Guest Author Marianne Jones

June 27, 2015June 4, 2015 ~ patyjag ~ 1 Comment

Sisters in Crime (or The Birth of a Murder Mystery)

I blame my sister. For years she has been a huge mystery fan, especially of Agatha Christie and the various British detective series’ on television. I had been pursuing the literary life since childhood, and had published a mixed bag of poetry, dramas, short fiction, newspaper and magazine articles, and children’s books. Yet I had never considered attempting a murder mystery.

And then my sister Karen said to me one day, “You should write a murder mystery set in Thunder Bay.”

Thunder Bay, Ontario, our home town, is a small city in the center of Canada, nestled at the head of Lake Superior. It’s set in the midst of some of the loveliest natural beauty you’ll ever see, but because it is geographically isolated, most people are unaware of it. Those that are aware tend to ignore it. Karen thought that made it the ideal location for a good whodunit.

At first I dismissed the idea. But Karen is nothing if not persistent. Finally, I relented enough to say, “If you come up with an idea, I’ll write it.”

Of course, you know what happened. She called my bluff. She gave me a story idea loosely based on a disastrous women’s retreat she had attended. As she described the unfortunate event, I began to visualize my protagonists, middle-aged church ladies Margaret and Louise in the middle of it. At that point I was hooked, and The Serenity Stone Murder was conceived.

Sometimes I hit a snag with the story, and would call on Karen and her daughter Kirsti for advice. Over nachos and ciders at our favourite Thunder Bay restaurant, (appropriately called The Madhouse), the three of us partners in crime plotted together.

It was especially fun to write about Thunder Bay and the surrounding area, with its familiar landmarks. The fictional town of Jackpine, where my intrepid heroines reside, was modelled on any number of the small towns in Northwestern Ontario. Having lived in one of those small towns for five years, I knew well the winter longings of their residents to come to the “big city” of Thunder Bay for shopping and entertainment.

Writing Cover The Serenity Stone Murder has been a fun ride. Happily, Stacey Voss, editor and owner of Split Tree Publishing, thought it was a great read as well. And readers from as far away as Kenya and New Zealand, have been enjoying it as well! So now there is no stopping Margaret and Louise. They’re already embarking on their next adventure—in the Thunder Bay region, of course!

The Serenity Stone Murder

What are two nice middle-aged church ladies doing at a New Age goddess conference? And what does it have to do with the mysterious death of Thunder Bay’s casino manager? Will Mary Carlisle, organist at St. Stephen’s Church, capture the heart of Thomas Greenfield, church gardener?

Find out the answers to these, and other burning questions in The Serenity Stone Murder, a kinder, gentler murder mystery set in Thunder Bay, Ontario, home of the Sleeping Giant, the Hoito Restaurant, and the world-famous Persion cinnamon bun. For those who like their mysteries served up with a side dish of humour.

Buy links: http://www.amazon.com/Serenity-Stone-Murder-Marianne-Jones-ebook/dp/B00ODELIZA

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-serenity-stone-murder-marianne-jones/1120454547?ean=9780981251684

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/the-serenity-stone-murder/id928612148?mt=11

https://store.kobobooks.com/ebook/the-serenity-stone-murder

Writer Bio

Marianne Jones is a retired teacher from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, Canadian Living, The Globe and Mail, and numerous literary and denominational publications. Her books include The Land of Mogan, a children’s fantasy novel, Here, on the Ground, an award-winning collection of poetry, Great- Grandma’s Gifts, a picture book for preschool and early elementary, and The Serenity Stone Murder, a cozy mystery set in Thunder Bay.

Marianne has been named International Poet Laureate by Utmost Christian Writers. Her poetry has won numerous awards, and some of them are permanently installed at Prince Arthur’s Landing at Marina Park in Thunder Bay.

