Review: Blotto, Twinks and the Intimate Review by Simon Brett

Blotto and his friend go see  Light and Frothy;  a new popular show and his friend falls for the star of the show.  After his friend is kidnapped, Blotto and his brilliant sister Twinks start investigating and Twinks goes undercover.  Multiple twists and a lot of laughs, this is a very satisfying read.

One of the things I struggled with at first was the crazy slang of Blotto and his friends.  That said, it was like a delicious romp through a bygone era and Aristocracy that no longer exists in the same way.  
As for the crimes - funny schemes and ways to make easy money - until the master plan goes forward.  A crazy plan to be sure, but one very amusing and leading to a satisfying take down.

Very fun!

Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

APRIL 2019

Yippee! PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND will be published in early April! Here’s the lovely cover art and a pre-order link. I’m really excited about the re-birth (well, re-publication, anyway) of my entire inventory of back-list novels. As I think I mentioned in another blog, I’m not accustomed to good things happening to what I laughingly call my writing career.

Here’s the pre-order link for PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND

The Pecos Valley books are dear to my heart. My mother’s family moved from Georgetown, Texas, to Roswell, New Mexico, in the early 1900s. In fact, my maternal grandmother bought the property upon which my house sits in 1903! Most of the things I describe about Rosedale, New Mexico, are stories I heard from my mom.

By the way, my maternal grandmother was born in Switzerland. Her family immigrated to the USA before Ellis Island was the incoming destination for immigrants. I think her family docked at the Battery. Her ship also hit an iceberg on its way from England (departure point for all of Europe, I guess) to New York. My grandmother was so seasick, she wanted the ship to sink, but I’m kinda glad it didn’t. Don’t know her feelings on the matter. The Titanic disaster disturbed her a lot, even though Titanic hit that iceberg about thirty years after her own ship collided with its berg.

Anywho, until she was an adult, my maternal grandmother believed her last name to be Ischy, because the man whom she regarded as her father was named Christian Ischy. It wasn’t until she grew up and wanted to get married (to a fellow named Daugherty) that her mother admitted that the father of my grandmother, Emma, and her sister, Lina, was a gent named Krieg. Only she didn’t seem to consider him a gent. Emma Krieg (or Craig, which is the name I used for several of my earlier novels) died before I was born, but she used to tell my mother (Wilma Rachel Wilson, which explains another of my pseudonyms) the only thing her mother told her (Emma) about her father was that he was a “wonderful musician.” I used to weave romantic fancies when I was a kid about my great-grandfather being some famous old-time composer, but I couldn’t find any who were Swiss. Maybe Franz Liszt visited Switzerland a time or two? Frederic Chopin? Hope to heaven it wasn’t Richard Wagner!!!! In reality, he was probably a championship yodeler or something.

Oh, and my maternal grandmother married William Jones Wilson when she became a widow. Her first husband, the Daugherty in question, died of tuberculosis after they’d been married less than a year. My maternal grandfather died two days after my mother was born, so poor Emma was left to rear five of her own children and, I think, something like six kids from Will's prior marriage to his first wife, Emma’s best friend, on her own. At least she had a vocation: seamstress. I still have the mirror upon which eager brides-to-be would scrape their rings in order to see if they were real diamonds. That mirror holds scratches from lovesick maidens of yore, by golly!

Anybody confused yet? My father’s family is so much easier to trace. Oh, well.

By the way, according to an author friend of mine who lives in Georgetown, Texas, there are still Ischys running around all 0ver the place there. I guess technically we aren’t related, but what the heck. Here's a photo of my grandmother and her children. This picture was probably taken in 1920 or thereabouts, and Emma was maybe 49 years old. Left to right are Bill Wilson, Maren Wilson (who owned the house I gave to Mrs. Bissel in my Daisy Gumm Majesty books), Jesse Lee "Red" Wilson, Wilma (Mom to me) and Adolph. Rough life:

So… as for the rest of my life, things are pretty much back to normal, as normality relates to me personally. Not only did I have to replace my refrigerator in February, but March also provoked a call to an electrician and one to my very favorite plumber of all time. This favoritism is probably because I have to call him so often, and we’ve become pals. Good thing he’s a nice guy, because I think I supported his family last year.

And now for the medical issues. I already knew I’d have to have carpal-tunnel surgery on my right wrist. Had similar surgery on the left one last year; easy-peasy. Right wrist’s surgery’s scheduled for April 8^th.

In the not-so-easy category is my left shoulder. Blasted thing has been hurting like heck for months. So I figured I’d probably torn the rotator cuff or something. Ha! I should be so lucky.

On Friday, March 29, I went to see Dr. Bryant, who fixed my left wrist last year. This time I wanted him to look at my wonky left shoulder. So he had his tech take X-rays. I think he was the only person happy with the results.

Honest to dog, he was positively THRILLED when he went through those X-rays! First one: "Wow!" Second one: "Will you look at this!" Third one: "This is amazing!" Evidently most people with shoulders like mine can't move their arms at all. Medical miracle here. Oh, and it’s not a rotator-cuff injury. It’s pure-D osteoarthritis. No cartilage between the socket and the ball joint. He then aspirated about a quart of some kind of fluid that shouldn’t have been in my shoulder (telling his nurse, “Wow, look at this! You don’t see this very often! I sure wish a med student was here so I could show them this procedure!”). I live to give joy to surgeons. Anyhow, whatever parts need replacement will be replaced as soon as I recover from the carpal-tunnel thing.

