BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--THE MARTINI CLUB

Left to Right: Alicia Dean, Amanda McCabe, Kathy L Wheeler, Krysta Scott

Alicia Dean is one of the members of the Martini Club. The club is comprised of four writing friends. Today Alicia talks about how they collaborated on a new romance series set in the Roaring Twenties. Learn more about the Martini Club at their Facebook page. 

  

Martini Club 4 – The 1920s

A few years ago, myself and three of my writer friends—Amanda McCabe, Kathy L. Wheeler, and Krysta Scott—began meeting each Friday evening (unless something extremely important kept one of us away, and trust me, it had to be IMPORTANT) for Martinis and various other libations, at the Martini Lounge in Edmond, Oklahoma. In time, we came to dub our gathering the ‘Martini Club.’ We unwind, vent, chat about writing, laugh, and strengthen an already strong bond of friendship. It’s not only fun, it’s beneficial. As all writers know, no other friend besides a writer friend truly understands us. (We also have an honorary MC member, Cindy Sorenson. Although she is a writer, she declined to write one of the stories, but she has been invaluable as far as brainstorming and beta reading. So, what else could we do…we named a character after her in the series!)

During one of these gatherings, one of us, and I can’t remember who, made an offhand remark about writing stories centered around the Martini Club. The idea blossomed from there, and the ‘Martini Club 4’ series was born. We thought it would be fun to set our first MC4 stories in the 1920’s, but we intend to write more in other decades in the future. During the planning, plotting, and writing, we have had a few weekend retreats that were loads of fun, and some were even productive. J What a joy to do something that I love so much—writing—with a group of ladies that I love so much!

The four books that comprise the Martini Club 4 series officially release on February 26. Right now you can pre-order any of the books at the sale price of only 99¢. The price will go up to $2.99 after the release date.

Martini Club 4 – The 1920s

Four young English women discover friendship, romance, and danger in 1920’s New York City...

Rebellious, Book 1 by Amanda McCabe

Can an aristocratic lady melt the cold heart of a Russian gangster?

Lady Jessica Hatton fled her high-society London debutante life for one of investigative journalism in New York—only to be relegated to the fashion pages. Searching for a juicy story leads her to Club 501, the city's most glamorous speakeasy—and its handsome, mysterious owner, Frank Markov. But his past of war and revolution puts their hearts—and their lives—in danger...

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Ruined, book 2 by Alicia Dean

She vowed she’d be no man’s doxy, but fate had other plans...

After the Earl of Goodwin attempts to force himself on her, housemaid Eliza Gilbert flees England for New York, hoping to build a better life. But the land of opportunity proves as harsh as the London docks, and she finds herself in a situation more dreadful than the one she escaped.

When Vince Taggart’s childhood friend disappears, he heads to New York in search of her and meets Eliza, a woman with a less than honorable reputation. Inexplicably captivated, Vince can’t force himself to stay away, especially when he learns Eliza may be the key to finding his missing friend.

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Reckless, Book 3 by Kathy L. Wheeler

Lady Margaret turned Lady Bootlegger…

Singer Margaret (Meggie) Montley needs money…fast. Her friend is in a dire situation with nowhere to turn. While Meggie is on the brink of stardom, it’s not soon enough to save her friend.

Harry Dempsey is out to avenge the deaths of his father and brother at the hands of a ruthless gangster. But trouble spirals out of control when Meggie Montley shows up the night he meets his nemesis to settle the score. Saving the impetuous woman from a crime lord might be easier than saving her from her own reckless behavior.

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Runaway, Book 4 by Krysta Scott

Can she prove her innocence before more than her dreams are destroyed?

After escaping an arranged marriage, Lady Charlotte Leighton lands on a new shore, determined to realize her dream of opening her own bakery. But her plans are shattered when her former fiancé follows her to New York. Now, she finds herself in a fight for her freedom.

Haunted by a string of failures, Detective Felix Noble is determined to solve his latest case. But his efforts to find a murderer are jeopardized by a forbidden attraction to his number one suspect. While he’s certain Charlotte Leighton is keeping secrets, instinct tells him she’s not the murderess he first believed.