Social media links:

Facebook Author Page https://www.facebook.com/MarianneJonesAuthor

Twitter https://www.twitter.com/MarianneJones@Mariann36863659

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/mariannejones

Google+ https://mail.google.com/jonesmarianne2@gmail.com

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/marianne jones

Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/author/jonesmarianne

Website https://www.mariannejones.ca

Location, Location, Location by Carole Sojka

June 18, 2015 ~ patyjag ~ 5 Comments

Readers often ask me if I’ve ever lived in Florida, and when I say I haven’t, they ask, logically, I suppose, “Then why are your mysteries set there?” But I’m afraid I don’t really know the answer. Because I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer who doesn’t outline and who lets the characters dictate the course of the story, Florida as a setting just kind of happened.

My friend of longest duration−−we met as babies−−lives in the area where A REASON TO KILL is set, and I’ve visited her often over the years. On my trips we went to the usual tourist sites, and I found attractions that found their way into my imagination and then into my books.

My original idea for the story centered around the houses of refuge built by the U.S. government in the late nineteenth century. The barrier islands along the Florida coast were the scene of many shipwrecks from the years when the Spaniards sailed ships back to Europe loaded with treasure until today. These islands had no fresh water, no food, no inhabitants, and until recently, no means of communication with the outside world. Surviving a shipwreck didn’t mean the sailors would live. Stranded, they died of thirst and starvation before they could be rescued.

Starting in 1876, the U.S. government built ten houses of refuge along the barrier islands to provide shelter, food and water to men shipwrecked and stranded on these islands until they could be rescued. The Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge is the last remaining one, and my first idea for a novel was centered on the wife of a keeper of the house, a lonely woman isolated with her husband, who falls in love with a shipwrecked sailor.

That idea didn’t make it past a few draft chapters, but still I liked the house of refuge setting. Mara, my alcoholic character and the one suspected of murder in A REASON TO KILL, was my original protagonist, and she was closely tied to the Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge. But I felt more comfortable with a police detective who had the authority to ask questions and demand answers rather than an amateur sleuth, so I created Andi Battaglia, the detective in the Burgess Beach Police Department. I kept Mara and her problem with alcohol in the story, but she became a more minor character. Thus are settings and stories born.

Besides the houses of refuge, I also was interested in the groups who observed and protected the endangered loggerhead turtles as they came ashore along the coast to lay their eggs. This became the setting for the poisoning of Max Denman in A REASON TO KILL.

Once I set the first book in Burgess Beach, my pseudonym for the real town of Jensen Beach, when I wrote the second book, SO MANY REASONS TO DIE, of course it was also set in Florida. This time my range expanded south to Miami and South Beach and north to Fort Pierce. The area, by the way, was christened the Treasure Coast because of the 1961 discovery of treasure from, among other shipwrecks, the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet, lost in a hurricane near the Sebastian Inlet.

Perhaps Andi and Greg will leave Burgess Beach in the third book—now in progress—but I can’t tell you that yet because I’m only the writer. It’s up to the characters to decide.

A REASON TO KI Cover__8x5 LL is the first in the series. When nine strangers convene on a Florida beach to observe and protect the endangered loggerhead turtles nesting there, one dies of poison and another turns up dead soon after. It’s up to Andi Battaglia, a rookie detective in the Burgess Beach Police Department, to find out who among the remaining wildlife supporters has a reason to kill.

When in SO MANY REASONS TO DIE, Andi’s police partner, Greg Lamont, walks onto the murder scene of his ex-lover, he and Andi find themselves tangling with dangerous drug dealers amid the sizzling nightclubs of Miami’s South Beach.

See you all next month.

Guest Author- Zanna MacKenzie

June 13, 2015June 8, 2015 ~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Please Welcome British mystery author, Zanna MacKenzie.

I never thought the way I spent some of my school holidays as a child would be the inspiration for a crime scene in a novel.

