Author: Frankie Bow

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Where Everyone has a Green Thumb – Guest Post + #Giveaway at Brooke Blogs

Where everyone has a green thumb
I really did have a lot to learn about gardening. I was not one of those persons gifted with a green thumb. In fact, I seemed to have the opposite of a green thumb, whatever that would be. A red thumb? That didn’t sound right, although green and red opposed each other on the color wheel. A brown thumb? A black thumb? Was that racist? Maybe a skeleton thumb, like the Grim Reaper.—The Black Thumb, a Professor Molly MysteryI have the proverbial black thumb. I am the worst gardener in the world.I incapable of coaxing a living thing out of the ground; worse I’ve had actual cactus perish in my care.I am death, destroyer of flora.Or so I thought, before I moved from Southern California to the rainy side of one of the Hawaiian Islands.
Read more: The Black Thumb by Frankie Bow – Guest Post + Giveaway @Frankie_Bow » Brooke Blogs

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Character Interview and #giveaway: Nine LiFelines, a Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery

>>>Enter to win one of eight Kindle copies of Nine LiFelines<<<
The elevator won’t go to the tenth floor, someone is breaking into condos, and the well-heeled Ukrainian renter isn’t paying the rent.


Beth and Arnie have retired to the building where Beth’s last rental unit is located, and Beth, the klutzy landlady, has declared herself through solving mysteries. Then, her renter is arrested for the murder of the neighbor who fell (was pushed?) from the tenth-story balcony and the dead neighbor’s grandchildren are left with only their wheelchair-ridden grandmother to care for them. Beth feels compelled to help out. Are Sylvester’s psycho-cat behaviors providing clues? Is the renter actually the killer? Do the break-ins and elevator problem have anything to do with the murder? Even Arnie, who has always told Beth to keep her nose out of police business, gets involved—for the sake of the children.

Today we have Beth’s sister, Meg Knells, visiting our blog. 
Q: Meg, welcome to Island Confidential! Can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself–maybe something readers might not guess?
A: You may think I’m a staid middle school teacher, but I my younger years, I was a party girl. Beth’s and my mother died when we were teenagers, and I tried to help guide my little sister. Later, I dropped out of college for a couple of years to bartend and travel. In Europe, I hitchhiked across the continent until I met my future husband, Paul, in Italy. We came home and settled down.
Q: Who’s the character you get along with the best? Why?
A: I get along with my sister, Beth, now. We’re best friends. She has an adventurous spirit. A few years ago, she flew to the Virgin Islands to find my missing stepdaughter who was accused of embezzlement. (Catastrophic Connections) Since then, I’ve helped her solve other problems.
Q:  Which other character do you have a conflict with? Why?
A: I’m not a fan of Detective Renquire. He never seems to do enough to find the real killers. Well…I mean…I guess he comes through in the end.
Q:  Just between you and me: What do you really think of your author?
A: To tell the truth, I am the result of a bit of a learning curve in Joyce Ann Brown’s mystery writing exploits. Sure, I was there as the sidekick to her sleuth, Beth Stockwell, from the beginning. But, in Nine Lifelines, her latest book in the Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series, the development of the characters and the twists and turns in the plot make this her best book yet.
Q: What’s next for you?
A: Oh, I’m done helping Beth solve her mysteries. I’ve retired from school teaching and want to relax. I’m taking a quilting class and am thinking about writing a family history. Sigh…I suppose if Beth asked me, I’d be there for her. After all, she is my little sister. Her causes are compelling. I do come up with clever ideas to help gather information. Sigh…Smile.

