Yesterday was the last day of the Mystery We Write blog tour. I had a great time and I hope you did too. I'd like to thank the fourteen authors who invited me to their blogs and I'd like to thank the many people who left comments on my blog and the blogs I visited. I'd also like to thank Anne K. Albert for organizing the tour. She did a fantastic job!
As promised, today is the day I announce the name of the person who won a signed copy of Unfinished Business. I put the names of everyone who left a comment on the various blogs where I was featured in a hat (actually it was a Tupperware bowl) and the name I pulled out was J.R. Lindermuth. John, I'll be contacting you via email to get your mailing address. Congratulations!
Participating in a blog tour is a lot of work but this tour was well worth every minute I spent writing posts, responding to comments and leaving comments of my own. I'm sorry to see it end.
In the past fifteen days, you've met some wonderful authors and read about their books. I hope you will order the novels that you were most interested in reading. And, remember, Christmas is just around the corner and there's no better gift than a book.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
"Death of a Perfect Man" by M.M. Gornell
Glad
to be visiting your blog today, Patricia. You’ve asked me to write about one of my
characters. I usually feel the closest to my latest protagonist and fictional
“friends” (all my books are standalones),
but Mitch Malone, Wendy Gager’s protagonist already grilled my dear Margot
Madison-Cross from Lies of Convenience
on her blog. And Marilyn Meredith asked me to interview one of my characters,
and I chose Neil Knight, a supporting character from Reticence of Ravens that I’ve become quite fond of.
In
thinking further about my characters, I realized I often slight intrepid Jada
Beaudine, the heroine in Death of a
Perfect Man, my second novel. So, I’m putting Jada in the spotlight for this
blog. Here’s a short synopsis of her adventure:
Jada Beaudine has lost her
husband Terry in a tragic and mysterious boating accident--and she badly needs
a change. She leaves her home in Puget Sound to get away from the horror, the
memories, and the relentless glare of publicity that surrounded her husband’s
death.
Alone, she drives south and
by the second evening finds herself taking a wrong turn in the stark Mojave
high desert of interior Southern California. While mesmerized by the
bigger-than-life beauty of a desert sunset, she nearly runs out of gas in the
middle of nowhere. Amid mounting
apprehension, she manages to find the odd “Red Rock Inn & CafĂ©,” a lost,
creepy old resort from some other place and time--where, Irina, a strange
emerald-eyed woman materializes and convinces her to stay the night.
She’ll check out early in
the morning and be on her way, right?
But by morning, events
unravel quickly and Jada finds herself pulled straight into the scene of a
bizarre murder. As she reluctantly tries to make sense of this murder, it’s
soon followed by yet another. And all the while, Jada is being followed by
people with varied, surprising, and even sinister agendas of their own.
Yes, she may have a knack
for solving murders—as psychic Irina seems to know—but in this off-kilter
scenario, Jada has her own powerful hunch that the next victim will be her. And
every time she tries to leave this otherworldly place, she finds that somehow
she can’t…
A
side note—Jada is a potter, the first victim is a potter, and I also dabble. I
wrote this novel while moving from Washington State and house-hunting in
Southern California. We (husband and two
dogs) were on the road a lot, and a particular
collection of structures on a particular
stretch of Highway 395/I-14 kept catching my eye—actually called out quite strongly to me—and Death of a Perfect Man
and Jada Beaudine were born.
To
your question, is my character a composite of people I know? Gosh, I sure hope not. If feels to me
like people-reality does go into my
brain, but what comes out in my stories—I
think and hope—is unconnected bits-and-pieces of reality melded into
“something” unique. For better or worse, the characters that appear are the
result of some kind of “fictional chemistry experiment.” I can’t point to one
character that I can identify as a particular person I’ve met or
known—including myself.
Thanks
so much, Patricia, it’s been great visiting with you today. Especially since
this is the last day of our tour, and I’m sort of melancholy about that; so I’m
glad I’m saying goodbye with you, a past tour-friend!
Madeline
(M.M.) Gornell has four published mystery novels—PSWA awarding winning Uncle Si’s Secret (2008); Death of a Perfect Man (2009); Eric
Hoffer Fiction finalist and Honorary Mention winner, the da Vinci Eye finalist,
and Montaigne Medalist finalist Reticence
of Ravens (2011); and PSWA award
winner and Hollywood Book Festival Honorary Mention Lies of Convenience (2012). Both Reticence of Ravens and Lies
of Convenience are Route 66 mysteries.
