Featuring guest authors; crafting tips and projects; recipes from food editor and sleuthing sidekick Cloris McWerther; and decorating, travel, fashion, health, beauty, and finance tips from the rest of the American Woman editors.

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Sunday, July 17, 2016

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST CRAFTER AND AUTHOR CHERYL HOLLON ON BEER BOTTLE CRAFTING

Cheryl Hollon now writes full time after leaving an engineering career designing and building military flight simulators in various countries around the world. Fulfilling the dream of a lifetime, she combines her love of writing with a passion for creating glass art. In the small glass studio behind the house, Cheryl and her husband George design, create, and produce fused glass, stained glass, and painted glass artworks. Learn more about Cheryl and her books at her website.

Making a Spoon Rest from a Beer Bottle

The cover art for Cracked to Death (Webb’s Glass Shop Mystery #3) is filled with wonderful items made from recycled bottles that have been fired in a kiln. After that they can be used to make cheese trays, clocks, wind chimes, or wall hangings. My favorite reuse trick with a beer bottle is to make a spoon rest (pictured above). I have several in the kitchen and they definitely help keep drips off the stove and countertops. The beer bottles are easily cleaned in the dishwasher, so I have several.

My husband, George and I have a glass studio in a freestanding cottage behind our house, and we enjoy making promotional gifts for my book tours. For this book, I will be giving away all sorts of bottles.

First, I have to say my favorite part of the process is selecting the beer bottles. I like to retain the design on the bottles so I only select the ones that have a screen-printed image. If they have paper labels, those have to be removed along with the glue. On my last forage to the specialty beer shop, I came home with these lovely bottles.

I think THE MUSE by Angry Orchard is my favorite so far. It’s a sparkling cider with an amazingly fresh and crisp flavor with a hint of apple that will make a perfect cheese tray. I’m also happy with the ROGUE Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout – absolutely delicious and a perfectly literary gift.

The preparation is fairly simple. We just rinse them off and place them in the kiln so that they don’t touch or roll over on each other. Here’s a kiln load ready to be fired overnight.

The most fun is opening the kiln the next morning and taking them out and washing them to reveal a bottle that has flattened out perfectly. For example, it didn’t break, roll, or burn away the lovely design.


I’m using these in auction baskets for the upcoming Bouchercon conference in New Orleans this September, along with SleuthFest in Florida, and definitely for Malice Domestic in the Spring. I’m thinking that I’ll need more beer.

Cracked to Death
When a treasure hunt leads to deadly plunder, it’s up to glass shop owner Savannah Webb and her trusty investigative posse to map out the true motives of a killer . . .

It's the dog days of summer in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Webb's Glass Shop proprietor Savannah Webb has an eco-friendly plan to help locals escape the heat—a recyclable bottle-crafting workshop taught by reticent store manager Amanda Blake. Turns out, the class is a bigger smash than expected, thanks in part to a pair of staggeringly old bottles brought in by snorkeler Martin Lane.

Linked to a storied pirate shipwreck, the relics definitely pique Savannah's interest. But intrigue turns to shock when Martin's lifeless body washes ashore the next morning, another glass artifact tucked in his dive bag. With cell phone records connecting Amanda to the drowning, Savannah must voyage through uncharted territory to exonerate her colleague and capture the twisted criminal behind Martin's death.

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Thursday, July 14, 2016

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR ALICE ORR

Alice Orr loves to write. Especially romantic suspense novels and blog posts. She’s been a workshop leader, book editor and literary agent. Now she lives her dream of writing full-time. So far she’s published fifteen novels, three novellas and a memoir – either traditionally or independently. Learn more about Alice and her books at her website. Today Alice sits down with us for an interview.

When did you first decide you wanted to write novels?
The first writers’ conference I ever attended was at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. I’d been writing articles for various periodicals for some time, but I’d never admitted to anyone that what I really wanted to write was fiction. In a class taught by the poet Judith McDaniel, I spoke for the first time at that conference. She’d asked us what stood in the way of our most important writing goal. I stood up and said, “I want to write novels, but I don’t think I have any imagination.” Then I cried. The decision flowed out of me at that moment, along with my tears.

