CHARACTER INTERVIEW WITH ELLEN BYRON'S MAGGIE CROZAT

ABOUT THE BOOK

Christmas in Cajun Country is magical. Elaborate decorations adorn homes and businesses, and Pelican residents come together for a raucous Christmas Eve festival featuring giant bonfires on the levee that light the way up the river for Papa Noël. But this year, there’s coal in the stockings at Crozat Plantation B&B. Someone is flooding travel websites with vicious negative reviews of the B&B. The culprit may be one of the Crozats’ own holiday guests, among which is Don Baxter, a nasty businessman who’s an innkeeper’s worst nightmare. When Baxter is found stabbed to death at Doucet Plantation, where heroine Maggie Crozat works part-time, she and her entire family are considered suspects. They establish alibis, but her boyfriend, Detective Bo Durand, also a suspect, remains under suspicion. With Bo sidelined during the investigation, Maggie finds herself with an unlikely ally, longtime family enemy Rufus Durand. Her sleuthing uncovers a viper’s nests of dysfunctional family dynamics, and puts her in the crosshairs of a murderer. She and Rufus must track down Don Baxter’s killer, or it will be the opposite of a Joyeux Noël for those at Crozat Plantation Bed & Breakfast.

ABOUT MAGGIE

Maggie Crozat is a thirty-two-year-old artist who’s moved home to tiny Pelican, Louisiana, after attending art school and living in New York City. She helps out at her family’s plantation-turned-B&B and also works as a tour guide at a plantation that belong to her mother’s family but is now run by a non-profit foundation and open to visitors. Her artist’s eye gives her a visual acuity that the average person doesn’t possess. She can spot clue and suspicious body language that even the local law enforcement professionals might miss.

INTERVIEW WITH MAGGIE CROZAT

Maggie, how did you first meet Ellen Byron?
I was enjoying a beer and some Cajun popcorn – that’s fried crawfish - at our favorite local hangout, Junie’s Oyster Bar and Dance Hall, when she appeared and said, hey, wanna be in a mystery series?

Cool! Want to dish about her?
She’s smart, but pushy. Sometimes we get into a tussle when she wants me to do something I don’t want to do. But guess what? I always win in the end.

Why do you think that your life has ended up being in a book?
Because I’ve discovered I have a unique talent for solving mysteries. I’m an artist, so I have a knack for spotting details other people don’t see. Plus, I have the great good fortune to live in a town my author likes to call “A Cajun Brigadoon,” so it’s a great setting for a mystery series. Our family B&B is a centuries old plantation that’s just beautiful. There’s a bayou in our backyard. And the food is amazing! That’s why the books I’m in include recipes – that my mother, Ninette, is famous for. I’m more of an expert microwaver.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.
I love when I go to New Orleans and have to spend time with an incredibly snobby family in the Garden District in order to pick up clues to help solve a murder. The prodigal son of the family hits on me because of my fancy Louisiana lineage. He’s horrible, but in a funny way.

Did you have a hard time convincing Ellen to write any particular scenes for you?
Yes – my author has a really hard time writing romantic scenes! She’s very squeamish about them. But hey, I’m dating the hottest guy in town, so there has to be at least a little romance. Between us, my author is kind of a prude.

What do you like to do when you are not being actively read somewhere?
I love to draw and paint, particularly the magical scenery that surrounds our family’s plantation. I also love spending time with Xander, the seven-year-old son of my boyfriend, Detective Bo Durand. Xander has Asperger’s Syndrome and didn’t talk for three years. I started giving him art lessons and discovered he’s phenomenally talented. In fact, this almost puts him in danger in my new book, A Cajun Christmas Killing.

If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?
I’d force my author to stop being so squeamish and write some great love scenes. (See #5.)

Tell the truth. What do you think of your fellow characters?
I’m lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people. It’s what keeps me from moving back to New York. Except for Rufus Durand, my boyfriend’s cousin, who’s also the local police chief. He thinks that about a hundred and fifty years ago, my family put a curse on his family’s relationships. But guess what? Rufus has changed since he became a father to a baby girl with his ex-fiancé, Vanessa Fleer. (That’s a whole other story you can read about in my author’s last book, Body On The Bayou.)

