ABOUT THE BOOK
Grace Pierrepoint Rendell, the only child of an ailing billionaire, has been treated for paranoia since childhood. When she secretly quits her meds, she begins to suspect that once her father passes, her husband will murder her for her inheritance. Realizing that no one will believe the ravings of a supposed psychotic, she devises a creative way to save herself—she will write herself out of danger, authoring a novel with the heroine in exactly the same circumstances, thus subtly exposing her husband's scheme to the world. She hires acclaimed author Lynn Andrews to help edit her literary insurance policy, but when Lynn is murdered, Grace is discovered standing over the bloody remains. The clock is ticking: can she write and publish her manuscript before she is strapped into a straitjacket, accused of homicide, or lowered six feet under?
With a cast of secondary characters whose challenges mirror Grace's own, Saving Grace is, at its core, an allegory for the struggle of the marginalized to be heard and live life on their own terms.
Book Details:
Title: Saving Grace: A Psychological Thriller
Author: D.M.
Barr
Genre: domestic suspense
Publisher: Black Rose Writing (October
15, 2020)
Print length: 255 pages
On tour with: Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH D.M. BARR
A few of your favorite things: lobster, chocolate with sea salt, dogs, travel.
Things you need to throw out: everything I’ve been hoarding but never use.
Things you need in order to write: a computer, quiet, the seed of an idea.
Things that hamper your writing: the start of a pandemic, too many pulls on my time, a lack of sleep.
Things you love about writing: revision, being read, marketing my work.
Things you hate about writing: agents who don’t consider a work because it’s too original, finding an audience and snagging reviews.
Words that describe you: perfectionist, independent, non-conformist.
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: perfectionist.
Favorite foods: lobster, chocolate, cream sauce with anything on rice.
Things that make you want to throw up: pumpkin, brussels sprouts, kale.
Favorite music: pop, new wave, classic rock.
Music that make your ears bleed: most rap (but I do like Eminem).
Favorite smell: fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.
Something that makes you hold your nose: my dog’s morning gift that I must remove from neighbors’ lawns during our morning walk.
Something you’re really good at: research.
Something you’re really bad at: being patient.
Things you always put in your books: diverse characters, humor, and puns.
Things you never put in your books: cruelty against pets or children.
Things to say to an author: where do I get your book and where can I leave a review?
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: The book arrived damaged from Amazon, so I’m giving it a one-star review.
Favorite places you’ve been: too many to mention; I was the daughter of a travel agent and was for many years, a travel writer. Maybe Tahiti, Venice, Paris, London.
Places you never want to go to again: every time I go to South America, something goes wrong so nothing against the countries, it’s just my bad luck.
Favorite things to do: writing, reading, traveling, playing Scrabble with my honey.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: skydiving, hot-air ballooning.
Things that make you happy: anything that makes me laugh.
Things that drive you crazy: people doing stupid or illogical things, people who are purposely helpless.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: publishing my first novel and opening myself up to criticism.
Something you chickened out from doing: underwater walk on my honeymoon.
OTHER BOOKS BY D.M. BARR
Expired Listings: Revenge Begins at Home
Slashing Mona Lisa
READ AN EXCERPT FROM SAVING GRACE
One felony was all it took to convince Andrea Lin she was better suited to committing crime on paper than in person. As renowned mystery author Lynn Andrews, she understood conflict equaled good drama. Like her readers, she should have expected the hiccups, even relished them. What she hadn’t counted on was the accompanying agita, especially while sitting in her Bergen County kitchen, far from the action at the Bitcoin Teller Machine.
Her one job had been to place a single phone call when the money hit and tell the hacker to lift the encryption on Grace’s computer. Trouble was, her dozen calls remained unanswered until a few minutes ago, throwing their meticulous plan off schedule.
Andrea stroked the blue-gray Nebulung purring on her lap and tried to ignore the churning in her stomach. “Denver, the next time I consider helping a sibling with some crazy scheme, you have my permission to use my leg as a scratching post until I come to my senses. Agreed?”
Denver looked up, his green eyes filled with innocence, and answered with a single meow before leaping onto the table toward her plate of shortbread cookies.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She sipped her tea, willing the sugar to sweeten the acrid taste in her mouth. The phone interrupted her meditation. No doubt a check-in from her brother, the extorter-in-chief.
“I figured you’d have called by now. Everything on track?” Joe’s strained voice conveyed his own jangled nerves. They’d agreed to be vague when communicating. In these days of Siri and Alexa, anyone could be listening.
“Finally. Took forever to get through to our friend, but she said she’d take care of ‘our project’ as soon as her meetings wrapped up. From here on out though, I’m sticking to fiction. Real-life intrigue is too stressful.”
Andrea missed Joe’s response, instead perplexed by her cats’ sudden change of behavior. Denver had tilted his head and leapt from the table; Vail and Aspen sat frozen, ears perked, staring toward the foyer. Then she heard it too, the sound of papers shuffling in the living room. She leaned forward, muscles taut, hackles raised, ready to pounce. “Joe, hold on a sec. I think someone’s in the house. I’ll call you back later.”
***
“Wait, what? Andrea??” Silence. The connection was dead.
After twenty minutes of weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic to travel one mile, Joe “Hack” Hackford pulled up outside his sister’s Ridgewood home. Adrenaline pumping on overdrive, he jumped from his car and sprinted toward the house. Door wide open—not an encouraging sign. He steeled his nerves and hastened inside. The living room looked like a hurricane’s aftermath, with furniture overturned and papers littering the carpets and floor.
“Andrea? Are you here?” He rushed into the kitchen, which lacked any signs of their celebratory dinner—no spaghetti boiling on the stove, no cake rising in the oven. Only the door to the backyard ajar and a shriek emanating from the next room, piercing the eerie silence. Hair stiffening at the back of his neck, he raced into the dining room where a redheaded woman stood frozen, staring across the room.
“Who the hell are you?” he growled.
The stranger remained wide-eyed and unresponsive. He followed her gaze to the floor, where he witnessed the unthinkable. His beloved sister lay in the corner, surrounded by a pool of blood, a kitchen knife stuck in her chest. Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. A trio of feline guards circled her lifeless body.
Hack’s knees turned to jelly, and he grabbed onto a chair for support, forcing back the remains of the snack he’d consumed only minutes earlier. Once the initial shock waned, he reverted his attention back to the intruder. At second glance, she did look somewhat familiar, though the woman he’d met a few weeks back—the missing heiress whose computer they’d just hacked—was brunette. Had she uncovered their con? With a bolt of fury, he reached forward and pulled the wig from her head. A thousand questions zigzagged in his brain, but only one forced its way past his lips:
“Oh my God. Grace. Oh my God. What the hell have you done?”
***
Excerpt from Saving Grace by D.M. Barr. Copyright 2020 by D.M. Barr. Reproduced with permission from D.M. Barr. All rights reserved.
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