Filling the Stockings by Paty Jager

December 10, 2018November 27, 2018 ~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

I don’t know about other mystery writers, but Christmas for me is like plotting a great caper.

Nothing thrills me more than finding the perfect gift for a family member of friend. Then there comes the wrapping. It had to be as fabulous as the gift I purchased. I want the person receiving the gift to know by how it’s wrapped with love and excitement that this is something they are going to like.

And don’t get me started on finding all the little items that will fit in each family member’s stocking… I think about their favorite colors, animals, hobbies, and all the things I know about them and slowly accumulate my bag of goodies. Everyone gets the usual things like some chocolate and candy canes. I mean really, that’s a given in the stocking. Males get slightly different items than the females. As the holiday grows closer, I put each person’s stocking items in separate bags to make it easier to help Santa out while filling the stockings. 😉

When I was young, I’d shake and weigh every package under the tree that had my name on it. I’d sit for hours pondering what could be in the box. Part of the rush was hoping for things, you know you wouldn’t get, but could dream about.

At one point in my life, I was a horrible snoop. I’d unwrap my packages and others I couldn’t figure out and then wrap them back up. My mom became wise to that and started using a code so we didn’t know who the packages belonged to!

The anticipation of Christmas and what could be in the presents is what helped develop my love of a mystery. That and receiving the whole Nancy Drew collection of books.

If you celebrated Christmas with presents were you a snoop or someone who waited patiently for the time to arrive to unwrap your gifts? If you don’t celebrate Christmas with presents, what is something in your life that you waited for with great anticipation?

Whatever you celebrate this month, I wish you all a wonderful celebration and happy healthy New Year!

My latest audio book, Yuletide Slaying, book 7 in the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series, is a perfect listen for this time of year. You can find it at these audio book vendors or ask your local library to order a copy.

Yuletide Slaying

Family, Revenge, Murder

When Shandra Higheagle’s dog brings her a dead body in a sleigh full of presents, her world is turned upside down. The man is a John Doe and within twenty-four hours another body is found.

Detective Ryan Greer receives a call that has them both looking over their shoulders. A vengeful brother of a gang member who died in a gang war is out for Ryan’s blood. Shandra’s dreams and Ryan’s fellow officers may not be enough to keep them alive to share Christmas.

Audio Links:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/yuletide-slaying-shandra-higheagle-mystery-book-7-unabridged/id1441592155?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/251575/yuletide-slaying

Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/yuletide-slaying/356808

Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/389993251/Yuletide-Slaying

Playster: https://play.playster.com/audiobooks/1001800000000251575/yuletide-slaying-paty-jager

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Yuletide-Slaying-Shandra-Higheagle-Mystery/dp/B07JP1L8QD

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Yuletide-Slaying-Audiobook/B07JNKQNPC

What we are Thankful for.

November 29, 2018November 27, 2018 ~ patyjag

Several of the Ladies of Mystery authors sent paragraphs about what they are thankful for to be put on this 5th Thursday of the month post.

~Marilyn Meredith~

My family is at the top of the list. I have so many grands, great-grands and after Christmas, it’ll be 4 great-great grands, that I’ve quit trying to count them all.

They truly give me great joy—those I don’t get to see all the time keep in touch by email or Facebook. Three live in our home with us. They make us smile and laugh a lot.

Of course I’m thankful for having a comfortable home and living in America. And I’m thankful for the pleasure that being an author has given me.

Marilyn Meredith aka F.M. Meredith

Latest books:

A Cold Death, a Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery

Tangled Webs, a Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery

Visit me at http://fictionforyou.com/

Blog: https://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

~Amber Foxx~

I am grateful for New Mexico, for its open spaces and unique culture. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I have good friends in a community that thrives on art, eccentricity, diversity, and creativity. I’m in excellent health, for which I am more and more grateful as I get older. My network of supportive fellow writers and my readers who appreciate my unusual take on the mystery genre are reasons to give thanks. Also, I’m grateful to the authors of every book I’ve ever enjoyed, but especially Born to Run, which changed my running life dramatically for the better as well as being a true story well told. And I’m grateful to the teachers who taught me how to teach yoga and who still teach and inspire me, and to the students who honor me by taking my classes. The more I list, the longer the list wants to become. I’m grateful for my fingers as they type and for the invention of word-processing software. Grateful for this moment. For this breath. For you, the person reading this. Namaste.

