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Showing posts with label Book Blast. Show all posts
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Saturday, November 24, 2018
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Book Blast - Pistols and Petticoats by Erika Janik
Pistols and Petticoats
175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction
by Erika Janik
March 2nd 2017 Book Blast
Synopsis:
A lively exploration of the struggles faced by women in law enforcement and mystery fiction for the past 175 years
In 1910, Alice Wells took the oath to join the all-male Los Angeles Police Department. She wore no uniform, carried no weapon, and kept her badge stuffed in her pocketbook. She wasn’t the first or only policewoman, but she became the movement’s most visible voice.Police work from its very beginning was considered a male domain, far too dangerous and rough for a respectable woman to even contemplate doing, much less take on as a profession. A policewoman worked outside the home, walking dangerous city streets late at night to confront burglars, drunks, scam artists, and prostitutes. To solve crimes, she observed, collected evidence, and used reason and logic—traits typically associated with men. And most controversially of all, she had a purpose separate from her husband, children, and home. Women who donned the badge faced harassment and discrimination. It would take more than seventy years for women to enter the force as full-fledged officers.
Yet within the covers of popular fiction, women not only wrote mysteries but also created female characters that handily solved crimes. Smart, independent, and courageous, these nineteenth- and early twentieth-century female sleuths (including a healthy number created by male writers) set the stage for Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, as well as TV detectives such as Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison and Law and Order’s Olivia Benson. The authors were not amateurs dabbling in detection but professional writers who helped define the genre and competed with men, often to greater success.
Pistols and Petticoats tells the story of women’s very early place in crime fiction and their public crusade to transform policing. Whether real or fictional, investigating women were nearly always at odds with society. Most women refused to let that stop them, paving the way to a modern professional life for women on the force and in popular culture.
Book Details:
Genre: Mystery, NonFiction, History
Published by: Beacon Press
Publication Date: February 28th 2017 (1st Published April 26th 2016)
Number of Pages: 248
ISBN: 0807039381 (ISBN13: 9780807039380)
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
With high heels clicking across the hardwood floors, the diminutive woman from Chicago strode into the headquarters of the New York City police. It was 1922. Few respectable women would enter such a place alone, let alone one wearing a fashionable Paris gown, a feathered hat atop her brown bob, glistening pearls, and lace stockings.
But Alice Clement was no ordinary woman.
Unaware of—or simply not caring about—the commotion her presence caused, Clement walked straight into the office of Commissioner Carleton Simon and announced, “I’ve come to take Stella Myers back to Chicago.”
The commissioner gasped, “She’s desperate!”
Stella Myers was no ordinary crook. The dark-haired thief had outwitted policemen and eluded capture in several states.
Unfazed by Simon’s shocked expression, the well-dressed woman withdrew a set of handcuffs, ankle bracelets, and a “wicked looking gun” from her handbag.
“I’ve come prepared.”
Holding up her handcuffs, Clement stated calmly, “These go on her and we don’t sleep until I’ve locked her up in Chicago.” True to her word, Clement delivered Myers to her Chicago cell.
Alice Clement was hailed as Chicago’s “female Sherlock Holmes,” known for her skills in detection as well as for clearing the city of fortune-tellers, capturing shoplifters, foiling pickpockets, and rescuing girls from the clutches of prostitution. Her uncanny ability to remember faces and her flair for masquerade—“a different disguise every day”—allowed her to rack up one thousand arrests in a single year. She was bold and sassy, unafraid to take on any masher, con artist, or scalawag from the city’s underworld.
Her headline-grabbing arrests and head-turning wardrobe made Clement seem like a character straight from Central Casting. But Alice Clement was not only real; she was also a detective sergeant first grade of the Chicago Police Department.
Clement entered the police force in 1913, riding the wave of media sensation that greeted the hiring of ten policewomen in Chicago. Born in Milwaukee to German immigrant parents in 1878, Clement was unafraid to stand up for herself. She advocated for women’s rights and the repeal of Prohibition. She sued her first husband, Leonard Clement, for divorce on the grounds of desertion and intemperance at a time when women rarely initiated—or won—such dissolutions. Four years later, she married barber Albert L. Faubel in a secret ceremony performed by a female pastor.
It’s not clear why the then thirty-five-year-old, five-foot-three Clement decided to join the force, but she relished the job. She made dramatic arrests—made all the more so by her flamboyant dress— and became the darling of reporters seeking sensational tales of corruption and vice for the morning papers. Dark-haired and attractive, Clement seemed to confound reporters, who couldn’t believe she was old enough to have a daughter much less, a few years later, a granddaughter. “Grandmother Good Detective” read one headline.
She burnished her reputation in a high-profile crusade to root out fortune-tellers preying on the naive. Donning a different disguise every day, Clement had her fortune told more than five hundred times as she gathered evidence to shut down the trade. “Hats are the most important,” she explained, describing her method. “Large and small, light and dark and of vivid hue, floppy brimmed and tailored, there is nothing that alters a woman’s appearance more than a change in headgear.”
Clement also had no truck with flirts. When a man attempted to seduce her at a movie theater, she threatened to arrest him. He thought she was joking and continued his flirtations, but hers was no idle threat. Clement pulled out her blackjack and clubbed him over the head before yanking him out of the theater and dragging him down the street to the station house. When he appeared in court a few days later, the man confessed that he had been cured of flirting. Not every case went Clement’s way, though. The jury acquitted the man, winning the applause of the judge who was no great fan of Clement or her theatrics.
One person who did manage to outwit Clement was her own daughter, Ruth. Preventing hasty marriages fell under Clement’s duties, and she tracked down lovelorn young couples before they could reach the minister. The Chicago Daily Tribune called her the “Nemesis of elopers” for her success and familiarity with everyone involved in the business of matrimony in Chicago. None of this deterred twenty-year-old Ruth Clement, however, who hoped to marry Navy man Charles C. Marrow, even though her mother insisted they couldn’t be married until Marrow finished his time in service in Florida. Ruth did not want to wait, and when Marrow came to visit, the two tied the knot at a minister’s home without telling Clement. When Clement discovered a Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Marrow registered at the Chicago hotel supposedly housing Marrow alone, she was furious and threatened to arrest her new son-in-law for flouting her wishes. Her anger cooled, however, and Clement soon welcomed the newlyweds into her home.
Between arrests and undercover operations, Clement wrote, produced, and starred in a movie called Dregs of the City, in 1920. She hoped her movie would “deliver a moral message to the world” and “warn young girls of the pitfalls of a great city.” In the film, Clement portrayed herself as a master detective charged with finding a young rural girl who, at the urging of a Chicago huckster, had fled the farm for the city lights and gotten lost in “one of the more unhallowed of the south side cabarets.” The girl’s father came to Clement anegged her to rescue his innocent daughter from the “dregs” of the film’s title. Clement wasn’t the only officer-turned-actor in the film. Chicago police chiefs James L. Mooney and John J. Garrity also had starring roles. Together, the threesome battered “down doors with axes and interrupt[ed] the cogitations of countless devotees of hashish, bhang and opium.” The Chicago Daily Tribune praised Garrity’s acting and his onscreen uniform for its “faultless cut.”