Funniest thing he said, however, is that he's never seen such terrible, widespread osteoarthritis in a person as young as I! He called me young! Peter Brandvold, who should know better, asked if he was speaking in tortoise years. But I’ve got two of his book under my personal editorial control, so he’d just better be nice to me. If possible. Can’t expect too much from that source, I reckon.

What else to report? Poor little Jazzy has been having ear problems. She began shaking her ear as if one or both ears were itching. So I called my vet only to learn HIS OFFICE WAS CLOSED UNTIL APRIL FIRST!!!! How dare they be closed when Jazzy needs them? Besides, Dr. Smith is the only veterinarian in Roswell whom I trust. Another vet murdered my wonderful, sweet, darling Bella; another one ripped me off for too many hundreds of dollars; and, well… never mind.

So, since I didn’t know what else to do, I called Jazzy’s Founding Father, Jacob Torres. Jacob found her running along the highway to Ruidoso, collarless, tagless and chipless, so he picked her up. He intended to keep her, but Jazzy proved too much for him, so he gave her to me and took up the breeding and showing of long-haired Chihuahuas. Jacob told me to bring her in, so I did.

He cleaned out her ears, having found a little ear wax build-up. But Jazzy began shaking her head again today, and now her ears (or maybe only one of them) hurt. So I’ll try Dr. Smith again on Monday, the day I have to pre-register for carpal-tunnel surgery. And I have 597 books to edit and 7,000 of my own books being re-published any old day now. Life always picks the least convenient times to go wrong, you know?

Here's Jazzy, the Beautiful Blue Wiener and Queen of All She Surveys. She's gorgeous, and her head's full of cotton fluff. And she doesn't care!

But enough of that. Bam-Bam has chosen wieners of March’s book-giveaway. They are:

Sue D’Amico, who wins a copy of UNSETTLED SPIRITS,
Kristie Dilcher, who wins a copy of SPIRITS UNITED,
And Kathleen Lauri-Lewis wins a copy of SPIRITS UNEARTHED!

Congratulations, ladies! I’ll get your books to you as soon as I can.
At the end of April, I’ll be giving away a few copies of PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND! 

Providing I can use my left shoulder then. But don’t worry. I’ll get ‘em sent somehow or other.

My Daisy publisher, ePublishing Works, has also set up a pre-order page on Amazon.com for SCARLET SPIRITS, the next Daisy book, which will be published in the fall of 2019. Yay, me! Haven’t a clue what the cover will look like, but here’s the Kindle link if you have a burning desire to pre-order it:

Pre-Order SCARLET SPIRITS

Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded a Facebook page called DAISY DAZE just for posting stuff from the 1920s that Daisy Gumm Majesty and her family might have used or seen or gone to or shopped at. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ .

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

I think that’s it! Thank you

Review: Invisible Victims: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women by Katherine McCarthy

Though I think I was vaguely aware of the higher murder rate of indigenous women in Canada (mostly from the Robert Pickton case), the true extent is incredibly saddening.  What is worse, is the national policies and reporting strategies that hide the problem as well as the lack of the media's attention.  So many policies mirror the US's policies re. the treatment of Native Americans.

The book deals with the systemic failures as well as reporting on specific victims and serial killers who target Indigenous women and explores many of the reasons why. 

It also introduced me to the concept of epigenetics (genetically inherited memories of extreme trauma that can affect cultures such as holocaust survivors and indigenous peoples).  It is something I found fascinating and something I will explore more in the future.

The tone of the book is frustrated and angry and after reading, you can certainly see why.  Definitely recommend

Guest Blogger: Alice Duncan

March 2019

Okay, so three excellent things happened to me January. It was an exceptionally amazing (and unusual) run of good luck for me, and I knew it couldn’t last. Of course, it didn’t. So February began by kicking my butt (actually, my head) with a sinus infection, my refrigerator died, and an outdoor faucet broke. Oh, and now I have some sort of gut problem probably brought about by the antibiotics I had to take for my sinus infection

Life seems much more normal now. The best thing, though, is that even though February hated me, the three good things that happened in January are still happening! The publisher of my Daisy Gumm Majesty books (ePublishing Works) will continue to publish same and will also re-publish Mercy Allcutt’s books and any new ones I write in the Angels series. And Wolfpack (recommended to me by Peter Brandvold, who gave me Lou Prophet) still aims to publish my entire backlist. My backlist includes the Pecos Valley Diamond historical cozy mystery series, featuring Annabelle Blue. The Pecos Valley books take place right smack here in Roswell, New Mexico, only I named it Rosedale in the books because I didn’t want anyone to take exception and sue me. Not that I write anything negative about Roswell. Honest.

So, yay! I’m not accustomed too good things happening in what I laughingly call my writing career, but it looks as if they’re going to happen anyway, so I’d just better get used to it, huh?

Let me see. Is there anything else to talk about? Um . . . I can’t seem to think of anything, probably because my head’s all fuzzy and my innards are in a turmoil; therefore, I’ll just post the winners of February’s give-away books:

Sue Farrell wins a copy of PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL,

Trish Rucker wins a copy of FALLEN ANGELS, and

Carol Goerz wins a copy of SIERRA RANSOM!

Congratulations, ladies! I’ll get your books to you as soon as I can.

In the meantime, if you’d like to get the latest Daisy Gumm Majesty book (SHAKEN SPIRITS, in which Daisy begins the new year, 1925, by being hit by a car and shoved into a pepper tree after watching the Tournament of Roses Parade) feel free to do so! Here’s the cover Amazon Kindle link:

Buy SHAKEN SPIRITS for your Amazon Kindle

It would also be lovely of you if you’d leave a review of the book. Doesn’t have to gush or anything. Just a brief “I loved this book” or “I hated this book” will suffice, although I do hope nobody actively hates it. Reviews help an author big-time, even if the author herself isn’t big-time, and I’m definitely not. Heck, even if I got rich and famous, I wouldn’t be big. I resent shrinking those four inches, for all the good that does me.

