CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--NASHVILLE ZOOLUMINATION

Zoolumination at the Nashville Zoo is billed as "the country's largest lantern festival, featuring magical scenes of more than 1,000 custom-made silk lanterns," some 100 feet long and 50 feet high. You'll find everything from mythical creatures to wildlife to flowers and even an outdoor skating rink! Each year the event grows bigger and more spectacular. If you're anywhere near Middle Tennessee through February 9th this year, it's a not-to-be-missed evening of awe.

And for another special evening, join author Lois Winston on Monday evening, January 27th at 7pm ET (6pm CT, 5pm MT, and 4pm PT), where she'll be the guest of the Cozy Mystery Party Facebook Group, hosted by Heather Harrisson and Shawn Stevens. If you'd like to join in for a fun hour + of all things murder, mayhem, and cozy mysteries (there will be prizes and surprises!), join the group ahead of time at https://www.facebook.com/groups/cozymysteryparty. Hope to see you there!

NO TRICKS, JUST TREATS FLASH SALE!

 

Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, Books 5-6, plus more great mysteries, suspense, and thrillers on sale this weekend only at BlackbirdWriters.com.

CREATING CHARACTERS WHO PUSH READERS' BUTTONS

Lois Winston, she who writes about me, came up with the idea for the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries from a combination of events. Her husband had recently lost his job, and although he’s nothing like the man I now refer to as Dead Louse of a Spouse, it sent her into a tailspin of worry regarding money. She was also dealing with massive mother-in-law problems at the time. On top of that, when Lois first started contemplating the series, The Sopranos was still airing on HBO. Like me, Lois is a Jersey girl. How could she not set a mystery in her home state and involve the Mafia in some way? All of those elements came together to form the basis for Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series. 

The premise for the series (if you’ve stumbled across this blog for the first time and don’t know who I am) is that when my gambling-addicted husband permanently cashed in his chips in Las Vegas, my life crapped out. I was left with two teenage sons, a mountain of debt, and a loan shark demanding fifty thousand dollars. 

 

Over the course of the series, Lois has me look for ways to whittle down the massive debt I’ve inherited, a task made more difficult by my spend-thrift mother, a self-proclaimed descendant of Russian royalty, and my curmudgeonly mother-in-law, a card-carrying communist, both of whom live with me. 

 

And did I mention the dead bodies? It’s not like I work in law enforcement. However, ever since Karl Marx Pollack’s death, I keep stumbling across murder victims, which is definitely not something found in the job description for any women’s magazine crafts editor, even ones working in New Jersey.

 

Lois has always been drawn to quirky characters. They make her laugh. It’s the reason she writes humorous amateur sleuth mysteries. She firmly believes we need more laughter in the world. We all get enough of the grim and gritty from the realities of real life, especially these days. I can’t say that I disagree. I just wish she wouldn’t do it at my expense. I can use the laughs, but I can do with fewer dead bodies. 

 

Lois often bases her characters on people she’s known. Usually, she takes traits from various people, exaggerates them, and blends them together to create the unique characters that fill the pages of her books. That’s because most people aren’t as quirky in real life as they are on the printed page. 

 

The exception is Lucille, my mother-in-law. With a few minor differences, Lucille’s personality (along with her communist leanings) mirrors that of my author’s deceased mother-in-law. In the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, Lucille is the character readers love to hate. Some readers have wanted Lois to kill her off, but most love her, probably because they see some of their own mothers-in-law in her. I chalk this up to misery loving company.

 

Some people think Lucille is a witch. Others use stronger language. Love her or hate her, Lucille pushes readers’ buttons. Lois tells me that’s a good thing because you always want the characters in a book to stir a reader’s emotions. So, in honor of Halloween and the witch (or the stronger word that rhymes with it) the two e-book bundle of A Stitch to Die For and Scrapbook of Murder is on sale throughout October for only .99 cents.

 Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, Books 5-6

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#CRAFTING WITH ANASTASIA--MYSTERY AUTHOR ROSALIE SPIELMAN'S DECADE QUILT

The Finished Quilt

Rosalie Spielman is a mother, veteran, and retired military spouse. She was thrilled to discover that she could make other people laugh with her writing and finds joy in giving people a humorous escape from the real world. She writes for the multi-author Aloha Lagoon mystery series and her own Hometown Mystery series. Learn more about Rosalie and her books at her website.

