Tag: Gayle Leeson

Have yourself a DEADLY little Christmas.
Celebrate the holidays with mistletoe, mayhem, and murder. Join your favorite authors as they cozy up by the fire with twelve festive short mysteries that feature treasured holiday traditions. Serve up a slice of fatal fruitcake and deck the halls with danger, because the holiday season has never been so much fun.

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This original collection is available for a limited time only, so grab your copy today.

Includes:
A Pickle in a Pear Tree by Erin Scoggins
Mistletoe and Murder by Dianne Ascroft
O Deadly Night by Estelle Richards
Larceny and Gingerbread Lattes by Justine Maxwell
…and more!

This original collection is available for a limited time only, so grab your copy today.

Gayle Leeson

Gayle Leeson is a pseudonym for Gayle Trent. Gayle has also written as Amanda Lee. She is currently writing the Kinsey Falls chick-lit/women’s fiction series, the Down South Cafe cozy mystery series, and the Ghostly Fashionista cozy mystery series. Her book KILLER WEDDING CAKE won the Bronze Medal in the 20th Anniversary IPPY Awards. Gayle lives in Southwest Virginia with her family and enjoys hearing from readers.

Erin Scoggins

USA Today Bestselling Author Erin Scoggins is a long-time Southerner with a fondness for offbeat humor and fresh fried chicken. After fifteen years in marketing with a Fortune 500 company, she traded her MBA for fictional crime scenes and feisty small-town families. She writes fun, flirty mysteries that are celebrations of food, family, and the killer South.

Visit her at www.erinscoggins.com for book news and shenanigans.

Dianne Ascroft

Dianne Ascroft is a Canadian writer living in Britain. Since moving to Britain in 1990 she has lived in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Online she can be found at http://www.dianneascroft.com.

She writes cozy mystery, historical and contemporary fiction, often with an Irish connection. Her non-fiction articles and short stories have been printed in Canadian and Irish magazines and regional newspapers including the Toronto Star, Ireland’s Own, Senior Times, Celtic Connection and Irish Connections Canada.

She was co-editor of The Fermanagh Miscellany, the Fermanagh Authors’ Association’s yearly anthology for several years and she also contributes material to other local history and writers’ anthologies.

Dianne is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, Sisters in Crime, Historical Novel Society, Writers Abroad, Fermanagh Authors’ Association and Fermanagh Writers.

Dianne started life in a quiet residential neighbourhood in the buzzing city of Toronto and has progressively moved to smaller places through the years. She now lives on a small farm in Northern Ireland with her husband and an assortment of strong willed animals. If she ever decides to write her autobiography the working title will be ‘Downsizing’.

Estelle Richards

Estelle Richards lives in the beautiful American Southwest and writes cozy mysteries. Connect with Estelle at estellerichards.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/estellerichardswriter/.

Mollie Cox Bryan

Mollie Cox Bryan writes cozy mysteries with edge. She’s the author of several bestselling mystery series, also writing under the pen name Maggie Blackburn. Her books have been selected as finalists for an Agatha Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award and as a Top 10 Beach Reads by Woman’s World. She has also been short-listed for the Virginia Library People’s Choice Award. She’s also penned a historical fiction: MEMORY OF LIGHT: AN AFTERMATH OF GETTYSBURG. She’s the mother of two nearly perfect daughters, each pursuing careers in music.

Wendy H. Jones

International Award Winning Author Wendy H. Jones lives in Scotland. Her love for adventure led to her joining the Royal Navy to undertake nurse training. After six years in the Navy she joined the Army where she served as an Officer for a further 17 years. Killer’s Countdown was her first novel and the first book in the Shona McKenzie Mysteries. She is President of the Scottish Association of Writers and host of The Writing and Marketing Show podcast.

Justine Maxwell

Justine Maxwell writes cozy mysteries with brave heroines, strong family bonds, and a touch of romance. She has degrees in psychology from Northern Arizona University and Grand Canyon University. She hopes to one day become a reclusive author in a mountain cabin near Flagstaff, AZ. Until then, she’ll be a busy mom of four small children and one (allegedly) hypoallergenic pup, writing in the midst of chaos.

