FEATURED AUTHOR: TONYA KAPPES

ABOUT THE BOOK

Bubble. . . Bubble . . .
Whispering Falls’ resident potion maker, June Heal, is the first witch in the magical village to make a big money deal with the Head To Toe Works, a national chain specializing in spa and natural products.

Cures and Trouble . . .
June is going to need to use her own stress relief potion she made especially for Head To Toe Works after she discovers the dead body of Burt Rossen, the co-owner of Head To Toe Works, on the belt of the assembly line of her stress free lotion product.

Magic Stirs . . .
A new baby is born in Whispering Falls and giving Oscar Park, June’s fiancé and Whispering Falls’ sheriff, the itch to get a wedding date set and gives June an ultimatum.

And Trouble Doubles . . .
June is forced to use her witchy ways to figure out who stole her secret potion after it turns up missing. Rumors are flying around like broomsticks that June is a witch and used a spell to murder Mr. Rossen. Someone wants her out of Head To Toe Works, but who? Will the killer get to June before she can walk down the aisle?

INTERVIEW WITH TONYA KAPPES

Who are you?
I think most people would describe me as loyal and with a big heart. I’m an animal lover of all creatures down to insects. I believe anyone has the capability to do anything they want with hard work behind it.

Do you have a routine for writing?
I do! I get up at 5:30 every morning and do all my business stuff and drink a LOT of coffee. I also knock out some social media too. By 7 a.m. I’m writing. I write until around 10 a.m. because my dogs are bugging me to go for a walk. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, we walk for 30 minutes. When I get home, I start writing again on and off until my kiddos or husband get home from work. I make sure I have my family time. I usually write about 5k words a day. NOT all great words, but words!

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing? I have a lovely office with a great window and amazing desk . . . but I don’t really like to write in there. Most mornings you can find me out by my pool or on our deck. I also like to write in the kitchen . . . go figure -- that’s where the food is!

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?
"The freshest voice in Cozy Mystery genre" from Books and Company book store.

What’s the worst thing someone has said about your writing? That my mysteries are fluffy. It was meant to be an insult, but I turned it around. I told them that my mysteries are fluffy and my main goal is to make the reader smile, laugh and add a little mystery to their crazy busy day. And that I’ve never claimed they were anything other than that.

If you had $100 a week to spend on yourself, what would you buy?
A lottery ticket so I could double it!


What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
A flowbee! It’s a little vacuum hair tool that cuts hair perfectly . . . I have four boys and thought I could use it on them. One time, I rushed him to the salon to fix the mess I had made.


Besides not using a flowbee on your sons' hair, what’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?
LOYALTY and who deserves it.

How did you meet your husband?
I was a director of a private school and his son went there. We met over a student/student altercation. Definitely NOT love at first site! I was about to kick his son (my now step-son) out of the private school. This makes me giggle!

What are your most cherished mementoes?
Everything I receive from readers. It ranges from emails to cat collars for Kitty Kappes. I adore and keep each one of them!

What brings you sheer delight?
I get so happy and giddy when I hear from a reader telling me how my books made them smile or laugh. I also love when they tell me that I help them escape from their everyday life.

What’s one of your favorite quotes?
"Thought become things . . . choose the good ones!" OR "The dream is free, the hustle is going to cost you."

What would you like people to say about you after you die?
The End . . . literally. Or she really made me laugh out loud.

Are you happy with your decision to self-publish?
YES! I’ve self-published twenty novels. I will never stop self-publishing. I was self-publishing when it was so uncool. I was even shunned by a writer’s group because of it. I never looked back. I won several awards, USA Today’s bestsellers list with two novels, and varies bestsellers lists. I will always self-publish even though I also traditionally publish.

HarperCollins is the publisher for your traditional novels. How did you find them and how long did your query process take?
I’m a hybrid author. I have an agent who is a bulldog. HarperCollins bought the book immediately, and the deal was done in a couple of weeks.

What are you working on now?
I’m currently working on a super secret project that has been requested. I’m pretty excited . . . but much MUCH different than what I’m doing now. Shhh . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For years, USA Today bestselling author Tonya Kappes has been self-publishing her numerous mystery and romance titles with unprecedented success. She is famous not only for her hilarious plotlines and quirky characters, but her tremendous marketing efforts that have earned her thousands of followers and a devoted street team of fans. HarperCollins and Witness Impulse is thrilled to be publishing this insanely talented and wildly successful author for the first in her hilarious and spooky Ghostly Southern series.

To sign up for Tonya's newsletter at Tonyakappes.com and receive a free ebook download and monthly book giveaways!

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Featured Author: Tonya Kappes

About the book:

A funeral, a ghost, a murder . . . it’s all in a day’s work for Emma Lee Raines. 