The film created a sensation, particularly after Chicago’s movie censor board, which fell under the oversight of the police department, condemned the movie as immoral. “The picture shall never be shown in Chicago. It’s not even interesting,” read the ruling. “Many of the actors are hams and it doesn’t get anywhere.” Despite several appeals, Clement was unable to convince the censors to allow Dregs of the City to be shown within city limits. She remained undeterred by the decision. “They think they’ve given me a black eye, but they haven’t. I’ll show it anyway,” she declared as she left the hearing, tossing the bouquet of roses she’d been given against the window.
When the cruise ship Eastland rolled over in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, Clement splashed into the water to assist in the rescue of the pleasure boaters, presumably, given her record, wearing heels and a designer gown. More than eight hundred people would die that day, the greatest maritime disaster in Great Lakes history. For her services in the Eastland disaster, Clement received a gold “coroner’s star” from the Cook County coroner in a quiet ceremony in January of 1916.
Clement’s exploits and personality certainly drew attention, but any woman would: a female crime fighter made for good copy and eye-catching photos. Unaccustomed to seeing women wielding any kind of authority, the public found female officers an entertaining—and sometimes ridiculous—curiosity.
Excerpt from Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction by Erika Janik. Copyright © 2016 & 2017 by Beacon Press. Reproduced with permission from Beacon Press. All rights reserved.
But Alice Clement was no ordinary woman.
Unaware of—or simply not caring about—the commotion her presence caused, Clement walked straight into the office of Commissioner Carleton Simon and announced, “I’ve come to take Stella Myers back to Chicago.”
The commissioner gasped, “She’s desperate!”
Stella Myers was no ordinary crook. The dark-haired thief had outwitted policemen and eluded capture in several states.
Unfazed by Simon’s shocked expression, the well-dressed woman withdrew a set of handcuffs, ankle bracelets, and a “wicked looking gun” from her handbag.
“I’ve come prepared.”
Holding up her handcuffs, Clement stated calmly, “These go on her and we don’t sleep until I’ve locked her up in Chicago.” True to her word, Clement delivered Myers to her Chicago cell.
Alice Clement was hailed as Chicago’s “female Sherlock Holmes,” known for her skills in detection as well as for clearing the city of fortune-tellers, capturing shoplifters, foiling pickpockets, and rescuing girls from the clutches of prostitution. Her uncanny ability to remember faces and her flair for masquerade—“a different disguise every day”—allowed her to rack up one thousand arrests in a single year. She was bold and sassy, unafraid to take on any masher, con artist, or scalawag from the city’s underworld.
Her headline-grabbing arrests and head-turning wardrobe made Clement seem like a character straight from Central Casting. But Alice Clement was not only real; she was also a detective sergeant first grade of the Chicago Police Department.
Clement entered the police force in 1913, riding the wave of media sensation that greeted the hiring of ten policewomen in Chicago. Born in Milwaukee to German immigrant parents in 1878, Clement was unafraid to stand up for herself. She advocated for women’s rights and the repeal of Prohibition. She sued her first husband, Leonard Clement, for divorce on the grounds of desertion and intemperance at a time when women rarely initiated—or won—such dissolutions. Four years later, she married barber Albert L. Faubel in a secret ceremony performed by a female pastor.
It’s not clear why the then thirty-five-year-old, five-foot-three Clement decided to join the force, but she relished the job. She made dramatic arrests—made all the more so by her flamboyant dress— and became the darling of reporters seeking sensational tales of corruption and vice for the morning papers. Dark-haired and attractive, Clement seemed to confound reporters, who couldn’t believe she was old enough to have a daughter much less, a few years later, a granddaughter. “Grandmother Good Detective” read one headline.
She burnished her reputation in a high-profile crusade to root out fortune-tellers preying on the naive. Donning a different disguise every day, Clement had her fortune told more than five hundred times as she gathered evidence to shut down the trade. “Hats are the most important,” she explained, describing her method. “Large and small, light and dark and of vivid hue, floppy brimmed and tailored, there is nothing that alters a woman’s appearance more than a change in headgear.”
Clement also had no truck with flirts. When a man attempted to seduce her at a movie theater, she threatened to arrest him. He thought she was joking and continued his flirtations, but hers was no idle threat. Clement pulled out her blackjack and clubbed him over the head before yanking him out of the theater and dragging him down the street to the station house. When he appeared in court a few days later, the man confessed that he had been cured of flirting. Not every case went Clement’s way, though. The jury acquitted the man, winning the applause of the judge who was no great fan of Clement or her theatrics.
One person who did manage to outwit Clement was her own daughter, Ruth. Preventing hasty marriages fell under Clement’s duties, and she tracked down lovelorn young couples before they could reach the minister. The Chicago Daily Tribune called her the “Nemesis of elopers” for her success and familiarity with everyone involved in the business of matrimony in Chicago. None of this deterred twenty-year-old Ruth Clement, however, who hoped to marry Navy man Charles C. Marrow, even though her mother insisted they couldn’t be married until Marrow finished his time in service in Florida. Ruth did not want to wait, and when Marrow came to visit, the two tied the knot at a minister’s home without telling Clement. When Clement discovered a Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Marrow registered at the Chicago hotel supposedly housing Marrow alone, she was furious and threatened to arrest her new son-in-law for flouting her wishes. Her anger cooled, however, and Clement soon welcomed the newlyweds into her home.
Between arrests and undercover operations, Clement wrote, produced, and starred in a movie called Dregs of the City, in 1920. She hoped her movie would “deliver a moral message to the world” and “warn young girls of the pitfalls of a great city.” In the film, Clement portrayed herself as a master detective charged with finding a young rural girl who, at the urging of a Chicago huckster, had fled the farm for the city lights and gotten lost in “one of the more unhallowed of the south side cabarets.” The girl’s father came to Clement anegged her to rescue his innocent daughter from the “dregs” of the film’s title. Clement wasn’t the only officer-turned-actor in the film. Chicago police chiefs James L. Mooney and John J. Garrity also had starring roles. Together, the threesome battered “down doors with axes and interrupt[ed] the cogitations of countless devotees of hashish, bhang and opium.” The Chicago Daily Tribune praised Garrity’s acting and his onscreen uniform for its “faultless cut.”
