#COOKING WITH CLORIS--AUTHOR GINNY B. NESCOTT'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY ROMANCE & COCKTAIL

Author Ginny B. Nescott is a sucker for laughter, mystery, romance, a wonderful kiss, warm hugs, flowers and chocolate—not necessarily in that order. She said someone called her a hopeless romantic on Twitter, she prefers referring to herself as a hopeful romantic who wants love to touch everyone’s life. Learn more about Ginny and her books at her website.

Paige’s Lucky Charm — A St. Patrick’s Day Romance

St. Patrick’s Day is almost here! This year though, it feels different doesn’t it? If we were to go to Ireland, we might find a more austere parade and celebration. Not dour by any means, but quieter compared to the drinking and dancing in the streets sort of time the US has been known for, replete with green beads, hats, green beer, and shirts that say “Kiss me I’m Irish” when you’re clearly not. 

With green-wearing St. Patrick’s Day almost upon us, the question is…Do we really want to go kissing strangers and drinking from pub to pub? Okay. Pretend you were a good twenty years younger. Would you still want to do that with the news that floods us these days and causes us to wash our hands nonstop?

My proposal. Yes, green it up! Send greetings to friends. Whip up a batch of something with cabbage in it. I’ll not stop you. But if you want to immerse in the holiday, do what we love: read! In the last of my trilogy, the Southern-born Paige finds a new cadre of friends and does just that—hits a bar complete with Irish ballads, dancing and the choice between the boy back home who shows up and her new one, Michael. Besides, what good Irish person wouldn’t like a tale or two upon the day?

Now for a quick Irish recipe. I thought long and hard on this one. No cabbage, soda bread, or whiskey cake since you must have those recipes already. Something different. Gin has been produced in Cork, Ireland since 1793 and seem to be all the rage in Ireland (here too).

Gin of My Dreams 

Ingredients:

2oz Gin

.75 oz Green Chartreuse 

.75oz Elderflower 

Squeeze of lime 

Lime wedge

(Alternate recipe without Chartreuse: 2 jiggers Gin, 1 jigger Elderflower, 1 jigger lime juice, 1 jigger simple syrup, green food coloring)

Mix all ingredients together. Serve well-iced, preferably in a gimlet glass. A slow sipper perfect for reading.

Paige's Lucky Charm—A St. Patrick's Day Romance

Temporary job, temporary home...will her hot new guy be temporary, too?

With a bounce to her step, southern-bred Paige Meyers looks like she has it all together. Far from the truth. Her family’s inherited farmstead is a snow-covered shamble and a hoarded mess. Each touch from her man, Michael Lukas, sends her reeling, but he’s only in town on business. She can’t keep track of the growing renovations, her free-spirited aunt or the crazy cat, let alone tight schedules and her own wits. Her funds are shrinking, and the clock is ticking away to the possible end-date on her heart-pounding time with Michael.

Everything collides with weighty decisions made lighter with green drinks and new friends on St. Patrick’s Day. If only her luck will hold.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--MEET DEBUT ROMANCE & SUSPENSE AUTHOR ODALYS MUNOZ

Today we sit down for a chat with debut romance and suspense author Odalys Munoz. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

When did you realize you wanted to write novels? 

People have always told me that I should, but I never actually considered it until last year when my family came into financial trouble.

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication? 

When I started writing Once Upon a Time, is when I realized that writing could help me on a personal level, as well as hopefully financially.

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author? 

I am independently published.

Where do you write? 

At home on my computer whenever I have the chance.

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind? 

I concentrate better in silence and in my own head.

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular? 

The first book has very little about my real life.  In my upcoming book, however, the main female character is very much like me physically and personality wise.

Describe your process for naming your character? 

Since I do come from an Hispanic family, I try to stick with Spanish names as much as possible.

Real settings or fictional towns? 

I tried to keep the settings as fictional as possible.

What’s your quirkiest quirk? 

Probably to like being by myself than with people.