Madeline
is also a potter with a fondness for stoneware and reduction firing. She lives
with her husband and assorted canines in the Mojave Desert in a town on
internationally revered Route 66.
Madeline’s
books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and Smashwords, in
paper and e-book formats. You can visit her online at her website http://www.mmgornell.com , or her BLOG http://www.mmgornell.wordpress.com or email her directly at mmgornell@earthlink.net
Buster, Dobie, and Mugs (the latest) are each
drawing a name from comments for free copies of Lies of Convenience (or a M.M.
Gornell title of your choosing)
Buy
link for Lies of Convenience:
Sunday, December 9, 2012
I'm Important Too
Madison Johns
I’m Eleanor
Mason and while I do help out Agnes Barton with a little
investigating, I’m important. I mean who else would keep the old girl on track.
If not for me we would be knitting blankets for the residents at the nursing
home, not that it would be a bad thing, but Agnes hid all my knitting needles.
If not
for me Agnes would never have hooked up with her former boss and
secret crush Andrew Hart. You might call me a bit of a matchmaker. I’m also
the muscles of the operation, sort of like her bodyguard. I have been known as
quite the scrapper, but what with Agnes getting into trouble, she needs me.
If you
asked me how I changed during our case I’d have to say that I did what any
friend would do... I guess you’ll have to read Armed and Outrageous to
find out what happens.
Bio:
As a child, Madison Johns preferred to distance
herself from other children her age, and had been described as a dreamer. Even
as a small child, she remembers staying awake many a night fighting dragons,
whisked away to foreign lands, or meeting the man of her dreams.
She was a voracious reader of historical romance
in her teen years and has always wished to one day journey to England, France,
Ireland, and Scotland.
The writing bug bit her at the age of 44 and she
pounded out three books since that time. As the publishing climate changed she
took a risk and decided to self publish, first a collection of two horror short
stories geared for YA, Coffin Tales Season of Death.
Madison's caring nature had led her to work in
the healthcare field, where she was employed as a nursing care assistant at a
nursing home, and it was there that she was inspired to write her first
mystery, Armed and Outrageous, introducing amateur detective Agnes
Barton. The book depicts two elderly ladies digging up clues with enough laugh
out loud antics to make James Bond blush. During a free run on Amazon, Armed
and Outrageous went to the coveted position of number one and afterward, had
ranked on the top ten paid books for humor list.
For more information about Madison Johns:
Website http://madisonjohns.com
Facebook author page http://www.facebook.com/MadisonJohnsAuthor
Armed and Outrageous
Senior sleuth — Grandma Mazur meets Murder She Wrote — cozy
mystery.
Agnes Barton is not your typical senior citizen living in
Tadium, MI, on the shores of Lake Huron. She drives a red hot Mustang, shops at
Victoria's Secret, rankles local police officials, and has a knack for sticking
her nose where it doesn't belong.
What does a murder that happened forty-three years ago have
to do with missing tourist Jennifer Martin? Agnes makes it her personal mission
to find out, and she's not letting the fact she's seventy-two get in the way.
Butting heads with Sheriff Clem Peterson is something she's accustomed to, but
lately Clem seems to be acting even more strange, making Agnes wonder what he
may be hiding ala the Martin disappearance.
Agnes’ partner in crime, Eleanor Mason tags along, Watson to
her Holmes.
Together, they unearth clues. If only Eleanor would behave,
as although lovable, she has a knack for getting into trouble by tangling with
her rival, Dorothy Alton, or flirting with anyone—male or female—and gossiping!
She's incorrigible, but she does carry a Pink Lady revolver in her purse, one
that has proved useful at times.
Life for Agnes and Eleanor is shaken up when Agnes' former
boss and secret crush comes to Tadium. Before long, the lady sleuths have more
on their hands to contend with as goons roll into town and bullets begin to
fly.
Adult content.
Buy link
http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Outrageous-Barton-Mystery-ebook/dp/B007Z5Y30Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1353701402&sr=1-1&keywords=senior+sleuth
I'm giving away a free ebook for comments on all my blog stops.
I'm giving away a free ebook for comments on all my blog stops.
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