Wednesday, October 31, 2018


You may have noticed the tour
date above has passed.

I was unable to host my originally scheduled day.
So, I'm sharing it with you today. 

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

I'm so excited to be a (belated) stop
on the blog tour for
PAST & PRESENT
Book 2 in the Marketville Mysteries
by Judy Penz Sheluk


Sometimes the past reaches out to the present...
It's been thirteen months since Calamity (Callie) Barnstable inherited a house in Marketville under the condition that she search for the person who murdered her mother thirty years earlier. She solves the mystery, but what next? Unemployment? Another nine-to-five job in Toronto?
Callie decides to set down roots in Marketville, take the skills and knowledge she acquired over the past year, and start her own business, Past & Present Investigations.
It's not long before Callie and her new business partner, best friend Chantelle Marchand, get their first client: a woman who wants to find out everything she can about her grandmother, Anneliese Prei, and how she came to a "bad end" in 1956. It sounds like a perfect first assignment. Except for one thing: Anneliese's past winds its way into Callie's present, and not in a manner anyone--least of all Callie--could have predicted.

LKBR:  Thank you for being here today, Judy!

Judy: Thank you for hosting me.


LKBR: Please tell us a bit about your most recent book, Past & Present.

Judy: Past & Present is the sequel to Skeletons in the Attic, the first book in my Marketville Mystery series. In the first book, my protagonist, Calamity (Callie) Barnstable, inherits a house in Marketville under the condition that she move into the house and find out who murdered her mother 30 years before. In Past & Present, Callie takes her newfound investigative knowledge and starts her own company, Past & Present Investigations. Her first case involves finding out all she can about a woman who was murdered in 1956.


LKBR: How did you come up with the concept?

Judy: Marketville is a thinly disguised Newmarket, a commuter town about 90 minutes north of Toronto. The initial idea for Skeletons came to me when I was sitting in my lawyer’s office, waiting for him to come in from court. I was there with my husband to update our wills and I got to thinking: What if I was inheriting… and the idea snowballed from there. The idea for Past & Present came to me when I was going through my late mother’s documents. She had them tucked inside an old train case, and there were her immigration papers, an old passport, photos and postcards. I’d never seen those things and my mom didn’t talk much about her life before she immigrated to Canada in 1952. So I traced her journey through those papers, and suddenly, Past & Present came to life. I dedicated the book to my mom, Anneliese Penz, and named one the character Callie is trying to learn more about, Anneliese. And the book is being released on the second anniversary of my mom’s death.


LKBR: What are your future plans for this series? Any hints or spoilers you can give us about the next book?

Judy: I’m currently writing book three in both series (Glass Dolphin and Marketville), but I’m superstitious. I won’t talk about my books while they’re in progress.


LKBR: Is writing an energizing experience, or does it take a lot out of you?

Judy: It can be both. On a great day, you feel like you can ride the wave forever. On a day when the words don’t come, you feel like the waves are battering at you from every direction. But I ride it out either way. If you wait for the muse to come, you’ll have a lot of blank pages to stare at, and you can’t edit a blank page.


LKBR: Once you knew you wanted to be a published writer, who was the first person you reached out to for help? (Such as a publisher, or author)

Judy: I went to Bloody Words in Toronto (the last conference was 2014) and soaked up everything I could about writing, publishing, social media and spoke to authors and wannabe authors. That was 2012. I wrote my first book (The Hanged Man’s Noose: A Glass Dolphin Mystery) after that, and got a publishing contract in July 2014 from Barking Rain Press. The second book in that series, A Hole In One, came out in March 2018, also from Barking Rain. I think, as a writer, you can ask other authors for advice, but at the end of the day, it’s you doing the heavy lifting and you have to do your own research on what works and what doesn’t vis-Γ -vis marketing and social media. One size definitely does not fit all.


LKBR: What sort of research do you do for your books? Is it more computer based or hands on?

Judy: Definitely more computer based. I always joke with my husband that he better delete my browser history if anything happens to me!


LKBR: What is your writing process? Place, time of day, by the hour or word count?

Judy: Time of day varies but when I’m working on a project, I aim for a chapter a day. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s the plan. I do tend to work 7 days a week, but a lot of time is spent on marketing, writing blogs, etc. I try to balance it all.


LKBR: How do you come up with character names?

Judy: Different ways. I’ll see someone’s name on film or TV credits and think “that’s an interesting first or last name.” I to try and google names to make sure the person isn’t super famous. And some names, like Emily Garland, the protagonist in Noose, is a combination of the first book I read that made me want to be a writer (Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery) and Judy Garland – I was named after Judy Garland!


LKBR: Do you read reviews of your books? If you do, and a review is bad, what effect does it have on you? (I know some reviews are mean as opposed to constructive.)

