Review: Deadly Solution by Keenan Powell

Maeve Malloy is a lawyer who has had struggles with drinking, done a stint in rehab and trying to prove herself again as a lawyer.  She is given a case that was from a colleague who has died, defending Ollie Olafson of killing his friend Joe.  Ollie and Joe were both homeless and living in the woods.  Ollie is convinced he never would have killed Joe even though he couldn't remember anything due to blackout. 

As she investigates to prove her client's innocence, she finds bad autopsies, prosecutor misconduct and a possible serial killer.

Nice complex story that really shows what alcoholism can do to people's lives as well.

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

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: 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: 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!

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!

Review: Adrift: A Mer Cavallo Mystery by Micki Browning

Mer is a marine biologist who is currently working as a safety diver on a charter boat, The LunaSea (I love that name). The boat is chartered by a group wanting to do paranormal studies on a sunken boat. During the dive, things go wrong and the crew's leader, Ishamel, disappears, presumed dead.

Mer is a scientist and she needs to protect her reputation after the accident. So she starts looking into things, where she discovers many inconsistencies.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. She is determined and smart, but I thought she was a bit harsh in her criticisms of the "ghost hunters". I am also not sure at all about her relationship with her neighbor. This is a great start to a series.

Review: Beaches, Bungalows and Burglaries by Tonya Kappes

Mae West's (not THAT Mae West) goes to jail for running a Ponzi scheme.  All she has to her name is a campground in Normal KY.  She goes there hoping to find a buyer - only it is run down and in pretty bad shape.  

After the body of her dead husband (escaped from jail) is found, there is also a murder to solve.

She befriends some of the town members and hosts a fundraiser to restore the park to its former glory.  Finding a new home in the process

I did like the book a lot, but things with the campground moved way too fast to be believable.  From a dump to full up for a season in one event?  The townspeople going from hating her to loving her quickly - also - nope.  But it was a still a fun ride.  I read it in one day.

Additionally - the title doesn't fit the story.  

Terri

Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

Happy Independence Day!

Okay, so it’s a little early to be wishing everyone a happy Fourth of July. I’m having carpal-tunnel surgery on my left wrist on June 27, so I’m catching up ahead of time. If that makes any sense.

Regarding June’s give-away, Bam-Bam, my winner-picking wiener dog, has selected the winners of June’s contest, in which I’m giving away copies of some Mercy Allcutt books. They are:

LOST AMONG THE ANGELS, which goes to Carol Goerz;

ANGELS OF MERCY, which goes to Lisa Brooks;

FALLEN ANGELS (winner of the Arizona/New Mexico Book of the Year award in 2012. I’m not a contest-enterer as a rule, but this one cracked me up. New Mexico & literacy don’t normally end up in sentences together. That’s not very nice, is it? Oh, well), which goes to Donna Durnell; and

THANKSGIVING ANGELS, which goes to Mary Ann Hopper.

At the end of July, I’ll give away … I dunno. Let me see here. Okay, the book will be SPIRITS UNITED. I’ll give away four copies of that one, in which a librarian is murdered! By, needless to say, a dastardly fiend. But Sam Rotondo and Daisy save the day. Well, not for the murdered librarian, but for other would-be victims of the villain.

When I recover from having my left wrist operated on, the surgeon will fix the right wrist. I’m actually looking forward to this, because I’ve had trouble with carpal-tunnel syndrome for … oh, I don’t know. Twenty or thirty years or thereabouts. It’s past time to get my wrists un-crimped. Maybe my handwriting will improve! It used to be kind of pretty, but now, what with arthritis and carpal tunnel, my writing looks rather like that of a spider on meth.

On to the good stuff. Last month I told everyone Peter Brandvold (Mean Pete, as he prefers to be called) gave me one of his characters, Lou Prophet, former bounty hunter, to play with in SHAKEN SPIRITS, my next Daisy Gumm Majesty book. This is probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, writerishly speaking. Of course, when Mean Pete writes about Lou in his books set the 1880s, Lou is a young man in his late twenties or early thirties. When Daisy gets hold of him, he’s in his seventies, has lost a leg in an accident involving (naturally) wimmin and booze, and is living in the Odd Fellows Home of Christian Charity in Pasadena, CA. He’s craggy, slightly grumpy, still good-looking for an old guy, and I absolutely love him!

Mean Pete’s next Lou Prophet book, BLOOD AT SUNDOWN, will be released by Kensington in August of this year. I hope everyone goes out and buys a copy or three. Here’s a picture of Lou Prophet as a young, womanizing, and incredibly handsome man. I’m including a link so you can buy Mean Pete’s book. I didn’t get to edit this book, but I trust Mean Pete’s Kensington editor. A little:

Link: Blood at Sundown on Amazon

Feel free to pre-order SHAKEN SPIRITS, too:

Link: Shaken Spirits on Amazon

If you’d like to enter July’s contest, just send me an email (alice@aliceduncan.net) and give me your name and home address. If you’d like to be added to my mailing list, you may do so on my web site (http://aliceduncan.net/) or email me (you won’t be smothered in e-mails, because I only write one newsletter a month, and that’s an effort). If you’d like to be friends on Facebook, visit my page at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925.

Thank you!

Guest Blogger - Alice Duncan

June is bustin’ out all over!

Or maybe it isn’t. Busting or not, it’s sure hot here in SE New Mexico. May’s blog was sort of a downer (actually, it was a major downer), and I apologize for that. Nothing much has changed in my world, which means my niece still has scleroderma, although there’s been no biopsy to confirm the synovial carcinoma thing, and that’s good. Probably. I still can’t hear out of my right ear, and I’m peeved about it. But enough of that!