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours? 

Probably 8^th grade when I made a mistake with a boy I really liked, and I never heard from again.

What’s your biggest pet peeve? 

Being lied to by the people I’m closest to.

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves? 

Computer, phone, and milk.

What’s the best book you’ve ever read? 

Running Wild, by Linda Howard and Linda Jones.

Ocean or mountains? 

Mountains because I can’t swim.

City girl/guy or country girl/guy? 

City girl

What’s on the horizon for you? 

I’m in the process of finishing my next book, which should hopefully be out soon.  Other than that, we’ll see where life and God take me.

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books? 

I’m an open book. Feel free to contact me through my Facebook, or my website to ask me any questions that you may have, or if you simply need someone to talk to.  I believe that anything is possible with the help of God.

Once Upon a Time

The story involves a young prince who falls in love with a wonderful woman that he wishes to marry, but his powerful father has her secretly killed and tries to have the girl's family killed off as well. The son vows revenge and justice and he sets off to bring an end to the people who took his true love from him. This tragic yet captivating story is one of love, romance, suspense, and thriller. Will he ever get the justice that he wants for his lost flame, or will he ever love again? 

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AUTHOR TERRI GREGG ON HOW VISITING A WORLD HERITAGE SITE SPAWNED A MYSTERY SERIES

Cahokia Mound photo by Carptrash from Wikimedia Commons

Today we welcome cozy mystery author and archeologist Terri Gregg. After a number of careers, including nine years as a science writer for an encyclopedia, Terri retired and shifted to writing fiction. Learn more about Terri and her books at her website. 

Did you ever stop to consider where a novel came from? Not novels in general—obviously novelists write them—but a specific book—from where did it come?

The road to the book that became Bones Unearthed began when my boss informed me that she was about to retire. “So what are you planning to do now?” I asked.

She smiled at me and said, “My husband and I just bought a house in the mountains, and we are going to move there and sit on the front porch and rock.”

“Eek.” I went home that afternoon and asked my husband what he wanted to do when he retired in a couple of years. That began a futile discussion about where we wanted to live. Every possible location led to another until we reached the conclusion that what we actually wanted to do was go full-time RVing. Not only would it be an interesting adventure, but I could see how it would provide an interesting framework for my projected mystery series. Win-win.

Driving around the United States resurrected an interest from my youth in archeology. We visited many sites before we reached Cahokia in southern Illinois. Cahokia blew me away. Although I grew up in Chicago, I, like many other Americans, had never heard of it. What I found out was that around 1000 A.D., Cahokia was a city of between 15,000 and 20,000 people—as large as London at the same time. The more I learned, the more fascinated I became. The Mississippians, the people of Cahokia, took a hundred years to build a huge pyramid of dirt. Monk’s Mound, as the structure is now called, has as large a footprint on the ground as the Great Pyramid in Giza in Egypt.

So after years of working and raising a family, when I finally began writing my second mystery novel, Cahokia was where I wanted to set the story. I chose as my protagonist, Kate, a young woman about to study for a graduate degree in archeology.

At the beginning of the story Kate and her friend Dave dig up a skull on her aunt’s farm near Cahokia. Kate knows that Native Americans do not take kindly to having their ancestors being casually disturbed, so she is prepared for trouble, but the trouble she finds comes from an unexpected source. She becomes embroiled in murder, mayhem and danger.

The book was finished, edited, and published. Time to get back to my planned series centered on RVing. Then life threw me a curve again. A number of my readers gave me feedback that they wanted another book featuring Kate. They really liked her and wanted another story about her.

So here I am again, back in Cahokia with Kate, another murder and more adventures. The planned RV series has to wait again.

Bones Unearthed

When Kate Fitzgerald dug up an aged skull on her aunt’s farm near the Cahokia, an archeology World Heritage Site, she thought she had a problem.  When the skull turned out to be relatively modern and apparently belonged to a murder victim, she realized she had a bigger problem. But the skull and the rest of the skeleton were stolen. With the evidence gone the sheriff was no help, so Kate and her friend, Dave, an ex-newspaper reporter, do some investigating on their own. But the past becomes the present when arson and another murder occur. 

