Dear Reader, Love, Susan McCormick

Dear Reader…

The Fog Ladies is a cozy murder mystery with a group of spunky older women and one overworked, overtired, overstressed medical intern who all live in an elegant apartment building in San Francisco where old ladies start to die. The story morphed quite a bit as my writing progressed, but the name of the book and the idea for the group of women came to me instantly, before anything else about the story. The women call themselves the Fog Ladies because you can count on them like you can count on San Francisco early morning fog burning off by midday. I tried to create a memorable cast of quirky yet identifiable characters and concocted murders around them. Mrs. Bridge falls off a stool cleaning bugs out of her kitchen light. Mrs. Talwin slips on bubbles in the bath and drowns. Plausible, like the young intern thinks, or murder, like her feisty elders assume?

Years ago, I lived in an apartment building much like the one in The Fog Ladies, minus the murders, when I did medical training in San Francisco. Elegant apartment buildings are found throughout San Francisco, especially in Pacific Heights, where the story is set. Being a life-long cozy lover, I always thought this would be the perfect setting for a mystery, with tenants of all ages living together for years, providing a cast of characters and cozy-type enclosed setting ripe for a series of murders. The victims and the killer are all known to each other and it is hard to hide.

Though I thought I knew my characters well, during the magic of writing, the tale took unexpected twists and turns. One of my characters, Enid Carmichael, discovers Starbucks lattes at the ripe old age of eighty. She loves the bitterness, the froth. I wrote that. Then she craved more, and the next thing I knew, she was stealing Starbucks coupons from her neighbor’s newspaper to feed her addiction. She did that. Not me. A character wrote herself onto life support and expected me to cure her health issues. This is my favorite part of writing, when characters I created do unexpected things and get themselves into trouble.   

The Fog Ladies’ characters and setting were planned out in advance, but I am happy I gave the ladies space to be themselves, because the surprises they brought delighted me and I hope they delight you, too.

Susan McCormick

https://susanmccormickbooks.com

Buy links

https://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Francisco-Cozy-Murder-Mystery/dp/1509227008/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=the+fog+ladies&qid=1566149999&s=gateway&sr=8-3

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-fog-ladies-susan-mccormick/1132335363?ean=9781509227006

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47112539-the-fog-ladies?from_search=true

Bookbub

https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-fog-ladies-a-san-francisco-cozy-murder-mystery-by-susan-mccormick

Social media

https://www.facebook.com/susanmccormickauthor/

https://twitter.com/smccormickbooks

https://www.instagram.com/susanmccormickbooks/

Dear Reader, Love, Dr. Randy Overbeck

Dear Reader…

I’m so excited that you’ve selected Blood on the Chesapeake for your reading list, especially when you have so many great choices. But I’m confident, whichever way your literary interests flow, you’ll find something in the novel to enjoy and savor. In Blood on the Chesapeake, you’ll find a little of everything or to quote one of the early reviews, “Within a web woven of threads from a number of genres—a bit of romance, a lot of mystery, and a good deal of old-fashioned ghost whispering—[Overbeck’s] written a pretty solid social commentary.” And this reviewer didn’t even mention the breathtakingly beautiful scenery of the Eastern Shore and stunning scenes of sailing on the Chesapeake Bay captured in the pages of the book.

            Have you ever visited a place, been so captivated by everything about the area and learned about the history and culture there, you thought you might’ve just found your perfect place? And what if, seeing all this anew, you learned something, stumbled upon something? What if here, in a quaint, scenic resort town nestled along miles and miles of undulating Eastern shoreline, where life is peaceful and yards are fenced with white pickets, what if something happened? Something so horrific and vile, it was buried deep in the town’s memory, an ugly secret festering beneath the surface for more than thirty years? And what if your discovery threatens to shatter everything in your new life, the dream job you’d always wanted, great new friends and a new love—who might just be the one? And what if you’d made this discovery, uncovered this awful secret because of a ghost?