Judy: Yes, I do read my reviews on Amazon, Goodreads etc. If someone has taken the time to read my book and review it, I feel I owe it to them to read the review. I remember my first 1-star review for Skeletons. It came off a string of 5-stars and the guy wrote something like, “it’s not a bad book but it doesn’t deserve 5 stars so I need to bring the rating down.” I was crushed, but then I realized that even crazy mad bestsellers like Gone Girl get 1-star reviews. That said, a great 5-star review can make your day. The other day, someone wrote (about Skeletons) that it would make a great movie. Hello Hollywood, are you reading this?


LKBR: Where can readers go to learn more about you and your books?

Website/Blog: http://www.judypenzsheluk.com
Facebook: https://business.facebook.com/JudyPenzSheluk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudyPenzSheluk
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8602696.Judy_Penz_Sheluk
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Judy-Penz-Sheluk/e/B00O74NX04
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/judypenzsheluk/
Audible: https://www.audible.com/author/Judy-Penz-Sheluk/B00O74NX04


LKBR: Thank you so much, Judy for letting us get to know you better!

Judy: Thank you for asking.


Judy Penz Sheluk's debut mystery novel, The Hanged Man's Noose, was published in July 2015 by Barking Rain Press. A Hole in One, the sequel, was released March 2018. Skeletons in the Attic, Judy's second novel, and the first in her Marketville Mystery series, was first published in August 2016 and released in second edition in Nov. 2017. Past & Present, the sequel, was released September 2018. Her short crime and literary fiction can be found in several collections.

In her less mysterious pursuits, Judy has worked as a freelance writer; her articles have appeared regularly in dozens of U.S. and Canadian consumer and trade publications. She is currently the Senior Editor for New England Antiques Journal.

Judy is also a member of Sisters in Crime International/Guppies/Toronto, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves as a Director and Regional Representative for Toronto/Southern Ontario.

Find Judy at www.judypenzsheluk.com, where she interviews other authors and blogs about the writing life.


As always, please leave a comment and 
let me know what you think!

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018


Look at all of the amazing
cozies out today!


Angie's first auction may turn out to be her last—when she bids on a coat of arms that someone would literally kill to possess . . .
 
Tagging along to an estate sale with her fellow Needlepointer, antiques shop owner Sarah Byrne, Angie Curtis impulsively bids on a tattered embroidery of a coat of arms. When she gets her prize back home to Haven Harbor, she discovers a document from 1757 behind the framed needlework—a claim for a child from a foundling hospital. Intrigued, Angie is determined to find the common thread between the child and the coat of arms.
 
Accepting her reporter friend Clem Walker's invitation to talk about her find on the local TV news, Angie makes an appeal to anyone who might have information. Instead, both women receive death threats. When Clem is found shot to death in a parking lot, Angie fears her own life may be in jeopardy. She has to unravel this historical mystery—or she may be the next one going, going . . . gone . . .



Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library—she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn’t expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town . . .
 
Addie left some painful memories behind in the big city, including the unsolved murder of her fiancΓ© and her father’s fatal car accident. After an unexpected inheritance from a great aunt, she’s moved to a small New England town founded by her ancestors back in colonial times—and living in spacious Greyborne Manor, on a hilltop overlooking the harbor. Best of all, her aunt also left her countless first editions and other treasures—providing an inventory to start her own store.
 
But there’s trouble from day one, and not just from the grumpy woman who runs the bakery next door. A car nearly runs Addie down. Someone steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Then, Addie’s friend Serena, who owns a nearby tea shop, is arrested—for killing another local merchant. The police seem pretty sure they’ve got the story in hand, but Addie’s not going to let them close the book on this case without a fight 


Texas police officer Megan Luz and her K-9 partner Brigit have come a long way, baby.
A BUNDLE OF JOY. A DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD. . .
One night, while on duty with her four-legged crime-fighting companion, Meg gets an urgent call from her boyfriend Seth, who works for the Fort Worth fire department. A baby girl has turned up at the station with only two clues to her identity: One is a peace-sign symbol stitched into her blanket. The other is a word, written in string: help.
Megan follows every loose thread and, along with Brigit, ends up on a twisted path that leads to the People of Peace compound, the site of a religious sect on the outskirts of the city. Its leader, Father Emmanuel, keeps his followers on a short leash―and his enemies even closer. Could this be the abandoned baby’s original home? And if so, why was she cast out? Now that Megan and Brigit are on the case, the secrets of this reclusive cult are bound to be dug up. . .

As the Moonlight Magnolia Agency revisits old memories on Christmas Eve, Granny Reid takes the reins back thirty years to the 1980s—back when she went by Stella, everyone’s hair was bigger, and sweaters were colorful disasters. But murder never went out of style . . .
 
Christmas has arrived in sleepy McGill, Georgia, but holiday cheer can’t keep temperamental Stella Reid from swinging a rolling pin at anyone who crosses her bad side—and this season, there are plenty. First an anonymous grinch vandalizes a celebrated nativity display. Far worse, the scandalous Prissy Carr is found dead in an alley behind a tavern. With police puzzled over the murder, Stella decides to stir the local gossip pot for clues on the culprit’s identity . . . 
 
