#TuesdayTreasures with C Hope Clark!

Good Morning!

Please help me welcome C. Hope Clark as she shares some treasures with us....

Why Write Mysteries on a Beach?

By C. Hope Clark

I never realized until I wrote my own mysteries that setting is intensely important when I crack a book’s spine. Upon entering a story, I want to sink into the environment. I mean…on page one, the author needs to acclimate me.

Don’t tell me a small town. . . name it, describe it, let me smell and hear it. Don’t tell me an old house. Let me feel the ghosts of past residents and see their impact on having lived there. Give me the old dusty scent. Make me squint when the sun comes in glaring just right from that window in the corner of the dining room.

So when my publisher asked me to create a new series, and place it in one setting that I loved, it took me seconds to settle on Edisto Beach, my favorite getaway at almost the tippy end of my home state of South Carolina. However, I write mysteries, and this had to be a series. Edisto Beach only has a population of 500 people, and in 16 years, no murders, one rape, and two robberies. A few summer thefts by kids.

But to me, that sounded perfect and helped me sculpt my protagonist. Being from South Carolina, she escaped suffocating, political parents and married a Yankee only to move to Boston where he became a US Marshall and she became a homicide detective. But a criminal she finally nabbed arranged a hit on her husband, leading her to obsess over it. . . and lose her job. Limping home to South Carolina, her father, recognizing her need to be alone, deeded her the family’s vacation cottage at Edisto Beach. She moved for just what a beach is supposed to do. . . soothe and heal. Never wanting to be a law enforcement officer again.

The perfect setup for conflict. A juxtaposition of opposites in so many ways.

Dying on Edisto is the most recent release, book 5 in the Edisto Island Mysteries. In the previous books Callie Morgan evolved to become police chief of the beach, and has spotted and solved numerous crimes that nobody would’ve seen, much less solved, without her skills. They don’t believe in crime on their beach. She does, and pays a hefty price for her efforts.

Enter the Edisto River leading to the ocean, a plantation home renovated into a bed and breakfast, and a dead travel blogger who was bent on ruining the plantation’s reputation before it ever gets off the ground. Dying on Edisto oozes with setting, and one cannot navigate the mystery without drinking the humidity, smelling the restaurant, and feeling the gnats and trickling sweat.

Yeah, this is how I like my stories. Practically three dimensional. Hopefully you do, too.

C. Hope Clark is the award-winning author of the Carolina Slade Mysteries and the Edisto Island Mysteries. During her career with the US Department of Agriculture, she met and married a federal agent-now a private investigator. She plots murder mysteries at their lakeside home in South Carolina, when she isn’t strolling Edisto Beach. 

She founded FundsforWriters.com, selected by Writer’s Digest for its 101 Best Websites for Writers for 18 years. Her newsletter reaches 35,000 readers. www.fundsforwriters.com / 

Find our more about her at www.chopeclark.com  

Her latest release is Dying on Edisto, Book 5 of the Edisto Island Mysteries and can be purchased at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Find out more about the series HERE.  

Hope you enjoyed today's post and that you'll check back often.

Until next time take care and God bless.

PamT

#SaturdaySpotlight is on Robb T White

Good Morning!

Well I returned from my Alaska vacation and am trying to get caught up and back in business. Today's guest is new to me and our blog and brought to us from Class Act Books so please give Mr. Robb T White a huge welcome!

Under the names Terry White, Robert White, and Robb T. White, Robert White has published dozens of crime, noir, and hardboiled short stories, and three hardboiled private-eye novels.  A lifelong reader of crime fiction, he published his first story in Gary Lovisi's Hardboiled magazine. Since then, he has published several dozen crime stories, and a collection of mainstream stories in 2013. An ebook crime novel, "Special Collections," won the New Rivers Electronic Book Competition in 2014. 

White was born, raised, and continues to live in Ashtabula, Ohio.

Weaker sex?  Not hardly!

The female is definitely deadlier than the mail.  Short stories about ladies who can hold their own.

Excerpt:

Be careful what you wish for, Regina.

Her mother’s words. Sometimes she could hear her mother’s voice in the house.

The Vindicator piece on Bodycomb’s death was two paragraphs.

He was found floating in Lake Milton, a popular summer resort area for fisherman seventeen miles east of Austintown just off the Interstate 80 overpass. Shot by a small-caliber weapon in the back of the head. The important information was in the second paragraph: Bodycomb, it noted, was running a dog-fighting network among three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia for a loose-knit West Virginia crime family connected to the Pittsburgh LaRizzo family.

Damn you, Leo.

She was blowing through caution lights, ignoring the honking of cars, as she beelined for the office on Market.

Like a script from a cheap thriller, he was there, wearing the same clothes and unshaven, big jowls dark with stubble, pong of body odor in the overheated single room.

“You promised me full disclosure, total honesty,” she said.

She threw the paper across his desk.

“Here it is in case you missed it.”

