ABOUT THE BOOK
Vampires who knit
A troublemaking witch
Who killed Granny — and is she really dead?
At a crossroads between a cringe-worthy past (Todd the Toad) and an uncertain future (she's not exactly homeless, but it's close), Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother. With Gran's undying love to count on and Cardinal Woolsey's, Gran's knitting shop, to keep her busy, Lucy can catch her breath and figure out what she's going to do.
Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. But there's a death certificate. And a will, leaving the knitting shop to Lucy. And a lot of people going in and out who never use the door—including Gran, who is just as loving as ever, and prone to knitting sweaters at warp speed, late at night. What exactly is going on?
When Lucy discovers that Gran did not die peacefully in her sleep, but was murdered, she has to bring the killer to justice without tipping off the law that there's no body in the grave. Between a hot 600-year-old vampire and a dishy detective inspector, both of whom always seem to be there for her, Lucy finds her life getting more complicated than a triple cable cardigan. The only one who seems to know what's going on is her cat ... or is it ... her familiar? First in a new series of paranormal cozy mysteries with bite!
“A terrific read - witches, vampires, knitting and a great plot. What more could you ask for?”***** 5 star review by Krystyna, Amazon reviewer.
Book Details:
Title: The Vampire Knitting Club
Author’s name: Nancy Warren
Genre: Paranormal cozy mystery
Series: Vampire Knitting Club, book 1
Publisher: Ambleside Publishing (October 4, 2018)
Print length: 218 pages
On tour with: Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours
OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES
Stitches and Witches, Vampire Knitting Club book 2Crochet and Cauldrons, Vampire Knitting Club book 3
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH NANCY WARREN
Things you need in order to write: My computer, an idea!, my 15-year-old border Collie, Max, at my feet.
Things that hamper your writing: Noise (this includes music. How writers can work with music is a mystery to me). Feeling like I have too much to do.
Things you love about writing: The freedom to create my own schedule, to work in sweats and the joy of creating something new.
Things you hate about writing: The second draft, AKA the poo draft. When the right word won’t come.
Things you never want to run out of: LUSH lavender body cream, Yorkshire Gold Tea, wine.
Things you wish you’d never bought: Those expensive jeans I knew were too tight and I thought I could lose a couple of pounds and fit into . . .
Favorite foods: Chocolate, wine, cheese and bread: the major food groups.
Things that make you want to throw up: Liver, anything that ends in ‘wurst’ which is the perfect name for that stuff.
Favorite beverage: Champagne.
Something that gives you a pickle face: Kombucha. I try, I really do, because I know it’s good for me, but that stuff is nasty.
Favorite smell: Lavender.
Something that makes you hold your nose: Sometimes when I’m hiking a young guy will pass me and he’s put on heavy men’s cologne which is supposed to cover up his sweat smell, I guess. Well, it doesn’t and the combination of BO and cheap cologne nearly makes me throw up.
Something you’re really good at: Croquet, and I used to be a killer ping pong player. Not sure if I still am.
Something you’re really bad at: Knitting. Which is unfortunate as I’m writing a series about a knitting club! I’m learning, but knitting is much harder than I thought.
Something you wish you could do: Sing and dance like a Broadway star.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Iron.
Last best thing you ate: Recently? It was these amazing cream pastries in France.
Last thing you regret eating: That second cookie after dinner last night.
Things to say to an author: I am so mad at you! I was up until two reading your book and then I had to call in sick because I could not put it down!
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I have a great idea. How about if I tell it to you, you write it and we’ll split the profits! Closely followed by, ‘You should write a romance about my friend. She’s been married fifteen times!’
Favorite places you’ve been: Bath, Oxford, Venice, Matera, the Great Barrier Reef, the Inca Train in Peru, Paris, Sedona, San Francisco, and too many more to name . . .
Places you never want to go to again: Barcelona. I know people love it, but to me it’s too crowded, and I was nearly robbed by a pick pocket.