Do have any secret aspirations that Ellen doesn’t know about?
My dream is have a major museum purchase one of my paintings for their collection.

If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?
Eat tons of my mother’s great Cajun cooking, paint or draw for a few hours, and spend the rest of the day – and night! – with my boyfriend, Bo.



Tell us about your best friend.
I have some wonderful friends, but I’d have to say my best friend is my grand-mere. She’s witty, sharp as a tack, and has a great sense of humor about herself. She’s also gracious and elegant in a way I can only dream of being, and so incredibly wise.



What’s the best trait Ellen has given you?
Passion.

What’s the worst?
Impatience.



What’s Ellen’s worst habit?
Spending too much time on Facebook!



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

Describe the town where you live.
Pelican is a small town nestled between the Mississippi River and Bayou Beurre. Its beautiful 19th century building are adorned with intricate wrought iron balconies and surround a grassy town square with a bandstand and giant, ancient oak trees.

Describe an average day in your life.
I help entertain our B&B guests at Crozat Plantation, then go off to put on an antebellum costume and give tours at Doucet Plantation. I come home, help out some more, paint or draw, then meet Bo at Junie’s Oyster Bar and Dance Hall to try and puzzle out a solution to the latest murder. For a tiny town, Pelican has a ridiculously high murder rate.

Will you encourage Ellen to write a sequel?
Absolutely! I know she’s already written a fourth book, Mardi Gras Murder. She and I both have our fingers crossed that her publisher will ask for more books in the Cajun Country Mystery series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Body on the Bayou, the second book in Ellen’s Cajun Country Mystery Series, recently won the Left Coast Crime Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery, and was nominated for an Agatha Award in the category of Best Contemporary Novel. Ellen's debut novel in the series, Plantation Shudders, was nominated for Agatha, Lefty, and Daphne awards, and made the USA Today Bestseller list. Book three, A Cajun Christmas Killing, launches October 10th. TV credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, Fairly OddParents, and many pilots. She’s also an award-winning playwright and journalist. Ellen lives in Studio City with her husband, daughter, and two spoiled rescue dogs.



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

Buy the book:
Amazon  |   Barnes & Noble 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FEATURED AUTHOR: R. FRANKLIN JAMES

ABOUT THE BOOK

In his will, blackmailer Matthias Bell let his victims off the hook, and probate attorney Hollis must track them down to return the damaging goods he had on them. But Bell was murdered, making these victims suspects. Hollis steps in, and finds out quickly that sins do follow after the grave. Meanwhile, all is not calm in the rest of her life. Her estranged mother needs her kidney, her fiancé is on a dangerous mission, and she’s hard-pressed to help a dying client find peace of mind. 

LOVE OR HATE INTERVIEW WITH R. FRANKLIN JAMES

A few of your favorite things: 
A good Malbec, Hydrangea, anything by Alicia Keyes, a river view, a painting by Monet.
Things you need to throw out:
Book research papers, back sales receipts, clothes I no longer wear, Christmas boxes
.

Things you need in order to write:
Computer, thesaurus, quiet, glass of water, daylight, blocks of time.
Things that hamper your writing:
Phone calls, household errands, family interruptions
.

Things you love about writing:
Spinning a story, finding the right words, “seeing” my characters.
Things you hate about writing: 
Publisher deadlines, marketing, promotional events.

Hardest thing about being a writer:
Publisher deadlines, marketing, promotional events
.
Easiest thing about being a writer: 
Using my imagination, generating plot ideas
.

Things you love about where you live:
No earthquakes, natural beauty, night sky, good neighbors.
Things that make you want to move:
Rural accommodations (wells, septic, propane, etc.); excessive crime, lack of cultural access.

Things you never want to run out of:
Books, food, curiosity, problem-solving, love, good health.
Things you wish you’d never bought: 
Purchases under time  pressure
.