Bopped on the head from a falling plastic Santa, local undertaker Emma Lee Raines is told she’s suffering from “funeral trauma.” It’s trauma all right, because the not so dearly departed keep talking to her. Take Ruthie Sue Payne--innkeeper, gossip queen, and arch-nemesis of Emma Lee’s granny-she’s adamant that she didn’t just fall down those stairs. She was pushed.



Ruthie has no idea who wanted her pushing up daisies. All she knows is that she can’t cross over until the matter is laid to eternal rest. In the land of the living, Emma Lee’s high-school crush, Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, isn’t ready to rule out foul play. Granny Raines, the widow of Ruthie’s ex-husband and co-owner of the Sleepy Hollow Inn, is the prime suspect. Now Emma Lee is stuck playing detective or risk being haunted forever.

Interview with Tonya Kappes

Tonya, what’s the story behind the title A Ghostly Undertaking? 
About five years ago I toyed with a paranormal young adult where the girl is growing up in a funeral home. Over time, the plot turned into an adult being the undertaker. At that point, I play the “what if” game. The crazier the situations, the better for me since I write humor.

Undertaker is pretty morbid, but what if one of the clients really didn’t die of natural causes like the coroner thought. What if they were murdered and can’t cross over to the other side until their killer is brought to justice? What if the undertaker is the only one who can see the ghost? How did the undertaker get the ability to see the ghost? What if the ghost gets in the way? What if the ghost is lazy? What if the ghost decides to haunt people of the town while the undertaker is trying to figure out the murder? What if the . . .and it just keeps going.

Tell us about your series. Is this book a standalone, or do readers need to read the series in order?
A Ghostly Southern Mystery series is in the mystery genre with an amateur sleuth, so reading the first book in the series first really sets up the sleuth’s background and why she is thrown into solving the mystery. Since it’s a series, the characters of the small town develop over time and different things happen to them in each book that will have repercussions for the next book. I’m sure you could read them as stand alones, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Where’s home for you?
I live in Northern Kentucky. The very tippy top from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Cool! I live just a little over an hour away in Louisville. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a small central Kentucky town, Nicholasville. It was great and happened to give me a good backdrop for all of my fiction small towns in my novels.

What’s your favorite memory?
Growing up in a small town.



What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?
You have to hustle in life to get what you want. You can’t write a story and hope for the best. Hustle.

Who would you pick to write your biography?
My husband. He knows me better than I know myself.

What dumb things did you do during your college years?
That is under lock and key!

What do you love about where you live?
I love my neighborhood. We have a few lakes that make a great backdrop for my daily walk with my dogs. We also live a street over from my kids' high school, so no more car pooling!!!!



Have you been in any natural disasters?
I have. I was in a tornado while driving. My dog was in the car with me, and it took everything I had to grab my dog and push the car door open so we could get out. I jumped out and into a truck with a stranger. I told the guy that if we were going to die, we were dying together. Yeah . . . he probably thought I was nuts.

What is the most daring thing you've done?
Be a mother.


What’s one thing that you wish you knew as a teenager that you know now?
I have four boys (21, 17, 17, and 15). When I was a teenager, a boy I was crushing on would look at me or talk to me and I’d obsess over it for days, even weeks. Now that I have boys . . . I totally understand the teenage boy mind. Now I know the boy I crushed on was just looking and just talking. Nothing more. If I only knew . . . it would have saved me a whole lot of heartache as a teenage girl.

What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
None. I have no regrets.



What makes you nervous?
Release day.


What makes you happy?
Release day.

What makes you scared?
Release day.

What makes you excited?
Release day.

Do you have another job outside of writing?
I do not. I did. In fact I have two college bachelors. Yeah . . . not in English either!

Who are you?
I’m simple. I’m straightforward. I don’t play games, and I don’t believe in being mean. I believe there is room for everyone in the world and KINDNESS goes a long way. I don’t believe in jealousy. I believe we are on our own path and you control your destiny.

How did you meet your husband?
I love my story! I was the director of a private school and his children were in my son’s class. He became a very good friend before we dated.

What are your most cherished mementoes?
My kiddos made me a bracelet out of old scrabble tiles. I love it!

If you could only save one thing from your house, what would it be?
My laptop!

I hear you! What brings you sheer delight?
Coffee. Coffee. And coffee.

Would you rather be a lonely genius, or a sociable idiot?
Sociable idiot! What good is being a genius if you are lonely?

What’s one of your favorite quotes?
"Thoughts become things, choose the good ones." -Mike Dooley

If you could live anywhere in the world, where in the world would it be?
Somewhere hot and tropical! Anywhere hot and tropical!

What would you like people to say about you after you die?
The end.

What would your main character say about you?
Tonya will take a normal situation and twist it. Then twist it some more. Adding a little more twist. And a few more twists to make sure it’s all messed up.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
My small town of Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky is definitely a character. It is inspired from my growing up in a small town. I also can’t help but take a name or two and tweak it a bit. A lot of fun names hail from the South and are too good not to use. I can not name them . . . I might get burned at the stake and I’m not fond of fire.