And, what the heck, after you read SHAKEN SPIRITS, feel free to pre-order SCARLET SPIRITS. Don’t have the cover art yet, but I am looking forward to seeing it. I must say that, since Mean Pete gave me Lou Prophet, I’ve had a lot of fun with the gnarly old guy. Poor Lou. He used to be such a daredevil and a womanizer and a truly dangerous bounty hunter. When he hits Pasadena in 1925, he’s old (probably even older than I am right now!), crabby, cantankerous, resentful and one-legged. Daisy and Sam both like him in spite of themselves, although Daisy objects to his unseemly language quite often. Anyway, here’s the link to SCARLET SPIRITS, if you’d like to pre-order it. I consider it a fun book. Yet another refugee from the Old West moves to Pasadena in this book and, of course, havoc ensues.

Buy SCARLET SPIRITS for your Amazon Kindle

I’m looking forward to seeing what ePublishing Works will do when they re-publish my Mercy Allcutt books. They’ve done such a smashing job with Daisy; I’m sure they’ll work wonders for Mercy.

And Wolfpack! I’m so excited that my old, out-of-print books will be available in paperback format again. Wolfpack is doing wonders for Peter Brandvold’s formerly out-of-print books. I can hardly wait to see what they’ll do with mine. I really love some of the books I wrote years ago, and I’m so happy they’re going to get a new life. I want to see TEXAS LONESOME in print again. And PHOEBE’S VALENTINE! And . . . oh, heck, there are zillions of ‘em. Sigh. Every now and then, things go well. Not often, but every now and then.

Okey-dokey, so what books should Bam-Bam choose wieners for at the end of March? Let me think for a moment. Huh. According to Bam-Bam, I don’t think well, so he’s chosen March’s books for me. They are UNSETTLED SPIRITS, SPIRITS UNITED and SPIRITS UNEARTHED. If you’d like your name to be entered into Bam-Bam’s special contest doggie dish, just send your name and home address to alice@aliceduncan.net . By the way, if you’ve ever wondered what Bam-Bam looks like, here he is in all his glory (and sitting on the silver crunchy thing that's supposed to keep the dogs off the bed. It doesn't work). He’s an extremely handsome boy, but he came from a puppy mill in Big Spring, Texas. At the time, he was so skinny, you could count his ribs and vertebrae, and he’s never quite learned how to be a dog even after having lived a secure life for many years. He also started out in life as a black-and-tan wiener dog with just a little white dappling on his head. As he ages, the white seems to be creeping down around his muzzle. He’s maybe nine years old (puppy mills don’t keep great records) and I adore him. He adores me, too, but he’s not so sure about most other humans in the universe.

Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded a Facebook page called DAISY DAZE just for posting stuff from the 1920s that Daisy Gumm Majesty and her family might have used or seen or gone to or shopped at. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ .

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

And I think that’s it. Thank you!

Review: South of Hell by PJ Parrish

Retired cop and now PI, Louis Kincaid is asked to go back to Michigan by a local cop to check into the missing person's case of Jean Brandt.  He teams up with his lover, Joe who is also a cop.  When looking into the case, they discover a young girl, Amy.  Amy is the daughter of Jean and believes she saw her father kill her mother.  Only under hypnosis, the details she describes do not match the evidence and when bones are found on the family property, they are determined to be quite old. 

While trying to sort out the truth, they have to fight to avoid her abusive father from getting access or custody of Amy.  Only her father is a violent man, and he certainly does not want the truth uncovered.

A very suspenseful story with flashes to the past they made be reincarnation of epigenetics, it is a lot of tragedy and very dark happenings.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, but truthfully, my favorite character was Amy.  I would love to see a spin off of just her story - she is fascinating!

Review: Mushing is Murder by Patti Benning

Angie heads back to her childhood home in Alaska after troubles in her life as well as to help with her mother who has Parkinson's.  Her father raises, trains and runs dogs in sled races as well as running the family diner.  Soon after her arrival, a neighbor shows up in the Diner looking for her father because a sled team has shown up on his property without a driver.  She and the neighbor head out to find out where he is only to find his body.  After thinking it was an accident, the Sheriff comes around to question her dad as a possible killer since the victim was his best friend.  She starts asking questions to find the real killer.

I enjoyed the book a lot because of the setting, characters and yes - the dogs. LOL  the thing is the mystery part was really weak, but that's okay because I did enjoy it.  Maybe book two in the series will make up for it with a better mystery.  I think part of the problem was the length - a bit longer, more clues or suspects and motives could have been provided. 

Review: Teggie: Lucy's Story by Roger David Francis

I was really intrigued by this book.  I had never heard of the legend of Teggie in Lake Bala.  I have to say that this version of Teggie is truly horrifying and evil.  That part of the book was excellent, as was Ben's descent under Teggie's control.  Where the author lost me was Lucy.  It is her story - as she watches the man she loves obsessing over a monster and behaving in worse and worse manners.  A great story.  BUT.... She turned out to be a protagonist I truly despised.  She repeatedly made excuses for Ben, thinking he will "get over it", even as things progressed to more and more hideous violence.  Making excuses.  HOPING he would be able to fight Teggie's influence.  Passive and pathetic.  Even as Ben was nastier and nastier to her and others.  After crimes were being committed.  It was a visceral feeling. Grrr...  I was glad when it was over so I wouldn't have to deal with her any more. 