CHAPTER 1
THE ELEVATOR
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. We stopped on the wrong floor—again.”
Beth’s lanky husband, Arnie, his bottom half inside and his top half outside the elevator, held the Open button with one finger while he twisted his head around his grocery sack to see the number above the door in the hallway. He had pressed 10 in the lobby, and the display read 10, but the number in the hall didn’t match.
“It took us to the eighth floor this time,” Arnie said, “and there’s no one here waiting—again.” He pulled his head back inside and punched the 10, none too gently, his irritation emphasizing the wrinkles on his suntanned forehead.
“This has happened every time.” Beth shifted her bulky grocery bag to the other arm and ran her hand through her undisciplined silver-blond curls. “Don’t you think we’d better tell the management? Darn it, I’m getting tired of this.” She bumped her bag with the arm she jerked down to emphasize her words. “Oops.” Arnie caught and stabilized her load before the groceries could fall all over the elevator floor. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” Her husband took Beth’s habitual klutziness in stride.
“This problem has probably been reported,” Arnie said. “We just moved in. We don’t want to start complaining so soon.”
Beth sighed and leaned her small frame back against the wall to relieve the weight of her package. “But this is inconvenient and…and spooky and…”
She glanced through the opening from her new viewpoint just as the doors were about to snap together. With her free hand, she slapped the Open button, and the doors swooshed aside as if this unruly machine was always obedient to her every command. As if.
“Arnie, look. Something’s going on. Half the people in the building are standing in front of a door down there.” She took a step out into the hallway and crooked an index finger at Arnie.
With a skeptical frown, he followed. “Maybe they’re getting ready for an outing or something. We aren’t invited. It’s none of our business.”
“No, it looks like they’re looking at the door. Let’s go see what’s going on. We can explain we’re new to the building and accidentally got off on the wrong floor.”
“Humph. Here, give me your bag. I’m going on up. You can satisfy your curiosity without getting me involved.”
“Deal.”
Beth heard snippets of conversations as she neared the cluster of people. “Something needs to be done.” “I’m having double locks installed.” “One of these times, someone will be home, and then what will happen?”
At the edge of the noisy crowd, Beth sidled up to a young teenaged girl who was holding a phone that emitted a constant series of beeps and chirps. Sending and receiving text messages, Beth decided.  She must be telling the world, or at least her sphere of friends, about whatever was happening.
“What’s going on here?” Beth asked.
The kid, her wavy red hair half over her face, glanced sideways at Beth and then back at her phone. Somehow she kept her thumbs busy punching letters while she answered. “Another lock was picked. That old woman’s apartment got robbed.”

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 
Joyce Ann Brown, the author of the Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series, set in Kansas City, was a librarian, a landlady, and a Realtor before becoming a short story and novel writer. She also has two mischievous cats.
Her actual tenants have never disappeared, murdered, or been murdered. Nor have any of them found a skeleton in the attic. Joyce has never solved a crime. Moose and Chloe, her cats, haven’t sniffed out a mystery, at least not yet.
Joyce spends her days writing (with a few breaks for tennis, walking, and book clubs) so that Beth, the landlady in the series, and Sylvester, the Psycho Cat, can make up for her real-life lack of excitement in a big way.
Author website with Blog: http://www.joyceannbrown.com
Blog: http://retirementchoicescozymystery.wordpress.com
Blog: http://hikingkctrails.wordpress.com
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/joyceannbrownauthor
Twitter: http://twitter.com/joyceannbrown1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9858447.Joyce_Ann_Brown

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Closed Casket: A New Hercule Poirot Mystery

The world’s most famous detective returns in this ingenious, stylish, and altogether delicious mystery from the author of the instant bestseller The Monogram Murders (“I was thrilled” — Gillian Flynn).Cover
“What I intend to say to you will come as a shock…”
With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford — one of the world’s most beloved children’s authors — springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny . . . and leave her vast fortune to someone else: an invalid who has only weeks to live.
Among Lady Playford’s visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited — until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why — when the crime is committed despite Poirot’s best efforts to stop it — does the identity of the victim make no sense at all?
Addictive, ferociously clever, and packed with clues, wit, and murder, Closed Casket is a triumph from the author whose work is “as tricky as anything written by Agatha Christie” (Alexander McCall Smith, The New York Times Book Review).

About the Author

Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 32 languages and 51 territories.  In 2014, with the blessing of Agatha Christie’s family and estate, Sophie published a new Hercule Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, which was a bestseller in more than fifteen countries.  In September 2016, her second Poirot novel, Closed Casket, will be published.
In 2013, Sophie’s novel The Carrier won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards.  Two of her crime novels, The Point of Rescue andThe Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012.
Sophie has also published two short story collections and five collections of poetry – the fifth of which, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-four and lives with her husband, children and dog in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College.
Sophie Hannah
Author Links
Web – http://www.sophiehannah.com/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/sophiehannahCB1
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/sophiehannahauthor/
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Interview and #giveaway: Lynn Cahoon, author of A Story to Kill

>>>Enter to win a print copy of A Story to Kill<<<

A new series from the author of the Tourist Trap Mysteries!