The film created a sensation, particularly after Chicago’s movie censor board, which fell under the oversight of the police department, condemned the movie as immoral. “The picture shall never be shown in Chicago. It’s not even interesting,” read the ruling. “Many of the actors are hams and it doesn’t get anywhere.” Despite several appeals, Clement was unable to convince the censors to allow Dregs of the City to be shown within city limits. She remained undeterred by the decision. “They think they’ve given me a black eye, but they haven’t. I’ll show it anyway,” she declared as she left the hearing, tossing the bouquet of roses she’d been given against the window.
When the cruise ship Eastland rolled over in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, Clement splashed into the water to assist in the rescue of the pleasure boaters, presumably, given her record, wearing heels and a designer gown. More than eight hundred people would die that day, the greatest maritime disaster in Great Lakes history. For her services in the Eastland disaster, Clement received a gold “coroner’s star” from the Cook County coroner in a quiet ceremony in January of 1916.
Clement’s exploits and personality certainly drew attention, but any woman would: a female crime fighter made for good copy and eye-catching photos. Unaccustomed to seeing women wielding any kind of authority, the public found female officers an entertaining—and sometimes ridiculous—curiosity.
Excerpt from Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction by Erika Janik. Copyright © 2016 & 2017 by Beacon Press. Reproduced with permission from Beacon Press. All rights reserved.
Readers Are Loving Pistols and Petticoats!
Check out this awesome article in Time Magazine!“Erika Janik does a fine job tracing the history of women in police work while at the same time describing the role of females in crime fiction. The outcome, with a memorable gallery of characters, is a rich look at the ways in which fact and fiction overlap, reflecting the society surrounding them. A treat for fans of the mystery—and who isn’t?” ~ Katherine Hall Page, Agatha Award–winning author of The Body in the Belfry and The Body in the Snowdrift
“A fascinating mix of the history of early policewomen and their role in crime fiction—positions that were then, and, to some extent even now, in conflict with societal expectations.” ~ Library Journal
“An entertaining history of women’s daring, defiant life choices.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
Author Bio:
Erika Janik is an award-winning writer, historian, and the executive producer of Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio. She’s the author of five previous books, including Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.Catch Up With Our Ms. Janik On: Website , Goodreads , Wisconsin Public Radio , & Twitter !
Tour Participants:
Don't Miss Your Chance to Win Pistols and Petticoats!
This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Erika Janik and Beacon. There will be 5 winners of one (1) print copy of Pistols and Petticoats by Erika Janik. The giveaway begins on March 3rd and runs through March 8th, 2017. The giveaway is open to residents in the US & Canada only.
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Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Book Blast - A Mighty Fortress by S.D. Thames
A Mighty Fortress
by S.D. Thames
August 2nd, 2016 BOOK BLAST
Synopsis:
In Tampa, the only thing more crooked than the mob is the police…
Milo Porter leads a happy life in Tampa, Florida. The Iraq war veteran runs routine private investigations by day and coaches powerlifting at night. When Chad Scalzo, the grandson of a rumored mob boss, goes missing, Milo takes the seemingly easy case. After Chad turns up dead, Milo goes from investigator to suspect.As he seeks to clear his own name, Milo finds himself at the crossroads of two crooked investigations -- one by the mob and the other by the police. With the body count climbing, Milo discovers the key to the case in the last known person to see Chad alive.
But can Milo get to her before someone else does?
A Mighty Fortress is the first book in the Milo Porter mystery series, a set of gritty crime thrillers that will remind you of the characters from Robert B. Parker and Robert Crais. If you like gripping suspense, hardboiled crime-solvers, and heart-stopping action, then you’ll love the powerful series starter from S.D. Thames.
Buy A Mighty Fortress to get caught up in the mystery today!
Book Details:
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller Published by: Independent Publication Date: July 2016 Number of Pages: 458 ASIN: B01FMWET52 Series: Milo Porter Mystery Series, #1 Purchase Links:
Author Bio:
S.D. Thames is the author of Foreclosure: A Novel, A Mighty Fortress, and other works of crime fiction exploring the dark side of the Sunshine State. Born in Dayton, Ohio while Jimmy Carter was president, S.D. grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati (with intermittent stints in the bayous of Louisiana and on the riverbanks of Indiana). In 1992, his family relocated to Florida’s gulf coast, about an hour north of Tampa, where he blossomed as a rock guitarist and all around miscreant. While trudging his way through school, he held various odd jobs, including, in no particular order, working as a pizza cook and deliveryman (though never concurrently), dishwasher, newspaper salesman, custodian, carpenter, bookstore clerk, guitar instructor, and manual laborer.
After meeting the love of his life in 1995, he matured five years in one semester and eventually enrolled at the University of Florida, where he majored in English and studied about everything from Chaucer to the Twentieth-Century novel, along with a healthy dose of literary theory. After graduating, he spent a school year teaching German in high school. His life would forever change when he returned to the University of Florida to attend law school, the traditional fallback for despondent English majors. After completing his J.D., he went to work as a litigation associate at a Tampa law firm.
The ensuing seven years are a bit of a blur, but suffice it to say that, unlike the protagonist of Foreclosure, S.D. made partner the first year he was eligible, and did so without having to lie, cheat or otherwise bend the professional rules of conduct. Most days he enjoys the practice of law. He’s had the pleasure of working for a diverse array of clients, including Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, small business owners, real estate developers, venture capitalists, non-profit organizations, parents in Central America seeking the return of their abducted children, and death-row inmates.
He still lives in Tampa, Florida, where he’s married to the love of his life (yes, the same one he met in 1995). They have one daughter, who is 8 years old and a more prolific writer than her dad.
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This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for S.D. Thames. There will be TWO (2) winners for this tour. Each winner will receive one $10 Amazon.com (US) Gift Card. The giveaway begins on August 1st and runs through August 5th, 2016.
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Monday, April 18, 2016
Book Blast - Deceived by Ashlee Mallory
Deceived
by Ashlee Mallory
Book Blast on April 18, 2016
He took everything. Now it’s her turn…
Former foster kid Olivia Michaels is finally about to have it all. She’s recently engaged, and on the cusp of earning a big promotion at a job she loves. But her perfect life is ripped apart by accusations of insider trading and fraud, and ultimately the murder of her best friend. Faced with the possibility of life in prison—or worst, death—she accepts a deal. A plea of guilty for something she didn’t do, in exchange for three years in prison.
Olivia’s lost everything. The only thing she has left now is time. Time to remember what she’s lost. Time to realize who had the most to gain. Time to plan exactly how she’s going to exact her revenge. When she leaves those prison walls, she’ll have more than just a new family of friends who’ll have her back; she’ll have a plan. And he’ll never see her coming.
Grab hold for this fast-paced, high-stakes caper that won’t let go!
Book Details:
Genre: Thriller
Published by: Indie
Publication Date: April 18, 2016
Number of Pages: 299
ISBN:
Series: A Final Justice Thriller, #1
Purchase Links:
Read an excerpt:
The hammering pain in my head finally brought me into consciousness, although I couldn’t yet bring myself to open my eyes. I lay there, trying to remember what happened. Someone had struck me. But Charlotte had been next to me and the blow…
I was wet, cold, and there was a strange smell in the air, an earthier smell, like copper, like…
I opened my eyes and managed to turn my head.