The Decade Quilt

For many years, I strove to express my creativity through textiles, as in quilting, sewing, or yarn related crafts. I do pretty well with counted cross stitch, which appeals somehow to my need for order and precision. I've been taught crochet, knitting, quilting…but let's just say, there's a reason I'm a writer! With writing, I can envision a story and through some magic, make it come out in reasonably understandable form. I might get stuck in that messy middle for a while, but eventually, the story is complete. But creating an epic textile art? Mmm, no magic happening there. Case in point: the infamous Decade Quilt. 

 

Around 1998, I visited my sister where she was stationed in Ohio. She had bought her first house, an older house with some antique wallpaper. After I returned home, I sought out vintage-style material that would go with the wallpaper and set to work. 

 

I was at Fort Bliss, Texas at the time and had friends who were quilters. Under their instruction, I had learned to quilt. My friends were surprised to hear I wanted to do a full-sized bed quilt but were happy to give me advice.

 

I didn't have trouble piecing the quilt top. That's the fun part to me that appeals to my sense of order, like cross stitch does. Then I combined the quilt top with the batting and backing and set to hand quilting it. 

 

Yes, hand quilting a full-sized quilt. By myself. 

 

When I finished the top, I took one square and 

made a pillow to show my sister what she had 

in store. The cat was out of the bag…

 

It was slow going. So slow, that my husband's assignment was up, and it was time to move. Off we went to Germany. Three years later, we left Germany for Virginia, where my son was born. Then after a few years, we headed back to Fort Bliss, where I gave birth to my daughter and reconnected with my quilting friends. They were amused – and probably not surprised – to see that the quilt for my sister was still unfinished. 

 

When we got orders to move on, I asked my friend to use her fancy quilting sewing machine to finish the quilting on the project for me. She said no, that I should finish it for it to mean more. I told her I was not going to move with it again, and if she wasn't willing to help me out, I would throw it out. I was not going to move that thing again!

 

So, finally, in 2008, after my friend finished quilting it with her machine, I finally gifted my sister her Decade Quilt, which in no way matched the walls of her current house, or any houses she had lived in since that one with the crazy classic wallpaper. 

 

She's used it on her bed ever since (at least when I visit) even though she has other quilts. Like her quilt from the Quilts of Valor foundation. Along with my husband, father, sister, and brother, I was presented a quilt in 2018. Quilts of Valor is an organization that creates and gifts quilts to veterans. I included a scene in my newest Hometown Mystery, Murder Comes Home, where my main character Tessa Treslow, her best friend Deputy "Freddie" Frederickson, and boyfriend Nick Hunt, are all presented with Quilts of Honor at the New Oslo Veterans Day ceremony.

 

I have been tempted to give back to the foundation by creating a quilt for another veteran. But I think they'd want it in less than ten years…

 

Readers, do you have an unfinished project out there, haunting you?

 

Murder Comes Home

A Hometown Mystery, Book 3

 

Army retiree Tessa Treslow is as excited as the other residents of New Oslo, Idaho, when the cast and crew of the TV show Picks with Ricks comes to town! Tessa and her Aunt Edna put their car restoration business on hold to let the celebrity antique hunters pick through their old garage, hoping the trash contains a treasure that will help fund their new business. But it turns out that the pickers come with TV cameras, likeable stars, a stressed-out producer—and a murderer!

 

The show’s lead makes an insistent offer on one of Aunt Edna’s renovation projects and won’t take no for an answer. And when Tessa finds the show's cameraman dead in the restored 1965 Mustang, Tessa knows murder has come home yet again. And the mystery takes a very personal turn when the dead man is found with an antique inscribed pocket watch connected to the former owners of Aunt Edna's farmhouse. As Tessa digs into the history surrounding the pocket watch and the relationships of the TV crew, shocking details—both old and new—arise. Will Tessa be able to catch a killer...before they return for a repeat performance?

 

Preorder (available 11/7/23) 

Gemma Halliday Publishing is donating a portion of the presales of Murder Come Home to Disabled American Veterans (DAV).

ANASTASIA EXPLAINS WHY HER AUTHOR DIDN'T BECOME A NURSE OR AN ASTRONAUT

My Genetically Predisposed to Murder (Mysteries) Author

My author, Lois Winston, was recently asked why she loves to write murder mysteries. It’s a question I’ve often asked her, given that I bear the brunt of all the mayhem involved in sleuthing around dead bodies.