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication?
It took a while for me to publish a novel because I wouldn’t submit to publishers. I’d write just about enough of the manuscript to have the ending in sight. Then I’d say to myself, “I have a better story idea than this one.” I’d jettison my current project and begin another one. This was still the hard copy submission era so I’d stash the incompletes on shelves my husband built for them in our hallway. I did this again and again until a friend of mine asked, “What are you going to do? Collect those yellowing manuscripts til there’s no more room in your place for shelves?” I was tempted to answer, “We’ll get a bigger place.” I made my first submission instead, and that became my first published novel, a contemporary romance from New American Library.

Are you traditionally published indie published or a hybrid author?
I’ve been all of the above.

Where do you write?
I write in my home office, with pictures of my family on one wall, my grandchildren’s artwork on another wall and mementos of my writing career on a third wall and atop the bookcases.

Is silence golden, or do you prefer music when you write?
I prefer silence, except for the sounds of breeze and birdsong through my open window in summer.

How much of your plots and characters is drawn from real life? From your life?
I write about families now. My own family experience certainly informs those plots, but so do other families I encounter. I’m always observing and taking notes. As for characters I may have borrowed, in part, from real life – I’ll never tell.

Describe your process for naming your characters?
I used to have a master list of possible character names. Two lists actually, one for first names, a second for last names. One of my favorite sources for those names was the credits at the end of movies. I’m a huge movie fan. Then I misplaced those master lists. Now, I let whim and inspiration from the goddess of creativity be my guides.

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your character has?
Character quirks are overrated in my opinion. Characters come alive on the page because they are more than their quirks, more than the sum of those surface parts. They are three-dimensional people through and through.

What’s your quirkiest quirk?
I know I have quirks, but to myself I’m just me. You’ll have to ask my husband this question. I’m sure he has the answer.

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours?
My first marriage. I wouldn’t have my beloved children without that error in judgment, so I’ll embrace the relationship. I simply shouldn’t have married him.

What is your biggest pet peeve?
My own inadequate supply of patience, sometimes with people but mostly with situations.

You’re stranded on a desert island. What are your three must-haves?
Photos of my family. A copy of The Holy Bible. Moisturizer.

What was the worst job you’ve ever held?
I can’t give details because somebody might guess where it was. I’ll just say there were unkind people working there, not so much unkind to me as they were unkind to others.

What’s the best book you ever read?
Always the one I’m reading now, and there are generally several. Check my Kindle.

Ocean or mountains?
Ocean. Please. Please. Please.

City girl or country girl?
I’ve lived in both. I’ve loved both, and occasionally I’ve hated both. I’m an adaptable be-here-now kind of person so at present I’m an urban girl because I live in New York City. More important, like most writers, I carry my true region of preference in my head.

What’s on the horizon for you?
God willing. More loving. More family. More writing. Maybe an apartment with a terrace.

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself?
I adore the people I meet through my work, the (mostly) women who write, read and produce romance and women’s fiction. We are generous, irreverent, straightforward, feisty, sometimes grouchy and always gorgeous. I’m overjoyed to be in such company.

A Villain for Vanessa
A story of tangled roots and tormented love.
Two families are shaken to their roots. Vanessa Westerlo must find her roots. Bobby Rizzo is torn between Vanessa and his true roots. They are all tormented by love – past and too present. Meanwhile a man has been murdered. And that is the most tormented tangle of all.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

#TRAVEL TO LONDON WITH GUEST AUTHOR TRACY L. WARD


Charles Dickens Museum
A former journalist and graduate from Humber College's School for Writers, Tracy L. Ward has been hard at work developing her favourite protagonist, Peter Ainsley, and chronicling his adventures as a morgue surgeon in Victorian England. Learn more about Tracy and her books at her website. 

Lost in London: Setting the Scene

When I set out to write my Victorian morgue mystery series, Marshall House Mysteries, there was only one city in the world that could do it justice: London. With its cobblestone alleys, gas-lit streets and fog ridden nights, London has long been a setting for writers of the mysterious and supernatural. It seemed only fitting that Dr. Peter Ainsley, a morgue surgeon tracking down all manner of criminals, using the burgeoning science of forensics, should work and live there.

