New Release: What Are The Odds?

What are the odds of buying a house with a history to turn into a bed and breakfast, and discovering it’s the house that just keeps giving - and giving, and giving? Sandi Webster’s parents, Livvie and Frank, are about to find out.

Sandi and her partner, Pete Goldberg, have finally taken the leap and married. It’s an interesting wedding, and things don’t go quite as planned – neither does the honeymoon. Instead of going on a trip, they drive out to her parents’ recently purchased house in the Arizona desert to help begin renovations, where they discover there’s more to the home than meets the eye.

Stanley Hawks and his new wife, Felicity, go along for the ride and Stanley has to face some of his worst fears. The desert hides all kinds of critters and bugs, and they aren’t necessarily cute little lady bugs.

A triple murder and suicide occurred in the house about twenty years ago. Upon Sandi’s arrival a blonde woman starts dogging her steps. Who is she and why can’t Sandi, a private investigator, identify her? How does the intruder disappear so easily, and what does she want? Why doesn’t anyone else see the blonde?

Sandi doesn’t believe in ghosts. Will she be proven wrong? There are plenty of questions with answers just waiting to be found.

Marja McGraw worked in both criminal and civil law enforcement for several years in California. She eventually relocated to Northern Nevada where she worked in the transportation field.  She also lived in Oregon where she worked for a County Sheriff’s Office and owned her own business, a Tea Room/Antique Store. Her next stop was Wasilla, Alaska. The draw to Northern Nevada was strong, and she eventually returned.

She wrote a weekly column for a small newspaper in No. Nevada and she was the editor for the Sisters in Crime Internet Newsletter for a year and a half.

She writes two series, The Sandi Webster Mysteries and The Bogey Man Mysteries, and  says that each of her mysteries contains a little humor, a little romance and a little murder, and that her books concentrate on the characters and solving the crime rather than the crime itself.

Website:          http://www.marjamcgraw.com/

Blog:               http://marjamcgraw.blogspot.com/

Purchase:         http://tinyurl.com/m8s6uux

New Release: Dead in the Water

Sabal Bay consignment shop owner Eve Appel is fit to be tied--family tied. Just as she is basking in the warmth of a renewed relationship with her long-lost Uncle Winston, disaster strikes. He and his less welcome companion, Darlene, have come for a visit, and their request to participate in one of rural Florida's most popular tourist activities, an airboat ride through the swamps, ends with her uncle being shot in the head. The killing looks suspiciously like a mob hit.

Turns out Uncle Winston was "connected." Was he simply a bag man, or something more? Who is Darlene, really, and how did Winston acquire three Russian stepchildren, one of whom has been kidnapped by yet another mob family--this one Russian? Winston claimed to prize family above all else, but what "family" was he talking about: his niece Eve, his relations by marriage, or his mobster employers?

When Eve's best friend Madeleine is kidnapped, Eve doesn't know where to turn. Her mob-boss buddy Nappi Napolitani? Her new Miccosukee Indian friend, the long, lean, and luscious Sammy Egret? Her ex-husband, Jerry, who is in Nappi's employ? With two mob families on her tail and her boyfriend, PI Alex Montgomery, mostly away on assignment, Eve has to act fast. Before whoever wrecked her car and left her to the mercy of the alligators finishes the job they started.

Dead in the Water is the second book in the Eve Appel Mystery series, which began with A Secondhand Murder.

Buy link:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Lesley%20A.%20Diehl&sprefix=Lesley+A.+D%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3ALesley%20A.%20Diehl 

Lesley A. Diehl

Lesley retired from her life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed her country roots by moving to a small cottage in the Butternut River Valley in upstate New York.  In the winter she migrates to old Florida—cowboys, scrub palmetto, and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office, and gators make golf a contact sport.  Back north, the shy ghost inhabiting the cottage serves as her literary muse.  When not writing, she gardens, cooks and renovates the 1874 cottage with the help of her husband, two cats and, of course, Fred the ghost, who gives artistic direction to their work.

She is the author of a number of mystery series and mysteries as well as short stories.  Dead in the Water follows the first book in the Eve Appel mystery series, A Secondhand Murder.  

Visit her on her website:  www.lesleyadiehl.com

What's next?

I love writing my Malone mystery series and working on a new book for the series is always exciting. Plotting the story line, choosing the setting and showing how my characters change and grow from one book to the next is a welcome challenge.  My characters aren’t the only ones who grow with each book though. As a writer, I learn new things about writing every day and I constantly work to improve my craft. My goal is to make each book better than the one before it.

My current WIP (work in progress) will be the fourth novel in my series. In it, Ann Malone Kern, the main character, and her two young children, Danielle and Davey, leave Cincinnati and fly to South Carolina for a much needed vacation. Ann’s older sister, Marnie, who lives in Mt. Pleasant, has rented a condo on Fripp Island for the four of them. 

I chose Fripp Island because, having visited there, I felt it had the “atmosphere” for the story I’m telling.  It's very important to me to "know" a place if I'm going to write about it. So, in addition to spending time on Fripp and taking lots of pictures, I’ve supplemented my knowledge of the island with research. Yes, my books are fiction but I want them to be accurate too. 

In this fourth book, Ann wants nothing more than to gaze at the ocean and to relax. I plan to give her a little time to do that but I’m also placing her in the middle of solving a murder. Sorry, Ann, maybe next time. Or, maybe not. After all, I do write mysteries.