copyright © 2019 by Linda Lovely. Reproduced with permission from Linda Lovely. All rights reserved.
Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways!
Their desperate secret. Her desperate search. A shattering truth exposed.
Caroline Corbett wants nothing to do with her father, Hoff, a man who abandoned her as a young girl and then vanished from her life almost thirty years ago. But when her beloved aunt expresses a dying wish to see him once more, Caroline, despite her failing marriage and other personal troubles, drops everything to look for him.
Harris Fenton found the father figure he’d dreamed of when he turned eight and his mother married Hoff—but his disappearance four years later left Harris with scars he carries even now that he is a father himself. While he has a beautiful family and a great job, he’s hiding a shameful secret and a nightmare from his childhood.
Caroline’s search for Hoff soon uncovers a host of disturbing clues and draws a threat of violence. Her mind churns with memories of her troubled history, while Harris is losing the battle against his own demons. But for both of them, dredging up the past will be dangerous, and confronting the truth could prove life shattering.
I am a HUGE fan of this author, having read the majority of her books so when she contacted me to see if I would like to read an eARC of her newest novel, the answer was an overwhelming YES!!!!!! And I will admit I also did a happy dance!!
As the synopsis states, Caroline Corbett sets out on a mission to find her father that she hasn’t had a relationship with for close to 30 years. The reason being is because his sister, her aunt Lanie who helped raised her wants to see her brother one last time before she passes and time is running out.
However, during her search, Caroline doesn’t realize that she has opened a Pandora’s Box on many fronts and there are some people who want to stop her from pursuing her search (sorry for being vague but don’t want to even let one smidgen of a spoiler to slip through).
Lies, betrayals, love, tenacity, fraud, bribery, murder, trust, bribery, inner demons, family, and a promise that spiraled out of control. And this reader felt each and every emotion that the characters felt.
Without giving anything else away, Ms. Sissel weaves and interweaves storylines that had me trying to guess how all the characters were connected. A writing style that is in all her books and I have yet to figure one out.
Her writing is fluid and descriptive, which allowed me to create such vivid imagery in my mind. Characters that are flawed but relatable. The story had me trying to read faster because I wanted to see how it all came together, but then, on the other hand, I didn’t want the story to end because I was invested in all of the characters. The suspense was taut throughout.
If you haven’t read one of her books, TRUST ME, you are missing out!
And like I say with every book that I read by this amazing author, I now have to try, to patiently wait for her next novel, which is always the negative after finishing one of her books. And in the meantime, I will ponder how this phenomenally talented author writes one book after another that is truly captivating.
Check out my reviews for her previous novels,
THE NINTH STEP , THE VOLUNTEER, EVIDENCE OF LIFE, SAFE KEEPING, CROOKED LITTLE LIES, FAULTLINES,THE LAST INNOCENT HOUR, THE TRUTH WE BURY, and WHAT LIES BELOW,
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗
Mailbox Monday
Tuesday:
THE NANNY by Gilly Macmillan ~ eBook from Harper Collins via NetGalley
Saturday:
THIS SIDE OF WATER by Maureen Pilkington ~ TPB from Author via win from Elizabeth Silver’s Reviews
This year, one of the Challenges I signed up for is Blog All About It, hosted by The Herd Presents. The guideline is basically a blogging prompt challenge. Each month there’s a different prompt that you can interpret as you’d like then create a blog post around it. The 2019 list of prompts can be seen here on my Challenge Page. I will be posting for this Challenge on the 2nd Saturday of each month.
It’s been a very rainy and dreary Spring here in RI and flowers are a bit late in blooming. I have been waiting patiently to get outside, clean up my flower beds and plant. So no actual pictures of my gardens.
I have perennials planted along a wall on one side of our backyard and in May add some annuals. In a corner of our backyard, I have a statue of the Blessed Virgin with an angel on each side, which I also plant annuals. In another corner, we have a hydrangea bush, with perennials and again, will add annuals for more color. My favorite blooms in this area are the Star Gazer Lilys. The fragrance is beautiful but the actual flowers do not last long.
I also have 4 large pots located in each corner of where our pool is that I plant annuals, usually Impatiens.
Wednesday of this week, the sun finally made an appearance, so I took advantage of the day and planted these seeds and fingers crossed, they will be blooming in a few weeks.
What I am really hoping that will bloom, which I had never seen before, was a seed paper that includes multiple wildflower blends in the shape of a butterfly. Recently, my son’s girlfriend’s Mom passed away and after the funeral, guests were given these packets in her memory.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this year I have a backyard full of color and beautiful blooms.
Tough-as-nails Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong returns in this electrifying ninth installment of the series, by USA Today bestselling author Jon Land
1994: Texas Ranger Jim Strong investigates a mass murder on a dusty freight train linked to a mysterious, missing cargo for which no record exists.