 

Unlike many mystery authors, Lois didn’t grow up devouring Nancy Drew books. I have it under good authority that she never read a single one. She was a Cherry Ames girl, mostly because an older neighbor gave her a vast collection she’d outgrown. Because of Cherry Ames, Lois once dreamed of becoming a nurse—until her grandmother stated that no granddaughter of hers was ever going to empty bedpans. However, Lois was young enough that other career pursuits eventually took hold of her imagination. For a time, she even wanted to be an astronaut. Then she learned NASA wasn’t interested in vertically challenged candidates prone to motion sickness.

 

Eventually, Lois aged out of Cherry Ames and discovered Leon Uris. (Yes, she was an extremely precocious reader.) However, none of those novels sparked career interests in her, even though she did learn far more history than any of her teachers ever imparted.

 

Lois was also not one of those writers who grew up dreaming about becoming a novelist. She came to writing much later in life, but not by writing mysteries. Her first novels were romances and romantic suspense. She segued into writing mysteries years later. Her agent knew an editor looking for a crafting-themed mystery series and suggested Lois try writing one.

 

The rest, as they say, is history. It was the proverbial match made in heaven, at least for her. I’m still upset she didn’t write me into one of those earlier romances. My life would have been far less stressful. But why did the mystery genre turn out to be such a perfect fit for her?

 

Lois tells me she’s always had a knack for figuring out whodunit early into most movies and TV shows. But where did that talent come from? She was trained as a graphic designer and illustrator, not as a forensics investigator.

 

The only explanation she’s ever been able to come up with is that she was genetically predisposed to solving crimes, thanks to her maternal grandfather. His career in law enforcement spanned nearly forty-plus years and culminated as the captain of a major metropolitan-area New York police force. During his long career, he was instrumental in bringing many mobsters to justice, including some famous ones.

 

Fate didn’t see fit for Lois to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps. It never crossed her mind that she could. But that crime-solving gene sat dormant inside her. Would she have started writing mysteries if her agent hadn’t suggested she try writing one? I suppose it would’ve depended on whether something else triggered that gene to wake up and take over her imagination.

 

Meanwhile, I’m still forced to deal with all those dead bodies. In A Crafty Collage of Crime, the twelfth book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries Series, Lois tempts me with a trip to Tennessee wine country. You probably don’t have to strain your brain cells to figure out what I discover within minutes of arriving at the winery.

READING WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED

Image by Luisella Planeta from Pixabay

Do you enjoy listening to audiobooks? They’re great for long car trips, commuting to work on the train or bus, getting your steps in while out walking or on the treadmill, doing housework, preparing meals, or even relaxing with a good book when you want to read with your eyes closed.  

A year ago, my author Lois Winston entered into a partnership with narrator/producer Alex Bitton-Bailey to put the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries (those books Lois writes about me) out as audiobooks. Ever since, they’ve been making steady progress. A Stitch to Die For, the fifth book in the series, is the latest audiobook available through Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. Scrapbook of Murder, the sixth book in the series, is currently in production.

When Lois was searching for a narrator, she wanted to find someone with the voice she heard in her head—my voice. We both wanted Tina Fey because…well, she’s Tina Fey, and if Lois ever options the TV or movie rights to the series, we both think Tina Fey should play me. (It’s one of the few things Lois and I agree on.)

 

However, since Tina Fey wasn’t an option, Alex came the closest to the voice in Lois’s head, and as it turns out, Alex loves me and agreed to voice the entire series. Lois and I were both thrilled. Alex is a great narrator and wonderful to work with.

 

And if your answer to the question I asked at the beginning of this piece was yes, you’re in luck. Lois has a limited number of US and UK promo codes for free downloads of the audiobook of A Stitch to Die For. Post a comment to the blog for a chance to receive one.

 

A Stitch to Die For

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 5

 

Ever since her husband died and left her in debt equal to the gross national product of Uzbekistan, magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack has stumbled across one dead body after another—but always in work-related settings. When a killer targets the elderly nasty neighbor who lives across the street from her, murder strikes too close to home. Couple that with a series of unsettling events days before Halloween, and Anastasia begins to wonder if someone is sending her a deadly message.

 

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COZY MYSTERY AUTHOR CHERYL HOLLON ON SUMMER READING

Our guest today is cozy mystery author Cheryl Hollon, retired from a career designing and installing military flight simulators around the world, she's now living the dream of combining a love of writing with a passion for creating art in St. Petersburg, Florida. Learn more about Cheryl and her books at her website.

Summertime, and the reading is easy!

 

I always read more in the summer than in the winter down here in Florida. This is because I’m spending more time indoors in lovely, air-conditioned comfort. The reason? It’s HOT here. It’s too hot to walk downtown in the noon-day sun. In fact, we call it the 90/90 season. That’s a temperature above 90 degrees and more than 90 percent humidity. I do spend a bit of time around the pool – after all my writing is done, of course.