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TRAVEL WITH SERENA--GUEST AUTHOR BEVERLEY BATEMAN

Puerto Rico

Author Beverley Bateman lvnes in Canadian wine country. She firmly believes it’s her obligation to taste all the world class wines  produced in the region and claims her imbibing helps her write better. (That’s her excuse, she says, and she’s sticking to it.) Learn more about Beverley and her books at her website and blog. Today she joins us to talk about cruising the Caribbean.

I love cruising, and our cruises provided the background for my Holly Devine, Assistant Private Investigator series. The first book, A Cruise To Remember, takes place on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

I’ve taken several different Caribbean cruises on different cruise lines. You can leave from many different ports on these cruise—New Orleans (where we were mugged, but that’s another story); Galveston, Texas; Miami, Tampa and Ft Lauderdale in Florida and my favorite—San Juan, Puerto Rico.  When we left from San Juan, we flew in a few days early to explore the area. Some of the places are mentioned in A Cruise to Remember.

Old Town is a funky area of very narrow winding streets with many old shops. It’s fun to wander around that area, poking your head into shops filled with antiques and local crafts. There are still some of the remains of the old wall that surrounded the city.  After lunch we took a short walk out to the defensive fort, El Morro castle, at the head of the island. El Morro and the walls of the city were built to protect the island from attacks. Because of its prominence in the Caribbean, and the rich cargoes of gold and silver, San Juan became a target of the foreign powers of the time, so several fortifications were built to protect the city.

If you have time, and I recommend it, you can also take a tour to the El Yunque rainforest.  Return trip is about half an hour. On this fascinating tour, you'll pass typical native towns before ascending through rapidly changing vistas of amazing vegetation. The rainforest is home to more than 240 species of plants and wildlife, waterfalls, streams and hiking trails leading to enticing locations. You'll see tree orchids, giant ferns, wild flowers, tropical hardwoods and spectacular waterfalls. And after you return to San Juan, your ship will be ready to board.

Once on board your cruise ship, you’ll settle into your cabin, explore the ship and in the evening, head for the deck for sail away drinks as the ship chugs slowly out of the harbor. You pass the city, then watch El Morro fade away in the distance. Depending on your cruise, you’ll slice through the azure Caribbean Sea and visit islands such as Philipsburg, St. Maarten; St. John's, Antigua; Castries, St. Lucia, Oranjestad, Aruba; Willemstad, Curacao and/or Bridgetown, Barbados. I touch on several of these islands in my book. And at each stop there are a wide variety of activities you can do, tours of the island, shopping, beach excursions, river cruises, sometimes golf. If you head off the ship on your own, your guaranteed to find a line of taxis waiting to take you anywhere you want to go. Since the islands depend on the cruise ship visits for their economy, the drivers are usually safe. We did this on several islands, and the driver took us all around the island, showing us many of the interesting spots mentioned on the formal tours, and it was less crowded and more relaxing. If all else fails, you can lie by the pool drinking cute little drinks with umbrellas in them. 

Cruising is a wonderful and relaxing vacation. You travel, see different islands every day, and you don’t have to pack and unpack. There’s no driving involved, and I won’t even mention the marvellous food that’s always available of the ship and at the local restaurants on the islands.

A Cruise to Remember

She’s lost her memory; no one’s looking for her and someone is trying to kill her. Will Holly get her memory back before the killer succeeds?

Holly Devine, a wealthy, single socialite decides to leave behind the party lifestyle she devolved into after her parents' sudden deaths, become a private investigator and find out how her parents really died. Now she's on a cruise ship; her past is a blank; the cause of her amnesia is unknown. She's trying to find out who she is, how she got there and why someone is trying to kill her.

Eric Petersen, an Interpol agent tracking an international ring of jewel thieves, while posing as the ship's doctor finds himself falling for his prime suspect.

Can they stop the killer and both find what they are looking for?

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FASHION WITH GUEST AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON

New Sleuth on the Block

by Lois Winston

Is Westfield, NJ big enough for two amateur sleuths? Hey, we’re talking New Jersey here—home to crooks, crime, and corruption. Mafia and murder. Of course, it’s big enough! However, I wondered if Anastasia would be willing to share the sleuthing limelight with another neighborhood sleuth.

When I posed the question to her, she didn’t exactly mince words. “Are you kidding, Lois? You think I’d be upset to have you leave me alone for a change while you pick on someone else and wreak havoc on her life? Give me a break!”

