Would you move a dead body for the sake of your best friend?Ask cha-cha babe Celia Ewing, a sixty-five-year-old widow who has just settled into Boca Pelicano Palms, the Florida retirement community of her dreams. When Celia’s best friend Marcy calls her and their friend Deb for help in the middle of the night, they find a naked Marcy trapped under the body of her beau, the community’s board president, Melvin. And he’s dead.
The three friends secretly move Melvin back to his apartment setting off a chain of events that will threaten to tear their community apart and send them to jail. Melvin is one of a number of residents who are dying under suspicious circumstances; and soon Celia becomes an amateur sleuth in an attempt to identify what she suspects is a serial murderer. A thoroughly entertaining,lighthearted murder mystery. –Kirkus Review Enter to win an e-copy
About the Author
Frances Metzman is a graduate of Moore College of Art and has a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2009 she was nominated for the Dzanc Books award, “Best of the Web.” In addition to publishing numerous short stories in literary journals, she has published The Cha-Cha Babes of Pelican Way and Ugly Cookies. She has taught creative and memoir writing at various institutions including Rosemont College and Temple University.
All of Cora Chevalier’s dreams are coming true. Since moving to Indigo Gap, North Carolina, the busy crafting maven has been blessed with a great boyfriend, a lovely home, and a booming craft retreat business. But on the eve of her first Crafty Mom’s Escape Weekend, tragedy strikes again in Indigo Gap. This time, it’s curtains for Stan Herald, the disagreeable director of the local theater group, who’s murdered on the opening night of their new production. Worse, Cora’s friend Zee is accused of the crime.
Mix together a cocktail for murder, add a few salty suspects, toss in a dollop of sweet humor, and you have the recipe for Trimmed to Death, #15 in the Bad Hair Day cozy mystery series.
In Dorothy St. James’s third delectable Southern Chocolate Shop mystery, a new batch of chocolate and troubles of the heart cause a string of disasters for the Chocolate Box’s new owner, Charity Penn.
The vintage seaside town of Camellia Beach, South Carolina seems like the perfect place for romance with its quiet beach and its decadent chocolate shop that serves the world’s richest dark chocolates. The Chocolate Box’s owner, Charity Penn, falls even further under the island’s moonlit spell as she joins Althea Bays and the rest of the turtle watch team to witness a new generation of baby sea turtles hatch and make their way into the wide ocean.
Before the babies arrive, gunshots ring out in the night. Cassidy Jones, the local Casanova, is found dead in the sand with his lover Jody Dalton—the same woman who has vowed to destroy the Chocolate Box—holding the gun. It’s an obvious crime of passion, or so everyone believes. But when Jody’s young son pleads with Penn to bring his mother back to him, she can’t say no. She dives headfirst into a chocolate swirl of truth and lies, and must pick through an assortment of likely (and sometimes unsavory) suspects before it’s too late for Penn and for those she loves in Dorothy St. James’s third rich installment of the Southern Chocolate Shop mysteries, In Cold Chocolate. Enter To Win a 12-piece Godiva Patisserie Truffle Chocolate Flight (US Only)
Author Interview
Dorothy, welcome to Island Confidential! Can you tell us about the protagonist of In Cold Chocolate?
Charity Penn (just Penn to her friends) is chocoholic living her dream. She owns a chocolate shop on the small beach-side community of Camellia Beach in South Carolina. She’s a little nutty. She owns a small Papillon dog (Stella) who will occasionally bite her and anyone else. Because of her rocky past, she is slow to trust others. But she’s generous and always willing to lend a helping hand. Are you and Penn anything alike?
Probably the only thing I have in common with Penn is that we both have trouble in the kitchen. I don’t know what it is. I try to follow a recipe, but things seem to go wrong on their own. How would you feel about meeting her in real life?
I think that’d be awesome. I hope we’d get along. Maybe become best friends even. I’d love to get some free chocolates from her shop. Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series? My characters change quite a bit from book to book. Charity Penn most of all. She starts out in book one quite broken and lost. In every book she learns more about her purpose in life and gains more confidence. Like in real life, our experiences change us. Have you ever thought of killing someone that you know in real life–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean?
