THIS WEEK'S BOOK WINNER

Thanks to all who stopped by this week at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers. We hope you'll come back often and also tell your friends about us. We have lots of exciting posts and guests planned for the months ahead. I’d also like to thank Anne K. Albert for being our Book Club Friday guest and offering an e-copy of  FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL to one of our readers who posted a comment this week. The winner this week is Nancy Hinchliff. Nancy, please email your mailing address to me at anastasiapollack@gmail.com. I’ll forward the information to Anne, and she’ll mail the book to you.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR ANNE K. ALBERT

Our Book Club Friday guest today is award-winning mystery author Anne K. Albert. Anne has taught high school art, sold display advertising for a small town weekly newspaper, and worked for a national brand water company, but now writes full time. Author of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries series, she also writes the romantic suspense Piedmont Island Trilogy series. Read more at her website. Anne is offering an e-copy of her latest release, Frank, Incense and Muriel, to one of our readers who posts a comment to the blog this week. -- AP

I’m excited to be at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers today, and especially glad to share a little of the process I used to pen Frank, Incense and Muriel, first book of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries.

Many authors plot their stories. They know the beginning, middle and end before they put a single word to paper.

Writing for me is more akin to being a fly on the wall.

I sit at the computer, place my fingers on the keyboard, and focus on my characters. Like magic, I zoom to their location and time. I’m there. With them. I see, hear, feel, taste and smell everything they do.

I have no idea what will happen from one sentence to the next. I experience the story at the same moment it unfolds for my characters. I also get a vivid image of their surroundings. I notice everything from steely gray clouds off in the horizon to the knick-knacks on their living room shelves. Often, it’s these little details that bring a story to life for an author.

That’s what happened when I wrote Frank, Incense and Muriel.

In the first scene, I joined Muriel in her kitchen. She’s upset because her sexy high school nemesis, now an even sexier private investigator, has asked her to help find a missing woman. Muriel wants an out. She wants him out of her life before her relatives arrive for the Christmas holidays.

I’m pretty confident she’ll cave. So confident in fact, I take a moment to look around her kitchen. I spot an assortment of magnets on the fridge. One, however, stands out from all the rest. Printed in white lettering on a black 3” square with rounded corners is a single sentence.

“Remember, as far as anyone knows we’re a nice normal family.”

I realized that quote sums up Muriel and her relationship with her family. She has struggled her entire life to fit in, but it’s difficult for a gullible intellectual to feel like she belongs in a clan of thrill-seeking eccentrics.

Muriel’s aunt is a strong, multi-married (and divorced) woman in her sixties. Val changes her mind as often as her hair color, but her heart is as big as the massive drooling mutt she rescued from the animal shelter.

Muriel’s uncle is a conspiracy theory aficionado, constantly in search of hidden listening devices and cameras and determined to stay under the radar.

Her brothers and cousins strive to surpass each other in a parade of extreme-sport activities that includes water rafting in the Himalayas, trekking across the frozen Antarctica wasteland to spelunking in a Central America cave inhabited by a colony of vampire bats.

The Reeves family tradition is to gather round the fireplace on Christmas Eve, but forget the mistletoe and caroling. There is only one gift on everyone’s wish list. Whether 18 or 98, they’ll just about kill to win the coveted D-DAY (Death Defying Act of the Year) Award. Everyone that is, except Muriel.

“Remember, as far as anyone knows we’re a nice normal family.”

I shudder to think what direction this comedic, cozy mystery might have taken if I had missed that fridge magnet!

Frank, Incense and Muriel is recipient of the 2011 Holt Medallion Award of Merit.

Night Owl Reviews gave it 5 stars and a Top Pick Award. “If you’re looking for a story with a little bit of humor, a whole lot of suspense and plenty of insanity, then you’ve found the perfect story.”

Happy reading!

Thanks so much for being our guest today, Anne. Readers, don’t you just love the title of Anne’s latest mystery? Post a comment to enter to win a free e-book edition of Frank, Incense and Muriel. Check back Sunday evening to see if you're the lucky winner. -- AP