Murder in Devil’s Cove: (A Book Magic Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Publisher: Lake House Press (September 22, 2020)
Number of Pages: Approx 300
Digital ASIN: B088J48JY8
Synopsis
Two best-selling authors, one magical universe.
In the Book Magic Mystery Series, best-selling authors Melissa Bourbon and Wendy Lyn Watson bring you the story of cousins Pippin Lane Hawthorne and Cora Lane. The cousins live on opposite coasts (Pippin in Devil’s Cove, North Carolina, and Cora in Laurel Point, Oregon), but they share the family gift of bibliomancy: the ability to foresee the future and unravel the past with the help of the books we love. Join Pippin and Cora as they use their otherworldly power to solve mysteries in their respective worlds.
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Every book tells two stories—one written on the pages with pen and ink, and one woven into the paper, a story of the soul. The Lane women have the gift of bibliomancy. They can read both.
But Cassie Lane doesn’t see this as a gift. For her, it is a curse because the book magic comes with a price–the Lane women die young and the men are lost to the sea. As soon as she’s able, she leaves Laurel Point, Oregon, running from her past and her fate, ending up in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There she meets Leo Hawthorne and lives a perfect life with him in an old Sea Captain’s house.
Perfect, that is, until an old book foretells the future, and the curse that has plagued the Lane women comes true for Cassie.
Twenty years later, Cassie and Leo’s children, twins Pippin and Grey, are back in Devil’s Cove. Long forgotten secrets surface and an old crime comes to light. Now Pippin must learn how to be a bibliomancer if she is to discover the truth about her father and continue his effort to stop the curse.
Guest Post
I am super excited to have Melissa on StoreyBook Reviews today. I have been fortunate enough to meet her in the past when she lived in my area. She has since moved away, but her books are magical and while I haven’t read this one (yet!), it is definitely on my TBR mountain. I love today’s topic because if you have followed me at all, you know my review ratings are paws and are now in memory of my two helpers. I love dogs, so anytime I get to hear about dogs is a good day in my book.
Hello! I’ve been writing quite a bit about Murder in Devil’s Cove, the first book in the Book Magic Mystery series. As I was thinking about something new I could share about the book, the answer came to me.
The dog!
Dogs are Characters, too!
Just like characters in a book, when you have an animal in a story, they need to be developed, too. I won’t tell you the dog’s name since that is revealed at the end of the book, but I do want to share how this particular dog came to be part of my Book Magic Mysteries.
Part One
Enter my good friend and “sister from another mister”, Debbie Johnson Stafford. We call each other Sista, and even thought we’re half a country apart from one another now, she’s someone who’s always close to my heart.
Well, one day earlier in 2020, Debbie asked me if she could give my information to a friend of hers from a Vizsla rescue group who writes weekly updates from the point of view of her rescue dog, Finn. For the last two years, people were telling her she should turn these weekly updates into a book. She was thinking about it.
I said sure, and that’s how I met Gwen Romack.
We spent quite a bit of time chatting and I helped her with the process of taking The Finn Chronicles from an idea to a book. As dogs go, Finn is pretty darn cute. Beautiful, even. But shhh. He’ll be reading this via Gwen and we don’t want the praise to go to his head.
Part Two
Part two of the story is thanks to my good friend and fellow mystery writer Diane Kelly. She and I run a Facebook group called The Book Warriors (SBR – I’m in this group!). Lots of fun book chat goes on there! Anyway, Diane and I live very near each other and we get together to walk and brainstorm and drink wine and go to ballroom dance lessons with our husbands (pre-pandemic).
Her dog inspired me.
Spoiler alert. Skip this part if you want to be surprised about the dog in the book!
Diane has the sweetest dog named Reggie. Reggie is deaf. Diane uses some basic sign language cues to help communicate with Reggie and has told me interesting and funny stories about getting Reggie’s attention. I knew I had to make the sweet dog Pippin rescues in Murder in Devil’s Cove deaf.
The Making of a Dog
Now, back to the beginning.
As I was writing Murder in Devil’s Cove, I knew I wanted there to be a rescue dog. At first I was going to model this dog after one of ours, but my pug, Bean, is already the inspiration for Agatha, the pug in my Bread Shop mysteries, and Dobby, our chug, is full of personality, but a bitty thing. This time around, I wanted the dog in my series to be bigger.
The sweet vizsla in my book became a blend of Finn and Reggie. In fact, Finn is the cover model for my books. He’s got a prominent spot on the cover of the upcoming Murder at Sea Captain’s Inn!
I have the book The Finn Chronicles to give me inspiration for my fictional pup’s antics, and I have sweet Reggie to help me with the sign language and behaviors of a hearing-impaired dog.
And there you have it! The making of the dog in Murder in Devil’s Cove.
I know Finn would be thrilled for you to read the books he’s featured on. We both hope you’ll give Murder in Devil’s Cove a try.
Happy reading!
Check out Finn on Facebook HERE
About the Author
Melissa Bourbon is the national bestselling author of nineteen mystery books, including the brand new collaborative Book Magic mysteries, the Lola Cruz Mysteries, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, and the Bread Shop Mysteries, written as Winnie Archer. She is a former middle school English teacher who gave up the classroom in order to live in her imagination full time. Melissa, a California native who has lived in Texas and Colorado, now calls the southeast home. She hikes, practices yoga, cooks, and is slowly but surely discovering all the great restaurants in the Carolinas. Since four of her five amazing kids are living their lives, scattered throughout the country, her dogs, Bean, the pug, Dobby, the chug, and Jasper, a cattle dog/lab keep her company while she writes. Melissa lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos, and their youngest son. She is beyond fortunate to be living the life of her dreams.
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