Well, yeah! Hasn’t everyone? There’s one person in my life that really gets under my skin. I decided not to kill her, but translate her crazy and hurtful actions into the actions of a character in my books. I’m not going to kill her. No, that’s too good for her. I’m going to keep her alive and torture her a bit instead. (Rubs hands together with maniacal glee.) Well now I have to try to figure out who that is! And speaking of using real life in fiction, do you take liberties with your setting, or is it fairly realistic?
My Southern Chocolate Shop Mysteries are set on a fictional island, Camellia Beach. The place is loosely based on the real town of Folly Beach, which is located near Charleston, SC. I chose to set the book in a fictional town so I could turn back time and depict the town as it had existed before it turned so touristy. I lived on Folly Beach for 20 years and love its quirky, artsy ways. I always knew I wanted to set a series there. What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
The best advice I’ve ever gotten as an author is to write. If you write one page every day, by the end of the year, you’ll have finished a book. Everyone can write at least one page. The worst advice I’d ever heard was that an author needed to buy this or that advertising campaign in order to guarantee success. Yes, some ads are worth the price. But there are plenty of pathways to success. And since every book is different, no one can guarantee what it takes to get your book noticed. Just keep talking with people and your passion. The readers will eventually find you.
About the author
A lover of puzzles and perhaps a bit too nosey about other people’s lives, Dorothy St. James is a former Folly Beach beach bum. She now lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina with her husband, precocious daughter, slightly (OK, terribly) needy dogs, and the friendliest cat you’d ever meet. She has degrees in Wildlife Biology and Public Administration and as an urban planner, worked for many years telling the stories of small southern towns.
Author of a dozen novels, Dorothy enjoys writing both cozy mysteries and romance. Her works have been nominated for many awards including: the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Alliance Southern Book Prize, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, Reviewers
International Organization Award, National Reader’s Choice Award, CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award, and The Romance Reviews Today Perfect 10! Award. Reviewers have called her work: “amazing”, “perfect”, “filled with emotion”, and “lined with danger.” Author Links Website:www.dorothystjames.com Facebook:www.facebook.com/dorothystjames Twitter:www.twitter.com/dorothymcfalls Purchase Links Indie BoundAmazonKoboGoogle PlayBarnes & NobleBookBub
Another Washington Whodunit from Colleen Shogan, author of the wonderful Calamity at the Continental Club!
It’s the height of campaign season, and instead of relishing newlywed bliss with her husband Doug Hollingsworth, Capitol Hill staffer Kit Marshall is busy with a tough reelection fight for her boss, member of Congress Maeve Dixon. Before Maeve and her staff–Kit included–leave Washington, D.C. to campaign full time in North Carolina, they have one last fundraising engagement.
On the iconic rooftop of a restaurant overlooking the Capitol and the Washington monument, Kit and her best pal Meg do their best to woo wealthy lobbyists for sizable campaign donations. Everyone’s enjoying the evening soiree… until a powerful K Street tycoon mysteriously tumbles off the rooftop.
Even with claims the fall must be suicide, Detective Maggie Glass and Kit aren’t so easily convinced foul play isn’t at work. While balancing Doug’s mid-life career crisis, Kit must spring into action to discover who killed the notorious Van Parker before Dixon’s candidacy sputters, even if it means investigating Meg’s handsome new beau, the victim’s conniving widow, and a bicycle advocate hell-bent on settling a long-standing grudge. When threatening note is left on Kit’s car, warning her to back off the investigation, she knows she’s closing in on the true story of what happened. Enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card!
About the Author
Colleen Shogan has been reading mysteries since the age of six. A political scientist by training, Colleen has taught American politics at Yale, George Mason, Georgetown, and Penn. She previously worked in the United States Senate and for the Congressional Research Service. She’s currently a senior executive at the Library of Congress, working on great outreach initiatives such as the National Book Festival. She lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Rob Raffety and their beagle mutt, Conan.
Distillery owner Abigail Logan discovers that high spirits are no match for a cold-blooded killer as the Whisky Business Mystery series puts a fatal twist on stiff competition.
It’s been a year since globe-trotting photojournalist Abi Logan inherited Abbey Glen, a whisky distillery in the heart of the Scottish countryside. To her surprise, the village of Balfour already feels like home, and her new business partner, Grant MacEwan, continues to be too charming to resist. But Abi has a history of relationship disasters, so she struggles to avoid an ill-fated romance with Grant. Steering clear is hard enough on a day-to-day basis, but when the two head off to a whisky industry competition together, Abi panics. Five-star resort, four glorious days of nonstop whisky tasting, and a fatally attractive Scotsman—what could possibly go wrong?
