FEATURED AUTHOR: KELLEY KAYE

ABOUT THE BOOK

High school teacher Emma Lovett is finally recovering from her first year of teaching when she discovers another dead body. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this time, someone has killed a student, Kisten Hollis.

Emma and her best friend, Leslie, are desperate to solve this murder. But suspects abound. The perpetrator could be a teacher, an administrator, a member of Kisten’s zealous church community, or even another student.

Emma must juggle her teaching responsibilities, her new romance with handsome Hunter Wells, and interest from a hunky second suitor, all while searching for evidence to bring a killer to justice before someone else dies.

BOOK DETAILS:

Title: Poison by Punctuation

Author’s name: Kelley Kaye

Genre: Cozy Mystery


Publisher: Red Adept Publishing (April 24, 2018)

Page count: 263

On tour with: Great Escapes Book Tours

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH KELLEY KAYE



A few of your favorite things: Books, music, movies; any sort of live production of anything (plays concerts musicals).

Things you need to throw out: My worrywarting tendencies.



Things you need in order to write: TIME
.
Things that hamper your writing: LACK THEREOF

.

Things you love about writing: Ideas and words and putting them together
.
Things you hate about writing: “Trying to get the word out” about my books. Argh!


Easiest thing about being a writer: Many, many ideas!



Hardest thing about being a writer: Too many ideas.


Things you love about where you live: Ocean, weather.

Things that make you want to move: Too many people, too many cars

.

Things you never want to run out of: chocolate
.
Things you wish you’d never bought: FIDGET SPINNERS

.

Words that describe you: Goofy, friendly, smiley, straighforward, happy
.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: Bossy, abrupt, flaky, spacey
.


Favorite foods: Anything chocolate or in the chocolate family (caramel, vanilla, etc...)
.
Things that make you want to throw up: Scallops, oysters GAH!
 


Favorite music or song: Anything 80s
.
Music that make your ears bleed: Rap and any steel guitar.


Favorite beverage: Dr Pepper.

Something that gives you a pickle face: Apple cider vinegar (but I drink it anyway. It’s good for your gut flora—helps prevent colds. None of that is true for Dr Pepper)
 .

Favorite smell: Gardenias, ocean breeze, pine trees.

Something that makes you hold your nose: Little boy farts (and man, they fart A LOT)
.


Something you’re really good at: Listening, when I am conscious and self-aware
.
Something you’re really bad at: Listening, when I’m distracted or worried

.

Something you wish you could do: Speak fluent Spanish.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Clean toilets. (I had to clean offices for YEARS and now I save money specifically to pay someone else to do it.)
 



People you consider as heroes: Anyone who spends more time thinking about helping others than helping themselves. Non-judgy people.

People with a big L on their foreheads: Anyone who is overly self-absorbed. Especially the ones who think they are not, but really it’s all just ME ME ME ME ME. Gah!



Last best thing you ate: Krispy Kreme chocolate frosted white kreme donut (and can I just COMPLAIN for a teeny second about autocorrect, or Siri, or whatever program thinks they know what I am trying to spell better than I do. I had to type this THREE TIMES and the computer kept changing it to “Kristy Keene” donuts. Grrr)

Last thing you regret eating: I don’t believe in regrets.


Things you’d walk a mile for: My boys
.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: That ‘Farmers Only.com’ commercial. Eeeeeuuuw earworm!
 


Things you always put in your books: Shakespeare quotes
.
Things you never put in your books: Sad endings.


Things to say to an author: I’m on my way to review your book RIGHT NOW!

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I only read the first 10% of your book, but I hated it so much I went ahead and gave you a bad review anyway. (True story.)


Favorite places you’ve been: Capri and Sorrento, Italy, New York City
.
Places you never want to go to again: It’s really, really hard for me to spend much time in Phoenix-the heat makes me so ill, but I have to keep going back because that’s where my husband is from.


Favorite genre: Mystery, thriller, horror, YA.

Books you would ban: I would NEVER ban a book. I’ll just choose not to read it. I always advised my students (and their parents) to do the same.


People you’d like to invite to dinner: I really want to have dinner with Jon Stewart. He’s UBER smart and well-spoken and quick on the draw. I’d just like to know if I can hold my own in a conversation with him.

People you’d cancel dinner on: Emotional vampires and name droppers.


Favorite things to do: Reading, going to plays, concerts, ballroom dancing, karaoke
.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: Cleaning bathrooms.


Things that make you happy: Birds, flowers, books, my family, the ocean, music
.
Things that drive you crazy: Tailgaters, people who don’t use their turn signal or who slow the traffic light way down because they’re ON THEIR PHONE. Grrr.


 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelley Kaye is the pen name for the cozy mystery fiction of Kelley Bowles Gusich. Kelley taught high school English and Drama for twenty years in Colorado and California, but a 1994 MS diagnosis has (circuitously) brought her, finally, to the life of writer and mother, both occupations she adores, and both of which were dreamed of clear back at stories surrounding her Barbie and Ken. Her debut novel, cozy mystery Death by Diploma, was released by Red Adept Publishing February 2016, and is first in the Chalkboard Outlines® series. Book #2, Poison by Punctuation, was released April 24! She’s also writing YA under the pseudonym Kelley Kay Bowles. That novel, Down in the Belly of the Whale, arrived May 5. Yay, books! She has two wonderful and funny sons and an amazing husband who cooks for her. She lives in Southern California.

Connect with Kelley:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads 

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  BookBub

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A CHAT WITH LYNN CAHOON'S CAT LATIMER

ABOUT THE BOOK

Cat Latimer’s Colorado bed-and-breakfast plays host to writers from all over. But murder is distinctly unwelcome . . .