Latest book: Mae Martin Mysteries Box Set Books 1-3

Visit me at: https://amberfoxxmysteries.com

~Paty Jager~

I am thankful for a husband who early in our marriage understood my need to write. Children and family who also take my writing as seriously as I do. I am also grateful to be able to live in a rural area and still be connected to my writer friends and readers through social media even though it gives me fits quite often. I enjoy our simple life, writing, reading, being with family and friends and sharing my imagination with others.

Latest book: Dangerous Dance: A Shandra Higheagle Mystery

Visit me at: http://www.patyjager.net

Blog: http://www.patyjager. blogspot.com

Guest Blogger – Eileen Watkins

November 24, 2018November 12, 2018 ~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

My Cat Groomer Mystery series evolved from a theme suggested by my publisher, but animals always have been a passion for me. As an only child, I grew up with pets instead of siblings, and related to them almost as brothers and sisters. I’ve never worked with animals professionally, but felt that with a little research I could step into the shoes of someone who did.

My amateur sleuth, Cassie McGlone, is in her late 20s when the series begins. Her psychology degree didn’t net her any jobs after college, so she took further training as a vet tech, an animal behaviorist and a cat groomer. Along the way, she learned that cats have different grooming and boarding needs from dogs. In the first book, The Persian Always Meows Twice, she has just set up an all-feline grooming and boarding business in the fictional rural/suburban town of Chadwick, N.J.

I’d read a few cozy mysteries featuring cats, usually pets who loitered on the fringes of things. They often had psychic links with their owners and provided clues to help solve crimes. In some books, cats communicated with other animals; they all seemed more aware than most humans of what was going on in their town, including people’s motives for murder.

I prefer to emphasize my sleuth’s realistic understanding of and compassion for animals, and how those traits compel her to investigate murders that involve her human clients. I also like to slip in lesser-known tips about cat care and behavior and to touch on some serious issues. I feel that Cassie’s work and the humans and felines she deals with can be interesting enough without any fantasy elements.

One of the things I enjoy most about writing cozies is the freedom to include a few laughs. My sense of humor is a bit dark, which works for murder mysteries, and I project that onto Cassie and her friends. When things get a little too weird or dangerous, I let someone crack a joke to lighten the mood.

I also like evolving the series. By now, Cassie has built up a solid circle of supporters including her assistant Sarah; her veterinarian boyfriend Mark; her over-protective mother Barbara; her best friend Dawn; Det. Angela Bonelli of the Chadwick police; faithful handyman Nick and his computer-genius son Dion; and members of the local shelter, Friend of Chadwick Animals (FOCA). In each book, I’ve tried to give one or two of these secondary characters larger roles than they’ve had so far. Cassie’s relationships with them also grow and deepen along the way.

In the first three books, Cassie stays pretty close to home (she lives above her shop). I worried about the series developing Cabot Cove Syndrome, with a ridiculous number of murders taking place in a supposedly “safe” small town. So by Book 4, Gone, Kitty, Gone, she’ll acquire a grooming van that lets her travel farther afield and get into a wider variety of scrapes.

Hope you’ll come along for the ride!

The Persian Always Meows Twice

A Cat Groomer Mystery

Cat lovers are thrilled to welcome an expert groomer to the picturesque town of Chadwick, N.J. But scratch below the surface, and unmasking a killer becomes a game of cat and mouse…

Professional cat grooming isn’t all fluff. When the fur starts flying, Cassie McGlone, owner of Cassie’s Comfy Cats, handles her feistiest four-legged clients with a caring touch and nerves of steel. While these qualities help keep her business purring, they also come in handy when she makes a house call to her best client, millionaire George DeLeuw, and discovers his murdered body next to his newly orphaned Persian, Harpo.