Today London is a frantic city with a web of criss-crossing transit systems including buses, river taxis and the famous tube. Each day an army of commuters file into the city from far flung suburbs, further contributing to the hustle and bustle of city life. Its skyline is a mixture of buildings old and new with a few notable landmarks like Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the architectural marvel of St. Mary Axe.

Despite a number of modern conventions that would hint otherwise, London still holds a lot of charm of yesteryear. There are a few hidden gems not so easily found by the everyday tourist, but if you are an unrepentant history fiend like I am, these places are non-negotiable when it comes to your sightseeing list.

If you are tickled by dark Victorian tales and enjoy the look and feel of old burial grounds, then Highgate Cemetery is a must. Filled with stone architecture and accents only the death-obsessed Victorians could provide, this off-the-beaten-path tourist site will have you constantly reaching for your camera. The Victorians enjoyed elaborate funerals and often equated their cost with how much their family loved the deceased in life. Nowhere is this more evident that at Highgate, one of London’s Magnificent Seven, a group of seven historical cemeteries scattered throughout the various neighbourhoods of the city. The east side of the cemetery is open every day for free-ranging, but the west side is only available via tours which must be pre-booked.

Another five-star site is the Old Operating Theatre & Herb Garret, an attic space once reserved for medical students who would gather along the amphitheatre style railings to oversee the dissection of a human cadaver. These lectures were performed as a supplement to the medical training students would receive in the hospitals and were quite rare after Britain outlawed the use of purchased bodies (procured from destitute families or nefarious entrepreneurs like Scotland’s famous Burke and Hare). The theatre was also where medical student could oversee surgical procedures facilitated by the large skylight overhead to ensure maximum light.

This is a small museum, but it sure does pack a punch. On display is a variety of Victorian obstetric tools (ouch!), nursing implements, scientific oddities and an assortment of ‘natural’ remedies. The space is high above a historic church and the only way to get there is by a narrow, winding staircase with rope railing. It’s a tight squeeze complete with rickety wooden stairs constructed at a very steep incline, which only further adds to the atmosphere of the place. Unfortunately, there is no wheelchair access.

Another site that greatly contributed to my research was the Charles Dickens Museum in Camden Borough. Already a well-known author by the time he moved his family there, the building is the only one remaining of Dickens’ London houses. The museum is displayed as it would have been during Dickens’ residence and includes his desk and a number of handwritten notes pertaining to his books. This museum offered me great insight into a typical layout of a Georgian terrace home including a kitchen in the basement and the layout of servants rooms (Dickens was fortunate enough to have two or three household helpers). When describing a room in my novels I often use my memories and photographs of this museum to guide me, though sometimes I deviate slightly, but that’s okay. I use Dickens’ home as a starting point and imagine from there.

As an author, I am very fortunate to have chosen a city with so many links to its past that continue to delight visitors today. Visiting these places gave me a real insight into the architecture, street layout and culture of London, one of the oldest cities in the world.

Prayers for the Dying

Dr. Peter Ainsley knew it was only a matter of time before London claims another murder victim, but this time the body is discovered tied to a lamppost four doors down from the house Ainsley shares with his sister and their bedridden father. The day the body is discovered, a maid of their house and Ainsley’s lover, Julia Kemp, fails to return home from errands in the city.

Convinced the body found in Belgravia and Julia’s disappearance are related, Ainsley follows leads that point him to an infamous bookman, Thaddeus Calvin, known as much for manipulating boxing outcomes as he is for his violent temper. Fiercely protected by the neighbourhood he extorts, Thaddeus is like a ghost, so deeply feared even Scotland Yard is unable to charge him for his crimes.
When another young woman’s body, a housemaid like Julia, is discovered floating in the river, Ainsley hastens his desperate search to discover Julia’s whereabouts before she, too, becomes just another murder victim found in the Thames. 


Tuesday, July 12, 2016

FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR JULIA BUCKLEY

The Author's Office 
Julia Buckley is a Chicago area writer. She is going into her 28th year of teaching high school English and journalism, and she lives at home with her husband, two sons, three cats and a Lab puppy who is now as big as a small horse. Learn more about Julia and her books at her website. 