Be calm, Regina, she told herself. She wasn’t going to lose her temper and a new job in that order.

“I did and I meant it, Baby,” Leo said.

He glanced at the paper sideways and pushed it back to her. He’d obviously read it.

“You asked me—no, you demanded I call somebody. I did,” he said.

He disgusted her with those wagging jowls and big stomach. She noticed his belt was undone and a patch of curly belly hair exposed.

Probably jerking off in here, the freak.

“I suppose you’ll tell me when the mood strikes.”

“I meant the second case—your next case,” Leo said. “Full disclosure, just like you want.”

Her indignation petered out at the prospect. “So tell me about it,” she said.

Bodycomb was moving in on Donnie Bracca’s territory with his dog-fighting, Leo said.

“He can kill all the dogs he wants in West Virginia,” Leo said. “But Donnie B. controls gambling around here.”

“Donnie Bracca was your real client all the time,” Baby said.

“It’s like this, kid. They don’t blow each other up in cars no more. Gentlemen’s agreements, all nice and polite. But rules have to be followed. Bodycomb went rogue.”

She bit back a retort: You mean, like your own father?

Leo went on, waxing large, a hopeless Mafioso lover, although a real mafia man, a made man, could see Leo couldn’t be trusted. But even the Aryan Brotherhood used outside associates to get things done. Leo could be useful if you couldn’t buy a cop or scare off an investigative reporter snooping in shady politics or business deals.

She didn’t feel bad about Bodycomb’s death. After all, she'd wanted to kill the guy herself.

“Damn it, Leo,” she said. “You should have told me this in the beginning.”Baby moved in the direction Bodycomb’s vehicle had taken. After A couple of hundred yards through meadow grass up to her knees, she stopped and listened. Moving on, she dodged stunted bushes that popped up out of nowhere to snag her clothing. The foliage grew less dense. She found the parallel ruts of the Road Runner’s tracks and kept moving, straining her eyes to see light ahead. If Bodycomb was hiding assets from his soon-to-be ex-wife, he was taking a lot of trouble over it.

After five minutes of faster walking in the grooves, she heard barking coming from the right. She saw the first glimmer of light in the distance. The terrain was sparse but small slopes refracted the light source so it appeared and disappeared with every rise of the ground. A single dog barking became two, then three and finally a pack. Beneath their howls, men’s voices.

When she got close enough to make out words, she lay flat on her belly and put the binoculars on a cluster of men beside a ramshackle barn surrounded by cages of dogs in the beds of trucks beside a squared string of light bulbs a dozen feet from the ground. It looked like a crude boxing ring for backyard brawlers.

Its purpose became clear in the next few minutes. It was a dog-fighting pit.

Dangerous Women is available for Kindle and in Paperback!

Hope you enjoyed today's post and that you'll check back often for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlight.

Until next time, take care and God bless.

PamT

#TuesdayTreasure: Guest post by Diane Burton!

Good Morning and Welcome to the first Tuesday Treasure of 2016!

Today we welcome Diane Burton back to our blog to share with us something she treasures....

What I Treasure

When Pam asked me to write about something I treasure, the first thing that popped in my head was my family, especially my three grandchildren. As I write in the dedications to my books, they always make me smile. Holding a baby is a great de-stressor. For the past three weeks, I’ve been getting in a lot of holding with the eight-month-old and losing a lot of stress. When her mama brings her downstairs and she sees me, her eyes light up and she grins broadly. Then she holds her arms out to me. That just makes my heart swell. In a little over two weeks, we’ll have to leave, so I’m treasuring every moment.

But when we leave this little one, we have two older grandkids waiting for us—especially, to celebrate Christmas with them. The almost-six-year-old always races across the room to greet me with such enthusiasm I have to make sure I’m holding on to something, or I’ll get bowled over. Meanwhile, the eight-year-old patiently waits her turn. Since she’s getting so tall, I don’t have to bend over too far for her hugs and kisses.

One thing I enjoy sharing with the grandchildren is my love of reading and writing. With the baby, we’re still at the reading stage. Holding her in the rocker and reading Dr. Seuss reminds me of times when the older grandchildren and my own kids were young. While I love reading to the older ones, they enjoy writing their own stories with the help of myStoryMaker from The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, a fun interactive computer program. They tell the story and I type—a good division of labor. After they finish the story, we always print it out so they can show their parents. We play card games with them, too, like my grandmother did with me and my siblings. No matter what we do, it’s time well spent. Time when I put aside my own writing, household chores, reading or television shows and just enjoy being together.

Without our children and their spouses, I wouldn’t have my three treasures. More importantly, the love of my life for the past forty-three years made all this possible. That’s why I say my family is my dearest treasure.

My latest release is a cozy mystery featuring a female private investigator. The Case of the Fabulous Fiancé is the second Alex O’Hara novel.

