Author: Frankie Bow

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Schooled. #SampleSunday

Schooled

CIA operative Fortune Redding signs up for night classes, hoping to ease the boredom of her undercover assignment and update her computer skills. But an  unfortunately-timed murder on the campus of Mudbug Technical College sends shock waves through the town of Sinful. And Fortune’s life is turned upside down when she discovers who the prime suspect is. Now Fortune has to choose between lying low to avoid the ruthless arms dealer who’s put a price on her head, and doing everything in her power to save someone she can’t bear to lose.

Excerpt

Celia Arceneaux had recently won (or “won”) the Sinful mayor’s office in an election with a margin so thin that the town was now in the middle of a recount. In the meantime, Celia was allowed to stay on as mayor-elect. It turned out that the only thing worse than Celia Arceneaux was Celia Arceneaux with a little bit of power. She could now enforce Sinful’s arcane laws (or not) as she pleased, declare holidays on a whim, and drain the city coffers by hiring her idiot relatives and generally mismanaging everything. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she started printing money with her picture on it and renaming the months of the year after herself.
“So Celia filed another complaint about me?” I asked. “What is it this time? Washing my car on a Tuesday? Wearing off-white before Labor Day?”
Sheriff Lee fidgeted and cleared his throat. Come on, Sheriff, spit it out.  How bad could it be?
“Celia Arceneaux is dead, Fortune.”
I could almost feel my jaw hit the top of Lee’s desk.
“What?”
“I said Celia Arceneaux is dead,” he shouted.
“No, I heard you the first time. She’s dead? How? What happened?”
“She was the victim of a hit-and-run last night.”
“Oh. That’s terrible. But what does this have to do with—”
“In the upper parking lot of Mudbug Technical College.”
I instinctively went on high alert. Someone had killed Celia Arceneaux and was trying to pin it on me. But who?

Schooled is available on these platforms

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This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

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Cooking up trouble in Tabasco Fiasco #SampleSunday

Tabasco Fiasco

Deputy Sheriff Carter LeBlanc has been seen around Sinful with a beautiful, blonde stranger. But Fortune is fine with it, really. It’s not like she and Carter had a future together or anything. To show there are no hard feelings, Fortune hosts a dinner party for Carter and his new associate, and even volunteers to cook. But when she tries her hand at a spicy gumbo, things start to heat up for real. As bodies pile up, Fortune suspects that she’s the real target–and only Swamp Team Three can save the day.

Excerpt

“Just don’t get those huge cups,” I said. “I don’t want to be stopping for bathroom breaks every fifteen minutes.”
I ordered a “tall” (i.e. small) brewed coffee. Gertie and Ida Belle ignored my plea and got giant frozen mocha caramel concoctions topped with mountains of whipped cream.
Then they both made a show of how they were low on cash and reminded me that they were elderly ladies on fixed incomes.
I paid for all three of us, trying to conceal my shock at the price of a tricked-out coffee milkshake.
As I turned to leave, something tripped my alarm.
A man sat in a corner, with his back to the wall. Most of him was hidden by the copy of Monocle Magazine he had opened in front of him. That in itself was suspicious. Who reads print magazines anymore?
Male. Gelled dark brown hair. Skinny, pale wrist. Gold Rolex. Strike that, fake gold Rolex. Threat assessment… moderate to high, based on his overall sleaziness.
“Let’s go.” I urged Gertie and Ida Belle out of the door onto the sidewalk, setting the bells a-jingle. I glanced back through the plate glass. The man was slowly setting down his magazine. I took out my phone and snapped a photo through the glass. The image quality would be terrible, but it was better than nothing. I’d send it to Harrison, my handler back at headquarters. Just to be on the safe side. It might be nothing, but with a ten-million-dollar bounty on my head, I couldn’t afford to get complacent.

Tabasco Fiasco is available on these platforms

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This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

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A new Witch City Mystery: Final Exam by Carol J. Perry

A cold case update in Salem, Massachusetts . . .

Life at the house on Winter Street is abuzz with preparations for Aunt Ibby’s 45th high school reunion, and Lee Barrett is happy to pitch in, tracking down addresses and licking envelopes. But as a field reporter for Salem’s WICH-TV, her priority is to be on top of the town’s latest news before anyone else.