My Favorite Things in My Office

A couple of years ago my office had become a junk land, where everyone put piles of stuff that had no home. It looked horrible, so I made it my summer project to de-junk, re-paint, and re-imagine the office. It required a lot of work and some money to replace some elderly furniture, but today the office is so nice I have to fight the rest of my family for the right to sit in there. (see photo above)

At least, this is what two walls of it look like. On the computer you can see an image of a deceased but still-beloved cat, Rose. There are two desks—one for paying bills and doing correspondence, and one for creativity and video watching.

Instead of junk, the office is now filled with many things that are meaningful to me (or are enjoyably decorative).

First, there’s the knight. I got him on one of my birthdays, and I decided that he would become the guardian of my writing life: he would remind me with his presence that I should write each day, but he would also champion my writing when no one else believed in it. Naturally, he lives in the center of the desk.

Second, there is a globe paperweight of the world, given to me by my nephew.  It’s lovely, heavy and smooth, and I like to hold it when I’m contemplating an idea (or deciding which bill to pay first).

Next comes my little typewriter coin bank. A bit dusty, but always a reminder of what I love to do so well.

And while we’re on the subject of typewriters, I got this vintage Smith Corona on E-bay, and it adds style to my office.

Also on the desk is this antique Hungarian alphabet book, on loan from my father, so that I can try to master the very difficult pronunciations. I am writing a book with Hungarian characters, and my dad thought this would help.

This awesome red octopus was a birthday present for my husband one year, but we didn’t want to leave it around for the animals to chew, so it lives on the computer tower.

 
This is one of my favorite pictures of my sons, Ian and Graham. It was taken at a Christmas gathering at my parents’ house before my mom went into assisted living.

My William Shakespeare beanie baby guards some copies of my last book, The Big Chili.

If my husband had his way, our house would be filled with guitars. This one, a 50th birthday present to him, hangs above the desk.

This is one of my favorites; some artisan took old Nancy Drew books and turned them into journals. I keep some notes in here.

Pictures of my mom and dad are tucked into one shelf.

I always loved the TOOT and PUDDLE books that I read to my sons. One came with little felt character dolls, and I never had the heart to get rid of them, so these little piggies are tucked on top of my books. (Great books to read to little ones!)

On another shelf is a treasure chest I bought for one of my sons, but it turned out he didn’t love treasure chests as much as I did.  Now I keep stationery in it.

On the top of the bookcase I stack hardbacks that I want to save. I’m doing a lot of book stacking in my new attempt at order.

On another wall is a second guitar and a big canvas replica of my new cover—A Dark and Stormy Murder. I loved the cover so much, I found one of those canvas photo deals and preserved it forever. I thought it was appropriate to hang it where I do my writing.

Thanks for letting me share my favorites with you! 

Virginia Woolf said that every person needed “A Room of One’s Own.”  I love my office because it preserves all that is special to me and is filled with talismans for my writing life.

A Dark and Stormy Murder
Lena London's literary dreams are coming true—as long as she can avoid any real-life villains...

Camilla Graham’s bestselling suspense novels inspired Lena London to become a writer, so when she lands a job as Camilla’s new assistant, she can’t believe her luck. Not only will she help her idol craft an enchanting new mystery, she’ll get to live rent-free in Camilla’s gorgeous Victorian home in the quaint town of Blue Lake, Indiana.

But Lena’s fortune soon changes for the worse. First, she lands in the center of small town gossip for befriending the local recluse. Then, she stumbles across one thing that a Camilla Graham novel is never without—a dead body, found on her new boss’s lakefront property.

Now Lena must take a page out of one of Camilla’s books to hunt down clues in a real crime that seems to be connected to the novelist’s mysterious estate—before the killer writes them both out of the story for good...

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Monday, July 11, 2016

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR RADINE TREES NEHRING

Radine Trees Nehring fell in love with the Arkansas Ozarks as a visitor in 1978, wound up moving there, and has since shared her love of the region in both her fiction and nonfiction. Her eighth Ozarks-related mystery novel, A Portrait to Die For, was released in April. Learn more about Radine and her books at her website. 

How Important Are Cooking Skills to an Amateur Detective?