The Present: His daughter, fifth generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, finds herself on the trail of that same cargo when skeletal remains are found near an excavation site in the Texas desert. She’s also dealing with the aftermath of a massacre that claimed the lives of all the workers at a private intelligence company on her watch.
These two cases are connected by a long buried secret, one that men have killed and died to protect. Caitlin and her outlaw lover Cort Wesley Masters must prove themselves to be as strong as steel to overcome a bloody tide that has been rising for centuries.
Book Details:
Genre: Thriller
Published by: Forge Books
Publication Date: April 23rd 2019
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 0765384671 (ISBN13: 9780765384676)
Series: Caitlin Strong #10
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Jon Land is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of 50 books, including ten titles in the critically acclaimed Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong series, the last of which, STRONG TO THE BONE, won both the 2017 American Book Fest and 2018 International Book Award for Best Mystery. The next title in the series, STRONG AS STEEL, will be published in April. MANUSCRIPT FOR marked his second effort writing as Jessica Fletcher for the MURDER, SHE WROTE series, and he has also teamed with Heather Graham for a new sci-fi series starting with THE RISING. He is a 1979 graduate of Brown University, lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
She was inspired to follow the Strong family tradition by becoming a Texas Ranger, only after she was sexually assaulted as a college student and the man who did it was never caught.
Her legendary father and grandfather, Jim and Earl Strong, worked on only a single case together as Texas Rangers, tracking killers who were after the legendary lost treasure of the pirate Jean Lafitte who really did base his operations off Texas’ Galveston Island, as told in STRONG VENGEANCE.
In the next book in the series, STRONG FROM THE HEART, she develops an addiction to opioids she’s being treated with for something that happens at the end of STRONG AS STEEL.
She actually left the Rangers for a time after tracking down and executing the cartel soldiers who killed her Texas Ranger partner Charlie Banks.
She was married for a brief stretch and her husband was thought to have died while serving as a contractor in Iraq. But the first book in the series, STRONG ENOUGH TO DIE, brings him back into her life as an amnesiac with no memory of her or what happened to him. This proved to tbe the impetus for her return to the Rangers.
Her grandfather taught her how to shoot at the age of six or seven and she could handle the likes of a 1911 Springfield model .45 by the time she was nine when she won her first shooting competition.
At the age of four, she witnessed the murder of her mother by drug mules but has no memory of that to this day, though she believes a lot of her more violent tendencies, and gunfighter mentality, stem from that day.
Caitlin also believes that incident is to blame for the fact that she never married or had children of her own. But it also explains her attachment to the sons of her outlaw lover Cort Wesley Masters for whom she becomes a surrogate mother.
When she was thirteen she witnessed her father gunning down a villain who’d escaped the law. Years later, as told in STRONG AT THE BREAK, she comes up against the man’s son, who also bore witness to Caitlin’s father Jim Strong killing his father.
Caitlin’s giant, deadly protector and guardian angel Guillermo Paz, the former head of the Venezuelan Secret Police, was actually hired to kill her in STRONG ENOUGH TO DIE. But she turned the tables in classic Caitlin form.
Caitlin is a quarter Mexican, thanks to an affair her grandfather, and fellow Texas Ranger, Earl Strong had with a woman he rescued from an early form of human trafficking in 1934 Texas.
Staying on the family theme, Caitlin also has a half-sister thanks to an affair her father Jim Strong had with a Mexican crime boss whose life he saved in STRONG AS STEEL, the most recent, and just released, book in the series
CHAPTER 1
Dallas, Texas
“You want to tell me what I’m doing here again?” Caitlin Strong said to Captain Bub McNelly of the Texas Criminal Investigations Division.
McNelly, who favored string ties and shiny cowboy boots, turned to the quartet of figures in equally shiny windbreakers milling behind him in the makeshift staging area, who looked more like businessmen. Caitlin had heard he was a descendant of the famed Texas Ranger captain Leander McNeely, a man who’d once told the whole of the U.S. government to go to hell, but wasn’t too keen on the freedom with which Rangers still operated today.
“Special Response Teams hang their hat on being multi-jurisdictional,” McNelly told her. “Consider yourself the representative Ranger.”
“Since when does an SRT look more comfortable holding briefcases than firearms?”
“I need to tell you that computers are the real weapons these days?” McNelly asked her. “And those boys accompanying us are forensic experts who know how to fire back.”
“Just two guns, yours and mine, backing them up,” Caitlin noted.
“I don’t need a computer to do the math, Ranger,” McNelly said, while the four techs wearing windbreakers hovered behind them in front of the elevator. “You and I serve the warrant on the geek squad upstairs and let the experts do their thing with brains instead of bullets. How hard can it be?”
They were about to serve a search warrant on an information technology firm on the 42nd floor of the Chase Tower, the city’s tallest building. Caitlin had served plenty of more “traditional” search warrants in her time on the likes of biker gangs, drug dealers, and various other suspects. The kind of service that found her backed up by guns and plenty of them, instead of briefcases and backpacks.