To help the local police find the killer, Cassie begins her own investigation. But no one, from George’s housekeeper to his vindictive ex-wife, is giving up clues. Not until Cassie is given permission to temporarily board Harpo does anyone show interest in the Persian’s well-being. Someone is desperate to get their paws on Harpo before the feline helps untangle a felony. Are there deadly truths that a cat whisperer like Cassie can coax out? She needs to tread lightly and remember that she gets one life, not nine!

The buy links for the book are:

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/31851

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Eileen+Watkins

Eileen Watkins specializes in mystery and suspense fiction. In 2017 she launched the Cat Groomer Mysteries, starting with The Persian Always Meows Twice, from Kensington Publishing. The Bengal Identity came out in spring of 2018 and Feral Attraction this fall. The Persian Always Meows Twice won the David G. Sasher Award for Best Mystery of 2017 at the Deadly Ink Mystery Conference, and received a Certificate of Excellence for 2017 from the Cat Writers’ Association, Inc. Eileen previously published eight novels through Amber Quill Press, most of them paranormal suspense, as “E. F. Watkins.”

Eileen is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Liberty States Fiction Writers and Sisters in Crime. She serves as publicist for Sisters in Crime Central Jersey and also for New Jersey’s annual Deadly Ink Mystery Conference. Eileen comes from a journalistic background, having written on art, architecture, interior design and home improvement for daily newspapers and major magazines. Besides these topics, her interests include the paranormal and spirituality as well as animal training and rescue. She is seldom without at least one cat in the house and pays regular visits to the nearest riding stable. Visit her web site at http://www.efwatkins.com.

Her website is www.efwatkins.com, and her Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/EileenWatkinsAuthor.

Killer Ideas by Paty Jager

November 12, 2018November 13, 2018 ~ patyjag

I was visiting with my brother this weekend and he told me I had to come visit him. He had discovered some great ways to murder someone at the new fish hatchery where he works.

Not that we think a lot a like or anything… 🙂 This is the same brother who cave me the inspiration that started my Shandra Higheagle Series. As a bronze sculptor, he had details about how some statues were put together that gave him an idea on how to conceal a murder weapon which he passed on to his lovely big sister who likes to write stories about killing people. LOL

How he works at an Indian fish hatchery which I can make fit into my new Gabriel Hawke series. You can bed as soon as things slow down around here with harvesting and company, we’ll take a trip to see all the great ways he’s found to hide a body or shorten a life. I know that sounds gruesome, but when you are constantly trying to find new and plausible ways to commit a murder that will stump your main character and your readers, you have to dig into every possibility.

For me a good murder mystery read is one where I’m interested in the method of murder as well as why it happened and by whom.

My first Gabriel Hawke book releasing in January has a unique twist to how the murdered victim is found.

Here is the blurb to Murder of Ravens to pique your interest.

The ancient Indian art of tracking is his greatest strength…

And also his biggest weakness.

Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Gabriel Hawke believes he’s chasing poachers. However, he comes upon a wildlife biologist standing over a body that is wearing a wolf tracking collar.

He uses master tracker skills taught to him by his Nez Perce grandfather to follow clues on the mountain. Paper trails and the whisper of rumors in the rural community where he works, draws Hawke to a conclusion that he finds bitter.

Arresting his brother-in-law ended his marriage, could solving this murder ruin a friendship?

Guest Blog Interview with Lois Winston

November 3, 2018September 27, 2018 ~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

lois-winston-med-res-file(1) Today we are interviewing USA Today award-winning and best selling author, Lois Winston. If you have checked out her Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com It’s a must. She has great stuff going on over there all the time.

And now the interview:

When did you start writing?

I wasn’t someone who always knew she wanted to grow up to become an author. I had other career goals. However, one night twenty-three years ago I had an exceptionally vivid dream. Over the next few nights the dream continued, unfolding like the chapters of a book. Since I rarely remember my dreams, this was quite unusual, and I decided to commit the dream to paper. The next thing I knew, I’d written 50,000 words. Ten years and many rewrites later, that story became the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, the second book I sold.

Have you always wanted to be a mystery writer?