Favorite books: Pride and Prejudice, anything by Jane Austen, anything by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
Books you would ban: Any book (nearly always written by a male author) where women are portrayed as weak and useless. Grrrrr.
Favorite things to do: Hiking, reading, traveling, live theater.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: Accounting, most housework.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: I’ve hiked some mountains that I wasn’t sure I could summit and then stood at the top feeling like I’d conquered the world.
Something you chickened out from doing: Sky diving. I wanted to but was too scared.
The last thing you did for the first time: I tried Kombucha.
Something you’ll never do again: Drink Kombucha.
READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE VAMPIRE KNITTING CLUB
One
Cardinal Woolsey’s knitting shop has appeared on postcards celebrating the quaint views of Oxford, of which there are many. But when a visitor has tired of writing ‘wish you were here’ on the back of pictures of the various colleges, the dreaming spires, and the dome of the Radcliffe Camera, a cozy little shop painted blue, brimming with baskets of wool and hand-knit goods, can be so much more inviting.My grandmother Agnes Bartlett owned the knitting shop and I was on my way to visit after spending a very hot month at a dig site in Egypt visiting my archeologist parents.
Gran was always ready to wrap her warm arms around me and tell me everything was going to be all right. I needed comforting after discovering my boyfriend of two years Todd had stuck his salami in someone else’s sandwich. I referred to him now as my ex-boyfriend The Toad. I was thinking about Gran’s wisdom, her hugs and her home made gingersnaps, when I started to feel as though cold, wet fingers were walking down the back of my neck.
My wheeled suitcase clanked and rattled behind me along the cobblestones of Harrington Street as I looked around, wondering what had caused the heebie-jeebies.
The October day was chilly and crisp and, in the mid-afternoon, the street was busy with shoppers, tourists and students. Church bells chimed three o’clock. When I glanced ahead, I saw my beloved Gran. She wore a black skirt, sensible shoes and one of her hand-knit cardigans, this one in orange and blue. She was walking with a glamorous woman in her sixties whom I didn’t recognize. I thought Gran looked confused and my hackles immediately rose. The glamor puss was holding an umbrella over Gran’s head, even though the day was dry and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
I waved and called, “Gran!” moving faster so my suitcase began to bounce.
I was sure they saw me, but as I sped toward them, they veered down a side street. What on earth? I lifted my case and began to run; though my case was so heavy it was more of a grunting stagger.
“Gran!” I yelled again. I stopped at the bottom of the road where I’d last seen them. There was no one there. A dry, shriveled leaf tumbled toward me and from a window ledge a small, black cat regarded me with what looked like pity. Otherwise, the street was empty.
“Agnes Bartlett!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
I stood, panting. The side street was lined with a mixture of half-timbered cottages and Victorian row houses, all clearly residential. Gran hadn’t popped into a shop and would soon emerge. She was visiting in one of those homes, presumably. I wondered if it belonged to her friend.
Well, there was no point standing there. I’d go to Cardinal Woolsey’s and wait for Gran there. Her assistant, Rosemary, would be running the shop and I could let myself into the upstairs flat and unpack while I waited for my grandmother to return.
I retraced my steps, but when I reached the entrance to the quaint shop and tried the door, it didn’t open. I tried again, pushing harder, before my other senses kicked in and I realized that no lights were on inside.
A printed sign hung on the windowed front door. It said, “Cardinal Woolsey’s is closed until further notice.” At the bottom was a phone number.
Closed until further notice?
Gran never closed the shop outside her regular closing days. And if she had, where was her assistant?
I stood on the sidewalk that feeling came again, like cold fingers on the nape of my neck.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When she's not writing, she's hiking, skiing, traveling or sipping wine. She's appeared on the front page of the New York Times (when her book, Speed Dating launched Harlequin's NASCAR series), has been a clue in a crossword puzzle (National Post, Canada), and she's been a finalist for the RITA award three times, honored by Romantic Times Magazine and often shares her love of writing in her popular workshops.
Connect with Nancy:
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