When the summer rolled around and school broke up for six wonderful weeks I’d eagerly await the occasional days when I would get to accompany my dad to work. Before he retired, my dad was a contract haulier for a local quarry. He drove a 32 tonne truck. It was a monster of a vehicle. I had to be lifted up to clamber onto the edge of the wheel arch and into the cab. In the days before seatbelts and health and safety I was allowed to sit on the 2 seats on the passenger side of the cab unencumbered or even perch on the centre console (the engine manifold) next to the driver’s seat.

We would pick up and deliver huge quantities of sand and various types of stone and gravel for road building and construction. Being something of a tomboy as a child I loved all the noise and dust. I’d watch in awe and excitement as huge dumper trucks cruised past, so large they dwarfed my dad’s lorry. I can still remember sitting in the lorry as tonnes of stone cascaded into the back of it from the imposing-looking grey metal buildings where the stone whizzed around on conveyor belts. There was also a scarily (but aptly) named crusher which took the big-as-a-car sized chunks of rock and reduced them to gravel size.

At the end of the day I would dash up the steep bank which bordered the quarry as my dad and I walked home. It was just a ten minute stroll if we cut across the woods, through the meadow and hopped over the stepping stones in the stream. I would arrive home scruffy, exhausted but happy.

As a child it never occurred to me how dangerous an environment quarries were. As an adult when I felt the urge to switch from writing romantic comedies to cozy mysteries, I knew straight away where the first crime investigation was going to take place – a quarry!

In book one of my Amber Reed Mystery series, Amber – a barmaid and newspaper admin assistant who makes up horoscopes for the local paper – finds herself in a quarry in the middle of the night with handsome special agent Charlie as they try to find out just what is going on at Set In Stone. Amber gets caught up in the murder investigation because the victim is the brother of her ex- boyfriend Ennis. Now a movie star, Ennis pleads with Amber to help out by keeping an eye on special agent Charlie Huxton, sent by the Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency to catch the killer. Ennis, harassed by paparazzi, is paranoid Charlie might be feeding news on the story to the media so he wants Amber to keep a close eye on the CCIA agent. Whilst trying to help out her ex Amber’s life gets very complicated indeed…

And The Earth Moved (Amber Reed Mystery Book One)

A new cozy mystery series with oodles of fun, romance and the smart, sassy special agents of the CCIA – otherwise known as the Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency.

BOOK BLURB:

Amber wished her life was more exciting – then, with one phone call, her world turned upside down.

Now she’s got to cope with:

Her ex-boyfriend from university (who’s now a heartthrob movie star) desperately needing her help.

Getting herself caught up in the middle of a celebrity murder investigation.

Having to try and keep tabs on hunky special agent Charlie who’s in town to catch the killer – and convince him she can help him with the case.

Maybe her life just got too exciting….

Find this book on Amazon: http://getbook.at/AndTheEarthMoved

Extract:

“What kind of excitement are Gemini’s going to have this week?” I ponder, tapping my fingers against the keyboard.

I’m a third of the way through making up the horoscopes for this week’s local paper. Aries are going to get news of a fantastic job opportunity. Capricorns will receive some kind of windfall. But what about Gemini? I always like to give my Madam Zamber horoscope column an upbeat feel – after all, nobody reads their star signs to get depressed right?

My fingers hover over the computer keys as I debate on Gemini’s fate. I’m a Gemini so this one better be especially good; it’s been a rough week.

My phone, nestled somewhere in the depths of my bag, starts playing a chart tune at full volume. When I eventually find it I check the caller display and see Ennis’ name.

Ennis and I haven’t spoken for a while but I know he came home last week after he’d finished working on his latest movie, he sent me a text. He probably wants to meet for a coffee and a catch up. It’s strange; to me Ennis is, well, just Ennis. I don’t think of him as a heartthrob actor, just my ex, my university boyfriend, who I meet up with for a chat whenever he’s in Palstone.

Time for a little break from the horoscopes. I hit the answer button.

“Hi, how’s things?” I ask, leaning back in my chair.

There’s nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

“Ennis?” I sit up, instantly concerned. “Are you there? Is something wrong?”

His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him. “Joel’s dead,” he says.