Blood.
I sat up and winced as pain and nausea hit me over the sudden movement. Why was I wet? Why was there blood on my hands? My shirt? Had my head been bleeding? And where was Charlotte?
I couldn’t rise, not just yet, and came to my knees, crawling to the coffee table and my cell phone. This wasn’t right. Something was wrong.
Someone might still be here.
Where was Charlotte?
There was pounding again, only not from my head and voices called out. Police? Then there were officers swarming in.
Relieved, I sat back on the carpet, dropping my head to my hands. What had just happened? There was so much talking, someone asked me if I was okay, who I was, if anyone else was in the house. I shook my head as I tried to make sense of their questions.
“We have a body,” a female officer called out.
I turned to the officer, who was looking down at something behind the couch, already calling it in.
“What do you mean?” I stumbled to my feet, but wavered instantly. Before I could buckle back down, arms were around me.
“Olivia? Are you okay?” It was Ethan. He’d arrived and was holding me up. “Oh my God, what happened? Is that your blood? Are you bleeding?”
But I was barely listening. They’d said a body and I threw myself forward, trying to see something, anything.
Her feet were the first thing I spotted. She’d been wearing her black Jimmy Choos that we’d picked up on her birthday four months before, but one had fallen off and was next to her now bare foot.
Still, so still.
Another officer came over, stepping around the bod—around Charlotte. “I think we have a weapon.”
I’d reached the area where Charlotte was lying, her eyes glassy as they looked up, lifeless. Her pretty blonde hair streaked with fresh blood. The carpet underneath her deep crimson. Sure enough, by her side was something. The lamplight made the surface of the long scissors almost glisten—except where the dark color that could only be blood covered them.
The female officer squatted down along with the male officer to look at her, neither of them touching anything. The eggshell blouse she’d been wearing was now mostly red and it was apparent from the wound and the blood pooled underneath that she’d been stabbed in the throat.
I couldn’t stop the sob this time as I screamed her name. Over and over.
And then there was a prick in my arm and I was floating, adrift. And darkness again took me.
I was wet, cold, and there was a strange smell in the air, an earthier smell, like copper, like…
I opened my eyes and managed to turn my head.
Blood.
I sat up and winced as pain and nausea hit me over the sudden movement. Why was I wet? Why was there blood on my hands? My shirt? Had my head been bleeding? And where was Charlotte?
I couldn’t rise, not just yet, and came to my knees, crawling to the coffee table and my cell phone. This wasn’t right. Something was wrong.
Someone might still be here.
Where was Charlotte?
There was pounding again, only not from my head and voices called out. Police? Then there were officers swarming in.
Relieved, I sat back on the carpet, dropping my head to my hands. What had just happened? There was so much talking, someone asked me if I was okay, who I was, if anyone else was in the house. I shook my head as I tried to make sense of their questions.
“We have a body,” a female officer called out.
I turned to the officer, who was looking down at something behind the couch, already calling it in.
“What do you mean?” I stumbled to my feet, but wavered instantly. Before I could buckle back down, arms were around me.
“Olivia? Are you okay?” It was Ethan. He’d arrived and was holding me up. “Oh my God, what happened? Is that your blood? Are you bleeding?”
But I was barely listening. They’d said a body and I threw myself forward, trying to see something, anything.
Her feet were the first thing I spotted. She’d been wearing her black Jimmy Choos that we’d picked up on her birthday four months before, but one had fallen off and was next to her now bare foot.
Still, so still.
Another officer came over, stepping around the bod—around Charlotte. “I think we have a weapon.”
I’d reached the area where Charlotte was lying, her eyes glassy as they looked up, lifeless. Her pretty blonde hair streaked with fresh blood. The carpet underneath her deep crimson. Sure enough, by her side was something. The lamplight made the surface of the long scissors almost glisten—except where the dark color that could only be blood covered them.
The female officer squatted down along with the male officer to look at her, neither of them touching anything. The eggshell blouse she’d been wearing was now mostly red and it was apparent from the wound and the blood pooled underneath that she’d been stabbed in the throat.
I couldn’t stop the sob this time as I screamed her name. Over and over.
And then there was a prick in my arm and I was floating, adrift. And darkness again took me.
Author Bio:
Ashlee Mallory is a USA Today Bestselling author of Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense, and Thrillers. A recovering attorney, she currently resides in Utah with her husband and two kids. She aspires to one day include running, hiking and traveling to exotic destinations in her list of things she enjoys, but currently settles for enjoying a good book and a glass of wine from the comfort of her couch.
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This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Ashlee Mallory. There will be 6 US winners. One There will be SIX (6) winners for this tour. One winner will receive one $25 gift card from Amazon.com (US Only) the other 5 winners will each receive eBook copy of Deceived by Ashlee Mallory. This giveaway is for **US residents only**. The giveaway begins on April 18th and runs through April 30th, 2016.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Book Blast - Detective Lessons by Bill Larkin
$2 Today Only!!
Detective Lessons
by Bill Larkin
Book Details:
Genre: Crime Fiction
Published by: Spyglass Press
Publication Date: 9/16/14
Number of Pages: 237
ISBN: 978-0-9894002-2-0
Purchase Links:
Synopsis:
When a wealthy real estate developer convinces Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Kevin Schmidt to search for his missing son, Schmitty senses trouble. It’s not the fact that it’s a prohibited side job, it’s the fact that he has to team up with Megan McCann, an attractive private investigator with her own set of rules.Finding a body in the trunk of a BMW sends Schmitty and Megan on an adrenalized trail through Southern California unraveling a sophisticated real estate scam. A run-in with the LAPD and some hardcore gang members opens new perspectives on the case, and they begin to glimpse a shocking web of greed and corruption.
The situation suddenly becomes more complex - and personal – when the billionaire takes matters into his own hands and Schmitty’s own department gets involved. When Schmitty and Megan go to Catalina Island to track down the one man who may know everything, they uncover a secret that could make or break the billionaire. And when Schmitty miscalculates the man, it could get them killed. Before all this, Schmitty had been unfairly outcast in his department. Now he’s here to protect and serve. To make justice prevail and figure out who to bring down.
Read an excerpt:
I grabbed the door key from the envelope, but before I stuck it in the lock, I knocked. No answer. As I reached to insert the key, the door swung open.
The girl who filled the doorway was striking. My bet was she’d left behind a debris field of men, whoever she was. I guessed her age as early forties but it was always a little hard to tell in Newport Beach. Her long hair was the color of honey and her lips were glossy and just about perfect. She was dressed in jeans and a yellow blouse, and big hoop earrings dangled brightly. I couldn’t decide if she was more professional looking or playful looking. She held a cell phone in her hand and gave me an intent stare through pretty green eyes.