Blurb

She’s at it again. Alex O’Hara just can’t say no to a new investigation. What do a 45-year-old boyfriend, a deadbeat dad, and a teenage runaway have in common? All new cases. With phone and internet problems, no receptionist, and her own boyfriend in the wind, Alex has no idea how she’ll manage. But the question for the past three months is why did Nick disappear. Is this the end of O’Hara & Palzetti?

Excerpt

I picked up the pen before looking at Nora Finley. Even though I was in the middle of a major case, I never turned down a prospective client. At least, not right away. I’d hear her out and then decide.

“What can I do for you?”

Her expression completely changed. The high-powered exec disappeared. In its place, caution and . . . vulnerability. “Ellen VanderVeen said I could trust you.”

I smiled. Ellen and I had been friends since college. That girl had more fashion sense in her baby finger than I did in my entire body.

“Yes, I know Ellen.”

“She said you helped her investigate her fiancé.”

I nodded.

She hesitated and appeared to rethink what she was doing in a private investigator’s office. Quickly, she came to a conclusion. “I’d like you to do the same.”

“You want me to vet your fiancé?”

“He’s not my fiancé. Yet.”

She didn’t explain any further, so I asked, “Why? Do you suspect something?”

“No. Oh, goodness, no.” She pursed her lips before continuing. “My father left me a prosperous financial firm plus a sizeable inheritance. I am not saying that to brag but to explain my concerns. In my younger days, I was, uhm, taken advantage of. I need to be sure this man truly loves me—me, not my money.”

Although nobody would ever mistake me for an heiress, I understood her caution.

“I am almost forty years old,” she said. “I want to have children before I’m too old.”

Again, I understood. I’d recently passed a landmark birthday. The big Three-Oh. Rather than worry about kids, though, I devoted myself to my business. After a rocky start, I was on a pretty even keel. Plenty of work. Not enough time. But I did have plenty of time before settling down with kids. And a husband, of course. I’m kind of old-fashioned like that. I’d thought Nick might— Don’t go there.

“Ma’am, if you’d called for an appointment, I could have saved you a trip. I do not have time to devote to your case.”

A crestfallen Nora Finley stared at me, her mouth slightly open. I guess nobody ever turned her down. While hers might be interesting, I didn’t have a good feeling about this case. A client might want the lowdown on a prospective mate—as I’d discovered before—but they often resented the bearer of bad news. Of course, the client could be grateful if the news was good, like my friend Ellen.

“I will double your usual retainer.”

“It isn’t a matter of money—” Although money never hurt. “—I’m in the middle of a large case that is taking up all of my time.”

“How soon will you finish?” No longer disappointed, she looked calculating.

God save me from rich people who think everyone should drop what they’re doing to attend to them.

“Three weeks, minimum.”

“Good. I will be out of the country for the next four weeks. You may finish your present case then check into Clyde Wilson.”

Well, shit. I mean, shoot. I was trying to break my bad habit of swearing. I had misgivings about this woman. Demanding, she was going to be difficult to work with. She exuded the power that came from old money. Power that expected everyone to drop everything and do her bidding.

But then I’d had difficult clients before and managed them. I could probably wrap up the fraud investigation in a couple of weeks. I’d given myself a cushion when I’d told her three.

Were my misgivings about her enough to turn down double my retainer?

I drew the pad closer to me. “Tell me about this man. Clyde Wilson?”

That better not be a smug look on her face.

The Case of the Fabulous Fiancé: An Alex O’Hara Novel is available at:

Amazon, 

Smashwords

Kobo

iTunes

B&N 

Diane Burton combines her love of mystery, adventure, science fiction and romance into writing romantic fiction. Besides the science fiction romance Switched and Outer Rim series, she is the author of One Red Shoe, a romantic suspense, and The Alex O’Hara PI mysteries. She is also a contributor to the anthology How I Met My Husband. Diane and her husband live in Michigan. They have two children and three grandchildren.

          For more info and excerpts from her books, visit Diane’s website: http://www.dianeburton.com

Connect with Diane Burton online

Blog:  http://dianeburton.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/dmburton72

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/dianeburtonauthor

Goodreads: Diane Burton Author

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/dmburton72/

Sign up for Diane’s new release alert: http://eepurl.com/bdHtYf

#SaturdaySpotlight with Kate Flora!

Good Morning Friends,

You met Kate Flora back in June for Thursday Thoughts and July for Tuesday Treasures, well today we welcome her back as she talks about going where the story leads and how two of her books came about. So without further ado, here's Kate....

Going Where the Story Leads Me

I didn’t set out to write true crime. Being a lawyer dealing with battered kids and deadbeat dads and representing the Maine Human Rights Commission, I was deeply curious about what led people to be liars and criminals. When I published my first Thea Kozak mystery, Chosen for Death, back in 1994, I was following the footsteps of wonderful role models like Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton and Margaret Maron. In true Nancy Drew tradition, I was writing about strong women who solve mysteries and saved themselves.