Early on in the Carrie McCrite/Henry King To Die For mystery series, readers learn for the first time that Carrie is not a willing cook. Chapter Three of the first novel, A Valley to Die For, opens:

"The committee ate Carrie's brunch as eagerly as if she'd spent all morning in the kitchen preparing it. 'There,' she thought, 'that proves it doesn't take a zillion-ingredient recipe and stacks of dirty pans. All it takes is friends getting together--then no one cares whether your kitchen helper was Julia Child or the Pillsbury Doughboy.' "

 Carrie's kitchen helper would definitely be the Pillsbury Doughboy. She lived with her parents until she was thirty and her mom insisted on doing all the cooking. After marriage to Amos McCrite, a wealthy criminal lawyer, Carrie still spent little time in the kitchen because he employed a full-time cook. Now, on occasions when she does cook, (especially after Amos's death), she usually depends on take-out, or ready-prepared meals from the grocery. We learn in A Treasure to Die For that, before moving to Arkansas after Amos's murder, she disposed of the many (unopened) cookbooks helpful friends gave her over the years. ("All that woman needs is a good cookbook," they frequently said.)

When the need to make meatloaf comes up as part of the plot in A Treasure to Die For, a result is "No Thaw Meatloaf." This bizarre and so-o-o easy meatloaf shows up on the Nehring dinner table every few months and, according to reader response, probably on many other tables as well.

At one time Carrie apologizes to her adult son, Rob, about the lack of "home-made, mom-cooked meals" while he was growing up. He assures her that, as a bachelor college professor, he's grateful to have learned her meal prep methods early in life.

Bowing to reader requests, I always include two or three recipes at the end of each novel.

Of course I enjoy writing about Carrie's adventures into crime solving with her new husband, Henry King (a retired Kansas City Police Major), and about the very real tourist-friendly Arkansas locations where each story is set. Though it's sometimes challenging, I also enjoy coming up with the Carrie-style recipes used in each story. "Baggie Omelets" is one of the most popular with readers. It's from A River to Die For.

(And yes, special recipes even fit into my recent Carrie and Henry novel about art crime--A Portrait to Die For, set largely in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.)

Here is Carrie's recipe for Baggie Omelets:

Ingredients
one-quart zip shut freezer bag
2 eggs
Whatever you like in an omelet: chunks of onion, green pepper, bacon, sausage, olives, etc.
Shredded cheese of choice
Salt and pepper
One large kettle of boiling water (rolling boil)

If using raw vegetables, soften in the microwave. (If on a picnic, cook lightly in a pan) Cook any meat you plan to add. Chop everything you will be adding to your omelet into small pieces.

Break two eggs into a baggie. Seal, removing as much air as possible. Squeeze and squish until eggs are well mixed.
 
Open baggie. Add vegetables and/or meat.  Add seasonings.

Seal bag again, removing air, and squish to mix.

Drop bag(s) in kettle of boiling water and boil for exactly thirteen minutes. Remove from water and roll or spoon omelet out on a plate. Add shredded cheese immediately.

Carrie and I think this is the best way in the world to cook eggs. Delicious--and no cleanup of messy egg residue.

Happy cooking!

A Portrait to Die For
Carrie discovers two versions of a supposedly original portrait in a loan exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. When a reporter who interviewed Carrie at the museum disappears, Carrie must choose between her promise to stop crime-solving or work to find the woman--a college friend of her son's.

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Sunday, July 10, 2016

FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--#ZUCCHINI FAIL

Lois Winston, Anastasia’s creator, stepping in today to talk about one of my failures. I’ve never been a great gardener. Instead of having green thumbs, mine are red. I say red because if you look at a color wheel, you’ll see that red is the opposite of green.


In my defense, I’m was born and bred a city girl and have never quite adapted to suburban life, no matter how much I’ve tried. And believe me, when it comes to gardening, I’ve tried…and tried…and tried. And usually failed.

However, one thing I have had success growing in the past is zucchini. Even I couldn’t kill that stalwart squash and have spent many summers with bumper crops from a single plant—until the last several years when even the zucchini decided to rebel against my efforts.

This year I decided to plant in a different sunny spot in my backyard, thinking maybe location was the problem, even though I'd rotate crops within my small gardening plot. The zucchini gods must have thought that was funny because after two months in the ground my poor zucchini plant has yet to produce a single new leaf, let alone any flowers. It’s exactly the same size it was when I bought it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a plastic plant!