Former English professor Cat Latimer is back in Colorado, hosting writers’ retreats in the big blue Victorian she’s inherited, much to her surprise, from none other than her carousing ex-husband! Now it’s an authors’ getaway—but Cat won’t let anyone get away with murder…
The bed-and-breakfast is open for business, and bestselling author Tom Cook is among its first guests. Cat doesn’t know why he came all the way from New York, but she’s glad to have him among the quirkier—and far less famous—attendees.
Cat’s high school sweetheart Seth, who’s fixing up the weathered home, brings on mixed emotions for Cat…some of them a little overpowering. But it’s her uncle, the local police chief, whom she’ll call for help when there’s a surprise ending for Tom Cook in his cozy guest room. Will a killer have the last word on the new life Cat has barely begun?

Q: Aloha Lynn, and welcome back to Island Confidential! Can you tell us a little bit about your protagonist, Cat? 
A:  Cat Latimer thought she had the dream life. Both she and her new husband were professors at the local college where she’d graduated. They’d bought an old Victorian to restore. And she was finally taking the time to write a book. Then she’d found him kissing one of his students.
Divorced, she landed in California teaching and sold her young adult paranormal novel.  When the letter came from Michael’s attorney, she’d almost not opened it.
Now, she’s back in Aspen Hills, Colorado, running a writer’s retreat in the Victorian her ex-husband left her in the will. But she’s finding things aren’t always what they seem.
Q: How much of you is in Cat Latimer?  How would you feel about her if you met her in real life?
A:  I would love to meet Cat in real life. She’s down to earth and thoughtful about this crazy journey writers take when deciding to share their stories with the world. As far as how much of me is in the character? I’m not quite sure yet. Every character has a touch of the author. Cat and I love food. We both struggle with the blinking cursor. And we love OLD houses. My husband just shakes his head at some of the old houses I say are beautiful. But he’s looking at them with a construction eye. I see the house it was or could be again.
Q: Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series?
A:  Definitely. Although it’s early in the series for Cat Latimer, I already see changes in the way she deals with her own insecurities.  Like all of us, she does the best thing she can do at the time. And hopes to be a better person tomorrow. (Or in the next book.)
Q: Have you ever thought of killing someone that you know in real life–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean? 
A:  Can I take the fifth on this one?  LOL Seriously, I may think about killing someone on the pages of my books, but the truly evil people I don’t want to give page time. Or any more attention than they’ve already received. I do look at objects though (like the supervisor award at my day job) and think about what a great weapon they’d make.
Q: How realistic is your setting? Do you take liberties, or are you true to life?
A:  I write fictional small towns. Now, they feel like the real places they are modeled after but there is no Aspen Hills in Colorado. At least not with Covington College as the primary business.  I can point to where the town would be on a map though and I keep Denver in mind when I’m writing distances.
Also, I tend to mix up places and put them together in a better way that works for the story. So in my bull rider series, the small rodeo town is real, but had a different name and is modeled after another mountain town along with a small hot springs resort I found miles away from either town. Shawnee is better for the mixing.
Q: When the movie or TV series is made, who plays the major parts?
A:  I could see a younger Sandra Bullock type playing Cat, Selena Gomez could play Shauna, and Seth? The guy who plays on NCIS –New Orleans- Lucas Black. I love his smile.
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Q: What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
A:  Best advice – there’s always a lake monster. Or make sure your story had conflict.  Worst advice – You have to follow the rules. When you’re writing, you should ignore the rules. When you’re editing, bring them back but analyze what one’s you’re going to listen to.
 