 

Some of that is habit. As a schoolgirl I always enrolled in the library’s summer reading program. My dad encouraged each of us four siblings to read widely. Not just adventure tales, but also nonfiction books in astronomy, wood-working, photography, gardening, and anything else that caught our fancy.

 

Summer is also my chance to tackle that TBR (To Be Read) pile of books that threatens to topple over and send me or my husband scrambling to gather up his, mine, and our next-to-read books. Summer is my chance to catch up.

 

On vacation, I only take about two paperbacks, but I load my Kindle up with more than 50 books. I’m getting fussier about the type of books I’m willing to spend time with. These days. I’ve been known to read the first few pages and abandon the book before the next in line. I know I’m not the only one.

 

I’ve also started reading series books out of sequence. Right! OUT OF SEQUENCE! I’ve discovered that if I like the current one, I’m happy to get the rest of the series. If it’s well-written, then I’m in good hands.

 

How many books do you plan to read this summer?

The Paint & Shine Mysteries

The Paint & Shine Mysteries (Still Knife Painting, Draw and Order, and Death a Sketch) are set in the Daniel Boone National Forest. My parents were born and raised in the area, and now they rest in peace in the JJ Adams Family Cemetery in Wolfe County, Kentucky. The characters spend considerable time preparing traditional southern meals and creating moonshine cocktails. Please consider buying locally. Independent bookstores need your help. 

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A CRAFTY COLLAGE OF CRIME BOOK TOUR LAUNCH AND BOOK GIVEAWAY

Today marks the start of the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12^th book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. My author, Lois Winston, and I will be guests on some of these sites. Others will post reviews of the newest book about me, and still others will feature Spotlights. Best of all, at each stop on the tour, you’ll have a chance to enter the Rafflecopter drawing for a chance to win one of three copies—paperback (US only) or ebook—of A Crafty Collage of Crime. The drawing will take place at the end of the tour.

Hope to see you there!

 

A CRAFTY COLLAGE OF CRIME TOUR PARTICIPANTS 

 

June 19 – Literary Gold – Spotlight

 

June 19 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – Review

 

June 20 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – Author Guest Post

 

June 20 – Sapphyria's Book Reviews – Spotlight

 

June 21 – Hearts & Scribbles – Spotlight

 

June 22 – Jane Reads – Author Interview

 

June 22 – Novels Alive – Review

 

June 23 – Celticlady's Reviews – Spotlight

 

June 23 – Christy's Cozy Corners – Author Interview

 

June 24 – Baroness Book Trove – Spotlight

 

June 24 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – Author Guest Post

 

June 25 – Indie Author Book Reviews – Spotlight

 

June 26 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – Spotlight

 

June 27 – Ascroft, eh? – Character Interview

 

June 28 – My Reading Journeys – Character Guest Post

  

June 29 – StoreyBook Reviews - Author Guest Post

 

June 30 - Maureen's Musings – Spotlight

 

June 30 - The Book's the Thing – Review

 

July 1 – Brooke Blogs – Character Guest Post

 

July 2 – Cozy Up With Kathy – Character Guest Post

 

July 2 – The Mystery Section – Spotlight

 

A Crafty Collage of Crime

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 12

 

Wherever crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack goes, murder and mayhem follow. Her honeymoon is no exception. She and new husband, photojournalist (and possible spy) Zachary Barnes, are enjoying a walk in the Tennessee woods when they stumble upon a body on the side of a creek. The dead man is the husband of one of the three sisters who own the winery and guest cottages where Anastasia and Zack are vacationing.

 

When the local sheriff sets his sights on the widow as the prime suspect, her sisters close ranks around her. The three siblings are true-crime junkies, and thanks to a podcaster who has produced an unauthorized series about her, Anastasia’s reputation for solving murders has preceded her to the bucolic hamlet. The sisters plead for her help in finding the real killer. As Anastasia learns more about the women and their business, a host of suspects emerge, including several relatives, a relentless land developer, and even the sisters themselves.

 

Meanwhile, Anastasia becomes obsessed with discovering the podcaster’s identity. Along with knowing about Anastasia’s life as a reluctant amateur sleuth, the podcaster has divulged details of Anastasia’s personal life. Someone has betrayed Anastasia’s trust, and she’s out to discover the identity of the culprit.

 

Craft project included.