Favorite foods: 
Gumbo, Lasagne, Shrimp or Crab Louie.
Things that make you want to throw up: 
Ignorant people, mean people, lima beans.

Favorite music or song:
Too many and too varied. From “Happy” by Pharell Williams to “Clair de Lune” by Debussy.
Music that make your ears bleed:
Hard Rock and Heavy Metal.

Favorite beverage:
Wine
.
Something that gives you a pickle face:  
Aloe Juice.

Favorite smell:
Fresh mowed grass.

Something that makes you hold your nose:
Urine.

Something you’re really good at:
Organizing anything
.
Something you’re really bad at:
Selling anything
.

Something you like to do: 
Read and write, travel
.
Something you wish you’d never done: 
Worked for an employer I hated
.

Last best thing you ate:
Grilled lamb in the north of France.

Last thing you regret eating: 
A cheese omelet on an plane trip – I was sick for days.

Things you’d walk a mile for:
A good dinner with the best wine.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: 
An unsanitary kitchen/cook.

Things you always put in your books:
Character quirks.

Things you never put in your books:
Senseless cruelty.

Favorite places you’ve been:
Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Yosemite and Martinique.  
Places you never want to go to again:
Idaho.

Things that make you happy: 
Lazy fall days listening to good music near a river bed.

Things that drive you crazy:
People who whine over circumstances rather than fixing the circumstances.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: 
Took a river raft trip down the rapids.

Something you chickened out from doing:
Sky diving.

The last thing you did for the first time:
Chaired an international writers’ convention
.
Something you’ll never do again:
Sing out loud in public

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R. Franklin James, a University of California Berkeley grad, followed a career of political advocacy with writing mysteries. In 2013 her debut novel, The Fallen Angels Book Club, was published by Camel Press. This was her first book in the Hollis Morgan Mystery Series followed by Sticks & Stones, The Return of the Fallen Angels Book Club, and book four, The Trade List. Her fifth book, The Bell Tolls was released in June 2017. James resides in northern California.

Connect with the author:
Website  |    Facebook  |  Twitter  

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble

GUEST POST BY JULIE CHASE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lacy Marie Crocker has settled into a comfortable groove back home in New Orleans, and with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, she’s busier than ever running a thriving pet boutique, helping her mother organize the upcoming National Pet Pageant, and untangling her complicated love life. But when delivering a king-sized order of dreidel-shaped doggy biscuits for a Saint Berdoodle’s bark-mitzvah, Lacy stumbles into yet another murder scene—and the last person to see the victim alive was her own father.

It’s up to Lacy to clear her dad’s name from the suspect list before Detective Jack Oliver has to cage him for good. But just when she starts pawing at the truth, she receives a threatening letter from a mysterious blackmailer bent on silencing her with her own secrets. And Lacy’s not the only one with bones in her closet.

GUEST POST BY JULIE CHASE

Inside the Mind of an Author

The mind of an author is a vast and busy place. There are innumerable stories floating in pieces and strips, collaged with memories, ponderings and opinions waiting to be said.

Many of us are introverts, meaning that we gain energy from being alone and give our energy to others when we are not. So, sometimes we’re smiling silently and dreaming of valiantly slaying a dragon. An hour later, we are probably just thinking of our beds.

When you hear writers complain of “writer’s block,” don’t be mistaken. There’s never a dull moment in a writer’s mind. It’s just that, occasionally, we’re in need of a story idea that will stand up to the industry’s scrutinizing glare. It doesn’t mean our minds are idle. Our minds are never idle. It may simply be that the things spinning round in there aren’t up to publication standards. Interesting? Absolutely. Salable? Not so much.

I probably speak for myself here, but I’m also usually thinking about my next cup of coffee, wine or snack.

