#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GOTTA LAUGH! GOTTA CRAFT!

Gotta Laugh! Gotta Craft!

Is there anyone out there who isn’t stressed to the max right now? Probably not. We’re living in extremely stressful times. Just about everyone I know wants to crawl into bed, pull a quilt over their heads, and not get up until the world is a safer and saner place for everyone.

Personally, I’ve been feeling that way for some time now, ever since author Lois Winston started messing with my life. Sometimes my head spins when I think about the way she’s turned my life upside down and sideways. A year ago, I was living the American Dream with my husband, two great kids, a home in the suburbs, and a job I loved. The one fly in the ointment was my cantankerous communist mother-in-law who was living with us while she recuperated from a hit-and-run, but Karl, my husband, had assured me her stay was temporary. He didn’t want her in our home any more than I did.

Then Karl dropped dead in Las Vegas, and life has never been the same. I felt like such a cliché—the clueless wife who knew nothing of her husband’s affair. Only Karl’s affair had been with Lady Luck, and his luck had run out. He left me, not only permanently stuck with his mother but also his loan shark, having gambled away everything—including money we didn’t have. The loan shark didn’t care, which I’ve since learned is SOP—standard operating procedure—for loan sharks. Being a Jersey girl, you’d think I would have known that.

You might also think all of the above would be enough of a triple whammy for any clueless wife, right? Far from it. Ever since Karl’s death, thanks to Lois, the dead bodies keep piling up around me, and I’ve found myself with a second career as a reluctant amateur sleuth. It was either that or wind up railroaded for a murder I didn’t commit.

I don’t think even Sherlock Holmes stumbles across dead bodies at the rate I have this past year. Nor did Sherlock have as many people trying to kill him. You’d think I work in law enforcement, given all those dead bodies, but I’m the crafts editor at a women’s magazine, for heaven’s sake! Hardly your typical life-threatening occupation. And yet, my life keeps getting threatened, thanks to Lois.

They say that laughter is the best medicine. Of course, laughter isn’t going to cure everything that ails us right now, but it will release endorphins, which make us feel better. And at least Lois has decided to give me a sense of humor that helps me get through all the murder and mayhem she throws my way.

She’s also decided that you, too, could probably use a good laugh right about now. So for the next few days Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, is on sale for only .99 cents. Treat yourself to a good laugh at my expense. I won’t mind.

And before I go, I’m going to put my craft editor hat on and remind all of you that there’s something else that can make you feel better right now—crafting. Working on crafts projects can be a huge stress reliever. If you’ve got some unfinished craft projects lying around the house (and what crafter doesn’t?), pick one up and finish it. I promise, it will put a smile on your face. And who doesn’t need an excuse to smile right now?

Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 1

When Anastasia Pollack’s husband permanently cashes in his chips at a roulette table in Vegas, her comfortable middle-class life craps out. She’s left with two teenage sons, a mountain of debt, and her hateful, cane-wielding Communist mother-in-law. Not to mention stunned disbelief over her late husband’s secret gambling addiction, and the loan shark who’s demanding fifty thousand dollars.

Anastasia’s job as crafts editor at American Woman magazine proves no respite when she discovers a dead body glued to her desk chair. The victim, fashion editor Marlys Vandenburg, collected enemies and ex-lovers like Jimmy Choos on her ruthless climb to editor-in-chief. But when evidence surfaces of an illicit affair between Marlys and Anastasia’s husband, Anastasia becomes the prime suspect. Can she find the killer and clear her name before he strikes again?

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