The Mystery of Love

Lawrence, one of the characters in my Malone mystery series, is a true romantic. He’s sixty-two years old and, so far, he’s been unlucky in love. But, despite some misguided attempts, he’s determined to find the woman of his dreams. Will Lawrence find love?

From Mixed Messages:

Then Ann saw it: a white envelope with her name and address typed on it. As usual, it had no stamp and no return address. She opened the flap of the envelope and pulled out the sheet of white paper. She sighed. Another love poem from Lawrence, she thought. She quickly unfolded the paper and read the short poem.

“I see in your face

such beauty, such grace.

My heart wants you so.

I need you to know.”

From Unfinished Business:

Lawrence untied the ribbon and read a couple of the letters. The ink was so faint that he had to strain to read them. In the letters, his great-grandmother wrote about her daily life and what was going on in the lives of their children and the people they knew but, as he read the last paragraph of the second letter, a tear formed in the corner of his eye. 

“It will not be Christmas this year without you, my love. As I prepare dinner for our children and try to achieve some festivity for their sakes, in my heart, I see you on the battlefield, serving our great cause. You are so brave! I pray for your safe return and that we will spend our next Christmas together. I miss you and love you with every fiber of my being. With all my love, Frieda.”

His eyes were getting heavy; it was time to go to bed. He gently placed the uniform, saber and stack of letters back in the trunk and closed the lid. Oh, what I wouldn’t give, he thought, to have a woman who loved me “with every fiber of my being.” Maybe I will; maybe Angie and I will get together and fall in love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Mystery Author of the Month, Chris Redding

I’d like to welcome mystery author, Chris Redding.

Patricia: Chris, where did you grow up? Did your childhood contribute to your desire to be a writer? 
Chris: I grew up in an affluent suburb of Philadelphia. We weren’t affluent, but lots of others were. My mother was mentally ill, so yes I think most artists have dysfunction in their past. Yes, my childhood indeed let me to be a writer.

Patricia: Where do you live now? Do you use that locale for settings in your novels?

Chris: I live in New Jersey and I use the area I live in in most of my novels. I make them fictional places so I can rearrange things how I like them.

Patricia: What inspired you to write your most recent novel?

Chris: Incendiary was the most recently published.  Someone once had the idea for a story where the arsonist is a police photographer.  If there is a series of arsons, the cops take pictures of the crowds to see if there is anyone they can spot in all the pictures. If the police photographer is the arsonist, he wouldn’t be in the picture. Incendiary is my take on it.

Patricia: When did you “know” that you wanted to be a writer?

Chris: In fifth grade, we had to write a short story. I wrote about an old lady with cats. I received an “A” and was allowed to read it in front of the class. When I was done the whole class looked at me in a different light. Suddenly I wasn’t the bespectacled, buck toothed socially awkward.  I had moved them. That was powerful.

Patricia: Name three of your favorite authors in the mystery/suspense genre. What makes them your favorites?

Chris: Lisa Gardner because she just writes great stuff. And she’s a lovely person.

Stephanie Bond because she writes with humor. I once heard her speak and she has a lot of wisdom to give new writers.

Anyone who writes funny cozy mysteries. I love them. 

Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two sons, one dog and three rabbits. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. When she isn’t writing, she works for her local hospital. You can find her at: http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com and www.chrisreddingauthor.com. Her books are filled with romance, suspense and thrills.

 A View to a Kilt

Omnilit: http://tinyurl.com/cr-vtak-omni

Smashwords: http://tinyurl.com/cr-vtak-Smash

Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/44sbydm

Nook Store: http://tinyurl.com/3tlk2nh

Blonde Demolition

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/7olwvhs

Amazon in print: http://tinyurl.com/87qdaam

Incendiary

Paperback http://tinyurl.com/9k62wze

e-book http://tinyurl.com/9ty32j6

Mystery of the Month

Grilled, Chilled and Killed by Lesley A. Diehl

This is the second in the Big Lake Mysteries (the first was Dumpster Dying) featuring Emily Rhodes, retired preschool teacher and bartender turned amateur snoop.

It seems as if Emily is destined to discover dead bodies.  This time she finds one of the contestants at the local barbeque cook-off dead and covered in barbeque sauce in a beer cooler.  She should be used to stumbling onto corpses by now and the question of who killed the guy should pique her curiosity, but Emily decides to let Detective Lewis handle this one, at least until she figures his theory of who did the deed is wrong, wrong, wrong.  Lewis’ denigration of Emily’s speculations is condescending enough to stimulate her dormant snooping skills.  As the two of them go on their separate paths to find the killer, Lewis’ old partner, Toby the dirty, tobacco-spitting cop interferes in the investigation leaving Lewis with the wrong man in jail. Killers, bootleggers, barbeque and feral pigs—it’s a lethal game of hide and seek in the Florida swamp.

Buy links:

Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/begadns

Oak Tree Press: http://OakTreeBooks.com/Shop%20OTP.htm

Bio:

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 author of several short stories and several mystery series: the microbrewing mystery series set in the Butternut Valley (A Deadly Draught and Poisoned Pairings) and a rural Florida series, Dumpster Dying and Grilled, Killed and Chilled (to be released late in 2012).  She recently signed a three-book deal with Camel Press for The Consignment Shop Murders including A Secondhand Murder.  For something more heavenly, try her mystery Angel Sleuth.  Several of her short stories have been published by Untreedreads including one (Murder with All the Trimmings) in the original Thanksgiving anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry and another (Mashed in the Potatoes) in the second anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Second Helping.  She invites readers to visit her on her blog and website.

 

Website: www.lesleydiehl.com and blog  http://anotherdraught.blogspot.com