Fate intervened. The series was dropped. As I floundered about, trying to decide what to do, I realized that even writing an amateur PI meant a lot of contact with the police to get the details of my books right. The life they led fascinated me. I decided my new venture would be into police procedurals. With male protagonists. And what an adventure that became!

I started writing my Joe Burgess series, set in Portland, Maine, and not long after I’d started the series, my “go to” guy in the Portland Police Department worked on a real murder that he wanted to write about. That project went from my being his writing coach to becoming his co-writer, and the result was Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine, a fascinating story that involved three public safety organizations: The Portland police, the Maine state police, and the Maine Warden Service, who came in with their search and rescue expertise and trained cadaver dogs to help find the victim’s hidden body.

I thought I was going back to writing fiction, but then one of the wardens said, “Well, Kate, when you’re ready, I’ve got another one for you.”

I thought, no, never again, writing true crime is too hard and takes too long. Eventually, though, I recognized that I was fascinated by getting to be an insider, looking over the investigators’ shoulders as they told how they worked a real crime. I called up Maine warden Lt. Pat Dorian and said, “Okay, so tell me about the case.” That led me up to northeastern New Brunswick, in Canada, and another murder and another hidden body. Another body that, even though the crime was in another country, had been found by a group of Maine wardens with trained cadaver dogs who had gone up to Miramichi to help out a bunch of frustrated investigators who had been search for Maria Tanasichuk for months.

What had I said before? Writing true crime is too hard and it takes too long. Finding Amy was a 2 ½ year project. Death Dealer: How Cops and Cadaver Dogs Brought a Killer to Justice, took five, because there were lengthy appeals and two long first degree murder trials. And I couldn’t finish the book until the bad guy’s conviction was final.

There’s tremendous pressure that comes from telling the real story. So many of the victim’s friends trusted me with their confidence, and a quartet of stellar investigators shared the story, their files, and even their family dinners as I learned about the case. From the beginning, when a New York agent coldly told me that “no one is going to be interested in reading about a small Canadian crime,” I believed in the story and feared that it might never get published.

Last September, it did.

I’m learning to trust my instincts about going where the story sends me. Death Dealer has been an Agatha and Anthony finalist, and just won the Public Safety Writers Association 2015 award for best non-fiction.

Kate Flora is the author of 14 mystery and true crime books. Death Dealer, her latest true crime, is an Agatha and Anthony finalist and won the Public Safety Writers’ Association Award for Best Non-fiction 2015. And Grant You Peace, her latest Joe Burgess police procedural, won the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction.  Her other titles include the Thea Kozak mysteries and the starred-review Joe Burgess police series. Coming in 2016 will be a new Thea Kozak mystery, Death Warmed Over, a 5^th Joe Burgess police procedural, And Led Them Thus Astray, and her collaboration with Maine game warden Roger Guay on his memoir, A Good Man with a Dog. Coming this October is Beat, Slay, Love, a serial novel about the killing of famous TV chefs, by the imaginary Thalia Filbert, which she wrote with four other crime writers.

A former assistant attorney general for the State of Maine in the areas of child abuse and child support enforcement, Kate is a founding member of the New England Crime Bake and Maine Crime Wave conferences. She has served as editor and publisher of Level Best Books and as international president of Sisters in Crime. She teaches writing at Grub Street in Boston.

Find out more about Kate and her books by visiting her Website and connecting with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Wow...if you like mystery and true crime books, check Kate's out!

Chosen for Death can be purchased at Amazon in print and for Kindle.

Death Dealer is also available in Hardcover and on Kindle.

Hope you enjoyed this week's spotlight! Check back every week for new Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlights!

Until next time...take care & God Bless.

PamT

#TuesdayTreasure: Guest post by Kate Flora!

Good Morning Friends,

Last month Kate shared some of her thoughts with us and today she wants to share something she treasures.....

My treasure for this Tuesday is not a thing but a place. Specifically, our summer cottage on the coast of Maine. I was born in Maine many years ago, lived there until I went to college, and then came back after law school to take my dream job in the attorney general’s office. But then love and life intervened, and while I continued to think of myself as a Maniac (yes, we do sometimes calls ourselves this), I was spending most of my time in Massachusetts.

Fast forward to the year 2000. For about twenty years, we had been looking for my husband’s dream house on the ocean. For most of that twenty years, the places we looked at, when we had time to look at all with busy jobs and small children, were never what he wanted. But in January of 2000, I got a call from our realtor that he was about to list a place he thought we might like.

I jumped in the car and drove to Maine, slithered down a long set of icy steps, and entered a little 1920’s cottage perched on a rocky ledge above the sea. Unlike most of the houses we’d seen, this one had a kitchen with a view. I took a dozen pictures, had them developed, and handed them to my husband, saying I’d finally found his dream house. That weekend we came to look at the house together, and he agreed.

We’re now enjoying our fifteenth summer in the cottage, and I never get over my initial delight. I’m slowly wrestling some flower gardens from the rocky Maine soil, including some plants from my mother’s garden which make me smile whenever they bloom. The cottage faces west, so when the fog isn’t surrounding us, as it has this weekend, we get to enjoy gorgeous Maine sunsets.