“What?” I shout, leaping to my feet and earning myself a look of curiosity from the other two members of staff at The Palstone Courier. I lower my voice. “How? What happened?”

“We don’t know yet,” he replies, his voice heavy with emotion. “But the police are saying he died in suspicious circumstances.”

I gulp. “You mean murder?”

“Look, Amber can you please come over?” Ennis says. “Now? Please? I need to ask you a huge favour.”

I grab my jacket and bag. “On my way.”

Author bio:

Zanna Mackenzie lives in the UK on the Derbyshire/Leicestershire border with her husband, 4 dogs, a vegetable patch that’s home to far too many weeds and an ever expanding library of books waiting to be read.

Being a freelance writer and editor of business publications is her ‘day job’ but, at every opportunity, she can be found scribbling down notes on scenes for whatever novel she’s working on. She loves it when the characters in her novels take on minds of their own and start deviating from the original plot!

Find out more about Zanna on her blog http://www.zannamackenzie.blogspot.co.uk, on Twitter via @ZannaMacKenzie or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/zanna.mackenzie

Find out more about Zanna at:

www.zannamackenzie.blogspot.co.uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZannaMacKenzie

Facebook: www.facebook.com/zanna.mackenzie

Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/10703273-zanna-mackenzie

Amazon Author Page – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zanna-Mackenzie/e/B00BKY1A18/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Pinterest: http://uk.pinterest.com/zannamac/

Life Would Be Boring Without Mystery by Paty Jager #mystery #cozymystery

June 8, 2015June 8, 2015 ~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

The creaking door, missing papers, an unusual scent hanging in the air…Mystery is all around us every day of our lives. It could be the phone call you answered to find no one there. The new cat hanging out in your back yard. Or something that’s gone missing at work. Mystery is what keeps life interesting and always testing our brain.

Life would be boring without mystery.

Growing up I was an avid reader and my favorite books were those that had a bit of mystery to them. In junior high I devoured the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series. Even the Walter Farley books I read had mystery to them even though I initially picked up the books for the horses.

When I first started writing historical westerns I couldn’t keep the mystery out of the stories. It was building the mystery in the story rather than the romance that made the plotting interesting to me. I recently had a conversation with the editor who published my first westerns. When I told her I was writing mysteries and loving it, she said, “I always thought your voice leaned toward mysteries.” That kind of validated my decision to write mysteries.

My other interest is Native American cultures, specifically, the Nez Perce. I grew up in Wallowa County, the area where the Chief Joseph band or Lake Nimiipuu as they call themselves, summered and wintered. Of course this was way before I lived in Wallowa County, but they were always on my mind growing up. I found it unfortunate that the only time the Nez Perce were allowed in the county was during Chief Joeseph Days a rodeo weekend where the locals benefited from the history of the county yet the people who lived there before them it was the only weekend they were allowed to return.

A lot has changed in the thirty years since I moved away. The Nez Perce have purchased land in the county. They have a yearly powwow, Tamkaliks, the weekend before Chief Joseph Days, and they have put up interpretive centers as well as are now monitoring the salmon runs in the county. I’m happy they are having voices into how the county is moving forward.

My interest in the Nez Perce and my love of mystery is combined into the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series. Shandra Higheagle is a half Nez Perce artistic potter. Her father was a rodeo bareback bronc rider. He was killed in a rodeo accident when she was four. Her mother remarried and Shandra was told to keep her Native American heritage a secret. However, her paternal grandmother a shaman in the Nez Perce Seven Drums society made sure Shandra was drawn back to her roots.

The first book, Double Duplicity, starts with Shandra returning from her grandmother’s funeral. Shandra finds a murdered art gallery owner after seeing her best friend, also an art gallery owner, hurrying across the street. When Shandra is dropped as a suspect, she begins digging to find the real killer before her friend becomes the scapegoat. Her grandmother comes to her in dreams, directing her to clues that help Shandra and a detective find the real murderer.