To start with, Bam-Bam, my winner-picking wiener dog, has selected people’s names, and the winners of May’s contest are:

SPIRITS ONSTAGE: Annie Amos and Virginia Winfield

UNSETTLED SPIRITS: Diana Smith and Johnna Smith (I don’t believe these two ladies are related. For that matter, I don’t know if they’re ladies, but I’m pretty sure they are).

Believe it or not, something not merely good, but exceptionally good, happened to me in May. I’ve had more than sixty books published since 1994, and I used to be incredibly single-minded and gung-ho about writing. After all, writing books was the only thing I ever really wanted to do. And puh-leeze don’t give me that “Writers write” nonsense. I was a single mother with no money other than my crummy earnings as a secretary (a job I hated, if anyone cares). My kids’ father didn’t see any need to pay child support, so I worked one and sometimes two jobs in order to make ends meet. Rearing two daughters alone, working full tim, and taking care of everything by myself ate up all my time. There wasn’t any time for this writer to write, dad-gum it! Every time I hear some snobby person say, “Writers write,” meaning, of course, that no matter what, you’re supposed to be writing, I want to strangle that person. It’s probably a good thing the arthritis in my hands is so bad, I can’t. But honestly, do the “writers write” folks not care if their kids starve to death? I did, and if that was wrong of me, so be it.

Oh, dear, I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I didn’t mean to sink into negativity. Ahem.

Let’s get back to the exceptionally good thing that happened to me in May. After being published for so many years, earning so little money for my efforts pretty much sapped my writing energy. It wasn’t fun any longer, and I had trouble thinking up plots. It takes a long, long time to write a book that can be read in hours, and if the author isn’t making any money doing it, why do it, y’know? Fortunately for me, all those books having been published led some folks to think I knew what I was doing. Therefore, I was offered an editing job by a publisher. Which means, of course, I actually was making through my writing, although not precisely the way I’d imagined it would happen.

Anyhow, I began editing books written by Peter Brandvold. Mean Pete (he calls himself that; I’m not being unkind) writes really, really good westerns. His books are full to the brim with action, violence and sex. He has several ongoing series featuring people like Bear Haskell, Deputy US Marshal; Yakima Henry, a half-breed wandering law officer (he does other stuff, too); Mike Sartain, a Cajun who takes it upon himself to enact justice on people who would otherwise get away with their fell deeds; and Lou Prophet, a dissolute, funny, big-hearted, foul-mouthed bounty hunter. All these guys are young in the books Mean Pete writes about them in the 1880s and thereabouts. My books are set in the 1920s.

But you know what? Mean Pete gave me Lou Prophet! Mind you, Lou’s kind of a broken-down crock by Daisy Gumm Majesty’s day, but he’s still a firecracker, albeit an elderly and one-legged one. You see, after his youth was spent on tangleleg and loose women and he got too old to continue as a bounty hunter, a film company in Los Angeles hired him to be a consultant on some of their western flickers. Old Lou had himself a high old time for a while there. Then one night he got into a motorcar with two ladies of the night and a case of bootleg hooch, and somebody drove the car off a cliff in Santa Monica (which is right on the Pacific Ocean for anyone who doesn’t know). Lou was the sole survivor, although he lost one of his legs during the accident. Therefore, in 1925, poor old one-legged Lou, while still a foul-mouthed, uncouth sort of fellow, has fallen on hard times. In fact, in SHAKEN SPIRITS, the Daisy book I’m writing now and in which he has a part, he’s living at the Odd Fellows Home of Christian Charity in Pasadena, California.

Doesn’t it just seem inevitable that Daisy and Lou should get together? It did to Mean Pete and me. Daisy and Sam break him out of the Odd Fellows Home, and Lou is now helping Sam figure out who’s trying to kill Daisy. I haven’t had this much fun writing a book in, literally, years.

So thank you, Peter Brandvold! You’re not as mean as you like people to think you are. Most of the time. Here’s a picture of Mean Pete and me when he drove through Roswell on his way to Arizona to get away from the Minnesota winter for a month or so (he lives in Minnesota).

For the record, if you’re of a mind to, you may pre-order SHAKEN SPIRITS, which will probably be published in October of this year (providing I have time to finish it. Editing cuts into writing time, dang it).

https://www.amazon.com/Shaken-Spirits-Daisy-Majesty-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07B6GRK4Y/ref=pd_sim_351_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=PDYX2DSEEM4TCVSE3KJD

In the meantime, if you want to read Daisy’s latest adventure, SPIRITS UNEARTHED, in which Daisy’s dachshund, Spike, finds a shoe with a foot in it at the cemetery and chaos ensues, please feel free to do so:

https://www.amazon.com/Spirits-Unearthed-Daisy-Majesty-Mystery-ebook/dp/B079CC4BTG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1527800436&sr=1-1&keywords=spirits+unearthed+alice+duncan

Now. Whatever should I give away at the end of June? Beats me. Oh, I know! I’ll give away some of Mercy Allcutt’s books. There will be no more Mercy books, by the way, until I can get the rights back to the last one. At any rate, I’ll give away a copy each of LOST AMONG THE ANGELS, FALLEN ANGELS, ANGELS OF MERCY and THANKSGIVING ANGELS. If you live in a country other than the USA, you’ll have to settle for winning an e-book, because sending books all over the world is too expensive for this little old crippled lady.

If you’d like to enter the contest, just send me an email (alice@aliceduncan.net) and give me your name and home address. If you’d like to be added to my mailing list, you may do so on my web site (http://aliceduncan.net/) or email me (you won’t be smothered in e-mails, because I only write one blog a month, and that’s an effort). If you’d like to be friends on Facebook, visit my page at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925.

Thank you!