It’s also a perfect place to write. The days seem so long and quiet here, interrupted only by the chirping of the birds. My co-writer, Joe Loughlin, and I hashed out the complexities of our true crime, Finding Amy, sitting on the deck overlooking the lawn. I interviewed a retired Maine game warden, Roger Guay, for his memoir about resource protection and training search and rescue and cadaver dogs, A Good Man with a Dog, in this living room. I sat at the dining table and write my Joe Burgess police procedurals.

This summer, after fourteen years of writing at opposite ends of the dining table, me writing fiction, my husband doing legal work, we added a small third-floor room which will be our new office. And now, settled at my new desk staring out through a stately white birch toward a busy lobstering harbor, I have just started a new, non-series book. With the fascination of a reader wanting to know: What happens next? I am writing the story to see who this character who came knocking on my imagination is, and why he wants his story told.

Kate Flora is the author of 14 books. Her titles include the star-reviewed Joe Burgess police series. And Grant You Peace won the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Redemption won in 2013. Her nonfiction includes the Agatha and Anthony nominated true crime Death Dealer, and Finding Amy, co-written with Portland, Maine deputy chief Joseph Loughlin, which was a 2007 Edgar nominee. With retired Maine game warden Roger Guay, she has co-written a memoir, A Good Man with a Dog. Her next Thea Kozak mystery, Death Warmed Over, will be published in 2016.

A former Maine assistant attorney general in the areas of battered children and employment discrimination, she’s a founding member the New England Crime Bake, the Maine Crime Wave, and a founder of Level Best Books. She served as international president of Sisters in Crime. Flora teaches writing for Grub Street in Boston. Find out about all of Kate's releases including these last two at her website.

Wow, such a prolific author! We certainly wish Kate the best of God's blessings on all of her endeavors!

Hope to see you again soon for another Tuesday Treasure, Thursday Thoughts and/or Saturday Spotlight!

Until next time, take care & God Bless.
PamT

#SaturdaySpotlight: Diane Burton & The Case of the Bygone Brother

Good Morning!

Today we're shining the spotlight on Diane Burton with one of her Alex O'Hara novels, The Case of the Bygone Brother.

Why I Write in Different Genres

by Diane Burton

When I first started writing back in 1993, I tried to write a straight romance. Didn’t work. Each of those still-under-the-bed stories had a romance, all right, but also adventure and suspense. I couldn’t write a Harlequin romance for anything. Maybe I’d better tell you what I read. All genre fiction. (I’m not crazy about “literature”, though. Read enough in college.) I read mystery, romantic suspense, military adventure/suspense, historical romance, science fiction romance, young adult, inspirational romance. The list goes on and on. So it seems natural to me to write in the genres I enjoy reading.

My first published novel was a science fiction romance. I’ve been crazy about exploring space since America started sending astronauts into space. I’ve written a total of six sci-fi romances—five published and one that will come out this summer. I’ve also published a romantic suspense. I do love mixing romance, adventure, and suspense whether it’s here on Earth or off in outer space.

Since I enjoy reading mysteries, I thought I’d write one with a female PI. When I was a kid, Nancy Drew was my hero. My latest book THE CASE OF THE BYGONE BROTHER is a little different from the traditional mystery. No dead body in the beginning but plenty of suspense tempered by some humor. It’s set in a small, fictional resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan. Since I live in West Michigan, I know the area well. The strong Dutch influence here is due to settlers from The Netherlands in the 1800s and evidenced by the names of people and businesses. Also evident is conservatism and thrift. I capitalize on all that in my story. Since some of my ancestors came from The Netherlands, I use many of their last names for characters and businesses, including the title character, Harry Anslyn. But other nationalities also came to West Michigan, hence the private investigation firm of O’Hara and Palzetti.

Small towns (in the off-season) where everyone knows everybody and gossip runs rampant are a pain in the tush for PI Alex O’Hara. She bought out her dad and his partner’s investigation agency when they retired and is barely making ends meet until a femme fatale shows up offering her a boatload of money. All she has to do is find the femme’s lost brother. Alex manages to get herself into a lot of scrapes—most of her own making. Complicating matters is the return of Nick Palzetti, son of the original partner, and Alex’s teenage crush. Worse, someone doesn’t want her to find the brother.

Blurb:

Alex O’Hara finally gets a case that will give her bottom line a much needed boost. She might even be able to change her diet from ramen noodles to prime rib. All she has to do is track down a man who’s been missing for over ten years. Piece of cake . . . until an old flame arrives and a mugger roughs her up with orders to back off.

Excerpt:

I dreamt about Harry Anslyn last night. An endless loop of a blond man in Dutch costume—black vest, hat, and baggy pants wearing wooden shoes—who popped up from behind cars and buildings and saying, “You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”

I really needed to think about something else. Like Ellie’s latest heart throb.