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--DARNING EGGS AND BETSY WETSY DOLLS

Darning Mushroom with Yarn and Needle

Author Lois Winston, she who writes about me, stops by today to talk about the first time she sewed something.

Do you remember the first time you picked up a needle and thread? Probably not, unless the memory is more involved, which is the case for me.

When I was four years old, I was spending the day at my grandparents’ house. My grandmother was sitting in the kitchen, darning a sock. Most people these days have no idea what darning means, let alone how to do darn, unless they lived through the Great Depression. Even people lucky enough to have income during those years, as my grandparents did, never wasted anything. If you tore a dress, a shirt, or a pair of pants, you patched it. If your big toe wore a hole in a sock, you darned it.

Darning involves placing a wooden egg or mushroom shape inside a sock. Some darning eggs have handles attached to them, as in the photo above; others don’t.

The darning egg is placed in the sock. The hole is stretched over the egg and held tightly in place with one hand. Then, with needle and thread to match the color and weight of the sock, a series of parallel vertical running stitches are made close together over the hole, extending at least 1/2" beyond the hole on all sides. Once the hole is covered with these vertical stitches, horizontal rows are woven over and under through each of the vertical stitches until this woven patch completely mends the hole.

So getting back to my story…

Grandma was darning a sock, and I wanted to sew something. “You have nothing to sew,” she said.

“Betsy Wetsy’s dress is too long,” I said, holding up the doll for her to see. “She’ll trip.” 

Betsy Wetsy was a popular “drink-and-wet” doll in the 1950’s. The doll came with a baby bottle you filled with water. You inserted the bottle’s nipple into the hole in the doll’s mouth and squeezed the bottle to “feed” Betsy. Then she’d wet her diaper from the hole in her body. 

I have no idea why my doll’s dress extended below her feet. The dress must have been a hand-me-down from another doll. Come to think of it, Betsy was also probably a hand-me-down from an older cousin.

“Needles are sharp,” said Grandma. “You’ll stick your finger.”

“No, I won’t. I promise.”

After a good deal of pestering on my part, Grandma finally gave in. She threaded a needle for me, and told me to be careful. I marched into the living room, pulled the ottoman up to the sofa as a seat, and used the sofa cushion as a table. With Betsy still wearing her dress, I began to sew a hem.

I was extremely pleased with my efforts—until I lifted Betsy to show Grandma what a good job I’d done, only to discover I’d hemmed the dress to the sofa cushion! Needless to say, Grandma was not happy.

“But I didn’t stick my finger,” I said.

Click here to watch a Betsy Wetsy TV commercial from the 1950’s.

As I grew older, I began sewing my own clothes and eventually designed dolls, just like Emma  Wadsworth, my heroine in Love, Lies and Double Shot of Deception. 

Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception

Life has delivered one sucker punch after another to Emma Wadsworth. As a matter of fact, you could say the poor little rich girl is the ultimate poster child for Money Can’t Buy Happiness — even if she is no longer a child.

Billionaire real estate stud Logan Crawford is as famous for his less-than-platinum reputation as he is his business empire. In thirty-eight years he’s never fallen in love, and that’s just fine with him — until he meets Emma.

But Emma’s not buying into Logan’s seductive ways. Well, maybe just a little, but she’s definitely going into the affair with her eyes wide open. She’s no fool. At least not any more. Her deceased husband saw to that. Besides, she knows Logan will catch the first jet out of Philadelphia once he learns her secrets.