No, I began my career as a romance writer, but my day job was as a craft and needlework designer for magazines, book publishers, and craft kit manufacturers. One day an editor mentioned to my agent that she was looking for a crafting mystery series. With my background, my agent thought I’d be the perfect person to write one.

Why do you write mystery?

Once I began writing mystery, I discovered I enjoyed writing mystery more than romance. After I wrote Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, I never looked back and have been writing mystery ever since.

I think this is partly due to genetics. My grandfather rose in the ranks to become captain of one of the largest east coast law enforcement departments in the twenties through the fifties, working out of the county prosecutor’s office. He was responsible for capturing quite a few murderers, bootleggers, and gangsters over his long career. I like to think there’s a part of him in me that steered me in the direction of writing mystery.

What kind of a mind do you think it takes to write mystery?

I think mystery writing takes a very analytical mind. You have to create a puzzle for the reader to solve, because that’s what mystery readers like to do. However, you can’t make it too easy for them. No author likes to hear that a reader figured out whodunit early in the book. You’ve got to come up with plausible red herrings that keep readers guessing.

How did you come up with the character Anastasia Pollock?

When I was asked to write a crafting mystery, I researched the sub-genre and discovered that all the crafting mysteries I came across involved a craft shop owner or crafter of one specific craft—quilting, knitting, scrapbooking, etc. I wanted to create a series that was a bit different. So I made Anastasia the crafts editor for a women’s magazine. I had freelanced for many craft and women’s magazines over the years and was familiar with the workings of magazine publishing. Giving Anastasia such a career enables me to feature a variety of crafts in my books.

I love the crafting aspect. What is your favorite craft?

I’m partial to needlecraft, especially counted cross stitch. I stitched my first sampler when I was in fifth grade for a class project on colonial America and eventually parlayed my love of needlework into a design career.

What is Anastasia’s favorite craft project? What is her favorite crafting mystery from her series? Why?

Hmm…I don’t know that Anastasia has ever mentioned which of her craft projects is her favorite. I know she was emotionally invested in the family scrapbook she put together for her deceased neighbor’s daughter in Scrapbook of Murder, but guilt had a lot to do with that.

As for Anastasia’s favorite mystery in the series, you have to understand that Anastasia is a reluctant amateur sleuth. She’s never forgiven me for turning her world upside-down by killing off her husband before the start of the first book and revealing he was a closet gambler who left her and her kids in debt greater than the GNP of your average Third World nation. She’s not the kind of sleuth who enjoys sticking her nose in other people’s business, but I’ve given her no choice. If pressed, she’d probably admit her favorite book is the one in which she decides she’s spent enough time grieving Dead Louse of a Spouse and moves on, but I won’t say when this occurs in the series.

What’s new for you on the horizon?

Once I finish up my blog tour for the release of Drop Dead Ornaments, the seventh book in the series, I’ll begin work on Anastasia’s next adventure. Right now I’m giving both of us a break from each other, something I’m sure she greatly appreciates.

Drop Dead Ornaments

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 7

Anastasia Pollack’s son Alex is dating Sophie Lambert, the new kid in town. For their community service project, the high school seniors have chosen to raise money for the county food bank. Anastasia taps her craft industry contacts to donate materials for the students to make Christmas ornaments they’ll sell at the town’s annual Holiday Crafts Fair.

At the fair Anastasia meets Sophie’s father, Shane Lambert, who strikes her as a man with secrets. She also notices a woman eavesdropping on their conversation. Later that evening when the woman turns up dead, Sophie’s father is arrested for her murder.

Alex and Sophie beg Anastasia to find the real killer, but Anastasia has had her fill of dead bodies. She’s also not convinced of Shane’s innocence. Besides, she’s promised younger son Nick she’ll stop risking her life. But how can she say no to Alex?

Buy Links

Amazon https://amzn.to/2MBo1xS

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/drop-dead-ornaments

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/drop-dead-ornaments/id1431548050?mt=11

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/drop-dead-ornaments-lois-winston/1129345148?ean=2940161937181

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Website: www.loiswinston.com

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/722763.Lois_Winston

Newsletter sign-up: https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z1z1u5

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-winston