A chime sounded ahead of the elevator door sliding open.
“In my experience,” Caitlin said, stepping in first to position herself so the door didn’t close again before the SRT computer forensics techs were inside, “it pays to have brains and bullets.”
McNelly smiled thinly. “That’s why you’re here, Ranger. You were specifically requested for the job.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know. Orders came from the top down.
The cab began its ascent. If this were a Ranger operation, as opposed to CID, Caitlin would have insisted on securing the space in question prior to bringing up the civilians. Because that was clearly what these personnel in ill-fitting windbreakers pulled from a rack were. Civilians.
“Get your warrant ready, Captain,” she told McNelly, as the cab whisked past the floors between “L” and “42.”
He flapped the tri-folded document I the air between them. “Got it right here.”
“What’s CTP stand for again?” Caitlin asked, referring to the acronym of the company on which they were about to serve the warrant.
“Communications Technology Providers. I thought I told you that.”
“Maybe you did, but you never told me what the company did to get on the Criminal Investigation Division’s radar. I’m guessing that’s because somebody ordered you to take me along for the ride. All well and good in this political world we live in, until something goes bad.”
McNelly flashed Caitlin a smirk, as a chime sounded to indicate the elevator had reached its desired floor. “I can tell you this much, Ranger. The suspects we’re after here don’t know a gun from their own assholes. Worst thing they can do is infect us with a computer virus.”
He led the way through the open cab door, without waiting for Caitlin to respond. She exited next, followed in a tight bunch by those four computer techs in their windbreakers which made it look like they’d stuck their arms through Hefty bags.
The doors along the hall were uniformly glass, sleek and modern, some frosted. According to the building layout Caitlin had studied, Communications Technology Providers occupied a pair of adjoining office suites adding up to nearly five thousand square feet in total. One was a corner office, meaning at least a portion of those suites would enjoy wraparound windows and plenty of natural light.
Caitlin had just reflexively shoved her jacket back behind the holster housing her SIG Sauer P-226 nine-millimeter pistol, when the glass double-door entrance to Communications Technology Providers ruptured behind a fusillade of gunfire.
***
Excerpt from Strong As Steel by Jon Land. Copyright © 2019 by Jon Land. Reproduced with permission from Jon Land. All rights reserved.
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A missing child sets the lives of three women on a collision course in this powerful and compelling novel by USA Today bestselling author Bette Lee Crosby.
1971.
When a music festival rolls through the sleepy town of Hesterville, Georgia, the Dixon family’s lives are forever changed. On the final night, a storm muffles the sound of the blaring music, and Rachel tucks her baby into bed before falling into a deep sleep. So deep, she doesn’t hear the kitchen door opening. When she and her husband wake up in the morning, the crib is empty. Emily is gone.
Vicki Robart is one of the thousands at the festival, but she’s not feeling the music. She’s feeling the emptiness over the loss of her own baby several months before. When she leaves the festival and is faced with an opportunity to fill that void, she is driven to an act of desperation that will forever bind the lives of three women.
When the truth of what actually happened that fateful night is finally exposed, shattering the lives they’ve built, will they be able to pick up the pieces to put their families back together again?
How can this be? Where have I been? Thinking under a rock since this is the first book that I read by this author. I am a member of multiple Facebook book groups and according to so many positive comments about her books, this is her 21st book, and many rave reviews for this book, which was the reason I chose to read it.
As the synopsis states the final day of a music festival, Emily Dixon, 6 months old, was kidnapped, taken from her crib while her parents slept. Vicki Robart, attended the festival, but due to drugs and depression of losing her own child, a stillborn, months before, she believes Emily is her Lara.
Emily’s parents, Rachel and George, never gave up hope that someday she would be returned to them but as each year passed that possibility seemed it was not to be. Every day, the “what ifs” were torturous to this couple.
In the beginning, Rachel is so broken that getting up each day is a feat in itself. Her mother-in-law, Helen a bitter lady due to the loss of her own husband and her son getting married and leaving their home, suddenly has a change of heart, and becomes a loving and influential person in Rachel’s life.
The characters were lifelike to the point that I felt that I was also a participant in their lives. The story and writing style flowed so smoothly that I felt I was transported to Hesterville, GA. I felt every emotion of the characters, the profound grief of losing a child, the anger, grief, despair, sadness, guilt, despondency Most of all, the love of a mother and the hope that Emily was being loved by the person who took her. And what surprised me was the emotions I felt towards the kidnapper (vague to not include spoiler).
Do wishes come true? What about fate? Is there anything stronger than a mother’s love? And would one be able to forgive after such a horrific act?
Do I recommend this book? I say that you HAVE and NEED to read this book!!! But have a box or 2 of tissues nearby!
And I have a lot of Bette Lee Crosby reading to do!!!!!!
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