I said, “I’m looking for Jimmy Whelan. Is he here?”
“You’re Schmitty? Megan McCann. Pleased to meet you,” she said in a velvety voice.
She shook my hand then turned and left the door open as she walked inside with a purpose. She was making call on her cell and ignoring me as she poked around the kitchen drawers. Faint perfume lingered in the air and I liked the scent. She was too old be to Jimmy’s girlfriend.
She raised the phone to her ear and said, “We’re on it.”
She ended the call and gave me a look that seemed to say, what are you doing here? I was about to ask her who she was when my cell vibrated.
“Schmitty?”
I recognized Mac Whelan’s voice. “Mr. Whelan. I’m at Jimmy’s.”
“I know. You just met Megan McCann, also known as M Squared. She’s going to work with you.”
“Doing what?”
“She’s a private investigator I know. Extremely good at what she does. You’re a cop who knows Jimmy. I have no doubt you’ll find him working together.”
So life had been mocking me for a while, and now I was wondering if Mac Whelan was too.
“Private investigator? You told me you didn’t have anybody else to help.”
“Be a team player, Schmitty. And I get to pick the team. Keep me posted.” He disconnected.
I stared at the phone a moment then slid it into my pocket and smiled at her. “M Squared? That’s cute.”
“Not as cute as a Harbor Patrol cop tagging along with me. Triple A on the water with a gun. Are you going to be useful or just full of bullshit?”
I spread my hands. “Resourceful is my middle name.”
She smiled. “So mostly bullshit. Don’t stand around. Let’s turn this place and find something. It would brighten my life considerably.”
The girl who filled the doorway was striking. My bet was she’d left behind a debris field of men, whoever she was. I guessed her age as early forties but it was always a little hard to tell in Newport Beach. Her long hair was the color of honey and her lips were glossy and just about perfect. She was dressed in jeans and a yellow blouse, and big hoop earrings dangled brightly. I couldn’t decide if she was more professional looking or playful looking. She held a cell phone in her hand and gave me an intent stare through pretty green eyes.
I said, “I’m looking for Jimmy Whelan. Is he here?”
“You’re Schmitty? Megan McCann. Pleased to meet you,” she said in a velvety voice.
She shook my hand then turned and left the door open as she walked inside with a purpose. She was making call on her cell and ignoring me as she poked around the kitchen drawers. Faint perfume lingered in the air and I liked the scent. She was too old be to Jimmy’s girlfriend.
She raised the phone to her ear and said, “We’re on it.”
She ended the call and gave me a look that seemed to say, what are you doing here? I was about to ask her who she was when my cell vibrated.
“Schmitty?”
I recognized Mac Whelan’s voice. “Mr. Whelan. I’m at Jimmy’s.”
“I know. You just met Megan McCann, also known as M Squared. She’s going to work with you.”
“Doing what?”
“She’s a private investigator I know. Extremely good at what she does. You’re a cop who knows Jimmy. I have no doubt you’ll find him working together.”
So life had been mocking me for a while, and now I was wondering if Mac Whelan was too.
“Private investigator? You told me you didn’t have anybody else to help.”
“Be a team player, Schmitty. And I get to pick the team. Keep me posted.” He disconnected.
I stared at the phone a moment then slid it into my pocket and smiled at her. “M Squared? That’s cute.”
“Not as cute as a Harbor Patrol cop tagging along with me. Triple A on the water with a gun. Are you going to be useful or just full of bullshit?”
I spread my hands. “Resourceful is my middle name.”
She smiled. “So mostly bullshit. Don’t stand around. Let’s turn this place and find something. It would brighten my life considerably.”
Author Bio:
Bill Larkin is the author of Detective Lessons, and several crime thriller short stories, including The Highlands, OC Confidential, The Deep End, and Shadow Truth. In addition to working in commercial real estate, Bill previously served as a Reserve Deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, then the Los Angeles Police Department where he last worked in a detective assignment. Bill is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He lives in Orange County, California.
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Monday, August 4, 2014
Book Blast - The Jones Men: 40th Anniversary Edition by Vern E. Smith
The Jones Men: 40th Anniversary Edition
by Vern E. Smith
Book Blast on August 4th, 2014
Book Details:
Genre: Crime
Published by: Rosarium Publishing
Publication Date: May 2014
Number of Pages: 264
ISBN: 978-0989141185
Purchase Links:
Synopsis:
DETROIT, 1974To become the King, you have to take the crown. It won't be given up lightly. Heroin kingpin, Willis McDaniel, has been wearing that particular piece of jewelry for far too long, and youngblood, Lennie Jack, thinks it would look really good on his head. When a junkie tells Jack about a big delivery, the young Vietnam vet makes his move. Feeling his empire crumble, McDaniel puts the word out to find whoever's responsible. The hunt is on, the battle is engaged, and the streets of Detroit run red with blood.
In 1974 Vern E. Smith took the crime fiction world by storm with his debut novel, The Jones Men. Heralded as "a large accomplishment in the art of fiction" by the New York Times, The Jones Men went on to be nominated for an Edgar Award and became a New York Times Notable Book. The art of crime fiction has never been the same since.
Read an excerpt:
For Bennie Lee Sims’ wake, Lennie Jack chose the sky-blue Fleetwood with the chromed-up bumpers and the bar-line running from the trunk to the dash, dispensing six different liquors with chaser.
Joe Red brought the car to a halt in front of Fraser’s Funeral Parlor on Madison Boulevard. He backed it in between a red El Dorado with a diamond-shaped rear window and a pink Lincoln with a leopard-skin roof.
Lennie Jack wore a medium-length Afro and had thick wide sideburns that grew neatly into the ends of a bushy moustache drooping over his top lip. He got out of the passenger seat in a manner that favored his left shoulder. He had on a cream-colored suede coat that stopped just below the knee, and a .38 in his waistband.
Joe Red was shorter and thinner and younger than Lennie Jack. He got his nickname for an extremely light complexion and a thick curly bush of reddish brown hair; it spilled from under the wide-brimmed black hat cocked low over his right ear. He had on the black leather midi with the red-stitched cape; he had a .45 automatic in his waistband.
They came briskly down the sidewalk and went up the six concrete steps to the entrance of Fraser’s.
An attendant in a somber gray suit and dark tie greeted them at the door.
“We’re here for Bennie Sims,” Joe Red said.
“Come this way,” the attendant said.
He guided them down a narrow hallway past a knot of elderly black women waiting to file into one of the viewing rooms flanking the hall on either side. The hallway reeked of death; the women wept.
They passed three more doors before the attendant led them left at the end of the hall and down a short flight of stairs. A single 60-watt bulb illuminated the lower level. The attendant went past the row of ebony- and silver-colored caskets stacked near the staircase and stopped at a door in the back of the room.