Which is exactly what I did. So with Anastasia’s blessing, I’d like to introduce you to Gracie Elliott, the protagonist of Definitely Dead, the first book in my new Empty Nest Mystery series.

As Gracie puts it:

All I wanted to do was sit at my computer and write romance novels while Blake sat across the room and two-finger pecked away at Pop Goes the Culture, his epic tome on twentieth century culture and counter-culture and its influences on the media. Or vice versa. It was a real chicken-and-egg sort of thing as far as I was concerned, even if it was my husband’s passion. Anyway, dead bodies weren’t part of our empty nest blueprint.

When her career as a fabric designer is outsourced to Asia, fledgling romance author and empty-nester Gracie Elliott realizes she needs to find another job or she could very well wind up living above an auto repair shop in Newark. With double college tuitions for their twins, she and husband Blake can’t afford her penchant for designer shoes and handbags— the tie-in to Thursday fashion blog posts ;-) —much less anything else, on his professor’s salary.

However, Gracie’s options are soon reduced to either retail sales or asking, “Do you want fries with that?” So she decides to open Relatively Speaking, an introduction service, becoming a wing woman to the senior set. Since her clients need several hours each morning to find their teeth, lube their creaky joints, and deal with lower GI necessities, and they always turn in after the early bird specials, she has plenty of time to pen her future bestsellers.

Gracie deliberately avoids mentioning her new business venture to Blake until she’s signed her first client. After a scene best left to the reader’s imagination (this is, after all, a cozy mystery,) Blake joins the company as a not-so-silent partner, tagging along to make sure Gracie doesn’t cause a septuagenarian uprising.

All is going quite well until Gracie discovers Client #13 murdered in the parking lot behind the Moose Lodge. She quickly realizes that no matter how much Blake might protest otherwise, she can’t wait around for the police to find the killer if she wants to save her livelihood. Along the way she considers turning her contemporary romance into a romantic suspense—if she survives her foray into sleuthing.

The Empty Nest Mystery series is a wink and a nod to Dashell Hammet’s Thin Man movies with Gracie and Blake as a modern day spin on Nick and Nora Charles. You can read an excerpt here. 

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Look for more books in the Empty Nest Mystery series in the future, as well as the next Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, currently in the plotting stage. 

You didn’t think I’d leave Anastasia off the hook for long, did you? 

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR NINA PIERCE

USA Today bestselling author Nina Pierce spends her days at the keyboard writing romance stories, blissfully creating chaos for her characters by throwing in a villain or two, a little murder and a whole lot of mayhem as they struggle toward their happy-ever-afters. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

Reality Becomes Fiction

A warm thank you to Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers for letting me hang out with them today. I love checking out other corners of the internet and talking books … especially romantic suspense books!

One of the first questions people ask me when they find out I’m a writer is where do I get the inspiration for my stories. The answer is … everywhere. I came at writing sort of sideways. I have a degree in Marine Biology and spent many years teaching science. During that time, everything I saw or interesting places I visited were catalogued as possible information for lesson plans.

Eight years ago, the multiple sclerosis that had been percolating in the back of my life reared its ugly head and forced me to leave teaching. Enter writing. I’m an avid reader from childhood and decided that I should try my hand writing the romantic suspense stories I’ve always loved to read. And of course I could do it from the comfort of a computer chair. It took a couple of years to re-wire my thinking, but now every snippet of conversation, every story my friends share and sometimes the news programs I see … become possible fodder for a new story.

My newest release, In His Eyes, is set on the Maine coast, a place that is intimately familiar to me. Before I was a twinkle in my mother’s eye, my parents bought a small cottage on a private beach community. They rented it out for most of the summer, but every year my family spent two or three weeks there at the end of August, lounging in the warm sand and playing in the surf. The cottage has since been winterized and my parents now rent it out in the winter months. The premise of my story actually came about when a couple rented the cottage a few years back and actually switched off weeks while they decided if they wanted to separate permanently.

Of course, there was no FBI agent on the hunt hoping to bring down a villain murdering prostitutes. And definitely no serial killer wandering the beach looking for a woman to make his “own”. But you’ll find all that and more in In His Eyes. I hope you’ll check it out.