Except things don’t go exactly as Emma has predicted, and when Philadelphia’s most beloved citizen become the city’s most notorious criminal, she needs to do a lot more than clear her name if she wants to save her budding romance with the billionaire hunk someone is willing to kill for.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--MYSTERY AUTHOR BETTY WEBB ON EAVESDROPPING TO CREATE A ZOO COZY

Anteater

Betty Webb is the author of the best-selling Lena Jones Mystery Series and the humorous Gunn Zoo mysteries. Before beginning to write mystery novels, Betty spent twenty years as a journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, Nobel Prize-winners, and polygamy runaways. Learn more about Betty and her books at her two websites: www.bettywebb-mystery.com and www.bettywebb-zoomystery.com. 

Like many writers, I write more than one series. My first mystery was, Desert Noir, in which a Scottsdale AZ art gallery owner is murdered, possibly by her violent ex-husband. Blood and gore all over the place, plus beatings, shootings, stabbings, and I don’t know what-all. Everything but poison, I think. Well, that was in the Desert series, starring P.I. Lena Jones, and since it was set in the Sonoran Desert, life was always rough. And I was a journalist, and had seen more than one dead body.

After the fifth book, however, I retired from the newspaper, and to my surprise, my soul began to gentle. Instead of starting the day with a snarl and a snap, I stretched, smiled, fed the kitties, then wandered around trying to figure out how to fill my time. Work on another Lena Jones Desert book? No, I felt too cheerful, I wanted to write something… nice.

Now, writers are terrible snoops, but we’ve perfected the art of looking like we’re minding our own business. One day, when I was relaxing over a decaf at the local Starbucks, I eavesdropped on a couple of women, both in their sixties, one blond, the other a redhead, discussing their volunteer work at the Phoenix Zoo. It sounded interesting, so I scooted closer. I learned that they both worked in a location named Monkey Village, and they were suffering a shortage of volunteers.

“Just one more would make things easier,” the redhead said. “Then we’d be able to take breaks.”

Giving up all pretense of minding-my-own-business, I slid across the sofa and said, “How does one volunteer?”

Undertaker Stork

Three weeks later, after intensive training sessions, I was in Monkey Village – right IN the enclosure – watching delightedly as a squirrel monkey named Captain Kirk ran across my foot, chased by Spock. (Yes, all the monkeys had Star Trek names). I stayed in Monkey Village for about five years, then went on to become a Trail Guide. My new life was both easier and sweeter.

Don’t get me wrong. I still wrote those grisly Lena Jones books – ten in all – but after starting to work at the zoo, I added a new series – The Gunn Zoo Mysteries. Starting with The Anteater of Death, in which a giant anteater named Lucy helps zookeeper Theodora “Teddy” Bentley find out who killed the uber-wealthy member of the Gunn Zoo Guild. The book was a hit, partially because I’d moved the Phoenix Zoo to California, and the Monterey Bay area and had given Teddy a neat little houseboat to live on. After Anteater, came The Koala of Death, The Llama of Death, The Puffin of Death, The Otter of Death, and now – ta da! – The Panda of Death!

To be clear – no animals are ever hurt in any of these books, although humans die like flies. They’re deaths aren’t grisly, though. In strict keeping with the “cozy” tradition, the deaths tend to be off-screen, and the poor wretch has usually been dead for hours before zookeeper Teddy stumbles across his corpse.

In The Panda of Death, however, someone else finds the first dead body. Teddy is at the zoo, interviewing a Tyrannosaurus Rex (in costume, of course), the lead character in a children’s TV show named Tippy-Toe & Tinker, when she gets a call from one of her friends at the harbor informing her that there’s a dead man floating next to her boat. And it looks like the dead man is the writer of Tippy-Toe & Tinker. As the book goes along, a few more humans are felled, and one of the animals in the zoo comes across a clue that solves the case. That animal is Poona, a loveable red panda who delights in being cuddled. But she does not delight in visits from killers.

In an interesting side plot, a young man shows up at Teddy’s and her new husband’s door claiming to be her new husband’s son – and that he has the DNA test to prove it. This, by the way, is not fiction. In doing my own DNA, I discovered that I had a brother I didn’t know I had, and after we met, I decided to put the experience into The Panda of Death.