Cup of coffee in hand, I sat on the floor with my back against the sofa, my tablet on the coffee table. I could sit at the dining room table, but I sat at a desk all day downstairs. They—you know, the ubiquitous ‘they’—say that a change of position encourages a different way of thinking. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

With the apartment a tad chilly—I hate turning on the furnace before Halloween—I stayed in my flannel sleep pants and a long-sleeve thermal shirt. I pulled on a quilted flannel workshirt. Do I have fancy sleepwear or what?

After searching several databases, I found more references to Craig MacKenzie but nothing I didn’t already know. A face-to-face meeting would give me a better idea of his character. My first thought was to pose as a reporter doing a piece on oil and gas exploration in Michigan. If their relationship led to Ellie’s hoped-for conclusion, how would she explain that her maid of honor was an imposter and a liar?

Maybe I needed to give this more thought. After a couple of minutes, I remembered Pop had a contact in the local oil and gas business. The guy had been a resource for a case last year. The oil and gas industry in Michigan was small enough that this guy was sure to know MacKenzie. I raced downstairs. The case file would be in the cabinet in Tony’s old office. I unlocked the door, flipped on the light, and was half-way across the room when a blur came off the brown couch. I whirled around and froze.

Nick Palzetti stood in a half crouch. His Glock 9 mil pointed straight at me.

The Case of the Bygone Brother is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Kobo.

Diane Burton combines her love of mystery, adventure, science fiction and romance into writing romantic fiction. Besides the science fiction romance Switched and Outer Rim series, she is the author of One Red Shoe, a romantic suspense, and The Case of the Bygone Brother, a PI mystery. She is also a contributor to the anthology How I Met My Husband. Diane and her husband live in Michigan. They have two children and three grandchildren.

For more info and excerpts from her books, visit Diane’s website: http://www.dianeburton.com

Connect with Diane Burton online

Blog:  http://dianeburton.blogspot.com/

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/dmburton72

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/dianeburtonauthor

Goodreads: Diane Burton Author

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/dmburton72/

Sign up for Diane’s new release alert: http://eepurl.com/bdHtYf

 Thanks for visiting today's spotlight. Hope you'll drop by next week for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and another Saturday Spotlight!

Until next time...take care & God Bless!

PamT

#ThursdayThoughts: #SpringFlingRomance with Diana Rubino!

Good Morning Friends!

Today we welcome back to our blog, Diana Rubino with Thursday Thoughts & Why She Loves Spring so you're getting double entertainment in one post! Therefore, without further ado, please welcome Diana....

Why I Like Spring by Diana Rubino

I live in New England—need I say more? 

It takes longer for spring to arrive here than to most places. Right now, April 1, already over a week into spring, the ground is still half covered with snow and it’s barely in the 40s. But I heard a mourning dove the other day, which is a sure sign that spring is on the way.

In this area, we get a lot of spring days that are downright dreary, with overcast leaden skies, a fine mist falling, and that raw chill that goes right through you. But a day like that brings promise. It’s no longer the bitter cold with the arctic blasts. The wind carries a promising fragrance, and you can almost smell the grass struggling to peek through the patches of snow. Hearty New Englanders are out wearing shorts and T-shirts, even though it’s still in the high 40s or low 50s. We wear our Red Sox caps. All those signs point to that magical day when we can wear those T-shirts without shivering, sit in the ballpark munching peanuts, and inhale a lungful of lilac-scented breeze on a jog.

It takes a while to get here, but when it does, we appreciate it all the more.

Contact Diana at the following places.... 

Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, LinkedIn, GooglePlus

The End of Camelot by Diana Rubino

November 22, 1963, a day that changed America forever. Who killed President Kennedy?

I've been a HUGE JFK assassination buff since that very day. Everyone who was alive on November 22, 1963 knew exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I was in my first grade classroom. The teacher got a call on the classroom phone and told us ‘the president was shot.’ A collective gasp went around the room. I was 6 years old and in first grade. It was ten years before I saw the footage of Ruby shooting Oswald, on an anniversary documentary.
          But it was my grandmother who got me interested in the biggest mystery since 'who killed the princes in the Tower?' (I'm a Ricardian; that's for another post).  She got me embroiled right along with her.
          She listened to all the radio talk shows (those who lived in the New York area might remember Long John Nebel, on WOR, WNBC, and WMCA, all on AM radio (FM was really 'out there' at that time).
          She recorded all the radio talk shows. She bought whatever books came out over the years, along with the Warren Commission Report, which I couldn't lift at the time, it was so heavy. But my interest never waned in the 51 years that followed.
          In 2000, I began the third book of my New York Saga, set in 1963. The heroine is Vikki McGlory Ward, daughter of Billy McGlory, hero of the second book, BOOTLEG BROADWAY, set during Prohibition. This was my opportunity to write a novel showcasing all my current theories, and continue the saga. It took a minimum of research, since I remember all the 60's brands, (Bosco, Yum Berry, Mr. Bubble...), the fashions, the songs, and I even included a scene set on that unforgettable night when the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964.

