A Midwinter’s Tail (Lucky Paws Petsitting Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Kensington (November 27, 2018)
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages

Synopsis

To bark or not to bark . . .

Professional pet sitter Daphne Templeton loves the holidays in Sylvan Creek, Pennsylvania. And nothing gets her into the spirit more than the town’s annual Bark the Halls Ball. The whole community will be there to wag their tails, especially this year’s special guest—Celeste “CeeCee” French, founder of a national chain of pet care franchises, who’s returning home to announce plans for a bright new flagship store.

But not everyone’s celebrating CeeCee’s homecoming. Daphne’s friend Moxie Bloom, owner of Spa and Paw, a unique salon for people and their pets, has plenty to growl about. So when CeeCee is found face down under Sylvan Creek’s town Christmas tree, stabbed with a distinctive pair of professional-grade pet shears, suspicion lands squarely on Moxie. Despite Daphne’s promises to Detective Jonathan Black, she quickly reprises her role as amateur sleuth. Ably assisted by her basset hound sidekick, Socrates, she must hurry to prove her friend’s innocence before a killer barks again . . .

Includes recipes for homemade pet treats!

Guest Post

Readers often ask authors what they have in common with the characters they create. I don’t usually base my characters off my family, friends or myself. However, this time of year, I do share one trait with Moxie Bloom, the quirky, vintage-obsessed salon owner from my Lucky Paws Petsitting Mysteries — namely, a love of old movies.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen White Christmas and its less popular predecessor, Holiday Inn. And, of course, there’s Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bishop’s Wife and the more modern classic, A Christmas Story.

But my favorite by far is 1945’s Christmas in Connecticut, about a Manhattan apartment dweller who writes a Martha-Stewart-like lifestyle column, and who is forced to pretend to live the perfect domestic life on a Connecticut farm when her charade is about to be exposed at the holidays.

If you haven’t seen this movie, starring Barbara Stanwyck, and you love coziness, run and watch it today, hot cocoa in hand.

From the barn dance to the sleigh ride, Christmas in Connecticut definitely inspired my newest book, A Midwinter’s Tail, which also features horse-drawn sleighs, ice skating, and a fancy ball in a quaint, rustic town — not to mention a few handsome war heroes, just like in the movie.

The story is different, but the warm and fuzzy setting is the same.

What story do you turn to, when you want to immerse yourself in the holiday spirit? I’d love to know. Maybe it will be my next favorite, too!

About the Author

Bethany Blake lives in a small, quaint town in Pennsylvania with her husband and three daughters. When she’s not writing or riding horses, she’s wrangling a menagerie of furry family members that includes a nervous pit bull, a fearsome feline, a blind goldfish, and an attack cardinal named Robert. Like Daphne Templeton, the heroine of her Lucky Paws Mysteries, Bethany holds a Ph.D. and operates a pet sitting business called Barkley’s Premium Pet Care.

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