And that’s probably why The Panda of Death will always be my favorite of my 18 books.

The Panda of Death

The Gunn Zoo Series, Book 6

California zookeeper Theodora Bentley is now happily married to Sheriff Joe Rejas. The Gunn Zoo is celebrating the arrival of Poonya, an adorable red panda, who forms a strong bond with Teddy. All appears fairytale blissful in the small Monterey Bay village of Gunn Landing until Teddy's mother-in-law, mystery writer Colleen Rejas, has discovered through DNA testing that Joe has sired a son he knew nothing about. Dylan Coyle, 18, arrives to meet his biological family... and then is arrested for murder.

By the end of the book, besides solving the crime, Teddy and Colleen have learned that the term "family" does not always mean blood kin. It often includes those who?although no blood relationship?are still held close in our hearts.

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#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--A CELEBRATION OF SCRAPBOOKING & SCRAPBOOKING TIPS

Today is International Scrapbooking Industry Day. Never heard of it? Neither had I, but it’s listed on all those sites devoted to holidays and observances. After doing a bit of cyber-sleuthing, I discovered the day is meant to give thanks to the various scrapbooking companies that offer products that help us preserve our cherished memories through the art of scrapbooking when most of us simply store our photos on our phones.

We’re tactile creatures by nature, and there’s something so much more satisfying about turning the pages of a handcrafted scrapbook to relive memories than simply scrolling through our phones. Not only that, but scrapbooks often contain souvenirs of the past, like ticket stubs, handwritten notes, blue ribbons from awards, graduation programs, etc.

Scrapbooking also provides a tangible backup for our memories and family history that might not otherwise be available to our relatives after we’re gone. If they don’t know your passwords, children and grandchildren have no way of accessing photos from password-protected sites.

People have been scrapbooking for generations, but it’s only a decade or so ago that we began to realize that our photos needed to be preserved using acid-free papers to prevent them from aging and deteriorating over time. Thanks to the scrapbooking industry, we now have products that will ensure our scrapbooks will last for generations.

Scrapbooking plays a prominent role in Scrapbook of Murder, the sixth Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. Here are some scrapbooking tips from Scrapbook of Murder:

1. Decide on the theme for your album. You can create an album to commemorate a specific event, such as a birthday or vacation, or a series of chronological albums that span your family’s history.

2. Choose a focal-point photograph for each page. Create a layout for the page by adding other photos that are part of that page’s “story.”

3. Always keep in mind that “less is more.” Too many snapshots on one page will look cluttered. Choose no more than three or four of the most representational photos to highlight.

4. Whether you’re choosing backgrounds from a digital site or actual scrapbook pages, make sure the printed patterns and colors don’t overpower your photos. The photographs are the stars of your album. Backgrounds are meant to enhance, not steal the show.

5. Use page accents, whether digital artwork or purchased embellishments, sparingly. As with backgrounds, you don’t want the embellishments to take over the page. You want your photos to stand out. One embellishment per page every few pages is sufficient.

6. Create a title for pages that represent special events.

7. Note the names of each person in a photo, the year or date, and where the photo was taken. Even though you recognize the people in the photos, years from now you may not, and your descendents certainly won’t know their names.

8. If you choose to combine photographs with journaling, make certain your spelling is correct.

9. Don’t go overboard adding lots of catchy quotes or song lyrics.

10. Remember that you’re creating a family heirloom that will be viewed by future generations. Don’t editorialize by adding disparaging comments about Aunt Irma or Cousin Tiffany.

Scrapbook of Murder

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

Crafts and murder don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but “normal” deserted crafts editor Anastasia Pollack’s world nearly a year ago. Now, tripping over dead bodies seems to be the “new normal” for this reluctant amateur sleuth.

