It is my pleasure to share a guest post from author Neil Plakcy...
NP: I have loved mysteries since I began reading them as a
teenager, and I think that while many readers feel that the unraveling of the
puzzle is the greatest pleasure, for me the biggest attraction is the chance to
understand other people. What pushes someone to commit a crime? Why does the
detective pursue justice, often at great cost to him or herself? That kind of
insight is key to our knowledge of ourselves as human beings, and crime fiction
provides the vehicle for that discovery.
The most difficult obstacle I’ve faced in my writing career
has been my desire to reach out to readers that the big New York publishers
ignored. When I wrote the first of my golden retriever mysteries, I created a
character that I believed in – a good man recovering from the effects of a
single bad decision. I wanted to show how adopting a dog, and the unconditional
love that golden retriever provided, could help him learn to live, and love,
again. The vehicle for that discovery was a cozy, or traditional, mystery, in
which he and the dog teamed up to investigate the murder of the dog’s previous
owner.
However, my agent at the time told me that publishers were
only interested in cozy mysteries with female protagonists, because the bulk of
cozy readers were female. He suggested that I either replace my hero with a
heroine, or make my straight hero gay—to reach the niche of gay mysteries,
where I’d already established myself.
The more I investigated, the more I discovered my agent was
right. The leading publisher of cozy mysteries, for example, had at the time
thirty-four series—all but two with female protagonists. And the other two were
male-female duos.
Amazon helped me overcome that hurdle. I was lucky enough to
get in on the first wave of the e-book revolution, when lots of avid readers
had Kindles and other devices, and there weren’t enough books available. I knew
there was a market of readers who loved both dogs and mysteries, and didn’t
care if the protagonist was male or female. I was lucky enough to reach those
readers through Amazon.
I am a college teacher by profession, so mentoring others
comes easily to me. I teach college creative writing classes and lecture at
writer’s conferences about craft. I also teach continuing education programs
and talk with library groups about the business of publishing – since I have
both an MBA and an MFA, the intersection of creativity and economic reality is
one that fascinates me.
Without a doubt, the love of my dogs has been the single
thing that has enriched my writing the most. I had a poodle as a kid, and as an
adult I longed to have a dog again. When I met my partner, he had two dogs—a
Yorkie and a Collie—and in falling in love with him, I joined his pack, loving
the dogs as well. Soon after we moved in together, the Collie passed away, and
we replaced him with a golden retriever. From the start, the Yorkie made it
clear that my partner was HIS daddy, leaving the golden to me. Because my
partner was working an evening shift, I did all the dog walking and training,
and Sam and I bonded. After a couple of years I realized that I had to write a
book about my experience with him, based on the close observation I’d
developed. Sam passed on five years ago, to be replaced by Brody, and then
Griffin joined our pack. The long walks we share, the ball play and rope
tugging, all feature in my golden retriever mysteries. And even though my real
dogs may not take to cats too well, my fictional golden, Rochester, likes them
enough to follow one into an unoccupied house—leading to my story, “Riding the
Tiger,” in Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime.
Joanna Campbell Slan, Linda Gordon Hengerer, LouLou Harrington, Neil Plakcy, Teresa Trent, Terry Ambrose, Amy Vansant, Randy Rawls, Christina Freeburn, Wendy Sand Eckel, and Karen Cantwell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Cozy Mystery anthology
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
The purr-fect way to meet your new
favorite author! This collection of traditional mysteries will be like catnip
for feline-friendly readers. It’s paw-sitively the best Mother’s Day gift ever.
Plus, you can email us to get a FREE Bonus File with recipes and holiday craft
ideas. You’ll enjoy stories by these bestselling and award-winning authors:
Joanna Campbell Slan, Linda Gordon Hengerer, David Bishop, LouLou Harrington,
Neil Plakcy, Teresa Trent, Terry Ambrose, Amy Vansant, Randy Rawls, Christina
Freeburn, Wendy Sand Eckel, and Karen Cantwell. For more information, go to
www.HappyHomicides.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
THE
NAMING OF CATS: A Rosalie Hart Mystery
Wendy
Sand Eckel
Editor’s
Note: The quaint little town of Cardigan on Maryland’s Eastern Shore seemed
like the perfect spot for Rosalie Hart to open the Day Lily Café. A flat
stretch of land between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, the Eastern
Shore is home to crusty watermen, dug-in farmers, and people who are fiercely
proud to call it home. Rosalie has enough on her plate running the restaurant.
But when her Maine Coon uncovers a mystery, the cat has been let out of the
bag.
Chapter
1
“Your
cat is up to something,” Tyler said as he walked into my kitchen. I set a
steaming cup of coffee next to him and watched as he scrubbed his hands under
the faucet.
“I
think Sweeney Todd is happy to be outside.” I lifted my coffee mug and blew
over the surface to cool it. “This is the first day it hasn’t rained in over a
week.”
He
dried his hands and turned to face me. “Thanks for the joe.”