I agree--Southern names are the best. 
Do you have a routine for writing?
I do. I get up at 5:30 am and begin. I would rather get up in the morning and get my word count. I’m big on routines, and if I get off of my routine, my day is going up in flames!

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?
I like to write by my pool during the warm months. When it’s winter, I follow the sunspot through my windows in my house. It starts out in my kitchen, then my sitting room, finishing off in the family room. I know . . . weird! It’s kinda comical because my dogs and I fight for the sunspot.

Not weird at all. I need sunlight too. What’s the worst thing someone has said about your writing?
I don’t know. I do not read reviews.

What would your dream office look like?
A hot tropical beach!

Why did you decide to publish with HarperCollins?
I self-published first. I had a job as a child therapist and loved it. I was not a writer. When I went through a divorce with my first marriage, I found comfort in books. When I got remarried, my husband encouraged me to write my first novel. In short, I asked him if he thought I could help someone escape from his or her everyday life with my stories, he encouraged me more. My goal to publishing was that. HELP ONE READER MAKE THEIR DAY BETTER. That is still my goal today.

I self-published over 15 novels, but A Ghostly Undertaking and the rest of the series is published with HarperCollins Publisher. I’m hybrid. I believe in all roads to publishing, and I’m fortunate that HarperCollins has really embraced my self publishing side. They even have my self published titles printed in the front of my traditionally published novels.

Are you happy with your decision to publish with a publisher vs. self-publish?
I will always self-publish. I love that I have toes in both worlds of publishing. It’s a perfect situation.

How did you find HarperCollins, and how long did your query process take? A Ghostly Undertaking was originally self-published and sold well over 80,000 copies in a couple of months. It was pretty successful with readers. My agent asked me if he could shop it around to traditional publishers, which was a big step for me since I really didn’t need a traditional publisher. I had my agent for foreign rights and other contractual things. I gave him the green light on Ghostly and he sold it to HarperCollins right off the bat. In a couple weeks we had a four book deal.
I was pretty lucky. I’m very grateful for my agent. He rocks!

What does HarperCollins do for you that you couldn't do as a self-publisher?
There comes a time in self publishing where the author just can't reach as many readers as a large publisher. Bookstores are not dead, and while they are still up and running, readers are going there to buy books. If only ONE reader buys my book from a store, it was worth it. HarperCollins and traditional publishers in general have gotten a lot smarter! They are pricing ebooks comparable to the self-published books, they are starting their own advertising platforms like Bookbub, they are holding Facebook parties for their authors to connect with their readers, and hosting reader oriented events. I'm fortunate enough that I will be doing self-publishing and traditional publishing in my career. I have the best of both worlds, and it's exactly where I want to be.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a new series for the traditional world and the third novel in my self published Laurel London Mystery series. I’m always working, and I love it!

About the author

Tonya Kappes has written more than fifteen novels and four novellas, all of which have graced numerous bestseller lists including USA Today. Best known for stories charged with emotion and humor and filled with flawed characters, her novels have garnered reader praise and glowing critical reviews. She lives with her husband, two very spoiled schnauzers, and one ex-stray cat in northern Kentucky. Now that her boys are teenagers, Tonya writes full-time but can be found at all of her guys’ high school games with a pencil and paper in hand. More than anything, Tonya loves to connect with readers, with a loyal ‘street team’ of fans and followers on social media. Be sure to check out her Facebook, Twitter, blog and newsletter!


Connect with Tonya
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Interview with Tonya Kappes's June Heal

Tonya Kappes's cozy mystery, A Charming Wish, was released by MagiCal Press on March 11. I'm delighted to have Tonya's main character, June Heal, here today for an interview. But first...

About the character:

June Heal is a homeopathic curest who discovers she has magical powers when she relocates her flea market homeopathic cure shop, A Charming Cure, to the magical town of Whispering Falls, Kentucky.

About the book:

"Tonya Kappes' A Magical Cure Series, charmed me until the end!" ~ Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

Bubble, Bubble. . .

It seems shop owner and newly appointed Whispering Falls Village President June Heal has it all: Beauty, wits, bewitching powers...Sheriff Oscar Park. Life is good. Because life in Whispering Falls is magical.

Cures and Trouble. . .

But when a member of the community is found dead on the steps of A Charming Cure, June's homeopathic cure shop, and her fingerprints show up at the scenes of local robberies, she is kicked off the village council and her powers fall under scrutiny. Until it's uncovered who is wreaking havoc on the town...June's magic is suspended.

Magic Stirs. . .