Finally, in every author’s mind is the dream of one day “making it.” Feeling validated for our efforts, our lost sleep, neglected families and housework. One day, we all want to be that writer whose book is tucked under the arm of someone passing on the street or in the hands of a reader, whose attention is far too rapt in our words to know that we are standing obnoxiously in front of them taking a selfie to share with our friends because THAT is my book and I created it from nothing but my harried thoughts.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Chase is a mystery-loving pet enthusiast who hopes to make readers smile. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three spunky children. Julie is a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW), Romance Writers of America (RWA), and Sisters in Crime (SinC). She is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Julie also writes as Julie Anne Lindsey.



Connect with Julie:
Webpage  |  Facebook  |  Twitter   |   Goodreads   

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |   IndieBound    

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FEATURED AUTHOR: J.A. HENNRIKUS

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Sully Sullivan’s life imploded she left behind her job on the police force and her unfaithful husband to plunge herself into her new life as the General Manager of her hometown theater, the Cliffside Theater Company. For five years she’s balanced budgets instead of the scales of justice, and kept the Cliffside running alongside its mercurial Artistic Director. But when her best friend is arrested for killing his father, the very powerful Peter Whitehall, no one is looking for another suspect. So, in between keeping A Christmas Carol on budget and Scrooge sober, Sully dusts off her investigative skills to find a killer. Sully’s lives officially collide when her ex-husband may be on the list of potential suspects, and she is forced to finally confront her past in order to save her present, and protect her future.





LOVE OR HATE INTERVIEW WITH J.A. HENNRIKUS

Things you need in order to write:
Background noise (currently, Midsomer Murders), laptop computer, pillows on the couch.
Things that hamper your writing:
Lack of time to either write, or to create
.

Things you love about writing:
Allowing characters to come to life, creating a puzzle, getting in the zone of creating.
Things you hate about writing: Getting that first draft done is like slogging hip deep through Jell-O.

Things you love about where you live:
I live in a city, and I love being able to get anywhere and get anything walking.
Things that make you want to move:
Crowded trains on my commute.

Favorite foods: 
Cheese, wine, chocolate, good bread.
Things that make you want to throw up: 
Cilantro.

Favorite smell:
The ocean at high tide.

Something that makes you hold your nose:
The ocean at low tide.

Something you’re really good at:
Knitting.

Something you’re really bad at:
Running
.


Last best thing you ate:
A German Pfannkuchen (pancake).

Last thing you regret eating:
Really spicy salsa with onions.

Things you always put in your books:
Romance, lots of puzzles
.
Things you never put in your books:
A hurt animal.

Things to say to an author:
Congratulations on your book! (Works even if you didn’t like it).

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book:
You should have XYZ.

Favorite places you’ve been:
Egypt, Cape Cod, Vienna, the Grand Canyon
.
Places you never want to go to again:
Any airport where I’ve missed my connection.

Favorite things to do:
Writing, walking, knitting.

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing:
Vacuuming .

Most daring thing you’ve ever done:
A half marathon.

Something you chickened out from doing:
Climbing into the Great Pyramid (though I did go into a few tombs).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J.A. Hennrikus writes the Theater Cop series for Midnight Ink. The debut of the series, A Christmas Peril, will be released on September 8. As Julianne Holmes, she writes the Agatha nominated Clock Shop Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. The third in the series, Chime and Punishment was released on August 1, 2017. She has short stories in three Level Best anthologies, Thin Ice, Dead Calm and Blood Moon. She is on the board of Sisters in Crime, and is a member of MWA and Sisters in Crime New England. She blogs with the Wicked Cozy Authors and Killer Characters.

Connect with the author:
Website  |  Blog  |  Twitter  |  Pinterest   |  Instagram  

Buy the book:

Amazon  |   
Barnes & Noble

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FEATURED AUTHOR: CATE HOLAHAN

ABOUT THE BOOK 


Sometimes the truth is darker than fiction. Liza Cole has thirty days to write the thriller that could put her back on the bestseller list. Her tight deadline is further complicated by fertility treatments and a distracted husband that is struggling to keep his firm afloat after the unexplained disappearance of his law partner and friend, Nick. Stressed both professionally and personally, Liza escapes into writing her latest heroine, Beth—a new mother who suspects her husband of cheating. Angry and betrayed, Beth sets out to catch him in the act and ends up tossing the body of her husband’s mistress into the East River. Then the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur. Nick’s body is dragged from the same river and Liza’s husband is arrested for his murder. Before her deadline is up, Liza will have to face up to the truths about those closest to her, including herself. If she doesn’t, the final page of her heroine’s story could be the end of her own. 