            That’s the situation Darrell Henshaw finds himself in. After transplanting himself from his childhood home in Michigan to the beautiful, quiet shore town in Maryland for a new job teaching high school history and coaching football and basketball. Within a few weeks he meets and falls for a stunning town beauty with flowing red hair and sparkling emerald eyes. Only, one of the first visitors to his new office is a ghost, the spirit of a teen murdered in the school some thirty years earlier. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Darrell is a sensitive. He sees ghosts. It’s not something he wants. Or wants to tell anyone.

            I hope, by now, you get it.

If your literary tastes run toward mystery or ghost whispering or romance or beach reads, by the time you close the last page of Blood on the Chesapeake, I think you will likely come away satisfied. I look forward to hearing your candid response to this first novel in The Haunted Shore Mysteries series. Thanks for reading. Peace.

 Randy Overbeck

www.author randyoverbeck.com

Order the book here: https://www.authorrandyoverbeck.com/books

Dear Reader, Love Mark S. Bacon

Dear Reader,

A life-and-death chase across the Nevada desert in the middle of August highlights the action in this complex mystery spread across the southwest.  Desert Kill Switch was written to appeal to both your head and your heart.

I love mystery/suspense books that have challenging plot twists and multiple suspects that keep me guessing until the end.  But I also like fast-moving stories that put the main characters in peril making me worry that something bad might happen to them.  I wrote this book to combine both elements of a mystery/suspense book.  I wrote this to appeal to your head and your heart.

Some suspense books are full of action, but you know whodunit without hardly thinking. Then there are mysteries with lots of clues and suspects that plod along almost free of excitement until the last few pages.  Raymond Chandler had disparaging words to say about mysteries that saved the best for last.  He thought a book should be exciting and engaging throughout.

Desert Kill Switch challenges your deductive powers and takes you on one fast-moving ride after another as the two amateur detectives struggle to unravel multiple murders.

The name of the book comes from insidious little devices that some car dealers put in automobiles they sell.  GPS trackers and kill switches are sometimes put in cars sold to people that dealers consider to be higher risk borrowers.  Miss a payment—sometimes by as little as a few days—and your car is dead.  In this novel, maybe you are, too.

My main characters are Lyle Deming, a stressed-out ex-cop now driving a cab in a northern Arizona theme park, Nostalgia City (yes, it’s that big) and Kate Sorensen, Nostalgia City’s director of public relations and a former college basketball star. 

The story travels from Nostalgia City to Reno to Las Vegas and back.  Blackmail, desert chases under the hot August sun, and a sprawling classic car - rock and roll street fair are some of the elements you’ll find in the story.

Kate and Lyle must exonerate Kate who is accused of murder, catch a blackmailer, save a witness’s life, and help find a missing corpse. 

Hope you enjoy it.

Mark S. Bacon

P.S. I forgot to tell you about the setting:   Nostalgia City theme park is a meticulous re-creation of a small town from the 1970s.  It’s complete with period cars, clothes, food, shops, rides, music, fads, hair styles, restaurants—the works.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark S. Bacon began his career as a southern California newspaper police reporter, one of his crime stories becoming key evidence in a murder case that spanned decades.

After working for two newspapers, he moved to advertising and marketing when he became a copywriter for Knott’s Berry Farm, the large theme park down the freeway from Disneyland. Experience working at Knott’s formed part of the inspiration for his creation of Nostalgia City theme park. 

Before turning to fiction, Bacon wrote business books including  one for John Wiley & Sons Publishers that was printed in four languages and three editions, named best business book of the year by Library Journal, and selected by the Book of the Month Club and two other book clubs. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post,Cleveland Plain Dealer, San Antonio Express News,Denver Post, and many other publications.  Most recently he was a correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Desert Kill Switch is the second book in the Nostalgia City mystery series that began with Death in Nostalgia City, an award winner at the 2015 San Francisco Book Festival. The third book in the series will be published soon.

Bacon is the author of flash fiction mystery books including, Cops, Crooks and Other Stories in 100 Words. He  taught journalism as a member of the adjunct faculty at Cal Poly University – Pomona, University of Redlands, and the University of Nevada - Reno.  He earned an MA in mass media from UNLV and a BA in journalism from Fresno State.   

Find out more on Amazon    

Website and social media:

www.baconsmysteries.com

Twitter: @baconauthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markbaconmysteries/

Google plus: https://plus.google.com/+MarkBaconwriter