“They’re in there,” he said. He turned and headed back up the stairs. Lennie Jack rapped softly at the door. They stood a few feet back from the doorway to be recognizable in the dim light.
The door cracked.
“This Bennie Lee?” Lennie Jack said.
“Yeah, this it,” said a voice behind the crack.
A man with wavy black hair in a white mink jacket and red knicker boots let them in. He relocked the door.
The room smelled of cigarette smoke. A row of silver metal chairs had been stacked in a neat line on one side, but most of the people come to pay their respects were scattered in the back in tight little clusters, talking and laughing.
At the front of the long room, near a small table of champagne bottles, Bennie Lee Sims’ tuxedo-dad body lay in a silver-colored coffin with a bright satin lining.
His face was dusty with a fine white powder.
Lennie Jack walked over to the coffin. He dipped his fingers in the silver tray of cocaine on top and sprinkled it over Bennie Lee.
Joe Red stepped up behind him and tried to find a spot that wasn’t covered. He finally decided on the lips and scattered a handful of the fine white crystalline powder around Bennie Lee’s mouth and chin.
They moved through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting people. Almost everybody had come to see Bennie Lee off.
The Ware brothers were there: Willie, the oldest at twenty-four; Simmy, who was twenty; and June, who often swaggered as if he were the elder of the clan but still had the baby-smooth face and look of wide- eyed adolescence. He was seventeen.
Pretty Boy Sam was standing in one corner with his right foot resting on one of the metal chairs. He had smooth brown skin and almost girlish features, topped off by a pointed Van Dyke beard. His good looks masked a violent temper.
Pretty Boy Sam had worn his full-length brown mink and brought his woman to pay his respects to Bennie Lee Sims, who had two neat bullet holes right between the eyes and underneath all the cocaine on his face.
Slim Williams was there with his woman. He was a tall, thin dark-skinned man whose left eye had been destroyed by an errant shotgun blast. He now wore a variety of gaily colored eye patches the way he had heard Sammy Davis did when he lost his eye. He had on a patch of bright green and red plaid and stood conversing on one side of the room with Hooker, Woody Woods, and Mack Lee.
Willis McDaniel was not there, but then, he never came. He had probably never considered it, but it was a source of irritation to the others.
Joe Red said, “Hey Jack, he the man. He don’t hafta come see nobody off if he don’t wanta come. Ain’t none of these people thinkin’ bout makin’ him come. Who gon make him come?”
“Why he can’t come like the rest of the people?” Lennie Jack said. “Has anybody ever thought of that, you reckon? He too big now to bring his ass out here to see a dude off? He probably had him ripped anyway. I don’t understand how these chumps let an old man like that just get in there and rule.”
“Now we both know how he got it,” Joe Red said. “He took it. He say, ‘Look, I’m gon be the man on this side of town cause I got my thing together and I got plenty big shit behind me. Now what you motherfuckers say?’ Everybody say, ‘You the man, Mister McDaniel.’ That’s the way he did it.”
“That is the way to take it from him, too.” Lennie Jack said. “We gon get lucky pretty soon. I think he can be had and I know just the way to do it. I got some people working on it. The first thing they teach you in the war is to fight fire with fire, you know?”
He took the tiny gold spoon on the chain around his neck and scooped a pinch of cocaine off the tray Joe Red handed him. He brought the spoon up to his right nostril and sniffed deeply.
The crowd was beginning to drift to the corner of the room where Slim Williams was holding court. Slim was thirty-seven, and much older than most of his audience. Lennie Jack was twenty-six, and Joe Red had just turned twenty-one three days ago.
Slim Williams had diamond rings on three fingers of his left hand, and he was waving them around in a dazzling display and talking about Joe the Grind.
“Joe used to walk into a bar with his dudes with him–he always carried these two dudes with him everywhere he went. He’d walk into a place fulla people and say, ‘I’m Joe the Grind, set up the bar! All pimps and players step up to the bar and bring your whores with you.’”
Slim Williams chuckled. “Then Joe would talk about ‘em. He used to say, ‘You ain’t no pimp, nigger. What you doin’ up here? I ain’t buying no drinks for you. Sit down!’”
Slim Williams laughed; so did everybody else.
“Joe used to rayfield a chump bag dude too,” Slim Williams said. “He used to tell ‘em ‘Just cause you got eight or nine hundred dollars worth of business don’t mean you somebody.’ Then Joe would throw a roll down that’d choke a Goddamn mule and tell the chump: ‘Looka here boy, I just had my man sell forty-two thousand dollars worth of heh-rawn, and I got twenty more joints to hear from fore midnight. Gon sit down somewhere, you don’t belong up here with no big dope men.”
They laughed again and somebody passed the coke tray.
June Ware took his pinch and squared his toes in the eighty-dollar calfskin boots from Australia, via Perrin’s Men’s Shoppe on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
“What happened to Joe, Slim?” June Ware said.
“Oh, somebody shot ‘im in the head in an after-hours joint,” Slim Williams said. “And lemme tell you, youall shoulda been there to see Joe’s wake. It put this thing to shame. Compared to Joe’s, this thing ain’t nothing. This light-weight. They say there was coke in the block wrapped in foil and pure heh-rawn set out on silver trays with diamonds in the sides.
“So they partied all night till twelve the next day, then they all went to Joe’s funeral. After the funeral was over, everybody got on the plane with his woman and went to Jamaica for two days.”
“Say what?” June Ware said.
“Yeah, that’s the truth,” Slim Williams said. “And you shoulda seen that funeral too. They say a broad came over from Chicago in a white-on-white El Dorado, and she was dressed in all white with a bad-ass mink round her shoulders. Then when she came out of the hotel the next day for Joe’s funeral, they say she was in all black. She went to the graveyard and threw one hundred roses on Joe. Then she got in her ride and split. Don’t nobody know who she was. When they had Joe’s funeral march, there was one hundred fifty big pieces lined up for blocks down Madison Boulevard. They pulled a brand new Brough-ham behind the hearse, and when the march was over they took the car out to the trash yard and crushed it.”
“Goddamn Slim!” June Ware said.
Mack Lee, who was twenty-two years old and decked out from the top of his big apple hat to the tip of his leather platforms in bright lavender, came their way with his woman on his arm.
The woman looked about nineteen; she wore diamond-studded earrings and a matching bracelet. She carried a tray of glasses and an unopened bottle of champagne.
“We oughta drink a toast to Bennie Lee,” Mack Lee said, “and ask the Lord how come he made him so stupid.”
The laughter rippled through the room; Mack Lee popped the cork in the champagne bottle and poured the rounds.
Joe Red brought the car to a halt in front of Fraser’s Funeral Parlor on Madison Boulevard. He backed it in between a red El Dorado with a diamond-shaped rear window and a pink Lincoln with a leopard-skin roof.