Do you have something interesting that’s happened to you that might make a good story? Curious minds (and nosy writers) want to know. And just to give you all the information, I have no idea what happened to the couple when the lease was finished that winter, but the romantic in me would like to think they got back together and mended their marriage.

In His Eyes

It’s always wonderful to be noticed … or is it?

To those around her, Maggie Callaghan appears to have the perfect life…a handsome husband, three beautiful children, and her own business. But beneath her thin veneer lies a dark past and self-doubts. When evidence of her husband’s infidelity surfaces, Maggie leases a cottage on the Maine coast and prepares for her inevitable divorce. But a serial killer is on the hunt—and he’s marked Maggie as his next victim. Now her beachside retreat is the focus of an undercover FBI investigation targeting the murderer who’s left a trail of bodies across two states. As lies and secrets are revealed, Maggie realizes her life depends on knowing who’s protecting her—and who’s got her in his sights.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR KAYE GEORGE

Kaye George, the author of four mystery series, has been nominated for Agatha awards twice. She writes short stories, mysteries, and a bit of horror. She also reviews for "Suspense Magazine", writes for several newsletters and blogs, and gives workshops on short story writing and promotion. Learn more about her and her books at her website and blog. – AP 

What is accessible?

What do I mean by that? I picked up that word from a fellow musician. When our string quartet would attempt to play something that we had a tough time with, she would say that the piece was not accessible. I guess that means it’s too hard. Very accessible pieces are very easy.

How does that translate to literature? Some writing is accessible for the reader and some isn’t. I’m sure you’ve read things that you had to slog through, maybe for a class, or maybe because you’ve heard it’s a worthwhile work of literature and you should read it. Life’s too short, now that I’m out of school, for that sort of thing!

On the other hand, I don’t like music or reading that is TOO easy. Our church choir recently performed two pieces, Mozart’s “Te Deum” and Puccini’s “Credo”. Our choir had to work hard on both of them and I thought it was great fun. I get tired of singing things that take no thought at all. I also like reading books that teach me something. If there’s a word I don’t know, I like it best when I pick up the meaning from the context. Then I feel I’ve learned a new word on my own. I’m not above looking up rare, obscure words, but I don’t like the text to be full of them. I can’t get anything out of reading a bunch of words I don’t know and can’t derive!

Do you think this book title is accessible: Eine Kleine Wassermusick? OK, I thought it was really, really cool, but was told that it wasn’t. This book started life as Eine Kleine Wassermusick. The series features a sleuth who is a classical musician, as I am. To keep to the theme, I came up with that title as a cross between the names of two pieces of classical music, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by Mozart and “Watermusic” by Handel. The German means “A Little Night Music.”

No one liked the title. It was inaccessible.

So I changed it to Song of Death. My publisher wanted to change that name, so I cast around for something they would like. They vetoed every title I thought of that contained the word “death” so I twigged to the fact that many of their mysteries contained the word “murder” in the title instead.  My clever daughter came up with Eine Kleine Murder. They say each generation gets smarter than their parents. Thank goodness.

People who know a little about music, and who know Mozart’s piece (or least the name of it) like the title a lot. I wonder, how does this title strike other people? If they don’t understand it, I hope they’re curious enough to check out the story and see if they’d like to read it. It IS a standard murder mystery, just enhanced by a few musical references that I hope enrich the work.

Eine Kleine Murder

Aspiring conductor Cressa Carraway arrives at her grandmother’s cabin at a rural Illinois lake resort, hoping to find some peace and quiet so she can finish composing the symphony she needs to earn her master’s degree in composition. Instead, she finds her grandmother’s corpse in the lake. The authorities dismiss the death as an accidental drowning, but when Gram’s best friend drowns in the exact same spot, Cressa just knows something is off-key in this idyllic setting. Convinced that her grandmother’s death was anything but an accident, she fights her instinct to flee and starts looking into things herself. There are lots of people and facts to consider, from the self-important property manager and his brow-beaten wife, to their salacious son, to the elderly widow who may be lacing her home-baked cookies with a dash of poison. As the body count rises, Cressa doesn’t know which will be finished first—her symphony or her life.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR MARY JANE MAFFINI

Today’s Book Club Friday guest is Charlotte Adams, the creation of award-winning mystery writer Mary Jane Maffini. In addition to the four Charlotte Adams books, the very prolific Mary Jane is the author of the Camilla MacPhee series, the Fiona Silk adventures and nearly two dozen short stories. Visit Mary Jane at www.maryjanemaffini.com. 

