Botched 4 Murder (Sophie Kimball Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Kensington (December 18, 2018)
Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages

Synopsis

Bowled over . . .

Sophie “Phee” Kimball is getting dragged into the drama again at her mom’s Arizona retirement community. A new board member wants to get rid of two golf courses and replace them with eco-friendly parks, and some of the residents are pretty teed off about it. On top of that, her mother’s book club friend Myrna is being pushed out of the bocce league. These seniors are serious about winning, and Myrna’s dragging them down. She’s so bad at bocce, in fact, that when a community mem.ber’s dead body is discovered while Myrna’s practicing for a tournament, she assumes it was one of her own errant balls that killed the woman.

But before Myrna can be tossed off the bocce court and into criminal court, the police find an arrow in the victim’s neck. It looks like this was no accident—and Phee and her investigator boyfriend Marshall will have to team up to bounce a killer into the slammer . . .

Guest Post

It’s Not Start up Fatigue, It’s Distraction Fatigue

By Ann I. Goldfarb and James E. Clapp, writing as J. C. Eaton

Juggling three mystery series can be daunting, but we’re retired and we should have plenty of time. So how come we don’t? We finally figured out what’s preventing us from maximizing our work time. Other authors have said it’s something called “Start–up fatigue,” but we beg to differ. You see, every time we sit down to write, we find ourselves immersed in something else. It’s a new phenomenon and we’ve named it “Distraction Fatigue.” Frankly, the fault rests with all those cute icons on our computer screens.

Inevitably we have to check our emails. Yikes! What would happen if we missed some compelling bit of news or messages? And those messages all have tentacles. We can spend hours just dealing with someone’s lost dog or the selection of a restaurant that all of our friends can agree on for breakfast tomorrow.

“Not Panera Bread again. We were just there.”

“What about the Corner Bakery?”

“They went out of business.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. It’s been replaced by another Starbucks.”

And so it goes. Then there’s our banking. Ann absolutely cannot concentrate until she knows for certain that no one has hacked into our paltry accounts to rob us of tomorrow’s breakfast money. So we wind up checking those. Another half hour…

Of course, there are the book rankings. Inevitably one of us will sneak a peek at our latest Amazon or Barnes and Noble ranking for a particular book and then drive ourselves nuts over it. And if that’s not distracting enough, there’s Goodreads, which really should be termed, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for Authors.” If we get a great review, we revel in it. If not, Jim ignores it and Ann mopes around. Another distraction.

Then, the mother of all distractions – Facebook. We spend lots of time wishing people a happy birthday and commenting on cute kitties, adorable grandkids, and food other people have eaten. We push the LIKE buttons endlessly and watch videos that range from forest animals crossing streams in winter to crazy people climbing up mountains that even a seasoned mountain goat wouldn’t attempt. Yep, lots of lost time here.

There is one bit of good news. Now that both of us have reached Medicare age (Still not sure how that happened), we no longer have to log into our health insurance company and list the exercises we did for the day in order to reap rewards. Ann usually wrote “Vacuum and dust,” while Jim wrote “cleaning the litter box.” Whew! One less distraction…

Suddenly we remember our website and race off to make a post that will either be engaging, or immediately ignored. Anyone’s guess.

Finally, we’re ready to write. But by now, we really are fatigued. The good news is that we’ve figured out a cure. We just need to find an old word processor that has no internet capability. Then we might have a fighting chance to get our next novel penned. LOL

NOTE: Our posts tend to be tongue-in-cheek so don’t take us too seriously.

About the Authors

Ann I. Goldfarb

New York native Ann I. Goldfarb spent most of her life in education, first as a classroom teacher and later as a middle school principal and professional staff developer. Writing as J. C. Eaton, along with her husband, James Clapp, she has authored the Sophie Kimball Mysteries (Kensington) set for release in June 2017. In addition, Ann has nine published YA time travel mysteries under her own name.

James E. Clapp

When James E. Clapp retired as the tasting room manager for a large upstate New York winery, he never imagined he’d be co-authoring cozy mysteries with his wife, Ann I. Goldfarb. His first novel, Booked 4 Murder (Kensington) is set for release in June 2017. Non-fiction in the form of informational brochures and workshop materials treating the winery industry were his forte along with an extensive background and experience in construction that started with his service in the U.S. Navy and included vocational school classroom teaching.

Website * Time Travel Mysteries * Facebook * Twitter

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