That said,  Ben's descent and Teggie were great.  Additionally, the book has many other Teggie/Lake Bala tales which were quite interesting as well.

Review: The Red Death by Brigitte Märgen

Cases start emerging in NYC where the victims are dying of a bacteria similar to the Black Death of the Middle Ages.  Only this pathogen is 100% fatal.  The CDC investigates and find an ancient bacteria that one professor's career had been destroyed over when no one believed his findings.  A search for a natural cure takes the Professor and a CDC researcher to the Amazon while the plague starts spreading quickly throughout the world. 

The story is told by multiple POVs including some of the first patients, showing the method of the spread.  It is a story that is chilling because of how easily we could see this happening today. 

Excellent read

Review: 13 Stolen Girls by Gil Reavill

After an earthquake in LA, Detective Layla Remington finds a large broken barrel with a body inside.  It turns out to be a missing actress and a HUGE missing persons case.  Only she sees connections to other missing girls' cases that none of the powers that be see.  As she investigates, she treads on some powerful toes in the Motion Picture Industry and gets in deeper than she expects.  

The story contains some really vile men based on a deep BDSM subculture where slaves asked to be killed.  Not for those who don't like their books DARK.

The interesting thing about the "Cor" series in this book is that it clearly is a nod to the old Gor books.  Nothing I ever liked, but I had a friend WAY back when (30ish years ago) who LOVED them and she started writing one of her own.  Early fan fiction I guess.I had forgotten all about that until reading this book.

Very suspenseful and interesting.  I really enjoyed it

Review: Sister of the Mist by Eric Wilder

Interesting book.  Sort of two different mysteries in one.  Both set in New Orleans amidst its craziness.  One mystery is the story of men investigating the murder of a jockey and a racehorse.  Another is a group of very different people on a magical quest to save a woman who joined a convent after the death of her twin sister.  Only the convent was a front for a very evil priest and nun who were human trafficking.  Throw in some vampires, Swamp monsters and a Scottish warrior and it is very dramatic and intriguing.  I am honestly not sure why the two divergent mysteries in the same book though.

That said, it is an amped-up New Orleans Halloween blast!

Review: Die Again by Tess Gerritsen

Rizzoli and Isles are investigating the brutal death of a big game hunter/taxidermist and the stolen snow leopard pelt taken from him.  In their investigation, they find a very unusual killer who may have been active for years throughout the country, preying on hikers and isolated people.  Then they find that it may be connected to a 6 year old Interpol case where an entire tourist party was massacred  except for one lone survivor.

Millie is the survivor from Botswana, and she has been brought to Boston to help them catch the killer.

I really enjoyed this book.  It shifts from first person POV (Millie's account of the Botswana expedition) and 3rd person POV - the current investigation.  I know some people don't like that sort of thing, but I don't mind it.  In this case particularly, I like the story told from Millie's POV, because it feels more real.

Additionally, I liked the narrator as well

Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

2019????

When I was a kid, I once calculated how old I’d be in the year 2000. I couldn’t even imagine being fifty-four years old! Well, guess what? I not only achieved the astounding age of fifty-four, but have surpassed it. I’ll be seventy-four at the end of November, 2019. This would be totally unbelievable to the kid I used to be. Unfortunately, these days, it’s not only believable but real. Not quite sure how I feel about it, although I do know I’m not handling the aging process gracefully. In fact, I resent the heck out of it, for all the good that does.

At any rate, I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who’s happy to see the end of 2018. It wasn’t a great year for lots of us. Personally, I was deathly sick during much of the early part of the year, bronchitis and sinusitis finally deafening me completely in my right ear and destroying my vocal chords. Since singing was about the only thing I liked to do that I still could do, this wasn’t a happifying outcome for me. I re-joined the Methodist choir I used to sing with anyway because … well, why not? Of all the things I’ve lost as I’ve aged, including four inches, my left hip (which has been replaced by a metal one), the ability to run, dance, walk long distances, cook huge feasts, and sing, the thing I miss most is my voice. Too bad; so sad; la-di-dah. The only thing I can do now that I couldn’t do when I was younger is set off alarms at airports. Since Roswell, NM, is a relatively small place, the airport doesn’t have X-ray equipment, so I always get patted down before I board an airplane. Heck, they had to pat me down at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, too, since the X-ray only went so far. Only women security folks are allowed to pat down female passengers, so even that’s boring.

However, I attended my—gulp!—55^th high-school reunion in October and had a whole lot more fun than I expected to have! I wasn’t a big kid on campus, and that’s not counting the fact that I was only 5’2” tall (I’m even shorter now). But I managed to reconnect with two women with whom I used to play flute in the Eliot Jr. High School Band (Altadena, CA). It is so good to have Phyllis McKown and Janet Levine Goldberg in my life again!

As soon as I left California, the entire state went up in flames. The Woolsey Fire got to within a mile or so to my younger daughter and her husband. That fire began in Thousand Oaks the day after that monster murdered so many people at the Borderline Bar and Grill. Fortunately, neither my daughter nor the above-mentioned Janet Goldberg was burned out, but lots of people weren’t so lucky. The Camp and Hill Fires in Northern California were even more destructive. I love my home state and really wish it didn’t have so many fires.

Both of my wrists needed surgery to repair problems associated with carpal-tunnel syndrome. Got the left wrist done. Still have to have surgery on the right, because stuff intervened to make having that wrist fixed in 2018 impossible. I aim to get that done in 2019.

Had a serious bout of colitis, too. Spent a hideous five hours at the local ER, and eventually lost ten pounds I didn’t exactly need to lose, but what the heck. A woman can never be too rich or too skinny, right? I’m still waiting for the rich part of that equation to catch up with me.