Tyler
Wells leased the farmland of my new home, Barclay Meadow. It wasn’t really my
choice to move here. Three years ago, when my dear Aunt Charlotte bequeathed me
this two-hundred-year-old house and the vast land surrounding it, I was happily
immersed in my married life in Chevy Chase. But all that changed when my
husband of over twenty years pronounced his love for a much younger and blonder
version of me.
The
sun streamed through the windows, warming the honey wood floors. Tyler and I
had fallen into the habit of sharing a cup of coffee every morning before we
started our days. I checked the clock. I would be leaving soon to go to the
restaurant I recently opened, the Day Lily Café, currently serving breakfast
and lunch five days a week in the sleepy little town of Cardigan.
Tyler
brushed his sandy blond hair off his forehead. “Sweeney is digging pretty close
to the vegetable gardens. You might want to stop him.”
“I’m
on it.” I set my coffee down and headed outside.
My
shoes squeaked on the grass as I rounded the house. A dense mist rose from the
Cardigan River at the end of the sloping lawn. It was a beautiful spring
morning on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
I
spotted Sweeney by an old Sycamore tree. Its trunk was gnarled and twisted
looking like something out of Sleepy Hollow. He was digging furiously at the
ground with his front paws.
My
adopted Maine Coon cat was originally named Sweetie Pie. But on the first day I
brought him home, he slaughtered four goldfinches in under an hour. That’s when
Tyler suggested the name change. At the precise moment I started to disagree,
Sweeney dropped a fifth lifeless bird on my peep-toe pump.
I
knelt down next to him. He had dug so deep almost all nineteen pounds of him
were immersed in the hole.
“Hey,
what are you . . .” He swiped one paw with a particularly vigorous motion and a
clump of dirt launched onto my black skirt. “Sweeney, for goodness sake.” He
stopped digging and let out a long, guttural mmrrrow. He pushed back out of the
hole and eyed me intently. My stomach tightened with dread. “What have you
found, baby?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
THE BOOK IS ON SALE FOR $0.99 DURING THE
TOUR
The authors are supplying a bonus gift for readers. They can
receive it by sending an email to HH4Bonus@joannaslan.com
.
Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime authors include Joanna Campbell Slan, Linda Gordon Hengerer,
David Bishop, LouLou Harrington, Neil Plakcy, Teresa Trent, Terry Ambrose, Amy
Vansant, Randy Rawls, Christina Freeburn, Wendy Sand Eckel, and Karen Cantwell.
For more information, go to www.HappyHomicides.com or visit us at
http://www.facebook.com/happyhomicides
To read a free sample, get your copy of
Happy Homicides 2: Crimes of the Heart here: http://bit.ly/2HHCrime
Joanna Campbell Slan: RT Reviews has called Joanna Campbell Slan
“one of mystery’s rising stars,” and it’s easy to see why. She’s the
award-winning and national bestselling author of three mystery series. Her
first series, the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery series, was an Agatha Award Finalist,
and features ace scrapbooker Kiki Lowenstein. Previous to writing fiction,
Joanna penned seven scrapbooking technique books and wrote for Creating
Keepsakes, Memory Makers, and PaperKuts. She has taught scrapbooking online, on
cruises, and in Europe, as well as here in the US.
http://www.twitter.com/JoannaSlan
http://joannacampbellslan.com
http://www.facebook.com/JoannaCampbellSlan
Linda Gordon Hengerer
Linda was a football widow
during her first marriage, and she wrote American Football Basics (original
title Football Basics) because she thought more women would enjoy football if
they understood it. She is also interested in food and wine, and has written an
easy guide to food and wine pairings.
New Jersey native turned
Florida resident, Linda moved to Vero Beach in 1996. She writes the Beach Tea
Shop Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in an area suspiciously like Vero
Beach.
https://www.amazon.com/Linda-Gordon-Hengerer/e/B008ENHISC
LouLou Harrington
Writer, traveler, and nature
enthusiast Loulou Harrington is the author of the Myrtle Grove Garden Club
mystery series. Originally a native of northwest Arkansas, Loulou now resides
in the Tulsa area and spends frequent weekends wandering among the lakes and
foothills of northeastern Oklahoma, the setting of her cozy series and an area
she hopes her readers will enjoy as much as she does.
Beginning her career as a
romance novelist, she published nine contemporary romances with Harlequin,
writing as Ada Steward, before succumbing to the lure of her first love: the
mystery novel.
First discovering Nancy Drew
as a child and continuing with Miss Marple and Travis McGee as an adult, Loulou
learned to appreciate the puzzle and suspense of the mystery combined with the
familiar characters and settings of the recurring series. So while she still
believes that into each life a little romance should fall, she has come to the
opinion that it should trip over at least one dead body along the way.
http://www.facebook.com/loulouharrington.author
http://www.twitter.com/loulouwrites1
http://loulouharrington.com/
Neil Plakcy
Neil Plakcy is the author of
the Mahu Investigations, mysteries which take place in Hawaii. They are: Mahu,
Mahu Surfer, Mahu Fire, Mahu Vice, Mahu Blood, Mahu Men, Zero Break, Natural
Predators and Children of Noah.