Sam Cheever

USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author Sam Cheever writes mystery and suspense, creating stories that draw you in and keep you eagerly turning pages. Known for writing great characters, snappy dialogue, and unique and exhilarating stories, Sam is the award-winning author of 80+ books.

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The Calamity Cafe is the first book in a new cozy mystery series featuring Southern cooking

Aspiring chef and small-town Virginia native Amy Flowers is ready to open her own café offering old-fashioned Southern food. But her dream may go up in smoke when someone kills the competition…
Tired of waiting tables at Lou’s Joint, Amy Flowers doesn’t just quit—she offers to buy the place from her bully of a boss, so she can finally open the café of her dreams. Amy can’t wait to serve the kind of Southern, down-home treats and dishes that her grandmother always loved to the kooky cast of regulars at the restaurant. She knows her comfort food will be the talk of the sweet, small town of Winter Garden, Virginia.
At first Lou Lou refuses to sell, but when she seems ready to make a deal, she tells Amy to come see her. Showing up at the eatery ready to negotiate, Amy is shocked to find her former employer murdered. As the prime suspect, Amy will have to clear her name by serving up the real killer—and with Lou Lou’s stack of enemies, that’s a tall order.
Includes delicious Southern recipes!

Q: Thanks for stopping by Island Confidential, Gayle. Can you tell us a little bit about your protagonist, Any?
A: Amy Flowers is a young woman who has a serious goal but who doesn’t forget to have plenty of fun. She makes time for her friends and family while hoping to realize her goal of opening her own café.
Q: How much of you is in Amy? How would you feel about her if you met her in real life?
A: I’m sure there’s a little Amy in me, especially where she was so devoted to her grandmother who is deceased when we meet Amy. And, like Amy, I have a tendency to want to adopt and/or feed animals and people (especially children). Whenever my children were growing up, I was known for my cookies and cupcakes. Even when my son was in high school, I’d have to make and send chocolate chip cookies to his friends.
I’d love Amy if I met her in real life. I think we’d be good friends, but I’d have to avoid seeing her too often because if I didn’t, she’d feed me until I was as big as a house!
Q: Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series?
A: They do. That’s something I’ve really enjoyed with other series I’ve written (the embroidery series written under the name Amanda Lee, in particular) and that I’m looking forward to exploring in the Down South Café series. I like that each individual book can be read as a standalone but that readers who start at the beginning and continue through the series can enjoy the nuances of watching the characters grow and develop.
Q: Have you ever thought of killing someone that you know in real life–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean?
A: Oh, my goodness, I have done it! In my cake decorating mystery Battered to Death (written as Gayle Trent), I killed a man who’d been mean to my son. The man was such a jerk, and I took great joy in beating him over the head with a cake stand and then drowning him in cake batter!
Q: How realistic is your setting? Do you take liberties, or are you true to life?
A: Both. Winter Garden is a fictional town in Virginia, but it’s close to real-life towns: Glade Spring, Meadowview, Abingdon, Bristol. In fact, at my website, I’m including photograph slideshows from various regions. I only have three so far, but I’ll continue to add to it.
Q: When the movie or TV series is made, who plays the major parts?
A: Maybe Emily Osmet as Amy and Robbie Amell as Ryan. They’d be so cute together. Now you’ve got me excited about this movie! Who can we call to make it happen?
Q: What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
A: Worst advice: “You have to move to New York or Los Angeles to make it as a writer.”
Best advice: Never give up!

About The Author

Gayle Leeson is a pseudonym for Gayle Trent. I also write as Amanda Lee. As Gayle Trent, I write the Daphne Martin Cake Mystery series and the Myrtle Crumb Mystery series. As Amanda Lee, I write the Embroidery Mystery series. I live in Virginia with my family, which includes her own “Angus” who is not an Irish wolfhound but a Great Pyrenees who provides plenty of inspiration for the character of Mr. O’Ruff. I’m having a blast writing this new series!
Author Links:
Webpage – http://www.gayleleeson.com
Gayle Trent Webpage – http://www.gayletrent.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/GayleTrentandAmandaLee/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/GayleTrent
GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/426208.Gayle_Trent
Purchase Links
Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Books-a-Million – Kobo