To kick off a winter writing retreat, Cat and her handyman boyfriend, Seth, escort the aspiring authors to a nearby ski resort, hoping some fresh cold air will wake up their creative muses. But instead of hitting the slopes, they hit the bar—and before long, a tipsy romance novelist named Christina is keeping herself warm with a local ski bum who might have neglected to tell her about his upcoming wedding.

Next thing Cat knows, her uncle, the town sheriff, informs her that the young man’s been found dead in a hot tub—and Christina shows up crying and covered in blood. Now, between a murder mystery, the theft of a rare Hemingway edition, and the arrival of a black-clad stranger in snowy Aspen Hills, Cat’s afraid everything’s going downhill . . .

ABOUT CAT LATIMER

Cat Latimer grew up in Aspen Hills, Colorado. When she went off to Covington College, she wanted to write the next Buffy the Vampire series. Since the English Department didn’t offer a popular fiction course, she decided to get her master’s degree and teach one instead. After moving to sunny California for personal reasons, Cat returned to open the Warm Springs Writing Retreat in the historical Victorian she owned with her now deceased husband. Cat also pens a popular young adult paranormal series.

INTERVIEW WITH CAT LATIMER

Cat, how did you first meet your writer, Lynn Cahoon?
Lynn created me on a long drive to Idaho during the summer of 2014. She’d had a lot of success with The Tourist Trap series and Jill Gardner, so she wanted to pitch a series set in a different area, with different problems. I believe I win in the setting department. Aspen Hills is big enough to have everything I need, yet small enough I don’t get lost in the city.  And you can’t beat the year-round outdoor activities. 

Anyway, I’m getting off track. She pulled together my life and backstory, and the first book where I appear, A Story to Kill, was born September 2016. It takes a long time to bring a book to life.

Want to dish about Lynn?
Lynn’s cool. She’s fun when we can get her away from the writing. I worry about her sometimes because it seems like she’s always working. But as I’ve told many of my retreat guests, every writer’s process is different. I’d love to have her come visit me and Shauna during one of our retreats.

Why do you think that your life has ended up being in a book?
Seriously, I blame my ex-husband. If he hadn’t become my ex, there would have been no need to open Warm Spring’s Writers Retreat. I wonder sometimes if my life would have changed at all if he hadn’t taken on that second job that made the dominos fall. Would I still be teaching? Would I be an author? Or would it have been too hard of a road to walk with a full-time job?

I could do without the murders that seem to happen around me though.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.
Well, there’s this part with martial arts, kidnapping, and a stone gnome or two. I think that scene was really funny. At least at the end.

If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?
I’d love to move Mrs. Rice from the house next door. She’s such a busy body. Everyone knew that Seth had kissed me for the first time since we were teenagers the day after because she was watching us from her living room window.  And she has a gossip phone tree. Don’t people have anything better to do with their free time? What about watching NCIS? Why can’t I have a nice neighbor?

Do have any secret aspirations that your author doesn’t know about?
Absolutely not. I’m very happy with my life. I have my books which seems to be doing well in sales. Of course, you never really know what’s going to happen tomorrow.  That’s one of the reasons I talked Shauna into opening Warm Springs Writers Retreat with me. Financial cushion. I have the house of my dreams, again. And a pretty cute boyfriend who seems to enjoy spending time with me.

If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?
What’s the weather like outside?  I love to snow ski. And water ski. And hike. And Seth just bought a cool side-by-side which is like a mini jeep. We have fun trail riding. Or just get lost in a book

Tell us about your best friend.
Shauna is my best friend. I met her in California and it was good to have a girlfriend you could talk to about anything. She’s been in some sticky relationships so she helped me through the dark times. And she’s fun. Now that she’s part of the retreat, I feel blessed that she’s such a great cook. The cookies, muffins, and more she makes for our guests are so much better than store bought. The girl could open a restaurant, but she assures me she likes running the hospitality side of our monthly retreat.  



What are you most afraid of?
Depending on someone and having them betray you.  I guess I’m really not over the way my marriage ended. Moving to sunny California gave me lots of time to walk and think. I’m not sure I could trust someone so completely again.



What’s your author’s worst habit?
Taking on more than she can get done. The girl’s always got a bright and shiny floating around her head, waiting to be written. I keep telling her, it’s all about me. Well, me and that California chick, Jill.

Describe the town where you live.
Like I said, Aspen Hills is amazing. I grew up here. We walked in the woods as kids, partied there as teenagers, and when I went away to college, I went to Covington. Which I could walk to from my house. The Colorado lifestyle is easy going and active. I love introducing my retreat guests to my little bit of heaven here, nestled against the mountains and filled with forested areas. And if you need big city for anything, Denver is just a couple of hours north.

Describe an average day in your life.
When the retreat is in session, I have no average day. Whatever the guests need or want is my priority.

The other three weeks, if I’m writing, I hole up in my office and write until Shauna makes me come down for meals. And if it seems right, Seth and I might go for a walk to grab an ice cream or play a few rounds of pool down at Bernie’s.  If I’m not writing, I do everything else that I ignored while I was writing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Cahoon is the author of the New York Times and USA Today best-selling Tourist Trap cozy mystery series. Guidebook to Murder, book 1 of the series won the Reader's Crown for Mystery Fiction in 2015. She also pens the recently released, Cat Latimer series. A Story to Kill, book 1, came out in mass market paperback September 2016.

She lives in a small town like the ones she loves to write about with her husband and two fur babies. Sign up for her newsletter at www.lynncahoon.com



Connect with Lynn:
Website  |  Blog  |   Facebook  |   Twitter  |   Goodreads

Buy the book:
Amazon  | Kobo  

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