About THE END OF CAMELOT   

The third in the New York Saga, The End of Camelot centers on Billy McGlory’s daughter Vikki, whose husband is murdered trying to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Vikki uses her detective skills to trace the conspiracy, from New York to New Orleans to Dallas, and at the same time, tricks her husband’s murderer into a confession. A romance with her bodyguard makes her life complete.

November 22, 1963: The assassination of a president devastates America. But a phone call brings even more tragic news to Vikki Ward—her TV reporter husband was found dead in his Dallas hotel room that morning.

Finding his notes, Vikki realizes her husband was embroiled in the plot to kill JFK—but his mission was to prevent it. When the Dallas police rule his death accidental, Vikki vows to find out who was behind the murders of JFK and her husband. With the help of her father and godfather, she sets out to uncover the truth.

Aldobrandi Po , the bodyguard hired to protect Vikki, falls in love with her almost as soon as he sets eyes on her. But he's engaged to be married, and she’s still mourning her husband. Can they ever hope to find happiness in the wake of all this tragedy?

Purchase THE END OF CAMELOT on Amazon

Excerpt

It was New Year’s Eve, they were alone, and he was harmless. So far. So she took the necessary two paces over to him and placed the honey ball between his custom-made choppers.

He closed his eyes, and she watched him savoring the sweetness. She didn’t dare say another word as she ran her index finger over a glob of cream on the cannoli plate, raised it to her lips and licked. “Mmmm,” she voiced, wishing she hadn’t.

Their eyes met and locked. Faster than lightning, they came together like magnets. Their lips met, sweet and sticky and hot. She didn’t want him to stop, but her inner voice screamed how wrong it was—It’s forbidden!—echoing the nuns in Saint Gustina’s. She shooed it away like an annoying fly. Leave me alone, I’m not a kid anymore. Her arms circled his neck, and his hands slid down to the curve of her back. Dare she move in closer, pelvis to pelvis, an unthinkable act three seconds ago? Her body was betraying her, betraying Jack, taking on a will of its own as she crushed herself to him. The kiss intensified. She tasted cannoli, and her fogged mind told her he’d been sampling them all day. She breathed in his cologne, so foreign it repelled her, so new it aroused her even further. Her tiara slipped off her head. She caught it just as he pulled away.

He held her at arm’s length as in a tango. “Oh, cara mia,” he growled—and if he said another word in Italian, she knew she’d explode. A passion long dormant stirred inside her.

Diana's favorite passage from the book:

Billy came down the stairs for a nightcap and glanced into the living room. He noticed the glow in the fireplace, Vikki’s eyeglasses and the anisette bottle on the table. The couch faced the other way, but nobody was sitting on it. “Where’d they go?” Then he realized they hadn’t gone anywhere—and they were on the couch, but not sitting. Before he got out of their way, he placed a long-playing record on the phonograph. Jackie Gleason’s “For Lovers Only.”

Well Friends, hope you enjoyed this double shot of entertainment on Thursday Thoughts! Until next time...take care & God Bless!

PamT

#SaturdaySpotlight with Janet Elizabeth Lynn!

Good Morning Friends,

We are winding down our week with Janet. She'll be back tomorrow and I certainly hope you've enjoyed this week with her.

I know I have. So without much further ado, here she is....

I have always loved the 1950s Noir genre, movies, books, pictures etc. I inherited my mother’s fascination with Hollywood. I remember the TV shows my parents watched, Lassie, Gunsmoke, The Jack Benny Show.

When I started writing, 2000, I always wanted to attempt ‘50s Noir, but couldn’t figure out how to get into a man’s head and make it sound real. My husband is a published author too. We edited each other’s work. He consistently changed the dialogue for my male characters with, “A guy wouldn’t say that.”

One day I mentioned how I’d love to write a Noir Murder Mystery. He turned to me and said, “So let’s do one together.” I almost broke into tears.

People warned us it would tarnish our 43 year old marriage. People insisted it wouldn’t work. With these warnings, we took a spiritual approach of setting rules of kindness, respect and overall patience. We started with a deadline schedule and followed it to the letter. We met every two weeks to discuss character development, subplots and fight scenes-what was working and what wasn’t. We took field trips to old Hollywood, Hip hop clubs, all to get the feel for the 1950s.

The results-SLIVERS OF GLASS and a wonderful partnering experience for both of us. Will there be more coauthored books? You bet!

Find bio and contact information on Janet and Bill in yesterday's post.

Slivers of Glass can be purchased at Amazon in print and for Kindle!

What a wonderful story to post on this Valentine's Day! I hope your's is Blessed and Happy and filled with......

  &

PamT

Guest Post by Janet Elizabeth Lynn

Good Morning and Welcome once again to visit with our guest blogger, Janet Elizabeth Lynn this week.