 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Cahoon is the author of the NYT and USA Today bestselling Tourist Trap cozy mystery series. Guidebook to Murder, book 1 of the series won the Reader’s Crown for Mystery Fiction in 2015. She’s also the author of the soon to be released, Cat Latimer series, with the first book, A STORY TO KILL, releasing 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

Keep up with Lynn:

Website | Amazon author page | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

 

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How I started writing my first mystery: Guest post and #Giveaway on The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

One day back in 2011, I was exercising on the elliptical machine and reading a popular cozy mystery. As I pedaled, I found myself mentally editing the book: “Don’t show everyone laughing and laughing; either the line was funny or it wasn’t.” “You’re spending way too much time on the cat.” Finally I realized I should just go write my own book.
Read more: BLOG TOUR – The Black Thumb – The Pulp and Mystery Shelf

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#Giveaway and Character Interview: Lee Alvarez of The CEO Came DOA

>>>Win all three Lee Alvarez e-books<<<

Lee Alvarez takes a job ferreting out the saboteur of a start-up company’s Initial Public Offering in the heart of Silicon Valley. Little does she know early one morning she will find the CEO hanging by the neck in the boardroom wearing nothing but his baby blue boxer shorts.

Was it suicide? Was it murder by one of the many people who loathed the man on sight, such as his business partner? Or maybe one of the many women in his life, including his famous rock singer ex-? The bodies start piling up while Lee is planning her very own Christmas wedding. Ho, ho, ho.

 
Lee Alvarez, protagonist of the humorous Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, speaks out, much to her mother’s dismay.
Q: Aloha Lee, and welcome to Island Confidential. Why don’t we start by telling our readers a little bit about you?
A: Here’s something few people know. I love the sound of a ukulele.  I bought one and tried to play, but it’s harder than it looks. After several minutes, the tips of my fingers were raw. A musician friend heard me and said maybe if I practiced every day for a year, I could advance from ‘horrible’ to ‘amusingly bad’. Lovely idea, but I don’t have the time for such a commitment. So the instrument is gathering dust under my bed. Now and then I pull it out and twang on it, just for laughs.
On a more serious note, I’ve come to terms with the fact I don’t have the talent to be a prima ballerina. At best, I am a mediocre dancer no matter how hard I work at it, and I do a barre nearly every single morning. It doesn’t help that I’m 5’8” tall, either. A good ballerina is usually around 5’4” in height. When I turned sixteen I had to face facts. I’d never advance to anything other than the chorus of a second-rate ballet company.
What I am, however, is a crackerjack ferret. I’m good a putting together past scenarios and coming up with the right answers.  Before Dad’s sudden death two years ago due to an aneurism, he taught me everything he knew about the detective business, hoping I would follow in his footsteps. Our little family has built a thriving investigative service, Discretionary Inquiries. We’re Silicon Valley’s answer to software, hardware, and intellectual property thefts. But I have noticed it seems like I’m always falling over dead bodies, especially when I’m not looking.
And those are my two secrets, a hidden uke and dusty toe shoes. I guess we all have our ‘what if’ things. But I’m smart enough to know that not being able to do a first-rate glissade arabesque is probably one of life’s better regrets to have. It’s not in on the uke yet.
Q: Who’s the character in the book you get along with the best? 
A: A year ago, I would have said my kid brother, Richard. He’s a computer geek – actually, a genius – and the main reason why Discretionary Inquiries leads the pack in technologically driven Silicon Valley. You may remember Richard. He’s the one who showed up twenty minutes late to the annual board meeting eating a sauerkraut and peanut butter sandwich. It stunk up the boardroom for a week. He’s a little on the weird side, but I love him to pieces. These days the person I get along with best is my fella, Gurn Hanson. Let’s face it, I’m in love. We manage to get married in the latest Alvarez book, The CEO Came DOA, in between assorted chaos, villainy, and laughs. He’s quite a guy!
Q: Which other character do you have a conflict with? 
A: Okay, let’s talk about my mother, Lila Hamilton Alvarez, she who can crack an oyster shell with a single glance. Here’s an excerpt from The CEO Came DOA which I think best describes our differences:

I studied my mother as objectively as possible. She was so loving this. I was right not to try to take the wedding away from her. Besides, soon she would have a new grandchild and leave me alone.
Whoops! Did I say that out loud? No, no, I was just thinking it. I used my inside voice. I’m good.
I relaxed a little and reflected. Yes, here sat the woman who was the Rolls Royce to my Chevy, the conservative to my liberal, the haute couture to my thrift shop, but fate had still seen to throw us together. Chalk it up to one of life’s ironies.
Whoops! Did I just get philosophical on me? Go away, inside voice. Time for a martini.

