Someone is
celebrating a monumental birthday today. I don’t know about you, but whenever
my birthday draws near, I become very introspective. I take stock of my life,
often dwelling on the choices I’ve made and whether, given the opportunity,
would I make the same ones again. Depressing, isn’t it? Honestly, though, how
many women of a certain age look upon their birthdays the way we did back when
we were too young to know better?
Author Lois
Winston’s most recent protagonist had her life all planned out before fate played
a nasty trick on her. Since the rest of us are taking off to eat birthday cake
and down mojitos with the birthday girl, we decided to turn today’s blog over
to the newbie.
We’ve all heard of Middle Child Syndrome. I suffer
from Second Child Syndrome, or more appropriately, Second Sleuth Syndrome. My
name is Gracie Elliott. I’m the star of author Lois Winston’s Empty Nest
Mysteries. Ever heard of me? Probably not. That’s because I play second fiddle
to Anastasia Pollack, the star of Lois’s first series, the Anastasia Pollack
Crafting Mysteries. Anastasia has been sleuthing around for six years now and
won considerable critical praise for her adventures. She’s starred in five
full-length mysteries and three novelettes. Me? My second book just released a
few months ago. It’s not that I’m jealous of Anastasia; it’s just that I’ve got
quite a bit of catching up to do. Perhaps if I tell you something about me, you
might feel inclined to show me a bit of love. What do I have to lose, right?
Not too long ago I
had formulated a strategy for the rest of my life:
1. Take early retirement.
2. Collect sizeable pension.
3. Pay off mortgage.
4. Write romance novels.
5. Sell romance novels.
6. Collect enormous royalty checks.
7. Live happily-ever-after with (soon-to-be) Pulitzer
prize-winning husband. (Not that Blake has even been nominated for a Pulitzer
yet, but I haven’t given up hope. We need that prize money—especially now.
You see, last year
life tossed a humongous monkey wrench into my plans. My employer went belly-up
(au revoir, pension), and my career as a textile designer was outsourced to a
Third World nation. Who knew you could outsource creativity? Not wanting to
spend my golden years living above an inner city auto repair shop, I wracked my
brain for ways to supplement my husband’s college professor salary. Oh, and did
I mention we’ve got twins in college? You have any idea how much that costs?
I quickly learned
that no one was interested in hiring me. I needed to harness my creativity and
become an entrepreneur. In DefinitelyDead, the first book in my series, I came up with the idea for Relatively
Speaking, hiring myself out as a wing woman for the senior set. It was the
ideal second career for me. Since my
clients needed
several hours each morning to find their teeth, lube their creaky joints, and
deal with lower GI necessities, and they
preferred to turn in shortly after the early bird specials, I had plenty of
time to pen my future bestsellers.
Everything was
working out great until I discovered Sidney Mandelbaum, Client Number Thirteen,
murdered in the parking lot of the Moose Lodge. Don’t ever let anyone tell you
thirteen is not an unlucky number. (Hear that, birthday girl?) My experience
proves otherwise.
Too bad I couldn’t
do what architects do when designing buildings. They skip from the twelfth
floor to the fourteenth floor because too many people suffer from
triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number thirteen. No one wants to live or
work on the thirteenth floor of a building. I should have figured out a way to
bypass Client Number Thirteen, but you know what they say about hindsight being
twenty-twenty. I decided to find Sid’s murderer in order to save my fledgling
business. However, even though I caught the killer, Sid’s death still put the
kibosh on my business venture.
Throughout this time I continued to work on my novel
and eventually finished it. Now I needed to find an agent and publisher. So I
entered a writing contest, and guess what? I won an all-expense paid trip to
the annual conference of the Society of American Romance Authors, which is
where you’ll find me in Literally Dead,
the second book in the Empty Nest Mystery series.
Unfortunately, it turns out I’m a bit of a jinx. Client
Number Thirteen’s murder wasn’t a fluke. Within hours of arriving at the
conference, I discover the body of Lovinia Darling, the Queen of Romance, and
although the police first consider her death an unfortunate accident, I suspected
otherwise, and much to my dear husband’s chagrin, I was off on another
sleuthing expedition.
So that’s my fictional life to this point. Hopefully
Lois will decide to keep me around for awhile and pen more adventures for me,
ones that, if I’m lucky, will provide me with large royalty checks and other
sources of income, because I’m still really worried about winding up living
above that inner city auto repair shop, and really, only Lois has the power to
prevent that from happening.
Happy birthday, birthday girl!
Literally
Dead
An Empty Nest Mystery, Book 2
After her last disastrous episode as an amateur
sleuth, Gracie Elliott is back. The budding romance writer has spent the past
year crafting her first novel. Her hard work and determination pay off when her
manuscript wins the Cream of the Crop award, a contest for unpublished writers,
sponsored by the Society of American Romance Authors. First place entitles her
to attend the organization’s annual conference, normally open only to published
authors.
With husband Blake in tow, a starry-eyed Gracie
experiences the ultimate fan-girl moment upon entering the hotel. Her favorite
authors are everywhere. However, within minutes she learns Lovinia Darling, the
Queen of Romance, is hardly the embodiment of the sweet heroines she creates.
Gracie realizes she’s stepped into a romance vipers’ den of backstabbing,
deceit, and plagiarism, but she finds a friend and mentor in bestselling author
Paisley Prentiss.
Hours later, when Gracie discovers Lovinia’s body in
the hotel stairwell, a victim of an apparent fall, Gracie is not convinced her
death was an accident. Too many other authors had reason to want Lovinia dead.
Ignoring husband Blake’s advice to “let the police handle it,” Gracie, aided by
Paisley, begins her own investigation into the death. Romance has never been so
deadly.
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13 comments:
Nice post, Lois.
Thanks so much, Theresa!
What a charming piece! The books sound fun!
Fun post! And I love the empty nest angle for the mysteries!
Thanks, Susan and Lori!
As long as Anastasia doesn't mind, I'll visit Gracie, too. She sounds like a hoot.
I know how you feel. I'm Annie, Marilynn Larew's second detective. I come after two Lee Carruthers novels. I'm a PI in Baltimore in 1980. You'd think that since I come first chronologically, she'd do another adventure for me now, but Lee's third is waiting in the wings. What can I say?
What a cute blog! I know how your character feels. Sigh.
Linda, Anastasia won't mind, and Gracie will definitely appreciate the attention.
Annie, you and Gracie might want to consider forming a club if you can figure out that pesky time/space continuum.
Vicki, misery loves company?
I can't get the Beatles' song out of my head!
So sorry for giving you an ear worm, Angela!
Happy Birthday. Love this post. The book sounds like a lot of fun.
Thanks, Diane!
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