Lennie Jack wore a medium-length Afro and had thick wide sideburns that grew neatly into the ends of a bushy moustache drooping over his top lip. He got out of the passenger seat in a manner that favored his left shoulder. He had on a cream-colored suede coat that stopped just below the knee, and a .38 in his waistband.
Joe Red was shorter and thinner and younger than Lennie Jack. He got his nickname for an extremely light complexion and a thick curly bush of reddish brown hair; it spilled from under the wide-brimmed black hat cocked low over his right ear. He had on the black leather midi with the red-stitched cape; he had a .45 automatic in his waistband.
They came briskly down the sidewalk and went up the six concrete steps to the entrance of Fraser’s.
An attendant in a somber gray suit and dark tie greeted them at the door.
“We’re here for Bennie Sims,” Joe Red said.
“Come this way,” the attendant said.
He guided them down a narrow hallway past a knot of elderly black women waiting to file into one of the viewing rooms flanking the hall on either side. The hallway reeked of death; the women wept.
They passed three more doors before the attendant led them left at the end of the hall and down a short flight of stairs. A single 60-watt bulb illuminated the lower level. The attendant went past the row of ebony- and silver-colored caskets stacked near the staircase and stopped at a door in the back of the room.
“They’re in there,” he said. He turned and headed back up the stairs. Lennie Jack rapped softly at the door. They stood a few feet back from the doorway to be recognizable in the dim light.
The door cracked.
“This Bennie Lee?” Lennie Jack said.
“Yeah, this it,” said a voice behind the crack.
A man with wavy black hair in a white mink jacket and red knicker boots let them in. He relocked the door.
The room smelled of cigarette smoke. A row of silver metal chairs had been stacked in a neat line on one side, but most of the people come to pay their respects were scattered in the back in tight little clusters, talking and laughing.
At the front of the long room, near a small table of champagne bottles, Bennie Lee Sims’ tuxedo-dad body lay in a silver-colored coffin with a bright satin lining.
His face was dusty with a fine white powder.
Lennie Jack walked over to the coffin. He dipped his fingers in the silver tray of cocaine on top and sprinkled it over Bennie Lee.
Joe Red stepped up behind him and tried to find a spot that wasn’t covered. He finally decided on the lips and scattered a handful of the fine white crystalline powder around Bennie Lee’s mouth and chin.
They moved through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting people. Almost everybody had come to see Bennie Lee off.
The Ware brothers were there: Willie, the oldest at twenty-four; Simmy, who was twenty; and June, who often swaggered as if he were the elder of the clan but still had the baby-smooth face and look of wide- eyed adolescence. He was seventeen.
Pretty Boy Sam was standing in one corner with his right foot resting on one of the metal chairs. He had smooth brown skin and almost girlish features, topped off by a pointed Van Dyke beard. His good looks masked a violent temper.
Pretty Boy Sam had worn his full-length brown mink and brought his woman to pay his respects to Bennie Lee Sims, who had two neat bullet holes right between the eyes and underneath all the cocaine on his face.
Slim Williams was there with his woman. He was a tall, thin dark-skinned man whose left eye had been destroyed by an errant shotgun blast. He now wore a variety of gaily colored eye patches the way he had heard Sammy Davis did when he lost his eye. He had on a patch of bright green and red plaid and stood conversing on one side of the room with Hooker, Woody Woods, and Mack Lee.
Willis McDaniel was not there, but then, he never came. He had probably never considered it, but it was a source of irritation to the others.
Joe Red said, “Hey Jack, he the man. He don’t hafta come see nobody off if he don’t wanta come. Ain’t none of these people thinkin’ bout makin’ him come. Who gon make him come?”
“Why he can’t come like the rest of the people?” Lennie Jack said. “Has anybody ever thought of that, you reckon? He too big now to bring his ass out here to see a dude off? He probably had him ripped anyway. I don’t understand how these chumps let an old man like that just get in there and rule.”
“Now we both know how he got it,” Joe Red said. “He took it. He say, ‘Look, I’m gon be the man on this side of town cause I got my thing together and I got plenty big shit behind me. Now what you motherfuckers say?’ Everybody say, ‘You the man, Mister McDaniel.’ That’s the way he did it.”
“That is the way to take it from him, too.” Lennie Jack said. “We gon get lucky pretty soon. I think he can be had and I know just the way to do it. I got some people working on it. The first thing they teach you in the war is to fight fire with fire, you know?”
He took the tiny gold spoon on the chain around his neck and scooped a pinch of cocaine off the tray Joe Red handed him. He brought the spoon up to his right nostril and sniffed deeply.
The crowd was beginning to drift to the corner of the room where Slim Williams was holding court. Slim was thirty-seven, and much older than most of his audience. Lennie Jack was twenty-six, and Joe Red had just turned twenty-one three days ago.
Slim Williams had diamond rings on three fingers of his left hand, and he was waving them around in a dazzling display and talking about Joe the Grind.
“Joe used to walk into a bar with his dudes with him–he always carried these two dudes with him everywhere he went. He’d walk into a place fulla people and say, ‘I’m Joe the Grind, set up the bar! All pimps and players step up to the bar and bring your whores with you.’”
Slim Williams chuckled. “Then Joe would talk about ‘em. He used to say, ‘You ain’t no pimp, nigger. What you doin’ up here? I ain’t buying no drinks for you. Sit down!’”
Slim Williams laughed; so did everybody else.
“Joe used to rayfield a chump bag dude too,” Slim Williams said. “He used to tell ‘em ‘Just cause you got eight or nine hundred dollars worth of business don’t mean you somebody.’ Then Joe would throw a roll down that’d choke a Goddamn mule and tell the chump: ‘Looka here boy, I just had my man sell forty-two thousand dollars worth of heh-rawn, and I got twenty more joints to hear from fore midnight. Gon sit down somewhere, you don’t belong up here with no big dope men.”
They laughed again and somebody passed the coke tray.
June Ware took his pinch and squared his toes in the eighty-dollar calfskin boots from Australia, via Perrin’s Men’s Shoppe on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
“What happened to Joe, Slim?” June Ware said.
“Oh, somebody shot ‘im in the head in an after-hours joint,” Slim Williams said. “And lemme tell you, youall shoulda been there to see Joe’s wake. It put this thing to shame. Compared to Joe’s, this thing ain’t nothing. This light-weight. They say there was coke in the block wrapped in foil and pure heh-rawn set out on silver trays with diamonds in the sides.
“So they partied all night till twelve the next day, then they all went to Joe’s funeral. After the funeral was over, everybody got on the plane with his woman and went to Jamaica for two days.”
“Say what?” June Ware said.