When the local police dredge up a vintage sports car containing human remains, Lee is thrilled to be the first reporter on the scene. Once she learns the car is connected to the cold case her boyfriend Pete happens to be working on, her powers of investigation are quickly alerted. But it’s her Aunt Ibby’s emotional reaction to Lee’s TV report that puts her on the case. With the help of O’Ryan, her psychic feline sidekick, she’ll have to unravel a tangled past of secrets and promises to stop a killer from making history again . . .

About the Author

Carol Perry, Gulfport

Carol J. Perry knew as a child that she wanted to be a writer. A voracious reader, whose list for Santa consisted mostly of book titles, she never lost sight of that goal. While living in Florida, Carol was on assignment for Southern Travel Magazine, preparing an article on the world’s largest sand castle which was being built near her home. That combination of events inspired her first young adult novel, Sand Castle Summer. That book was soon followed by half a dozen more.

Carol has always been an avid reader of mysteries. Her debut mystery novel is set in Salem and involves O’Ryan, a most mysterious cat, several witches and some strange Halloween happenings. Appropriately enough, this Salem-born author celebrates her birthday on Halloween Eve! Carol and her husband Dan live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida with two cats and a Black Lab. Visit her at www.caroljperry.com.

Amazon  |  B&N |  Kobo  |   Google Play  

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First in Series: Murder Once Removed by S.C. Perkins

Except for a good taco, genealogist Lucy Lancaster loves nothing more than tracking down her clients’ long-dead ancestors, and her job has never been so exciting as when she discovers a daguerreotype photograph and a journal proving Austin, Texas, billionaire Gus Halloran’s great-great-grandfather was murdered back in 1849. What’s more, Lucy is able to tell Gus who was responsible for his ancestor’s death.

Partly, at least. Using clues from the journal, Lucy narrows the suspects down to two nineteenth-century Texans, one of whom is the ancestor of present-day U.S. senator Daniel Applewhite. But when Gus publicly outs the senator as the descendant of a murderer—with the accidental help of Lucy herself—and her former co-worker is murdered protecting the daguerreotype, Lucy will find that shaking the branches of some family trees proves them to be more twisted and dangerous than she ever thought possible.

About the Author

S.C. Perkins is a fifth-generation Texan who grew up hearing fascinating stories of her ancestry and eating lots of great Tex-Mex, both of which inspired the plot of her debut mystery novel. Murder Once Removed was the winner of the 2017 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery competition. She resides in Houston and, when she’s not writing or working at her day job, she’s likely outside in the sun, on the beach, or riding horses.

Author Links 

o   www.scperkins.com

o   www.twitter.com/scperkinswriter

o   www.instagram.com/scperkinswriter

o   www.facebook.com/scperkinswriter

o   www.pinterest.com/scperkinswriter

o   www.goodreads.com/scperkinswriter

Purchase links

IndieBound    |  Amazon  |   Barnes & Noble  |  Books-a-Million

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Tons of free and 99 cent mysteries, March 8-10

A group of mystery writers have gotten together to offer a huge selection of free and 99 cent mysteries here.
Why?

  • We love it when people read our stuff
  • Maybe you will like what you read and come back for more

This is a small subset of the available books
This is a small subset of the books

 

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A new Lizzie Stuart mystery from criminologist Frankie Y. Bailey: A Dead Man's Honor

Crime historian Lizzie Stuart goes to Gallagher, Virginia for a year as a visiting professor at Piedmont State University. She is there to do research for a book about a 1921 lynching that her grandmother, Hester Rose, witnessed when she was a twelve-year-old child.

Lizzie’s research is complicated by her own unresolved feelings about her secretive grandmother and by the disturbing presence of John Quinn, the police officer she met while on vacation in England. When an arrogant but brilliant faculty member of Piedmont State University is murdered, Lizzie begins to have more than a few sleepless nights. A Dead Man’s Honor is a haunting story that will keep you awake nights, too.

About the Author

Frankie Y. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany (SUNY).  Her areas of research are crime history, and crime and mass media/popular culture. She is the author of the Edgar-nominated Out of the Woodpile: Black Characters in Crime and Detective Fiction (Greenwood, 1991), and African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study (McFarland, 2008), nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Agatha awards, and winner of a Macavity award. She is the recipient of the George N. Dove Award (2010).