I lost my problem child, Giblett, this year. I mourn Giblett, although he was kind of a monster dog. Still, he came to me after being abandoned in a home where a murder-suicide had been committed, so I cut him some slack. Poor Gibbles was so scared when he first came to me, he refused to leave his crate. He got over that problem a little too quickly for my taste. Still, I miss him, even if he did take every opportunity he could find to bite the heck out of me. Here he is, doing his favorite thing: destroying and unstuffing fluffy squeaky toys.

The House of Howling Hounds (and fluff) was enriched this year by another dog, Bella-the-Biter, who came to me via a lovely woman in Albuquerque. Bella has wild, squinchy eyes; a little pink nose; a furrowed brow and origami ears. She doesn’t bite as many people as she used to, which is a good thing. It’s also a good thing not too many strangers visit my house, because I really don’t need to be sued because Bella bit someone. Oddly, Bella is the only one of my five dogs who worships me the way I should be worshiped. Wish I could convince other humans and canines of this pertinent fact. Oh, well.

The rest of my herd remains well. Bam-Bam is still scared to death of anyone in the universe who isn’t me (and so many people aren’t, you know?). Jazzy remains a Beautiful Blue Wiener and Queen of All She Surveys. Scrappy, the friendliest Chihuahua on the face of the earth, is well and healthy, although he’s getting really gray around the gills.

Cookie, my mixed terriorist, is well, although she suffered a terrible attack by a neighbor’s dog right before Christmas. She’s okay now, and my wonderful veterinarian, Dr. Charles Smith, charged me virtually nothing to fix her. He kept her two nights in his hospital, sedated her, shaved her, flushed out her wounds, sutured them, sent her home with a bottle of pain pills and a bottle of antibiotics—and the saintly man charged me a piddly few bucks. I can’t think of another veterinarian in the world who would do such a kind thing. I took him and his staff two dozen tamales (a dozen red and a dozen green) from El Charro which, according to the guy who cuts my hair, is the best place in Roswell to get them. It was a very small thank-you for taking such good care of Cookie, and two dozen tamales doesn’t cover a fraction of the gratitude I feel for those folks. Not only that, but the woman whose dog attacked Cookie, came by today and reimbursed me! How often does something like that happen?

In 2018, many of my friends were diagnosed with ghastly diseases, from cancer to scleroderma to lupus. In fact, my older daughter, Anni, was just diagnosed with lupus. Because the only person I knew whom I knew had lupus(if that makes sense) died of the fell disease in the 1970s, I thought a diagnosis of lupus was an automatic death sentence. I’m ever so glad to know I was mistaken! Lupus won’t be a lot of fun for Anni, but it can be dealt with. Whew!

A few good things happened. Peter Brandvold gave me his character, Lou Prophet, to play with. By the time he came to me, Lou was old, weathered, cranky and one-legged, having lost one leg in an accident when one of the floozies he was with drove a car loaded with bootleg liquor off a cliff in Santa Monica. Lou was the only one who survived the accident, although one of his legs didn’t and had to be replaced by a peg. Boy, did I have a fun time with Lou Prophet! Although Mean Pete hates it when I thank him for giving me Lou (even though he waited until Lou had one foot in the grave and the other … well, a peg), I thank him anyway. I’m madly working on finishing SCARLET SPIRITS, which will be my second Daisy Gumm Majesty book containing Lou Prophet. Lou kinda stole SHAKEN SPIRITS, Daisy’s upcoming adventure, but that’s okay by me. I love Lou.

Speaking of SHAKEN SPIRITS, the paper book will be released on January 1, and the ebook will be available on January 15! What’s more, you can begin leaving reviews for same on January first! That’s just a teensy hint. Reviews are important to authors. If an author’s book gets enough reviews, bookstores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble will actually recommend it to people! So leave a review! Heck, leave several reviews! I’d appreciate it a whole lot, and so would Daisy, Sam, Lou Prophet and Spike the Dachshund! Here’s a link:

Link: https://ebookdiscovery.lpages.co/aliceduncandaisygummbook13excerpt/

My wonderful publisher, ePublishing Works, has also set up a pre-order page on Amazon.com for SCARLET SPIRITS! I don’t have the cover art yet, but here’s a link if you’d like to pre-order it. I’m buzzing right along with it and should have it finished shortly after the first of the year, thank goodness! And then my reward will be to write another book! There seems something slightly askew about this picture, but I’m not quite sure what it is:

SCARLET SPIRITS Link : https://www.amazon.com/Scarlet-Spirits-Daisy-Majesty-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07L3KW12R/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1546119761&sr=1-1&keywords=scarlet+spirits+alice+duncan

Okay, down to the good stuff. Emily Newman wins a hardback copy of HIGH SPIRITS, Joy Isley wins a hardback copy of HUNGRY SPIRITS, and Nancy DeLoera Arellano wins a copy of ANGELS OF MERCY! The last book is a trade paperback (which means it’s a largish paperback). It’s my only self-published book (so far), but I like it anyway.

Now. Since SHAKEN SPIRITS will be released in January, I’ll give away a few copies of it at the end of the month. If you’d like to enter, just send me your name and address: alice@aliceduncan.net . Due to the high cost of postage, I’ll only be able to send physical books to people residing in the USA. However, if you live in a far-off place and win, I’ll be happy to send you an ebook (Kindle or Nook).