LOVE OR HATE INTERVIEW CATE HOLAHAN


A few of your favorite things:
Suspense novels, Spotify, my piano, and my pooch.
Things you need to throw out:
Nearly every first draft.

Things you need in order to write:
An Internet-connected laptop with Word. Also, coffee. 
Things that hamper your writing:
Email. Trump tweets. 


Things you love about writing:
Creating characters, imagining, plotting, inventing, forming pretty sentences. Rediscovering words. Pretty much everything. I even enjoy rewriting.
Things you hate about writing: 
Copyediting.

Hardest thing about being a writer: 
Preserving my writing time. 
Easiest thing about being a writer:
No commute. 


Things you love about where you live:
My family is close, my neighbors are awesome, and I love my house.
Things that make you want to move:
General restlessness. Cold weather.


Things you never want to run out of: 
Love. Compassion. Soap.
Things you wish you’d never bought:
A knock-off designer dress from an online company. Serves me right. 


Words that describe you:
Creative, empathetic, driven, fun-loving, talkative, inquisitive.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t:
Impatient, impulsive, quick-tempered.

Favorite foods:
Salmon, swordfish, halibut . . .  I can’t visit aquariums without getting hungry.
Things that make you want to throw up: 
Natto, Okra.

Favorite music or song:
Fiona Apple Extraordinary Machine. Whole album.
Music that make your ears bleed:
I think Kidz bop is a genius concept, but there’s only so much an adult can stand.

Favorite beverage:
It’s a tie: water with lemon and Educated Guess Cabernet. 
Something that gives you a pickle face:
Anything with carbonation.

Favorite smell:
My husband’s skin. (The man has good BO)
Something that makes you hold your nose:
Dog poop.

Something you wish you could do:
Speak fluent French or Spanish. 
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: 
Nag.


Last best thing you ate:
Black cod.

Last thing you regret eating:
Red meat.

Things you’d walk a mile for:
Any cause that helps people. It’s only a mile.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room:
Arachnida. The entire invertebrate class. 

Things you always put in your books:
Couples. 

Things you never put in your books:
Vampires.

Things to say to an author:
I liked (insert anything here) about your book. 

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book:
I meant to read your book, but I’ve been really into this reality television show.

Favorite or genre:
Suspense with magical realism a close second and Russian literature third. 

Books you would ban:
NEVER ban a book.

People you’d like to invite to dinner:
Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, Karen Slaughter
.
People you’d cancel dinner on:
Ted Cruz.

Favorite things to do:
Write, sing, play piano, hang out with my kids and husband.

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing:
Ghostwriting any prominent business person’s business book/memoir—with a few key exceptions.

Things that make you happy: 
My family, which includes my dog. Writing. Singing. Playing Piano. Dancing. 

Things that drive you crazy:
Elementary school drop off and pick up lanes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Cate Holahan is the acclaimed author of thrillers The Widower's Wife (Crooked Lane Books, Aug. 2016) and Dark Turns (Crooked Lane Books, Nov. 2015). The former was named one of Kirkus' Best Books of 2016. Her third novel, Lies She Told, was published by Crooked Lane Books on September 12. In her former life, she was an award-winning print journalist. She has written for BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, and The Record Newspaper, among other outlets. She was also the lead singer of an original rock band that she regularly threatens to reunite. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, two daughters, ages 7 and 5, and dog.