Frankie is a member of Sisters in Crime (SinC), Romance Writers of America (RWA), and Mystery Writers of America (MWA).  She served as the 2009-2010 Executive Vice President of MWA and as the 2011-2012 President of Sisters in Crime (SinC).  Find her at frankieybailey.com.

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#SampleSunday at the romance convention with Fortune, Gertie, and Ida Belle

Once Upon a Murder

Gertie drags her best friends Fortune and Ida Belle to a romance convention in New Orleans. Gertie wants to advance her budding new career as a romance author; Fortune needs a break from her complicated personal life; and Ida Belle doesn’t think the other two should go out unsupervised. But when Ida Belle runs into someone from her past, it becomes clear that not everyone at the American Romance and Erotica Authors’ Conference will live happily ever after.

Excerpt

“Fortune,” Gertie asked gently, “is something wrong?”
“Look, this is kind of embarrassing to admit and you can’t tell anyone. Just between us. I see all these sexy guys on these book covers and every one of them makes me think of Carter LeBlanc.”
“Even the black one?” Gertie asked.
“This isn’t your fault.” Ida Belle said. “You couldn’t tell him that you were undercover. He should know that. Unless he’s a complete moron, he’ll realize he’s being unreasonable.”
“I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him in the first place. It’s completely against official policy and common sense. And I had to get mixed up with the deputy sheriff, of all people.”
“Oh, pish-posh. Who follows the rules all the time? Ida Belle, remember that party at the French embassy, when you and I —”
“Gertie, don’t we need to get going?”
“Oh. I suppose we do. Yes. Let’s see.” Gertie held her conference program out at arm’s length and squinted at it. “What are we, Session One? I think I’d like to go to Write a Bad Romance.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said. “It sounds like it’ll be fun. The last conference I went to, the highlight was the Keynote Address by former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin.”

Once Upon a Murder is available on these platforms

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This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

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Restaurant Weeks are Murder: A new Poppy McAllister Mystery from Libby Klein

Cape May, New Jersey, is the site of a big culinary competition—and the knives are out . . .

Poppy McAllister is happy about opening a Jersey Shore B&B—but working in a professional kitchen has always been her real dream. Now it’s coming true, at least briefly, as she teams up with her former fiancée, Tim—and his condescending partner, Gigi—during the high-profile Restaurant Week challenge. Poppy’s specialty is pastries, despite her devotion to a Paleo diet. But if anyone can make glorious gluten-free goodies, it’s Poppy.

Things get heated quickly—especially when some ingredients get switched and Tim’s accused of sabotage. Relatively harmless pranks soon escalate into real hazards, including an exploding deep fryer. And now one of the judges has died after taking a bite of Poppy’s cannoli—making her the chef suspect . . .

Includes Seven Recipes from Poppy’s Kitchen!

Enter to win a print copy here

About The Author  

Libby Klein dabbles in the position of Vice President of a technology company which mostly involves bossing other people around, making spreadsheets, and taking out the trash.

She writes culinary cozy mysteries from her Northern Virginia office while trying to keep her cat Figaro off her keyboard.

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Would you travel to the past to solve a murder? Witch after Time Ava Mallory

Mariana Galvin is afraid of ghosts. Unfortunately. As a medium and a member of the world’s most elite paranormal crime-solving team, paranormal entities are part of the deal.
So Mariana hits on a foolproof plan – an early retirement.
The plan seems simple enough, until she’s summoned to solve a disturbing case in 1968 Chicago.
Now she has to choose – leave her teenagers and husband behind to travel back in time or ignore her calling and hope her abilities don’t go into overdrive.
Either way, she’s bound to find trouble. Fingers crossed, she makes it out this time.
 

Witch After Time is the fourth book in the A Witch in Time Mystery Series, five cozy mysteries about time-traveling witches. Each is a standalone book, and each is written by a different author, but you’ll have more fun if you read all five.

A Witch in Time Mysteries:

Better Witch Next Time by Stephanie Damore
A Devil of a Time by Mona Marple
Time After Time by Jenna St. James
Witch After Time by Ava Mallory
Right Witch. Wrong Time by K.M. Waller
All five are available on Kindle