ABOUT THE BOOK
Spring 1544– Desperate to win back the favor of King Henry VIII, disgraced alchemist, Albern Goddard, plans to reveal a new element he's discovered--one with deadly potential. But when the substance is stolen, he implores his daughter, Bianca, now pregnant with her first child, to find it.
Soon after, a woman's body is found behind the Dim Dragon Inn, an eerie green vapor issuing from her mouth. Bianca suspects her own mother may be involved in the theft and the murder. But when Bianca’s husband is conscripted into the king’s army to subdue the Scots, finding the element becomes of vital importance. Bianca must unravel the intentions of alchemists, apothecaries, chandlers, and scoundrels--to find out who among them is willing to kill to possess the element known as lapis mortem, the stone of death.
Book Details:
Title: The Alchemist of Lost Souls
Author: Mary Lawrence
Genre: Historical mystery
Series: The Bianca Goddard Mysteries, book 4
Publisher: Kensington (April 30, 2019)
Print length: 304 pages
On tour with: Great Escapes Book Tours
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH MARY LAWRENCE
A few of your favorite things: spring peepers, starry sky, rivers, jam and bread, the change of seasons.
Things you need to throw out: socks with holes, underwear with worn out elastic, wedding gown from first marriage .
Things you need in order to write: coffee with cream, mechanical pencil, gum eraser, Jolly Roger sour cherry candy.
Things that hamper your writing: television in background, truck backup beeps, solicitor phone calls.
Things you love about writing: building a world, finding out what is brewing in my subconscious.
Things you hate about writing: deadlines and self-doubt.
Easiest thing about being a writer: signing a book and handing it to a reader.
Hardest thing about being a writer: getting your book noticed when there are over 700,000 other books being published the same year.
Things you love about where you live: my berry plants and flower gardens, the sunrise from my kitchen window.
Things that make you want to move: Poland Spring water trucks barreling past our house.
Things you never want to run out of: cream for my coffee, imagination.
Things you wish you’d never bought: 2000 lingonberry plants and a cheap guest room alarm clock that I can’t figure out how to program.
Words that describe you: sensitive, shy, determined, focused, workaholic, animal lover.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: sensitive, shy.
Favorite beverage: coffee and cream.
Something that gives you a pickle face: V8-- Why would anyone drink tomatoes?
Something you’re really good at: tracking mud into the house.
Something you’re really bad at: baking cakes.
Something you wish you could do: bake cakes.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: pluck a duck.
Something you like to do: play piano.
Something you wish you’d never done: pluck a duck.
People you consider as heroes: teachers, nurses, and care-givers.
People with a big L on their foreheads: authors who are better at promoting themselves (and their books) than they are at writing.
Things you always put in your books: Maine place names and a silly rhyme.
Things you never put in your books: the words or phrases: “okay,” “bloody” (when used as an expletive), “heaving breasts,” and “manhood” (in a sexual sense).
Things to say to an author: (Only if you mean it) “Thank you,”
“They should make your books into a Netflix series.”
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “I can buy it cheaper on Amazon.”
“Another strong, independent female in a time when there weren’t any.”
“Have you read any books by (insert name here)? Now there’s a good writer!”
Favorite books: historical fiction.
Books you would ban: celebrity memoirs.
Things that make you happy: hearing frogs, tucking my grandkids into bed, my first cup of coffee in the morning.
Things that drive you crazy: people who talk during a movie. Subwoofers at stoplights that make my teeth chatter.
Most embarrassing moment: accidentally farting while I was talking to a couple who were buying my book.
Proudest moment: seeing two of my books in The Mysterious Bookshop in NYC.
Best thing you’ve ever done: decide to write a mystery.
Biggest mistake: planting 2000 lingonberries.
The last thing you did for the first time: ride in a Boeing Stearman biplane.
Something you’ll never do again: watch a “roller coaster ride through the solar system” virtual reality show at a local planetarium. I’ve never been so motion sick.
OTHER BOOKS BY MARY LAWRENCE
The Alchemist’s DaughterDeath of an Alchemist
Death at St. Vedast
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Lawrence lives and farms in Maine. She worked in the medical field for over twenty-five years before publishing her debut mystery, The Alchemist’s Daughter (Kensington, 2015). The book was named by Suspense Magazine as a “Best Book of 2015” in the historical mystery category. Her articles have appeared in several publications, most notably the national news blog, The Daily Beast.
Connect with Mary:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble
