Posted in Book Release, Cozy, Monday, mystery on March 18, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

In heroine Tempest Raj, modern-day queen of the locked room mystery Gigi Pandian has created a brilliant homage to the greats of classic detective fiction.

Secret Staircase Construction is under attack, and Tempest Raj feels helpless. After former client Julian Rhodes tried to kill his wife, he blamed her “accident” on the home renovation company’s craftsmanship. Now the family business—known for bringing magic into homes through hidden doors, floating staircases, and architectural puzzle walls—is at a breaking point. No amount of Scottish and Indian meals from her grandfather can distract Tempest from the truth: they’re being framed.

When Tempest receives an urgent midnight phone call from Julian, she decides to meet him at the historic Whispering Creek Theater—only to find his dead body, a sword through his chest. After a blade appears from thin air to claim another victim, Tempest is certain they’re dealing with a booby trap… something Secret Staircase Construction could easily build. Tempest refuses to wait for the investigation to turn to her or her loved ones. She knows the pieces of the puzzle are right in front of her, she just has to put them together correctly before more disaster strikes.

Multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian and her sleuth Tempest Raj return in A Midnight Puzzle, where an old theater reveals a deadly booby trap, secrets, and one puzzle of a mystery.

 

 

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This book releases on Tuesday, March 19th, 2024. Preorder your copy today!!

 

 

About the Author

 

gigi-pandianGIGI PANDIAN is the USA Today bestselling and multiple-award-winning author of the Secret Staircase mysteries, inspired by elements from her own family background. She is also the author of the Accidental Alchemist mysteries, the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, and more than a dozen locked-room mystery short stories. Pandian has won Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Derringer awards, and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. A breast cancer survivor and accidental almost-vegan who adores cooking, she lives with her husband in Northern California.

 

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Posted in 5 paws, mystery, Novella, Review, Short Story on March 17, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

The old 19th-century Victorian house at 221 Baker Street is the home of the Holmes and Moriarty Society, where amateur sleuths from different walks of life would meet to solve crimes. On the black granite hearth in front of the mansion’s massive fireplace are three stone statues of monkeys – Mizaru holds its hands covering its eyes, Kikazaru with its hands covering its ears, and Iwazaru covers its mouth. The owner of the mansion and one of the society’s founding members, Osgood Ridley, turns up dead.

But, as more bodies are found, the true purpose of the society is slowly revealed.

When the statue of the fourth monkey, Sezaru, appears on the hearth, the questions begin to outweigh the answers.

This is no longer a job for amateurs.

This is now the job for two police detectives to solve the mystery.

 

 

Amazon

 

Read for Free via Kindle Unlimited

 

 

Review

 

This debut novella from WM Gunn was a delight to read. It included many aspects I enjoy in books, from mystery to murder to misdirection.

The Holmes and Moriarty Society isn’t quite what you imagine, at least not on the outside. This group of amateur detectives has deeper motives for what they are trying to accomplish. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t share any of those details. Let’s just say that no one should be trusted, and the truth will be revealed in the end. I liked the inclusion of the three wise monkeys. I even learned that this is a fourth wise monkey. This is one we don’t see often, but I liked learning about the last one.

I will admit that I did not suspect the killer. The author did a fantastic job of throwing red herrings into the mix and leading you down a different path.

This is a short read at 86 pages, but the author packs a lot of details, descriptions, and intrigue into those pages.

We give this book 5 paws up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

After years in the pharmaceutical industry in sales, sales management, and training and development, I learned the courses and materials I created had to be relevant, thought-provoking, and usable or it was simply of no value.

In a similar manner, the reader of a novel should be able to relate to a character or an event. It should make them think, question, and enjoy the journey. That story should create a landscape, an enveloping atmosphere that the reader can experience, participate in, and sink their teeth into.

I have endeavored to infuse those concepts into my stories and books. Journey with me.

 

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Posted in 4 paws, Children, Review on March 16, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

When Loretta digs in the dirt to plant her flower garden, she discovers glowing larvae. Learn about the lifecycle of the firefly as she puts the larvae in her empty ant farm box and watches the larvae build tunnels and mud houses. After they hatch, she also learns the secret to their special flashing messages.

 

 

Amazon

 

 

Review

 

This book will introduce young readers to the life cycle of fireflies. I have to admit, I learned a few facts that I did not know about these insects.

Loretta is a curious young girl, and when she finds these glowing larvae in her garden, she puts them into her ant farm container so she can watch them grow and become full-fledged fireflies. She studies their life cycle and even learns how to have them come to her by using a small flashlight, imitating their flashing patterns.

This book is good for all young readers, especially those with a strong interest in insects. There is even a page at the end that goes through the life stages of fireflies that parents could read to their children and discuss this fascinating insect with them.

We give it 4 paws up.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Lois Wickstrom earned her BA in biology with a minor in chemistry and English. She is the creator of the Imagenie videos on YouTube and “Starting With Safety,” available from the American Chemical Society. She also co-authored the Nessie’s Grotto Books with Jean Lorrah and the Orange Forest Rabbit books with Lucrecia Darling.

 

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 About the Illustrator

 

The artist Francie Mion received a degree in fine art and resumed her avocation for art after a career in the holistic health field as a Massage Therapist. She has illustrated Lois Wickstrom’s STEM books. Some take place in the Colorado Mountains.

Posted in Fantasy, Spotlight, Young Adult on March 15, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

In a race against time, the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a group of young elementalists. With the malevolent White Queen on the verge of obtaining unimaginable power, these brave heroes must band together to thwart her evil plan. But as they face impossible challenges and formidable foes, they realize the task is far more daunting than they ever imagined. Armed with only their growing magical abilities and unwavering determination, they must protect their loved ones, track down powerful artifacts, and prevent the catastrophic spell from being cast. With two skilled wizard mentors by their side, the elementalists must push themselves to their limits and beyond. But when up against foes who can see into the future and harness otherworldly energies, will their training be enough to save the world from eternal darkness?

 

 

Amazon

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Ephie Risho has been writing his whole life. Inspired by his sixth-grade teacher to write a story every week, he enrolled in the writing program at his undergrad and has been writing ever since. He loves the outdoors, music, and opportunities to tell stories. He lives in beautiful Bozeman, Montana, where he works in software development and is active in various community groups.

 

 

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Posted in Fantasy, Spotlight, Young Adult on March 14, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

A Lost Scepter. An Ancient Map. And the Kraken.

It’s simple, they were told. Just go get the legendary Green Scepter from the Kraken to be able to take on the evil wizards and their vicious goblin armies. It’s a task, by the way, no one has succeeded in for the last two hundred years. After their great success against the goblin horde, the six young elementalists are up to the challenge. The first step: find an ancient dwarven map with clues leading across the world.

But as soon as they find the map, their troubles begin, starting with invisible strangers following their every move. Even if they do follow the map from Dragon Land to exotic empires, and succeed in taking the scepter from the Kraken, the evil wizards are moving quickly with plans of their own. Plans which very well may put the entire world at risk, and change life as they know it forever.

 

 

 

Amazon

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Ephie Risho has been writing his whole life. Inspired by his sixth-grade teacher to write a story every week, he enrolled in the writing program at his undergrad and has been writing ever since. He loves the outdoors, music, and opportunities to tell stories. He lives in beautiful Bozeman, Montana, where he works in software development and is active in various community groups.

 

 

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Posted in Fantasy, Young Adult on March 13, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

A massive goblin army approaches humanity. When Amber, Basil and Theo see it from afar, they scramble for ideas. Little do they know, they’re up against not just the goblins, but the evil wizards controlling them.

With Sage the wizard missing and no better ideas, they decide to seek help from the unthinkable . . . a ferocious red dragon trapped by a wizard’s spell: Crodor the Ancient.

Even if they succeed, will there be time to uncover the diabolical strategies behind the invasion and create a big enough defense?

Not if the fiendish White Queen gets her way.

 

 

Amazon

 

 

About the Author

 

Ephie Risho has been writing his whole life. Inspired by his sixth-grade teacher to write a story every week, he enrolled in the writing program at his undergrad and has been writing ever since. He loves the outdoors, music, and opportunities to tell stories. He lives in beautiful Bozeman, Montana, where he works in software development and is active in various community groups.

 

 

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Posted in excerpt, memoir, nonfiction on March 12, 2024

 

Synopsis

 

When Jan moves to Guatemala with her young daughter to run a medical clinic on the heels of her divorce, she knows the experience will be difficult and life-changing. But she doesn’t anticipate all the ways she will change. To make sense of her professional, personal, and parenting turmoil in a country with plenty of its own turmoil, Jan finds herself adopting a Maya worldview that weaves together concepts of duality (there can be no light without dark, no joy without pain), harmony with nature, and the importance of connecting to the past to understand one’s present self.

Awash with elements of Mayan mythology, history, and culture and innumerable revelations of the compassion, intelligence, and resilience of the Guatemalan people, Bird’s-Eye View is a coming-of-middle-age story that shows how viewing life through the prism of a different set of myths can help an individual understand the familiar tales they have unwittingly followed.

 

 

Amazon

 

 

Excerpt

 

Everything has a spirit

 

In an animistic cosmology such as the Maya world view, the natural and supernatural realms co-mingle, and all things are imbued with a sacred essence. Everything has a spirit—the rocks, the lake, the trees.

The spirits of trees are evidenced by the fact that they grow back when they are cut down, so it is forbidden to sit on a stump because that would be sitting on a spirit. Also, because the tree has a spirit, before cutting it or using its wood, one must ask permission of nature and wait until a full moon. If not, the tree’s spirit can harm the logger or his family.

I heard of a man who wanted to clear the land but did not recognize the hallowedness of the tree spirit, did not consult the guardian of nature, and did not wait for the full moon. Instead, he capriciously chopped what was in his way and stepped over the stump. The trunk tumbled, the branches broke, and the crown collapsed. Rising from the stump was not a spirit, but a ghost. The man only wanted to clear the land for his crops. He did not care for the wood he left on the ground, so he burned the stump and left the trunk there to rot. The stump’s ashes turned to mud, and its ghost haunted him.

If all natural objects have spirits, do intangible things such as relationships have them as well? If so, how had my relationship with Wade (my former husband) sprouted? How had it grown? How had it died?

For many years, the heartwood held our tree upright. Our daughter was a new branch that grew out. We bought a little house, delved into countless projects, and planted our garden. I sowed the seed of the idea of our little family traveling, living, and working in Latin America, perhaps because I thought if we were doing what we loved with each other, we would prune the decaying limbs and new growth would sprout. The early version of us lay inside, but layers that grew year after year made it harder to reach.

Holding on to the hope of reviving what was dying between us, I stayed at a job I hated for years to save money for our trip to Latin America. Every year that passed, I thought we were a little bit closer, but in reality, every year that passed, we were a little bit further apart. After a decade together, the heartwood rotted, and a hollow pith formed.

Still, by force of my will, our family held together. When Wade canceled our trip and soon thereafter split apart our family without consulting the powers that be, our marriage was felled.

Was the spirit of our failed marriage left standing? Did it haunt him the way it haunted me? And yet, out of the stumped of what had been carelessly cut, new life was emerging.

 

 

About the Author

 

Jan Capps has been a public health advocate for immigrants, farmworkers, domestic violence victims, and people of color in the US, Guatemala, and Mexico for over thirty years, focusing on building local capacity and health equity. During her two stints living in Guatemala, she organized and trained community health workers and midwives, managed a medical clinic, and studied the Maya Tz’utujil language. She has presented, trained, and written for national audiences. Her greatest joy and most humbling experiences have been being a mother and watching her glorious daughter grow and launch into the world.

 

Website

Posted in Crime, fiction, suspense, Thriller on March 11, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

When janitor Truman Pierce isn’t listening to his classical jazz records, he stays under the radar and keeps to himself. Nothing much happens in his world until popular college instructor Danielle Hutchins asks him out. The day after their first date, Pierce finds Danielle murdered in her classroom. With only a little information to go off of, and a pair of detectives that he doesn’t trust, Pierce sets off to find Danielle’s killer. What first starts as murder, quickly becomes more for Pierce as he begins to pull off the layers of his quiet town by going up against drug dealers, thugs, Danielle’s vengeful brother, and an array of people who don’t want him to find out the truth. Every corner he turns, he’ll find another challenge for him to overcome.

With the help of two college students, David and Goliath, and another college instructor, Pierce will do what it takes to find out the truth about Danielle. He’ll be tested to his limits as he seeks to track down the devious killer responsible for ending Danielle’s life.

But will the search for the truth be the end for Pierce?

 

 

Amazon * Barnes & Noble

 

 

Praise

 

“Fast-paced and suspenseful, Pierce should be a welcome fix for anyone addicted to crime fiction.” — Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and The Heavenly

“A fine debut mystery from a promising new author.” — Brandon Barrows, author of The Last Request
 

 

About the Author

Born and raised in Maryland, Patrick B. Simpson received his M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. He currently lives in Montgomery County, MD, and is a member of the Maryland Writers Association. Pierce is his first novel.

 

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Posted in 4 paws, fiction, Review, women on March 10, 2024

 

 

Synopsis

 

Recent college graduate Holly Schlivnik dreams of being a writer, but fate has other plans. A family crisis throws her into an improbable situation, and her life will never be the same. Determined to make her own luck when things don’t happen the way she plans, the irrepressible young woman takes a sledgehammer to the glass ceiling and shatters it to smithereens. The wise-cracking, irreverent transplanted Californian takes you on a raucous, rollicking rollercoaster ride of her hysterical adventures as a ladies’ apparel sales rep traveling in the deep South as she ends up finding herself along the way.

 

 

Amazon * B&N * BookBub

 

 

Review

 

There is a cozy series featuring Holly Schlivnik (Swimsuit), and this book is a great introduction to her, including how she came to work for Ditzy Swimsuits, her background, etc. This book is the prequel and is not a cozy, so don’t expect murders she has to solve.

This is based on the author’s experiences in the garment industry, and I found it fascinating how reps for different clothing lines would travel across the country to meet with buyers to sell those lines for the stores. There is a diverse character list, scenes that might make you cringe, and friendships and love found on the road.

This story is also a great reminder that your path in life might divert from what you expect after college. However, there are so many stories for Holly to tell about her travels with her job, the people she meets, the lessons she learns, and even family life.

I appreciated that Holly was not a person who would roll over just because she was a woman. There are still chauvinistic men in this world, in all industries, and she is not afraid to stand her ground and let them know she is not going to be taken advantage of or be told how to do her job.

This can be read as a standalone or before you start the Holly Swimsuit cozy series.

We give this book 4 paws up and encourage all women to take note of Holly’s endeavors and stand their own ground!

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now, she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

 

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Posted in Cozy, Giveaway, Guest Post, mystery on March 9, 2024

 

 

 

 

Double Scoop of Murder (Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – New York
Gemma Halliday Publishing (February 27, 2024)
Number of Pages 226

 

Synopsis

 

From author Lena Gregory comes a hunt for more than just treasure…

Danika Delany is loving running her uncle’s old fashioned malt shop on eastern Long Island and putting her own modern spin on the treats they serve. Life is finally looking up for her! That is, until local billionaire Maxwell Crumbholtz dies and leaves his fortune in the form of a treasure hunt. Chaos descends on Watchogue, and Dani and the rest of the gang from the Coffee & Cream Café join the melee when they enter the contest, try to decipher the clues, and go in search of the treasure. But Dani digs up more than she expected when she discovers a dead body buried instead of a treasure! To make matters worse, a witness claims to have seen Dani at the scene of the murder. Now, instead of a four-billion-dollar payday, Dani is on the hunt for a killer.

 

 

Amazon * B&NKobo

 

 

Character Guest Post

 

Detective Jake Barlow

 

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jake Barlow, and I’m a detective with the Watchogue Police Department. I’ve always loved helping people. Even when I was a kid, I was the one who tended to stick up for the underdog or stay after class to help out a teacher or a student who needed help. So it seemed natural to choose a career that allowed me to help others. Plus, I’ve always been interested in solving puzzles.

Although, lately, it seems most of my interests revolve around Danika Delaney. I’ll admit I have a sweet spot for her, though the only two dates we’ve managed so far have ended pretty disastrously. There are two reasons I haven’t pushed to have a more serious relationship. One, I don’t think Dani’s ready (and it has nothing to do with the firefighter), and I’m afraid if I push, she’ll bolt. And two, every time I turn around there’s another murder to investigate, and Dani’s right there in the middle of it.

I hate the thought of her and her friends being in danger, which they often are. But, and if you tell Dani I said this I will deny it, they’re good at it. Dani tends to see things from a perspective no one else does, and she’s great at solving puzzles. I just wish they’d stay off killers’ radar. I would like to see our relationship head in a more serious direction—if she could just stop stumbling over dead bodies and interfering in my investigations.  But that’s one of the things I lov…uh…like most about her—she’s got such a good heart and always wants to help people out.

All that can make dating a little difficult. So, for the moment, I spend most of my time trying to keep her out of trouble. Not that she means to get herself into these messes (or so she keeps claiming), but the woman seems to be a magnet for trouble. I’m pretty sure Lena is fully team Jake, though—even if I can’t figure out why she hasn’t written Luca out of the picture yet.

 

 

About the Author

 

 

Lena Gregory is the author of the Bay Island Psychic Mysteries, which take place on a small island between the north and south forks of Long Island, New York, the All-Day Breakfast Café Mysteries, which are set on the outskirts of Florida’s Ocala National Forest, the Mini-Meadows Mysteries, set in a community of tiny homes in Central Florida, and the Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries, which take place in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, New York.

Lena grew up in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, but she recently traded in cold, damp, gray winters for the warmth and sunshine of central Florida, where she now lives with her husband, three kids, son-in-law, and four dogs. Her hobbies include spending time with family, reading, and walking. Her love for writing developed when her youngest son was born and didn’t sleep through the night. She works full-time as a writer and a freelance editor and is a member of Sisters in Crime.

 

 

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Giveaway

 

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