 

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AUTHOR MARY SEIFERT WEAVES PUZZLES, KNITTING, A LABRADOR RETRIEVER, AND THE TITANIC INTO A MYSTERY

Mystery author Mary Seifert loves puzzles of all kinds and can get lost for days trying to solve them. As a former math teacher, she ties numbers and logic to the mayhem game. When not writing or reading, she often pretends to cook. You can also find her nibbling chocolate and sipping wine, both of which sometimes occur WHILE writing and reading. Learn more about Mary and her books at her website.

I’ve written for as long as I can remember and love contriving puzzles. Taking a local history class, I discovered there could have been a county north of us, but circumstances dictated it merge with our county in the 1870s. There could have been a Columbia, Minnesota in Monongalia County, and that’s the location of my story. I can use all the landmarks near home. I solved a cryptic TSA tweet from May 2014, searching for individuals interested in solving puzzles, and Katie Wilk was born. Columbia is a small town with many connections.

 

Katie is an ex-cryptanalyst turned high school math teacher, trying to recreate herself after the tragic death of her husband. The dog thrust upon her, Maverick, is the embodiment of all the fabulous and heroic characteristics of the hospice therapy dogs I have been honored to work with as well as the comical and conniving antics (the food stealing, table topping, and unexpected barking) of my own Labrador retriever. 

 

Katie’s landlady is an expert knitter with a skill I can only hope to aspire to. I love following patterns and watching them turn into lovely, artful pieces, whether it’s a Christmas stocking, a dishcloth (which I am proficient making), or putting together the pieces of a puzzle to help Katie solve a crime. The rhythmic clacking of the needles helps ground Katie. But it does seem that her forte is crafting a killer cocktail.

 

Each book includes a different kind of puzzle, for example: a cryptoquip, a Rubik’s cube, or musical cryptography, a geocache, a tidbit of Titanic history, a nod to the ingenious leading female cryptographers of WWI and WWII, a taste-tested cocktail recipe, and the beginning of a new relationship. I can’t wait for you to meet my cozy mystery family.

 

Maverick, Movies & Murder 

A Katie and Maverick Cozy Mystery, Book 1

 

After losing everything, Katie Wilk is starting life over in Columbia, Minnesota, with a new career—giving up cryptanalysis in favor of teaching school—and a canine companion, Maverick, a black Labrador retriever. But on one of their first outings, Katie and Maverick discover a dead body in a nearby marshland. As the county coroner, Dr. Pete Erickson is one of the first on the scene; as the doctor that day in the ER, he’s the one who stitches up Katie’s head; as the son of the police chief, Pete is also in on the investigation.

 

Meanwhile, the locals are gearing up for the premiere of a new docudrama film called Titanic: One Story, which would be the cornerstone piece of a new Titanic exhibit, to open Labor Day weekend at the Midwest Minnesota History Center. The director selected their town as the location for some of the scenes, and many local residents are featured as extras in the movie. There will be a huge gala dinner and celebration for the grand opening. Tragedy strikes when the director dies suddenly, and suspects abound.

 

Katie finds herself in the middle of it all and doesn’t know anyone in town well enough to know who she can trust.

 

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WHO DOESN'T LOVE A GOOD VILLAIN?

My author Lois Winston has been told that she writes villains readers love to hate. She gets more fan mail about my communist mother-in-law than she does about me. (I’m not sure how I feel about that!)  

Most readers love heroes and heroines because they yearn to associate with the good guys. They want to see good triumph over evil. They want the vicarious thrill of a happily-ever-ending. Little girls want to grow up to be Princess Leia. Little boys want to grow up to be Luke Skywalker. No one wants to grow up to be the Wicked Witch of the West or Darth Vader.

 

Yet, readers remain fascinated by villains. They often drive the story with their complex natures. Why would someone do such evil things? We want to know what drives these madmen and madwomen to commit the crimes they do. Who wasn’t totally intrigued by Voldemort’s back-story? Or Darth Vader’s? Or Cruella De Vil? Or the Wicked Witch of the West?

 

However, too often authors succumb to writing stereotypical villains. Lois has told me that even the vilest of vile villains has to have a reason for his or her vileness. Snidely Whiplash is one-dimensional. We want to read about 3-dimensional characters, and that’s not limited just to the protagonists of a story. Villains count. They drive plots forward. Without them, the story has no conflict.

Who are some of your favorite fictional villains? Post a comment for a chance to win an audiobook of your choice of either Death by Killer Mop Doll or Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the second and third books in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series about yours truly.