With the help of a rather obnoxious genie and Mr. Prince Charming, June's Fairy-God cat, June is determined to figure out who is framing her. Time is of the essence when it becomes clear that the true villain is trying to get rid of her...permanently!

And Trouble Doubles. . .

Oscar Park will do anything to protect June even if that means giving up all of his magical powers. . .or worse, his life.

Interview with June:

June, how did you first meet Tonya?

There was a vacancy in her head, so I just sort of moved on in. She told me that she didn’t like witches. . .

Want to dish about her?

I concoct my best homeopathic cures in the middle of the night, my cauldron seems to work best during those hours, and Tonya is always awake with this little notebook in her hand. She never sleeps! I bet if she would give up one of her three pots of coffee she drinks a day, she might get a little shut eye. I left a message with the Sand Man to drop Tonya visit.

Did you ever think that your life would end up being in a book?

Never! I’m just a small town Kentucky girl.

Yay! Kentucky! I wonder if Whispering Falls is close to Louisville. Tell us about your favorite scene in the book, June.

Tonya continues to write about my life, so in the third novel, A Charming Wish, she started with my story when I found out that I had a genie bottle in my shop. . .with a genie living in it!

Did you have a hard time convincing your author to write any particular scenes for you?

Yes! Tonya always wants to write my story her way or the way she thinks I should live my life, but I keep telling her NO! It’s my life, and I can live it how I want to. Sometimes she does have some good ideas with new potions.

What do you like to do when you are not being actively read somewhere?
I love spending time with my fairy-god cat, Mr. Prince Charming and my boyfriend, Oscar Park. Hanging out with my friends that live in Whispering Falls is a lot of fun too.

Tell the truth. What do you think of your fellow characters?

I absolutely adore them! Each of them have a special magical talent that is disguised by their store front. I love how they interact with their clients. Shandra owns A Cleansing Spirit Spa. Her clients think they are getting a manicure, but Shandra is really reading their palm. All of Whispering Falls is like that!



What's the worst thing that's happened in your life?

What did you learn from it? I lost both of my parents at a young age. It has been a hard long road learning all the ropes of life without their guidance. I’ve learned to trust my intuition. It hasn’t failed me yet!



Tell us about your best friends.

Mr. Prince Charming is my fairy-god cat who showed up on my door step with a turtle charm hanging on his collar on my tenth birthday. I’ve always wanted a charm bracelet! I knew we were going to be fast friends. He has never left my side and I’m twenty-five.
Madame Torres is my snarky crystal ball. Even though she is a pain in the rear sometimes and we argue, she always has my best interest at heart.

How do you feel about your life right now? What, if anything, would you like to change?
There are a lot of changes that only Tonya and I know about. I’m not sure if those changes are good or bad. I guess we will have to wait and see.

What aspect of your author’s writing style do you like best?

I love how she adds humor to my life of chaos. I don’t think my life is funny, but she writes it in a way that makes readers laugh out loud.

If your story were a movie, who would play you?

I adore Mandy Moore. I think she would make a great me!

Describe the town where you live.

MAGICAL! Whispering Falls is settled in the foothills of Kentucky, surrounded by beautiful mountainous limestone and Kentucky bluegrass. The town is filled with quaint shops. Each shop has a gorgeous ornamental gate that leads you into magical store with special powers. When a tourist comes to our small town, they can’t wait to come back.

Describe an average day in your life.

I have to have my coffee first thing in the morning. Then Mr. Prince Charming and I go to my shop, A Charming Cure, and start working on new homeopathic cures. When a client comes in, I rely on my intuition to what is the root of their ailment, and then I make them the perfect cure. After work, I tend to spend some alone time with my boyfriend. Lately, I’ve been in a little pickle. Someone was found dead on the steps of my shop. Needless to say. . .someone is framing me for murder! Any free time I have, I’m trying to figure out who wants me gone.

Will you encourage your author to write a sequel?

She is on the third novel. I think she has six in mind. 

Super! Please come back when the next one is out!

 

About the author:

Tonya Kappes is an Amazon Movers and Shakers, and self-published International bestselling author. She writes humorous cozy mystery and women’s fiction that involves quirky characters in quirky situations.

Splitsville.com, the first novel in the Olivia Davis Mystery series, is a double finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Mystery and Humorous Categories. Carpe Bead ‘em is a the winner in Amazon’s eFestival of Words in the Women’s Fiction Category.

She travels to various writers groups giving workshops on marketing and promoting no matter where you are in your career, and in self-publishing.

Become a member of Tonya’s STREET TEAM! It’s a gathering place of readers who love Tonya Kappes novels, and Tonya gives away monthly prizes! To sign up for Tonya’s STREET TEAM, newsletter, view book trailer, and upcoming news, check out Tonya’s website, http://tonyakappes.blogspot.com/.

Connect with Tonya:
Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads / Website / Blog


Buy the book:
Amazon / Barnes & Noble