Connect with Cate:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter 

Buy the book:

Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble

a Rafflecopter giveaway

CHARACTER POST WITH KATHLEEN VALENTI’S MAGGIE O’MALLEY

ABOUT THE BOOK

Freshly minted college graduate Maggie O’Malley embarks on a career fueled by professional ambition and a desire to escape the past. As a pharmaceutical researcher, she’s determined to save lives from the shelter of her lab. But on her very first day she’s pulled into a world of uncertainty. Reminders appear on her phone for meetings she’s never scheduled with people she’s never met. People who end up dead.

With help from her best friend, Maggie discovers the victims on her phone are connected to each other and her new employer. She soon unearths a treacherous plot that threatens her mission—and her life. Maggie must unlock deadly secrets to stop horrific abuses of power before death comes calling for her.



ABOUT THE CHARACTER

Magnolia O'Malley--Maggie to everyone but her father--is a feisty 25-year-old on the brink of a new career. After losing her mother to cancer, Maggie vowed to help eradicate disease through her work as a pharmaceutical researcher. Her first real job at Rxcellance will help her do that, as well as move on from the past. She just has to get over her new-girl jitters. And whatever weirdness is going on with her phone.

CHARACTER GUEST POST WITH KATHLEEN VALENTI’S MAGGIE O’MALLEY 




Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

I say it like a prayer, an incantation against the darkness that creeps toward me like the encroaching dusk. As if my words, what I want, will have any effect.

It’s happening again.

Not the phantom calendar reminders. Not the mysterious deaths. I’ve become used to those, fear and horror blunted with time and exposure, as if I’ve gone to desensitization therapy to overcome a phobia of spiders or small spaces.

No. This is something new. Something terrible. Something personal.

Not that what was happening before wasn’t terrible and personal.

I was simply able to compartmentalize it. Remove a part of myself so I felt as if I were studying the events of the past few weeks through my microscope.

Now there’s no compartmentalizing, no playing the scientist to assess and react dispassionately.

I’m being watched. Followed. Stalked.

My body seemed to know before my mind. I’d be washing the dinner dishes—or dish, since there’s only me—and suddenly my arms would erupt in gooseflesh, a chill scuttling up my neck and into my hair, sending pinpricks of adrenaline through my scalp.

I’d spin around, eyes hungrily searching the (supposed) empty room behind me, the (typically) vacant yard through my kitchen window only to find the riotous pattern of my secondhand couch and my pinched, hunted reflection in the glass.

Nobody. Nothing. My personal emergency broadcast system failing me. 

Now my body once again raises the alarm. This time the flags go up in response to something external, something tangible: a whisper of footsteps outside my door.

The sound is obvious in its subtly, a sneaky, secret sort of sound meant to conceal. To fool. Or maybe to tempt.

And I am tempted. Curiosity is part of what brought me to science.

So is courage to confront the unknown.

I tilt my head, angle my neck, straining to hear the sly schussing steps outside my door.
A patient silence fills the void.

I move the laptop from my knees and rise from the bed, abandoning my home workstation. It’s three steps to the living area, another seven to the door. I know. I counted every one of them while lugging heavy cardboard boxes on moving day.

I take my own quiet steps toward the door—one, two, three—bare feet padding across threadbare carpet, blood a rushing torrent in my ears.

I peer through the peephole, the sharp tang of freshly painted wood in my nose.
The shadowed porch is as vacant as the silence.

I’ll just take a quick look outside to assure myself that nothing’s there. That no one’s hiding. To see a cat slinking across the porch and laugh at myself for this nonsense.

After all, there’s a chance these feelings are a product of my imagination, symptoms of overwrought nerves and overly enthusiastic adrenal glands. I’ve been under a considerable amount of stress lately.

Murder has that effect.

I put a shaking hand to the knob and turn, relief diluting the fear that’s begun puddling in my veins.

I’m inches away from at least one answer. One way or another, I’ll know what’s on the other side of my door.

EXCERPT FROM PROTOCOL

Ensconced in a hulking steel monolith, Rxcellance loomed over its neighbors like an officious landlord.

A spinoff of Dulton Pharmaceuticals, Rxcellance played Apple to Pfizer’s IBM. Small. Agile. Innovative.