“Yeah, that’s the truth,” Slim Williams said. “And you shoulda seen that funeral too. They say a broad came over from Chicago in a white-on-white El Dorado, and she was dressed in all white with a bad-ass mink round her shoulders. Then when she came out of the hotel the next day for Joe’s funeral, they say she was in all black. She went to the graveyard and threw one hundred roses on Joe. Then she got in her ride and split. Don’t nobody know who she was. When they had Joe’s funeral march, there was one hundred fifty big pieces lined up for blocks down Madison Boulevard. They pulled a brand new Brough-ham behind the hearse, and when the march was over they took the car out to the trash yard and crushed it.”
“Goddamn Slim!” June Ware said.
Mack Lee, who was twenty-two years old and decked out from the top of his big apple hat to the tip of his leather platforms in bright lavender, came their way with his woman on his arm.
The woman looked about nineteen; she wore diamond-studded earrings and a matching bracelet. She carried a tray of glasses and an unopened bottle of champagne.
“We oughta drink a toast to Bennie Lee,” Mack Lee said, “and ask the Lord how come he made him so stupid.”
The laughter rippled through the room; Mack Lee popped the cork in the champagne bottle and poured the rounds.
Trailor:
Author Bio:
A native of Natchez, Miss., Smith is a graduate of San Francisco State University, and the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He began his journalism career as a reporter for the Long Beach, Calif. Independent Press-Telegram. From 1979 until 2002, Smith served as the Atlanta Bureau Chief and as a national correspondent for Newsweek.
Vern Smith's work as a journalist, author and screenwriter spans four decades.
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Friday, November 15, 2013
Book Blast, Excerpt & Giveaway - Building Attraction by Monique McDonell
Title: Building Attraction
Author: Monique McDonell
Published: October 31st, 2013
Word Count: 58,000
Genre: Chick Lit, Romantic Comedy
Content Warning: Adult Sexual Content
Recommended Age: 16+
Synopsis:
Hers has been a life of too many
responsibilities and his has been a life of too few. Could the thing that
initially repelled them from each other finally be the ultimate source of
attraction?
Holly Adams has two jobs in the city, two petulant teenage sisters to support, a farm with a big mortgage and a terrible secret that propels her forward. Brad Winchester has a reputation for being a spoilt playboy who has abandoned his family business but he also has a secret that has finally brought him home.
When they are forced together at work (Holly works at the cut-throat PR Consultancy that handles his family’s account Winchester Homes – “They don’t build homes, they build dreams”) a series of misunderstandings has them at odds.
Still working together they learn they have more in common than either might have imagined – common friends, family loyalty and dreams of something different. When life keeps pushing them in each other’s paths they must decide whether this is an attraction that might be worth building on after all.
Holly Adams has two jobs in the city, two petulant teenage sisters to support, a farm with a big mortgage and a terrible secret that propels her forward. Brad Winchester has a reputation for being a spoilt playboy who has abandoned his family business but he also has a secret that has finally brought him home.
When they are forced together at work (Holly works at the cut-throat PR Consultancy that handles his family’s account Winchester Homes – “They don’t build homes, they build dreams”) a series of misunderstandings has them at odds.
Still working together they learn they have more in common than either might have imagined – common friends, family loyalty and dreams of something different. When life keeps pushing them in each other’s paths they must decide whether this is an attraction that might be worth building on after all.
About the Author:
Monique
is an Australian author who writes contemporary women's fiction including chick
lit and romance. She lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches with her husband and
daughter, and despite a dog phobia, has a dog called Skip.
Monique has written all of her life, especially as a child when she loved to write short stories and poetry. At University she studied Creative Writing as part of her Communication degree. After wards she was busy working in public relations and didn't write for pleasure for quite a few years although she wrote many media releases, brochures and newsletters. (And she still does in her day-job!)
When Monique began to write again she noticed a trend - writing dark unhappy stories made her unhappy. So she made a decision to write a novel with a happy ending and she has been writing happy stories ever since.
Monique has written all of her life, especially as a child when she loved to write short stories and poetry. At University she studied Creative Writing as part of her Communication degree. After wards she was busy working in public relations and didn't write for pleasure for quite a few years although she wrote many media releases, brochures and newsletters. (And she still does in her day-job!)
When Monique began to write again she noticed a trend - writing dark unhappy stories made her unhappy. So she made a decision to write a novel with a happy ending and she has been writing happy stories ever since.
Excerpt:
Giveaway Details:
'Bradley Winchester dove into his red convertible BMW and discreetly followed
Holly home. She was fascinating. Mesmerizing even. He’d never seen anything as
erotic as that woman bent over the car hood fixing her engine and snapping her
knife shut against her thigh. It was primal and capable and so completely
foreign to him. He was used to women who needed help to open their champagne
let alone fix their cars.
He knew from the
minute he walked into the EPR boardroom today that Holly Adams did not like
him. He was an hour late, but that had been a genuine mix-up. His secretary had
given him the wrong time. He was normally fastidious about punctuality.
However, he knew it was more than that.
Holly Adams had
him pegged as a guy punching above his weight, so to speak. She saw him as a
guy who was handed a job on a silver platter that he wasn’t qualified for. She
was right to an extent, but she didn’t know the full story and he couldn’t tell
her, even if he wanted to. Not that it had been any of her goddamned business
in the first place. He had tried to smooth things over with her at the time and
she had been nothing but courteous but her distrust of him was obvious.
Holly did a
left-hand turn into a driveway. It was the driveway of St Anne’s School for Day
Students and Boarders. Why was Holly going into an exclusive girls’ school at
seven at night? He turned into the driveway and shut his lights. She had gone
right so he turned left and pulled his car into a park behind a bank of trees.
He got out of the car and watched Holly. She parked. She went around to the
passenger side and hauled out her briefcase. He watched her head towards a
doorway and it swung open…light spilled through the doorway and an imperious
woman filled its frame.
“Cutting it fine
aren’t you Miss Adams?”
“Nothing to worry
about Sister Evangeline, I’m here now.”
The door slammed
and the yard was dark. Brad looked along the bank of buildings. Brad had dated
a few St Anne’s girls back when he was in high school but he’d never been to
the school before and never at night.
Upstairs he could
see school girls talking on a veranda. He saw Holly approach. She was backlit
and her golden hair looked like a halo.
“Holly! You’re
here!” One girl trilled. “I have so much to tell you!”
“OK Maddy, you
will have to wait and tell me after study hall. Come on girls everyone inside.
You all know the drill.”
Holly Adams worked
at the school. How fascinating, Brad thought. He had so many questions.
He saw the
downstairs door open again and the large woman peer out.
“Who are you? We
don’t need any Peeping Tom’s around here. You’ve got two minutes to skedaddle
or I’m letting the dogs out.”
Oh heck, thought
Brad, and he climbed in his car and burnt rubber getting the hell away from St
Anne’s.'
Giveaway Details:
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include the following:
- $20 Amazon Gift Card
Giveaway is International.
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