His M/M romance novels are
GayLife.com, Mi Amor, Love on Site, Love on the Web, Love on Stage, Love on the
Pitch, and the Have Body, Will Guard series: Three Wrong Turns in the Desert,
Dancing with the Tide, Teach Me Tonight, Olives for the Stranger, The Noblest
Vengeance and Finding Freddie Venus.
He has also written the
golden retriever mysteries In Dog We Trust, The Kingdom of Dog, Dog Helps
Those, Dog Bless You, Whom Dog Hath Joined and Dog Have Mercy.
He is co-editor of Paws
& Reflect: A Special Bond Between Man and Dog (Alyson Books, 2006) and
editor of many gay erotica anthologies. A journalist, book reviewer and college
professor, he is also a frequent contributor to gay anthologies.
http://www.mahubooks.com/
Teresa Trent
Teresa Trent writes cozy
mysteries that take place in small towns in Texas. She was born in Chattanooga,
Tennessee but with her father in the military, didn't stay for long. She's
lived all over, but likes to call three states her favorite homes. Colorado,
Illinois and of course, Texas. Being a
fan of the Andy Griffith Show and Murder She Wrote she loves creating quirky
small towns and colorful characters. She decided to feature a character with
Down syndrome in the Pecan Bayou series because after giving birth to her own
son with DS, she discovered there were very few people like him in the world of
cozy mysteries. If you're wondering which book to start with in the Pecan Bayou
Series, start with #1 A Dash of Murder. Many of Teresa's mysteries occur before
or during a holiday and A Dash of Murder is her Halloween book.
http://teresatrent.com
https://www.facebook.com/teresatrentmysterywriter
https://twitter.com/ttrent_cozymys
Terry Ambrose
Terry Ambrose started out
skip tracing and collecting money from deadbeats and quickly learned that liars
come from all walks of life. He never actually stole a car, but sometimes hired
big guys with tow trucks and a penchant for working in the dark when
“negotiations” failed.
A resident of Southern
California, he loves spending time in Hawaii, especially on the Garden Island
of Kauai, where he invents lies for others to read. His years of chasing
deadbeats taught him many valuable life lessons including—always keep your car
in the garage.
http://terryambrose.com/
http://facebook.com/suspense.writer
https://twitter.com/suspense_writer
Amy Vansant
Amy specializes in fun,
comedic reads about accident prone, easily distracted women with questionable
taste in men. So, autobiographies, mostly.
Amy is the former East Coast
Editor of SURFER Magazine but the urge to drive up and down the coast
interviewing surfers has long since left her. Currently, she is a nerd and
Labradoodle mommy who works at home with her goofy husband.
She loves interacting with
fans when the dog isn't laying on top of her, so stop by her blog or Twitter
and say hi!
http://www.amyvansant.com/
https://twitter.com/AmyVansant
https://www.facebook.com/theamyvansant
Randy Rawls
I'm Randy Rawls, author of
mysteries and thrillers. I grew up in northeastern North Carolina, then did a
career in the Army. I've been an avid reader all my life and have tried to
incorporate what I learned from the best into my writing. While I live in South
Florida, my heart resides in Texas. I'd love to hear from you at
RandyRawls@att.net.
http://www.randyrawls.com/
https://www.facebook.com/randy.rawls.315
Christina Freeburn
Reading has been a part of
Christina's life since she can remember and soon developed into a love of
writing.
Read about her writing
process, her hobbies, and the heroines she believes are a self-rescue princess
at her blog The Self-Rescue Princess.
https://www.christinafreeburn.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christina-Freeburn/245592138834150
https://twitter.com/ChristinaFreeb1
https://theselfrescueprincess.wordpress.com/
Wendy Sand Eckel
Degrees in criminology and
social work, followed by years of clinical practice, helped WENDY SAND ECKEL
explore her fascination with how relationships impact motivation, desire, and
inhibition. Combined with her passion for words and meaning, writing mystery is
a dream realized. She lives in Maryland where she enjoys family and friends,
two cats, and living near the Chesapeake Bay.
https://www.wendysandeckelauthor.com/
https://www.facebook.com/wsandeckel/
https://twitter.com/wendysandeckel
Karen Cantwell
Karen's novel, Take the
Monkeys and Run was a semi-finalist in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
Contest (under the original title of Monkeys in My Trees)and has gone on to be
a Kindle bestseller on Amazon. She has written three more books in the Barbara
Marr Murder Mystery Series: Citizen Insane, Silenced by the Yams, and Saturday
Night Cleaver.
When she's not writing,
Karen loves gardening and spending time with her family. She is currently
working on the release of Keep Me Ghosted, the first book in the new Sophie
Rhodes Ghostly Romance Series, as well as beginning the draft of Kiss Me, Tate,
part of the upcoming Barbara Marr spin-off, Love in Rustic Woods Series.
https://www.karencantwell.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Karen-Cantwell-Author/122900861086954
http://twitter.com/takethemonkeys
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