I think that’s it! Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded a Facebook page called DAISY DAZE just for posting stuff from the 1920s that Daisy Gumm Majesty and her family might have used or seen or gone to or shopped at. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ . If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

In the mean time, HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ALL OF US. We are, in order from left to right (more or less) Jazzy, Bam-Bam, Bella, me, Cookie and Scrappy!

Thank you!

Review: A Merry Murder at St. Bernard Cabins by Cindy Bell

Nikki heads to a resort to meet with her family and have Christmas together.  After unexpected calls from two of her pet sitting clients, she, one of her clients and two dogs head out only to be snowed in at the resort.  After a nasty employee is murdered right outside of her cabin, and her brother is considered a suspect, she is determined to figure out who actually did it.  Along with her client/new friend Sonia, she asks questions until on her quest to find the truth she endangers herself and her brother.  An exciting rescue and capture and a pretty satisfying mystery.

Review: The Christmas Shop Murder by Linnea West

Tessa is excited when Sue opens a all-year round Christmas shop in their small town and is caught up in the excitement of its opening, until a woman who threatened to shut it down to make a dog grooming shop is murdered.  When her brother is suspected, she decides she needs to find the truth.

It was a fun setting with likable characters.  A little light on the mystery aspect - few suspects or motives.  A setup of a love triangle (which I know upsets some cozy readers).  A light, enjoyable read.

Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

December? Whew!

Well, blow me down with a gentle breeze, another year’s nearly bitten the dust. They seem to fly by faster and faster, the older I get. That doesn’t seem fair somehow. Ah, well. Such is life.
However, I can show you the great cover for SHAKEN SPIRITS (created by the brilliant and talented Nina Paules), Daisy Gumm Majesty’s… Oh, Lord. Here we go again. This is Daisy’s 14^th adventure into publishing, but the book cover says the book is her 13^th. As I’ve often mentioned before, the actual 7^th book (SPIRITS REVIVED) is one for which I haven’t yet been able to get the e-rights back. Therefore, as an audiobook, SPIRITS REVIVED is #6½. When it comes out in print and e-book format again, it will still be #6½. Publishing is a strange and mysterious business, if you’re me.
Anyway, back to the cover of SHAKEN SPIRITS. Here it is! That’s Daisy reclining pretty much underneath the wheel of that automobile—which is a 1923 Cole Sportster Sedan—and Spike, her loyal dachshund, valiantly attempting to rouse her. Somebody paid somebody else a lot of money to mow poor Daisy down. The car actually slaps her up against a pepper tree (pepper trees lined Marengo Avenue, where Daisy lived, in those days). Daisy is quite shaken up by this non-accident, which occurred right after the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day, 1925. Her shaken-ness doesn’t abate when she realizes someone actually is out to get her. Below the picture of the cover is a link where you can read an excerpt from SHAKEN SPIRITS. Moreover, you can buy it, because there are links to every e-reader, paperback and hardback site known to man. Well, maybe not all of them, but close enough:

Buy SHAKEN SPIRITS for anything at all

(and read an excerpt, too, if you want to)

About halfway through SHAKEN SPIRITS, Lou Prophet, a washed-up, one-legged former bounty hunter, shows up. The elderly Lou was given to me by Peter Brandvold, bless his heart (don’t tell him I said that. He cherishes his image as Mean Pete) after I’d already written nearly half of the book. Anyway, when Lou came along, I had so much fun writing him into Daisy’s life, he darned near stole the book! I’m trying to tone him down in the book I’m writing now, SCARLET SPIRITS, although he still plays a role. If you want to read about Lou before he hit rock-bottom and ended up in the Odd Fellows Home of Christian Charity in Pasadena, California, in 1925, here’s his latest book (by Peter Brandvold, of course), BLOOD AT SUNDOWN (to be released December 19, I believe). In Mean Pete’s book, Lou’s about forty-five years younger than he is in Daisy’s day, and he’s a wild and woolly, hard-drinking, womanizing, irreverent, rascally bounty hunter. He looks good, too. When he hits Pasadena, he’s still a little woolly, but he’s old and not nearly as wild as he once was. He resents it, too (and I don’t blame him, being in the same fix myself, although I was never a hard-drinking, womanizing bounty hunter):

Buy BLOOD AT SUNDOWN for your Kindle

Um… Oh, yes! I need Bam-Bam (who went to the vet this morning for a checkup and trembled the entire time) to pick a November wiener for my book-giveaway! Bam-Bam, while terrified of pretty much everyone in the universe who isn’t me, at least doesn’t scream as if he’s being tortured when he goes to the vet like Jazzy does. Of course, Jazzy is a Beautiful Blue Wiener and Queen of All She Surveys. She’s also an incredible drama queen. In fact, here’s a photo of Bam-Bam the Not-Very-Bold and Jazzy the Drama Queen. They’re lying on my bed, which has on it a crinkly silver thing that’s supposed to keep dogs off the furniture. You can see how well it works:

And (thank you, Bam-Bam) the wieners are: Julianne Sparks, who wins a copy of CACTUS FLOWER; Karla Jans, who wins a copy of SIERRA RANSOM; Marilyn Silverstein, who wins a copy of THANKSGIVING ANGELS; and Mary Jane Hopper, who wins a copy of FALLEN ANGELS. I’ll get your books to you as soon as I can drag myself to the post office, ladies.
Let me see… I’m sure something else exciting happened in November. Oh, yes. I remember now. Right after I left Southern California, the whole blasted state caught fire, and my daughter and her husband barely escaped being burned to a crisp by the Woolsey Fire. The Woolsey Fire started in Thousand Oaks the day after that horrible man shot all those people in the Borderline Bar. That bar is where Robin and Gilbert (my daughter and her husband) go with pals to watch sports and stuff. Fortunately for my family, everyone in it was spared. Far too many other people weren’t so lucky, and the entire town of Paradise, CA, was burned to cinders in one of the fires in the northern part of the state. Here’s what it looked like in Robin and Gilbert’s neighborhood while firefighters were gallantly attempting to save it from total ruin:

For what it’s worth, rains have come recently, and California has experienced terrible mudslides in the burn-scar areas. Fortunately again, Robin and Gilbert and their neighbors were spared. However, the air still stinks to high heaven. I fear it’s going to take a lot of work and planting and more rain to make my home state beautiful again. I love California, so this makes me sad. Sniffle.
Oh, yeah. Here’s something not-so-awful. Joyce Abbate, a long-time friend and dancing pal, sent me some pictures from when I belonged to the dance company, Gypsy. Here I am. These were the good old days. I could still hear, had all my original body parts (and they worked) and I could sing and dance and have fun. I miss those days. Deep, theatrical sigh here. Hmm. Maybe Jazzy takes after her mommy in some ways. But never mind that. Anyway, the Gypsy Folk Ensemble has a Facebook page, if you want to visit it: https://www.facebook.com/Gypsy-Folk-Ensemble-168129599867691/?hc_location=ufi

Oh, yes! The very best thing that happened in November (for me) was that Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger created a special Facebook page for Daisy! It’s called Daisy Daze, and it shows photographs of things that were around in Daisy’s days and that Daisy and her friends and kin might have used. For instance, they found a copy of SIXTY-FIVE DELICIOUS DISHES MADE WITH BREAD, the cook booklet Daisy used when she was coerced into teaching a cooking class at the Salvation Army. Poor Daisy, who can burn water, hated teaching that class. Worse, she didn’t learn how to cook while she did it. If you’d like to participate in Daisy Daze, go to this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/
Let me see… What books should I give away at the end of December? Beats the heck outta me. Lemme think. Ow. That hurt. However, I did find a few books I can give away. Some lucky folks will win an original hardback version (these are first editions, by golly. If I were famous, that might actually mean something) of HIGH SPIRITS or HUNGRY SPIRITS, and I’ll also give away one of my Mercy Allcutt books, ANGELS OF MERCY. If you’d like to enter, just send me your name and address: alice@aliceduncan.net . Due to the high cost of postage, I’ll only be able to send books to people residing in the USA. However, if you live in a far-off place and win, I’ll be happy to send you an ebook (Kindle or Nook).
I think that’s it! If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925
Thank you!

Review: Fear by Bob Woodward

In this day and age of horrible journalism, it is refreshing to see Bob Woodward's reporting.  About of a third of the book is actually source referenced.  He reports on the chaos of the administration and the games people in it are playing, to try and work around the President's behavior.  It seems a sad state of the world that any of this is happening, but Woodward's reporting is making sense of the chaos reported by various news sources.

Whether a Trump supporter or not, it is important to have the facts as opposed to all the #FakeNews out there.  Well worth the read.

Review: The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories (ed) Maxim Jakubowski

Everyone has their favorite Jack the Ripper theory or suspect.  The odds are, we will NEVER know definitively who was responsible.  That said, This book is full of fictional stories based on various old and new theories as well as just plain imagination.  It will get us no closer to solving the crimes, but it does give us enjoyable reads of various possibilities.  

Some of my favorites from the book were:  "His Last Victim" by KG Anderson, "It's All in the Genes" by Cara Cooper, "Bluebeard's Wife" by Catherine Lundoff and "Autumn of Terror" by CL Raven.

Terri

Gust Blogger - Alice Duncan

The Saga of Daisy Gumm Majesty’s Publication

Before I begin telling you about Daisy’s epic publishing history, here are the wieners of September’s book giveaway (SPIRITS UNEARTHED): Elizabeth Keene, Paula Adams, Jon Ludwig and Linda Ames-Boman. Congrats! I’ll get your books to you… eventually. Truth to tell, I only managed to mail August’s books yesterday. Sigh.

But back to the subject of this month’s newsletter, let me tell you that keeping Daisy published wasn’t easy. Here’s why.

The idea for the Daisy Gumm Majesty series came to me in the early 2000s. The books were supposed to be historical cozy mysteries, and they were supposed to feature as their main protagonist a fake spiritualist-medium named Daisy Gumm Majesty, a young woman married to a crippled veteran of the War to End All Wars (it wasn’t, more’s the pity). Daisy plied her art during the 1920s in Pasadena, California, my old hometown.

In order to achieve publication of this series, I gathered what few wits I had left and sent a proposal for the first two books to my publisher at the time (Kensington). The Powers That Were liked the idea, the characters and the period, but they said there wasn’t enough mystery. That’s undoubtedly true, and it’s also pretty much the story of my life. Their fix, however, was for me to take out the dead bodies, add a subsidiary romance (since the heroine was already married) and they’d market the books as romances.

So I did, they did, and STRONG SPIRITS and FINE SPIRITS were published. They tanked. Big-time. Broke my heart. I loved Daisy. More, I loved Pasadena, California, and the era in which Daisy lived. Nevertheless, Daisy and her pals seemed to be floating belly-up in the goldfish bowl of publishing, and there was nothing I could do about it. The late, great Kate Duffy called and apologized for mis-marketing the books, but that didn’t help a whole lot. My heart remained, squashed and pulsing with grief, on the floor at my feet.

Nevertheless, I did as the Kensington goddesses asked, took yet another pseudonym (I think this made six of them), and I wrote a series about survivors of the Titanic disaster. I used a combination of my daughters’ names for my pseudonym and churned out A PERFECT STRANGER, A PERFECT ROMANCE and A PERFECT WEDDING as Anne Robins.