Mary Jane has graciously offered a copy of Organize Your Corpse, the first book in the Charlotte Adams series, to one of our readers. Simply post a comment to the blog to be entered in the drawing. -- AP

 Charlotte Adams here! I guess you could call me the ‘star’ of the Charlotte Adams mysteries. I am thrilled to be a guest at Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers. Honestly, it’s great to take a break from work for once. Between running Organized for Success, my own professional organizing business, and finding myself pulled into investigating weird murders every couple of months, I barely have time to indulge my own hobby: collecting shoes.

I’m looking forward to this chat, although I am more familiar with crafty killers in the dictionary sense of ‘crafty’ being marked by underhandedness, deviousness, or deception. I suppose if I’d realized just how crafty some of these villains were, I might have thought twice about moving back to my home town of Woodbridge, New York, on the scenic Hudson.

Never mind. It’s the perfect place for me, reconnecting with my childhood friends – the misfits – in our friendly and historic town. It’s also a great way to make a living. I believe in the power of organizing. I think my writer, Mary Jane Maffini, does too, although you might not believe it from the look of her office right at the moment. “Deadlines! You wait until this #$%^ book is finished,” she puffs. I have tried to explain to her that a few minutes at the start or the end of each day would mean a much more manageable work space.

But never mind that either. I’m getting a bit off topic. I am told that I can be just the tiniest bit obsessive and even bossy. I mean really, what’s that about?

Today would seem to be a good opportunity to pass on to you crafty types a few tips that were useful to my author. She says ‘creator’, but I think that just screams hubris. She’s crafty too. In the sense that she loves to knit, sew, draw, garden, and attempt to train her miniature dachshunds (who are a lot like my own Truffle and Sweet Marie). She’s also hooked on television crime shows.

Last year she started carrying on about not having time for hobbies as she had three (!!!) series to manage. I bit my tongue and barely managed not to say that only one was really important. I respect my ‘sister’ characters too much for that. But back to topic.  I sat down and had a chat with her about a strategy. Well, I sat down. Mary Jane was stretched out on the sofa with a book. Did I mention she’s also addicted to mysteries?

“It’s all about choices and timing,” I said gently but firmly. I don’t huff or rant or shriek, no matter what she claims in the books. “Why not focus on one craft or hobby per season? You won’t feel so frazzled and you have to admit the price is right.”  I noticed Mary Jane eyeing me over the top of the book.  Maybe this once she was listening. I continued, “Remember how helpful you found my storage suggestion using clear plastic salad boxes for your ever-expanding stash of yarn?  You can see what yarn is where and you can stack them right up to the ceiling. They’re free too.” That may have been a nod.

Believe it or not, this worked for her. Concentrating on one hobby at a time, she got the new cushion covers done for the deck in the spring and knit a half-dozen of dog sweaters and one child sweater while glued to TV crime shows in the winter. To tell the truth, the garden has looked better and she has yet to pick up her sketch pad this year, but she tells me she’s very glad to have her knitting hobby back. She may have even said ‘thanks.’ Or that might have been a hiccup. Whatever. I’m here to serve.  And I have lots of ideas to help her out.

I love helping other people, not just her, and offer a bonanza of organizing tips in every Charlotte Adams book. They’re at the head of each chapter. Being adult readers, you are free to read and ignore or even skip over them.  I can accept that. I hope to meet you on the pages of Closet Confidential, my fourth outing as an amateur sleuth. It launches on July 6^th. Mary Jane promises me I won’t have to worry about duct tape or fires or broken glass in this one. That’s a relief, although I don’t want to let my guard down. I hope you’ll drop in. I’m sure you will be safe. But keep in mind: show me your closets and you show me your secrets.

Thank you, Mary Jane, for allowing Charlotte to stop by today. Anyone want to read more about Charlotte? Post a comment to the blog to be entered in the drawing for Organize Your Corpse, Charlotte’s first adventure. -- AP