 
Q: Just between you and me: What do you really think of your author?
A: Heather Haven is a nice lady, has a good heart and all that, but frankly, she’s peculiar. She can find the most bizarre ways of murdering someone. And she puts me into some pretty stressful situations. I have a tough time keeping up. Of course, I get to wear a spectacular wardrobe, but that’s small compensation.
Q: What’s next for you, Lee?
A: I have no idea. Right now I’m on my honeymoon in Kauai, with my gorgeous hunk of a husband, Gurn Hanson. Sun, fun, a Mai Tai or two, love, and relaxation. Wait a minute. She’s at it again. That Heather Haven is involving me in something to do with strychnine poisoning. What the… Whoops! Gotta go. A new murder to solve. But at least it’s in the balmy breezes of a Hawaiian island!
Q: Well, if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and I’ll buy you a Loco Moco. Thanks for visiting Island Confidential!
 


About The Author  
After studying drama at the University of Miami in Florida, Heather went to Manhattan to pursue a career. There she wrote short stories, comedy acts, television treatments, ad copy, commercials, and two one-act plays, which were produced, among other places, at the famed Playwrights Horizon. Once, she even ghostwrote a book on how to run an employment agency. She was unemployed at the time.
 
Her first novel started the Silicon Valley based Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series.  Murder is a Family Business, Book One, won the Single Titles Reviewers’ Choice Award 2011, followed by the second, A Wedding to Die For, 2012 Global and EPIC finalist for Best eBook Mystery of the Year. Death Runs in the Family won the coveted Global Gold for Best Mystery Novel, 2013. DEAD….If Only won the Global Silver for Best Mystery Novel, 2015. Her fifth novel of the series, The CEO Came DOA, debuts September, 2016. She loves writing this series mainly because she gets to play all of the characters, including the cat!
Heather’s other series, The Persephone Cole Vintage Mystery Series, is set in Manhattan circa 1942, during our country’s entrance into WWII. The Dagger Before Me, Book One, was voted best historical and mystery novel by Amazon readers in October, 2013.  It was followed by Iced Diamonds. Book Three, The Chocolate Kiss-Off, is a 2016 Lefty Award Finalist Best Historical Mystery.
On a personal note, her proudest award is the Silver IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards) Best Mystery/thriller 2014 for Death of a Clown. The stand-alone noir mystery is steeped in Heather’s family history. Daughter of real-life Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus folk, her mother was a trapeze artist/performer and father, an elephant trainer. Heather likes to say she brings the daily existence of the Big Top to life during World War II, embellished by her own murderous imagination.
Heather gives lectures, speaks at book clubs, and moderates author panels in the Bay Area, as well as teaching the art of writing. She believes everyone should write something, be it a poem, short story or letter. Then go out and plant a tree. The world will be a better place for it.
Author Links

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https://www.facebook.com/HeatherHavenStories
Twitter@HeatherHaven
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Guest post and #Giveaway: What to read after you've read all the contemporary campus cozies

As a cozy fan who works in academia, I love to read (and write) cozy mysteries that take place on college campuses or feature sleuthing professors. While there are some great contemporary campus cozies, there aren’t, nearly enough. Campus cozies are greatly outnumbered by cat, culinary, and craft subgenres.But if you’re willing to broaden your horizons a little, you can find a great read that skewers Machiavellian administrators, Byzantine bureaucracy, pompous professors, and slacker students.Here are five of my favorites. The publication date or genre might place them outside of the contemporary cozy category, but consider giving them a place in your library. As in your favorite cozies, sex and violence take place offstage; entertaining characters, rich settings, and compelling stories are front and center.Read more: Guest Post/Virtual Tour with Giveaway ~ The Black Thumb by Frankie Bow

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Who is Ettore Sottsass, and why does my heroine’s love interest have his sofa? Guest post and #Giveaway

I think The Black Thumb will appeal especially to residents and vacationers of Hawai′i, people with green thumbs (or black thumbs, like me), people in academia, proud Albanian-Americans, and fans of Frankie’s other books.
Read more: Jane Reads: The Black Thumb by Frankie Bow | Blog Tour with Review, Guest Post, and Giveaway

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