Double Duplicity: A Shandra Higheagle Mystery

Book one of the Shandra Higheagle Native American Mystery Series

Dreams…Visions…Murder

On the eve of the biggest art event at Huckleberry Mountain Resort, potter Shandra Higheagle finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. She’s ruled out as a suspect, but now it’s up to her to prove the friend she witnessed fleeing the scene was just as innocent. With help from her recently deceased Nez Perce grandmother, Shandra becomes more confused than ever but just as determined to discover the truth.

Detective Ryan Greer prides himself on solving crimes and refuses to ignore a single clue, including Shandra Higheagle’s visions. While Shandra is hesitant to trust her dreams, Ryan believes in them and believes in her.

Can the pair uncover enough clues for Ryan to make an arrest before one of them becomes the next victim?

Buy Links:

Windtree Press http://windtreepress.com/portfolio/double-duplicity/

Amazon http://authl.it/2ng

Kobo http://store.kobobooks.com/search?Query=Double+Duplicity

Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/double-duplicity-paty-jager/1120790322

Apple https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id942249867

Paty’s contacts:

www.patyjager.net

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Meet Carole Sojka

May 21, 2015May 21, 2015 ~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

Mysterious Ladies are mysterious in many different ways. Today I’m going to tell you something about the life that led to my becoming one.

I grew up in New York City, went to Queens College there, and met my husband on a blind date. Do those still exist? Boris was exciting to me: newly discharged from the Navy, about to enter college, he read almost as much as I did, and had a taste for adventure and travel. He’d been stationed in San Diego and had lived off-duty with a friend who was a Formula One race car driver. That was the source of one of his first pronouncements: “When I get my engineering degree, I’m going back to California.” So I knew the future—and it sounded like fun. So after we married and he graduated, we moved to California—first to San Francisco, later to Southern California.

Together we spent two years in Somalia with the Peace Corps followed by six months traveling through North Africa and Europe. The Peace Corps was a great adventure for us at a time of hope in many newly independent African countries. I taught English as a second language to students who already spoke three or four languages, while I spoke only English and some “kitchen Italian” I learned from Hassan, our houseboy.

Our house in a beautiful town on the Indian Ocean had so many holes between the floor boards that Hassan cleaned by pouring buckets of water over the floor. We made friends with the town officials: the Harbor Master; the headmasters of the two local schools; the Police Chief, a large man with two wives and several stainless steel teeth; Italian teachers; and the District Commissioner, from whom everyone concealed their drinking of alcohol, forbidden to them as Muslims.

Somali children, knowing their market, dragged wild animals through town, sure we would buy them just to end their suffering. We had baboons, including Gina who thought I was her mother, and later became my rival for male attention; blue-skinned monkeys named Daniel and Nutmeg; and a beloved cheetah. One day I even bought a leopard, thinking it was a serval. Fortunately, the leopard escaped, and no leopard-related injuries were reported after he vanished.

Then we returned home to real life: adopting a baby boy we named Mark and earning a master’s degree in judicial administration that led to a career as the administrator in a public law office. We also rediscovered our love of traveling and over the years have visited thirty or more countries on every continent except the Antarctic—no museums there, I’m told.

I had avoided fiction writing ever since I overheard unkind criticism of an early short story, but I regained my courage, joined a writing group, found a terrific group leader and wrote a lot of short stories, becoming inured to rejection. I most liked writing mysteries of the kind I like to read: traditional whodunits with multiple suspects.

My first novel, A REASON TO KILL, was published in October 2014, and my second SO MANY REASONS TO DIE, just came out in April. Both are set in Florida—don’t ask—and feature a pair of detectives in a small town on Florida’s Treasure Coast.

I’m on the Board of Sisters in Crime/LA, the largest chapter of Sisters in Crime/National, a great group and very supportive of new writers. In June we’ll hold our every-two-year-CALIFORNIA CRIME WRITERS CONFERENCE, which is sold out. It should be a blast!