When the daughter of a murdered neighbor asks Anastasia to create a family scrapbook from old photographs and memorabilia discovered in a battered suitcase, she agrees—not only out of friendship but also from a sense of guilt over the older woman’s death. However, as Anastasia begins sorting through the contents of the suitcase, she discovers a letter revealing a fifty-year-old secret, one that unearths a long-buried scandal and unleashes a killer. Suddenly Anastasia is back in sleuthing mode as she races to prevent a suitcase full of trouble from leading to more deaths.

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#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--HER ORIGIN STORY

In today’s blog I thought I’d tell you a little bit about how I came to be a cog in author Lois Winston’s publishing career.

Somewhere back in 2003 Lois’s agent heard that an editor was looking for crafting mysteries. Well, she thought, who better to write a crafting mystery than a writer who’s also a designer in the crafts industry? (That would be Lois.) According to Lois, the conversation went something like this:

Agent: Lois, Editor A wants a crafting mystery. You should write one.

Lois: Okay.

Now keep in mind, not only had Lois never written a mystery, she hadn’t read one in years. At the time her agent was trying to sell the various romances and chick lit novels Lois had written. Undeterred, Lois set about researching cozy and amateur sleuth mysteries with crafting sleuths. Thus, I, Anastasia Pollack, was born. 

For those of you unfamiliar with me, I’m the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. Lois came up with a scenario where I went back to the office one night to finish up some work, and I discover the fashion editor’s body hot glued to my office chair. My glue gun is the murder weapon, making me the prime suspect.

Lois fleshed out the plot and added a host of zany characters. These included giving me a communist mother-in-law and a mother who claims to descend from Russian nobility and having them both live with me. She made me a single parent by killing off my husband before the book even opens, and just to make my life that much more difficult, she added a loan shark my husband owed money to. Then because we’re talking cozy, she added some pets, giving me Ralph the Shakespeare quoting parrot, giving her mother Catherine the Great White Persian Cat, and giving her mother-in-law Manifesto, AKA Mephisto the Devil Dog. 

Lois finished the book a few months later, titled it Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, and sent it off to her agent. After reading the manuscript, her agent called:

Agent: I think you’re funnier than Author X!

Lois (blushing): Aw shucks!

Agent sent manuscript off to Editor A. 

Editor A: I think the author is funnier than Author X!

Sounds like a sale in the making, right? Think again. Before Editor A could convince her editorial board to buy the book, she accepts a job with another publishing house where she’s not buying crafting mysteries. No one else at Editor A’s previous publishing house thinks Lois is as funny as Author X.

Lois decides to enter the St. Martin’s Malice Domestic contest. She becomes a finalist. Strange contest. No list of finalists is ever announced. She has no idea how many other manuscripts are competing for the Golden Ticket of a book contract, but she knows there’s at least one because he wins. 

Agent continues to send the book about me to other editors. Editors B, C, D, E, and F don’t think Lois is as funny as Author X. 

Meanwhile, agent sells two of Lois’s other books, a humorous women’s fiction that the publisher markets as a romance (much to the chagrin of both Lois and her agent because it’s a story about a mother and daughter) and a romantic suspense.

Agent sends the crafting mystery manuscript to Editor G. Editor G thinks Lois is as funny as Author X! She wants to buy the book! But in the middle of contract talks, the publishing company is sold. The contract is put on hold. Then the new company decides not to publish crafting mysteries.

Meanwhile Publisher H decides to stop publishing amateur sleuth mysteries, and Publisher I cuts back drastically on their amateur sleuth line. Agent sends manuscript to Editors J, K, and L. None of them think Lois is as funny as Author X. 

Agent sends manuscript to Editor M. Editor M loves book and offers 3-book deal! 

The road to publication for Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun took six years from the day Lois’s agent suggested she write a crafting mystery until the day she received an offer for the series. Seventeen years later Lois continues to torture me. Today there are eight books and three novellas in the series with a ninth one in the works. The publishing industry has gone through many changes since 2003 and will continue to change. One thing that probably won’t, though, are the dead bodies Lois keeps writing into my life. 

Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun is on sale this month for only .99 cents.

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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