Enjoy!

Slivers of Glass

By

Janet Elizabeth Lynn

And

Will Zeilinger

Summary

Southern California 1955: the summer Disneyland opened, but even “The Happiest Place on Earth” couldn’t hide the smell of dirty cops, corruption and murder.

The body of a woman thought to be killed three years earlier is found behind a theater in Hollywood.  Movie stuntman Skylar Drake, a former LAPD detective, is dragged into the investigation. He can make no sense of the crime until he discovers a dirty underworld and unearths deep-seated… greed. 

 

The hunt takes Drake to places he’d never expect.  He’s anxious to close this case and get back to his business in L.A., but he’s constantly haunted by the memory of his wife and young daughter, killed in a mysterious house fire.

With more than enough dirty cops, politicians and crime bosses to go around, Drake can trust no one including Martin Card, the cop assigned to work with him. 

Excerpt

There were a dozen other things I could’ve been doing besides standing in line at the drug store listening to Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” piped in overhead.  Though, it was a treat to watch the cashier move behind the counter in her form-fitting white smock. I shook my head and plopped a tube of Pepsodent and a couple of toothbrushes on the pharmacy counter.

She looked up and said, “That will be seventy-five cents, Mr. Drake.”

I dug in my pocket and dropped three quarters in her hand, “Thank you, Miss Abernathy.” She placed my items in a small white paper bag and folded over the top. “Here you are, and quit calling me that.  My name is Emily. Anyway, this should keep you smiling brightly. I only wish I could see yours sometime.”

In all the times I’ve walked to this drug store, I couldn’t remember a day she didn’t smile at me. Too bad there was a ‘y’ at the end of Emily’s name. Women with names like Sandy, Cathy or Abby were bad luck. Those ‘y’  women were always trouble and it would be dangerous to get mixed up with another one now.

“Thanks,” I tipped my hat, "When I have something to smile about, I might just show you.” I knew Emily pretty well since this place was only a couple of blocks from my apartment, an apartment I lived in because a fire took my home along with my beautiful wife Claire and Ellen my little girl.

As I turned to leave, I winked at the two little old ladies behind me.  They stepped back and stared as if I’d just sneezed in their faces. I turned and waved goodbye to Emily only to see her pointing behind me in horror. I followed her gaze and saw a dark green car hurtling toward us - right through the huge windows at the front of the store! The gigantic crash at my back sent shelves, boxes and cans hurtling in our direction. I turned around as glass, smoke and debris seemed to explode in a cloud around us. At that moment my training from the Marine Corps took over. I instinctively swept up the two ladies and Emily and pushed them to the back of the store. The other customers ran screaming out the huge opening where the storefront windows used to be. I shielded the women against the back wall with my body all the while knowing that my weight could suffocate them, but what else could I do? The ceiling could come down on us at any moment. I held them against the wall while listening to my heart pound.  Slowly the tinkle of glass subsided and I released them. Tiny slivers of glass and wood had embedded themselves in my sweater and trousers. “You’d better be careful,” One of the little old women chirped, “Your backside looks like a pin cushion.  Best not to sit down for a while.”

Bios:

JANET ELIZABETH LYNN was born in Queens, New York and raised in Long Island, until she was 12 years old. Her family escaped the freezing winters and hurricanes for the warmth and casual lifestyle of Southern California.

Janet has always wanted to write and made it a quest to write a novel. Ten years later, with much blood and sweat, her first murder mystery novel, South of the Pier, was published in 2011. She has since written seven more mysteries. Miss Lynn has traveled to the far reaches of the planet for work and for pleasure, collecting wonderful memories, new found friends and a large basket of shampoo and conditioner samples from hotels.

At one time Janet was an Entertainment Editor for a newspaper in Southern California.

Contact info:

Book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fa5_slznoA

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/janet.lynn.5477

LinkedIn: 

https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=nav_responsive_tab_home

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanetLynn4

Blog: http://janetelizabethlynnauthor.blogspot.com/

e-mail: janet_lynn51@yahoo.com

website: www.janetlynnauthor.com

WILL ZEILINGER  has been writing for over twelve years. During that time, he took novel writing classes and joined writer’s groups, but what has helped the most are published authors who mentor, encourage, critique  and listen to him while he continued to learn the craft.  At the time of this writing, Will has published three novels (Ebooks.) The Naked Groom,  Something’s Cooking at Dove Acres, and The Final Checkpoint (also in print). 

As a youth he lived overseas with his family. As an adult he traveled the world. Will lives in Southern California with his wife Janet Elizabeth Lynn, who is also an author. Will says that finding time to write while life happens is a challenge.

Contact info:

Twitter:  @Will_Zeilinger

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/wzeilinger

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/william-zeilinger/15/48/9a7/

website: http://www.willzeilingerauthor.com

blog: http://www.booksbywilzeilinger.blogspot.com

Slivers of Glass can be purchased at Amazon in print and for Kindle!