With one miracle drug under its belt and rumors of more in the queue, Rxcellance was on the tipping point of greatness. Whispers of an IPO, once met with derisive snorts, had risen to the unmistakable rumble of the inevitable. PROTOCOL 13 Rxcellance was going to be big, and Maggie was going to be a part of it.

Maggie parked and checked her teeth in the rearview mirror. That poppy seed bagel had been a mistake. Maggie took a tiny flathead screwdriver from the glove box and gently wedged it between the seed and her right canine tooth. The poppy seed went flying.
She grinned to the mirror in satisfaction. And Pop wonders why I’m single.

Maggie climbed out of the car and examined the hood. No damage from the jerk who’d assaulted her vehicle. She rubbed the fender. “My faithful chariot,” she whispered.

The 1960 Studebaker was cherried out. Custard exterior, crimson interior. Original everything, including three-on-the-tree manual transmission. Maggie and her dad had restored it the summer she turned twelve. The summer cancer had planted a flag in her mother’s liver and colonized her body until there was no room for a heartbeat.

She clicked across the parking lot, rode the elevator to the third floor and deposited herself in a cubicle covered in a tan fuzzy fabric that rivaled particle board for shade and luster. Her stomach had gone back to churning. A metallic taste had seeped into her mouth, replacing the bitter taste of bile. Either her adrenaline was still in overdrive, or she was on the brink of a serious illness. Maggie resisted the temptation to palpate her glands, which she was sure were swollen. She figured she was coming down with something because of the stress of the morning. Like the flu. Or the bubonic plague.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleen Valenti is the author of Protocol, the story of freshly minted college graduate Maggie O’Malley who embarks on a pharmaceutical career fueled by professional ambition and a desire to escape the past. Yet on her very first day of work, Maggie’s pulled into a world of uncertainty as reminders appear on her phone for meetings she’s never scheduled with people she’s never met. People who end up dead.

When Kathleen isn’t writing page-turning mysteries that combine humor and suspense, she works as a nationally award-winning advertising copywriter. She lives in Oregon with her family where she pretends to enjoy running. Protocol is her debut novel and the first of the Maggie O’Malley mystery series. 



Connect with Kathleen:

Webpage  |  Facebook  |   Twitter  |  Goodreads 


Buy the book:
Amazon  |   Barnes & Noble  |   iTunes  |   Kobo  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

SPOTLIGHT ON J.R. RIPLEY

Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Lyrical Underground (September 12, 2017)
Print Length: 247 pages
ASIN: B01MT0HN6F

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ruby Lake, North Carolina, might be the perfect place to go birdwatching during autumn, but it’s also a habitat for murder . . .
As Birds & Bees owner Amy Simms guides a halfhearted birding group around Ruby Lake, rumors soon start flying about the annual Fall Festival’s classic car and tractor show. Local eccentric Chick Sherman—boasting the hottest ride in town—has ruffled feathers by mysteriously entering the contest, and curious Amy hatches a plan to sneak a glimpse at the phantom automobile before the big event kicks off . . .
But competition turns deadly when Amy finally spots the sleek ’56 El Morocco—and it’s on top of Chick’s very dead body. With her neighbor and business partner framed as the murderer and priceless Audubon prints suddenly missing from Chick’s home, only Amy can identify the telltale markings of a killer before another hapless victim is plucked from the flock . . .

OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J.R. Ripley is the pen name of Glenn Meganck, the critically acclaimed author of the Tony Kozol mystery series. As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, he has chaired the Edgar committee for Best Original Paperback novel and served on the Best Short Story Committee. As a member of the International Association of Crime Writers, he has served on the Hammett Award committee for Best Novel. When not writing books, Glenn is writing songs, often singing them to the consternation of his audience and neighbors, or involved in one of his many passions, none of which have involved any of the dead bodies that seem to keep cropping up in his mysteries.

Connect with the author:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter   

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Kobo 

a Rafflecopter giveaway