I am bowing to the inevitable. We can't all succeed at everything we try, no matter how much we'd like to. So my fresh zucchini this year is coming courtesy of the local farmer’s market that sets up at the train station every Saturday morning. 

Thursday, July 7, 2016

FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR JACQUELINE DIAMOND

A former Associated Press reporter and TV columnist, USA Today bestselling author Jacqueline Diamond has sold 100 mysteries and romance novels to traditional publishers. Her 101st book, The Case of the Questionable Quadruplet, launches her Safe Harbor Medical Mystery series. Learn more about Jacqueline and her books at her website. Today Jacqueline joins us to talk about her talent for failure.

A Talent for Failure

“How many books have you written?”

That shouldn’t be hard to answer, right? I’ve published 101 novels. Problem is, I’ve written way more than that—thousands of rejected pages, including a few complete books plus unsold partials and proposals.

Chalk them up as failures. But only in a sense.

Throughout my twenties and thirties, I turned out plays, screenplays and novels while working as a journalist. My bed rose into the stratosphere as unsold manuscripts piled up underneath (this was in the days of typewritten manuscripts). It sometimes felt like I was receiving rejection slips from publishers I hadn’t even submitted to.

At last, I sold a Regency-era romantic comedy called Lady in Disguise, followed by another three. Success at last!

If that had been the end of my rejections, this would be a very short blog. But as it turned out, failure is an option, even for published authors.

My editor rejected my fifth Regency, A Lady’s Point of View. She said the plot was too complicated and didn’t even request revisions (more about that book in a minute).

I moved on to writing contemporary romances and other genres. Gradually, more books sold, including a mystery (The Eyes of a Stranger) and a paranormal thriller (Echoes). But others, equally loved by me, didn’t.

Looking back, I came up with a few lessons worth sharing.

1) Although rejection hurts, I learned from it. Sometimes, the concept just wasn’t strong enough. Or the characters weren’t deep enough. Or the storyline didn’t fit what the publishers or readers were looking for at that time.

2) Failure isn’t forever. After a rewrite, my fantasy novel Shadowlight found a home at DAW and my offbeat mystery Danger Music sold to Five Star Mysteries. A Lady’s Point of View, after revisions, sold to another Regency line. All three are now available as ebooks.

3) When life gives you lemons, open a fruit stand. My Gothic romantic suspense Touch Me in the Dark endured multiple rejections before selling to an epublisher named Triskelion. The month it was published, Triskelion went bankrupt, and I didn’t receive a penny. Eventually, I regained my rights, updated and self-published this book, which has done well in its new digital life.

4) When life doesn’t even give you lemons, plant your own lemon tree. My favorite unsold book was a science fiction thriller called Out of Her Universe, about a woman with no idea that, as a baby, she had been brought to this world from a parallel Earth. Then, without warning, her life and those of people she loves are thrust into danger. I loved writing it and published it as an original ebook that has received outstanding reviews.

5) Taken together, lessons add up to an education, which can pay off in unexpected ways. Take my latest writing venture.

For my 101st book, I was eager to return to writing mysteries with puzzle plots and offbeat characters. As my experiences had shown, I no longer need an editor’s permission to publish my work.

Rejections also taught me that a concept has to be strong to appeal to readers. Being a fan of Grey’s Anatomy and the author of a 17-book medical romance series, I decided to feature a doctor as my amateur sleuth.

Thus the Safe Harbor Medical Mysteries were born. I’ve published the first book, The Case of the Questionable Quadruplet, and am well into writing the second, with several more plots on tap. Without my failures, I might never have developed the confidence or the market awareness to write and issue this series.

We all enjoy hearing of people who succeeded in spite of their failures. In my case, I may very well have succeeded because of them.

The Case of the Questionable Quadruplet
A Safe Harbor Medical Mystery, Book 1

Eric Darcy, a young, widowed obstetrician, is stunned when the mother of triplets claims to have borne a fourth baby, a quad, that was stolen from her years ago. When someone murders his patient, Eric believes the police are dismissing a vital clue, and teams up with his PI sister-in-law to investigate, never imagining his own life might be in danger. This medical cozy is the first in the Safe Harbor Medical Mysteries.

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