Then, because I was editing books for Five Star-Cengage, I asked if I could submit a book for their consideration. Five Star doesn’t acquire books on proposal, but I already had the third Daisy book written. Therefore, I sent it in, and they acquired it for their women’s fiction line. I was delighted, even if the books still weren’t dead-body-cozy mysteries. And then Five Star closed their women’s fiction line. I managed to get book #6 (ANCIENT SPIRITS) published as a romantic suspense novel, and then I got to turn Daisy’s books into cozy mysteries! Yay!

Five Star published SPIRITS REVIVED, Daisy’s seventh adventure, as a mystery! Wheeee! Then Five Star closed their mystery line.

Um . . . I wasn’t sure what to do after that. However, a lovely woman named Jeanne Glidewell, whose cozy mystery novels I’d edited for Five Star, told me she’d found a great publisher and suggested I get in touch with them about my Daisy books. So I did. ePublishing Works (Brian and Nina Paules) decided to reprint the entire Daisy series, give the books new covers that clearly defined them as cozy mysteries (“branding” is, I think, what this is called), and they even put the series number of each book on the front cover! Wow. You can’t get much better than that. What’s more, ePW actually promotes their authors’ books! This has never happened to me before in my life. I’m actually making money with ePW. Whatta miracle!

The only thing neither ePW nor I can do is get the rights to SPIRITS REVIVED back. Therefore, there’s a hole in the middle of Daisy’s series. However, when the narrator reading the Daisy books for audio (the extremely talented Denice Stradling) got to SPIRITS REVIVED, Nina Paules made a lovely cover for it and numbered it 6 ½. I tell you, those ePW folks are clever.

Anyway, book #12 (actually, it’s #13, but I just explained the reason it’s not numbered as such) was published in July of this year. SPIRITS UNEARTHED begins at the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California. It’s not as gruesome as it sounds (to start with, anyway) because Daisy and her fiancé, Sam Rotondo, are there to visit their late spouses’ graves. Daisy’s dachshund, Spike, begins the action by finding a shoe. Unfortunately, the shoe contains a foot. And so the fun begins.

By the way, I grew up and lived in Altadena and Pasadena for most of my life, so it didn’t occur to me that having only one cemetery to serve an entire community was in any way unusual. I’ve since been told by my number-one beta reader, Lynne Welch, librarian extraordinaire, that most cities have little cemeteries dotted all over the place. In Altadena and Pasadena, it’s either Mountain View or an urn on somebody’s mantel, I reckon.

A running theme in the Daisy books is the magnificence of Viola Gumm’s cooking. Vi is Daisy’s aunt-by-marriage and is a genius in the kitchen. That’s a good thing because neither Daisy nor her mother can cook a worth a lick. They all live together in a sweet little bungalow in Pasadena. One of Vi’s recipes appears in SPIRITS UNEARTHED. In order to make Vi’s Swedish-style smothered chicken, you first have to haul out your Scotch kettle. Don’t know what a Scotch kettle is? Neither did I. So I did some research, and it turned out to be a Dutch oven!

Daisy’s 13^th (actually, her 14^th) adventure is titled SHAKEN SPIRITS, and it will be published in January of 2019. This novel features a character created by another author for his own books. Peter Brandvold (who writes terrific westerns) gave me his very own, personal, made-up character, Lou Prophet, to play with. Mind you, Mean Pete waited to give Lou to me until he was old, weathered, falling apart and one-legged, but Daisy and I had a whole lot of fun with old Lou in spite of his antiquity. Daisy thinks Lou is quaint. Lou, who was once a hard-drinking, violent, womanizing, dangerous and tricky bounty hunter in the wild and wooly Old West, would not be happy with Daisy’s assessment. Being a woman of understanding and compassion, Daisy will never tells Lou she thinks he’s quaint mainly because, if she did, Lou would hobble out of her life as fast as he could. Please pre-order SHAKEN SPIRITS if you feel so inclined.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Shaken-Spirits-Daisy-Majesty-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07B6GRK4Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1538354240&sr=1-1&keywords=shaken+spirits

What the heck, you can get Lou Prophet’s latest story (written about his early career, when he was young, virile, handsome as heck, and not quite as cantankerous as he ultimately became) right now if you want to:

Link for STAGECOACH TO PURGATORY: https://www.amazon.com/Stagecoach-Purgatory-Prophet-Bounty-Hunter-ebook/dp/B077WZ6884/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1538354279&sr=1-1&keywords=stagecoach+to+purgatory

Now I’m writing SCARLET SPIRITS, Daisy’s 14^th (actually, her 15^th) adventure. Lou Prophet’s in this book too; however, even more fictional Old-West characters show up in SCARLET. I made up all these new guys, though. In fact, a proposal for a western novel no one ever showed interest in publishing (because westerns are supposed to be jam-packed with adventure, and all my characters ever do is sit around chatting with each other. Well, and they eat a lot), is helping me with SCARLET’S plot. Never let a good plot go to waste is my philosophy. In truth, it isn’t, but it sounds good.

I tell you, publishing is a strange and confusing industry.

At the end of October, I’ll be giving away even more copies of SPIRITS UNEARTHED. I seem to have about fifty billion copies of that particular book for some reason. If you’d like to find out more about Daisy and the gang, please visit this page (https://ebookdiscovery.lpages.co/aliceduncandaisygummbook12excerpt/ ), where you can read an excerpt from SPIRITS UNEARTHED and learn more about my Daisy books. That page also contains links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and everywhere else if you’d like to buy the book. If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

Thank you!