The night before the award presentations, with foreign and domestic whisky makers at one anothers’ throats, two judges are found dead under mysterious circumstances. What started with three dream-come-true nominations for Abby Glen’s whisky soon turns into a nightmare for Abi. With a killer on the loose, she must call on her investigative skills to stop another murder—before she gets taken out of the running herself. Win an electronic copy
About the Author
Melinda Mullet was born in Dallas and attended school in Texas, Washington D.C., England, and Austria. She spent many years as a practicing attorney before pursuing a career as a writer. Author of the Whisky Business Mystery series, Mullet is a passionate supporter of childhood literacy. She works with numerous domestic and international charities striving to promote functional literacy for all children. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her family.
The Miss Fortune mysteries are novellas written under license in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune World. If you want to get acquainted with the characters, the first book in the Miss Fortune series is Louisiana Longshot, available for free on Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, and B&N.
Supernatural Sinful
A graduate student from Hawaii visits the tiny bayou town of Sinful, Louisiana to investigate the effects of the oil spill on the local wildlife. Sinful resident Fortune Redding, who happens to be a CIA operative hiding out from a ruthless arms dealer, worries that the nosy newcomer might blow her cover. But when he makes a gruesome discovery, he unleashes forces that will go to any lengths to protect Sinful’s darkest secret. Sinful Science is my first and only paranormal mystery, and was a lot of fun to research and write. Will there be more? It depends on the readers. You want it, I’ll write it!
Hair Extensions & Homicide
The Hair Extensions and Homicide books follow the original Miss Fortune format. They are told in first person, from Fortune’s point of view.
The Mary-Alice Files
The Mary-Alice Files are told in third person and feature Mary-Alice Arceneaux, Celia Arceneaux’s sweet-natured cousin by marriage. Mary-Alice always tries to assume the best of people. Her disarmingly sweet nature and natural curiosity make her a perfect amateur sleuth.
I write mysteries that don’t have explicit sex or violence, so technically they’re in the “cozy mystery” category, although that might be a little misleading. I think that because of the success of series like “The Cat Who…” and the Hannah Swensen mysteries, sometimes people expect cozies to have cats and recipes. My main characters tend to be indifferent housekeepers and terrible cooks who can barely care for a pet. In Sinful Science, the main character, Fortune Redding, sort of inherits a cat, so I suppose that fulfills the cat requirement.
How did you come to write cozies?
As Toni Morrison advised, I write what I’d like to read—PG-rated mysteries with humor, especially in an academic setting. I enjoy Dorothy Sayers, Amanda Cross, Sarah Caudwell, and Joanne Dobson, for example. And speaking of writing what you like to read, I was already a fan of Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune series when I discovered that Amazon’s Kindle Worlds was offering the opportunity to write in the Miss Fortune universe. I jumped right in and wrote Sinful Science, and had a lot of fun with it! [2018 update: Kindle Worlds is no more, but the Miss Fortune novellas live on under Jana DeLeon’s own publishing imprint!]
Who is your favorite character to write about?
In the Miss Fortune universe, I love Gertie and Ida Belle, two retired ladies who are not quite what they seem. Their bickering is a lot of fun.
Who inspires your books?
For my murder mysteries, what usually happens is that I get home, sit down at my computer, open up my word processor, and ask myself, “Okay, who needs to die?”
What do you do when you’re not writing?
I teach at a public university, read murder mysteries, and hang out with my family.
If you were stuck on a deserted island what three things would you take?
Assuming there was an electrical outlet, I’d say 1) My Keurig machine, 2) A supply of coffee, and 3) cream for the coffee.
Choose from twenty-five free cozy mysteries. What is a cozy mystery? Cozies generally feature amateur sleuths, small towns, humor, minimal sex or violence, and brains over brawn.
My Professor Molly short, Trust Fall, is in there. Trust Fall is for anyone who loves mysteries and loathes team-building retreats.
Melinda Mullet was born in Dallas and attended school in Texas, Washington D.C., England, and Austria. She spent many years as a practicing attorney before pursuing a career as a writer. Author of the Whisky Business Mystery series, Mullet is a passionate supporter of childhood literacy. She works with numerous domestic and international charities striving to promote functional literacy for all children. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her family.
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