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--A NEW CRAFTING MYSTERY BY AUTHOR BARBARA EMODI

A Lobster Rope Wreath (example of a typical Gasper's Cove craft
 (image courtesy of www.madeinthemaritimes.com)

Barbara Emodi writes sewing and craft-related cozy mysteries based in Nova Scotia, Canada where she lives. She also travels frequently and writes in Austin, Texas and Berkeley, California in the winters. For many years Barbara led a double life. Publicly she was a journalist, radio commentator, government strategist, and public relations professor. In her private life she wrote, sewed, and published two books about garment construction. Often when Barbara sewed, she thought of the people she’d met and the stories she could tell; of the things she knew, and the things she suspected. Crafting for Murder is the first book in her Gasper’s Cover Mystery Series. Learn more about Barbara and her books at her website. 

Barbara’s Story Behind the Story

I have taught sewing classes for many years, and it has always struck me how interesting crafters and sewists are as people. Those who make things are resourceful, independent, and curious—exactly the kind of folks who would try to solve a crime. So, I felt I had the perfect cast of characters in my head to write cozy mysteries.

 

I write about small communities in Nova Scotia which are, by definition, stranger than fiction, anyway, so are they’re the perfect setting for my writing. Interestingly, some of the people and events my editors thought were the most implausible were based on reality. One even wrote to say that maybe I had too many relatives in my stories. I read her email on the way out the door to the wedding of my niece to my son-in-law’s nephew. I had no idea what she was talking about.

As is clear, Valerie and I have a lot in common. We are both empty-nest mothers of three children and we both teach sewing classes. As a result, the scenes where Valerie gets fed up and retreats to her sewing room to regroup and recharge were particularly easy for me to write. However, the central theme of her personal story, of someone who is resilient and determined to make a life for herself in her second act, is inspired by women I have known in the sewing and crafting communities. In the end she does manage to recreate herself just like so many women do. I’m proud of her.

The real Gasper's Cover

These days sewing is a parallel activity to my writing; I often plot while I sew and have my laptop set up behind my machine. My sewing never stops and my extended family, aged three months to ninety-five, keep me busy. I love sewing for them as much as sewing for myself.

 

I have already written the next in the series and have outlined two more. You’re not going to believe what happens next. I almost don’t myself. The Gasper’s Crafters have a lot going on. Was that a treasure from WW II that washed up on the shore? Who double-booked a wedding at the same venue as a crafter’s retreat? Did the signs the crafters made for a municipal election get one of the candidates killed?

 

My plan is to write two longer novels a year and to release some shorter novellas in between, each written from the point of view of one of the secondary characters. I thought this would help readers get to know the whole community better. 

Crafting for Murder 

A Gasper’s Cover Mystery, Book 1

 

Seamstress, crafter, and empty-nester Valerie Rankin has plans to open a crafter’s co-op that will put Gasper’s Cove, Nova Scotia on the tourist guide map. But one month before the opening day photo shoot, she still has to pin down a venue, patch up the family business, iron out corruption in town council, and unravel why anyone who tries to help her ends up dead. It’s a lot, even for a woman who’s used to making something out of nothing. But with the help of her Golden Retriever, an ex-con who loves cats, and a community of first, second, and third cousins, she just might pull it off.

 

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AND THEN THERE WERE 3…ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MYSTERY AUDIOBOOKS!

As I mentioned in a post the beginning of January, my author Lois Winston has teamed up with narrator/producer Alex Bitton-Bailey to produce audiobooks of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, those books where Lois is always forcing me to confront dead bodies and figure out whodunit before the killer strikes again.

The third audiobook, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, is now available through Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. Better yet, Lois has a select number of both US and UK promo codes for free downloads from Audible. If you prefer to listen to your mysteries rather than read them, post a comment to the blog for a chance to win one of the promo codes. All Lois, Alex, and I ask in return is that when you’re finished listening, you post a review on Audible and wherever else you review. Happy listening!

 

Revenge of the Crafty Corpse

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 3

 

Anastasia Pollack’s dead louse of a spouse has left her with more bills than you can shake a crochet hook at. Teaching craft classes at her mother-in-law’s assisted living center seems like an easy way to supplement her meager income. But when Lyndella Wegner—a 98-year-old know-it-all with a penchant for ruffles and lace—turns up dead, Anastasia’s cantankerous mother-in-law becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Upon discovering that Lyndella’s scandalous craft projects—and her scandalous behavior—made her plenty of enemies, Anastasia sets out to find the real killer before her mother-in-law ends up behind bars.

 

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