Turns out Prissy held a prominent spot on the naughty list, and suspects pile up like presents on Christmas morning. Unfortunately, the more progress Stella makes, the more fears she must confront. With a neighbor in peril and the futures of her beloved grandchildren at risk, Stella must somehow set everything straight and bring a cunning criminal to justice before December 25th . . .


Liss MacCrimmon’s meddlesome mother is back in Moosetookalook, Maine, to serve a hefty portion of trouble in time for Thanksgiving. But when a scandalous murder case threatens to leave Liss alone at the table, family drama takes on a terrifying new meaning . . . 
 
While Liss preps the Scottish Emporium for November’s inevitable shopping rush, other local businesses aren’t half as lucky. Year after year, her father-in-law’s rustic hotel can barely turn a profit during the stretch between autumn’s peak and ski season. Except this time, Mr. Ruskin realizes that the recipe for success lies in enticing an untapped niche clientele—childless couples desperate for a holiday away from family . . .
 
The unusual marketing tactic has everyone in Moosetookalook talking. Unfortunately, it also inspires a scathing social media campaign aimed at persuading tourists to boycott the hotel for affronting family values. Liss dismisses the bad publicity as being totally “overkilt”—until angry mobs fill the streets, the troublemaker who started it all turns up dead, and her loved ones are suspected of murder . . . 
 
With so much at stake, Liss can’t possibly follow police orders to stay out of the investigation. There’s just one wee problem: saving her own clan could mean sending a friend or two behind bars. Now—partly helped, partly hindered by her difficult mother—Liss must digest a slew of unsettling clues and catch the real killer . . . or else everything she’s ever been thankful for may vanish before her eyes.


It’s peak tourist season in Oriole Point, Michigan—the blueberry buckle of the fruit belt. Nothing draws the crowds quite like their annual carnival. And nothing turns it sour faster than murder . . .
 
The Blueberry Blow Out festival has begun and it’s time for Marlee Jacob, owner of The Berry Basket, to shine. Unfortunately it’s also bringing out the worst in her fiancΓ© Ryan Zeller. Ryan’s rivalry with Porter Gale, owner of Blueberry Hill Farm, spills over into a very public and very ugly fight. And after they compete in the pie-eating contest and a raucous tug of war, their orchard blood feud takes a deadly turn . . .
 
The death of the king of Blueberry Hill is a shock but not too surprising—he was a diabetic whose last pig out meal was deliciously fatal. But when authorities discover that someone tampered with Porter’s insulin, a tragic accident is looking like murder—and Ryan is the key ingredient. Now Marlee’s investigation to clear his name is taking her deep into the Gale family secrets, and she’s being shadowed every step of the way by a killer whose sweet revenge is just beginning . . .  
Includes Berry Recipes!


McKinney to discover the waffle truth behind a rival's murder . . .
Winter has come to Wildwood Cove, and riding in on the chill is Wally Fowler. Although he's been away for years, establishing his reputation as the self-proclaimed Waffle King, the wealthy blowhard has returned to the coastal community to make money, not friends-by pitting his hot and trendy Waffle Kingdom against Marley McKinney's cozy pancake house, The Flip Side. Wally doesn't see anything wrong in a little healthy competition, until he's murdered in his own state-of-the art kitchen.
Marley isn't surprised when the authorities sniff around The Flip Side for a motive, but it's her best friend Lisa who gets grilled, given her sticky history with the victim. When a second murder rocks the town, it makes it harder than ever for Marley to clear Lisa's name. Marley's afraid that she's next in line to die-and the way things are looking, the odds of surviving her investigation could be stacked against her.
Includes pancake recipes right from The Flip Side menu!


Fresh-baked cookies, pies, and cakes can warm even the frostiest Christmases in coastal Maine. But there’s little room for holiday cheer when murder is the new seasonal tradition . . .  
 
YULE LOG MURDER by LESLIE MEIER
Lucy Stone is thrilled to be cast as an extra in a festive period film—until the set becomes a murder scene decorated in blood and buttercream icing. Returning to her role as sleuth, Lucy dashes to restore peace to Tinker’s Cove, unwrap a cold-hearted criminal’s MO, and reveal how one ornate Yule log cake could possibly cause so much drama. 
 
DEATH BY YULE LOG by LEE HOLLIS
Hayley Powell’s holidays aren’t off to a very merry start. Not only has her daughter brought Conner—an infuriatingly perfect new beau—home to Bar Harbor, but a local troublemaker has been found dead with traces of her signature Yule log cake on his body. As Conner becomes the prime murder suspect, Hayley must put aside her mixed feelings to identify the real killjoy.
 
LOGGED ON by BARBARA ROSS
Realizing she can’t make a decent BΓ»che de NoΓ«l to save her life, Julia Snowden enlists the help of her eccentric neighbor, Mrs. St. Onge, in hopes of mastering the dessert for Christmas. With everyone in the old woman’s circle missing or deceased, however, it’s up to Julia to stop the deadly tidings before she’s the next Busman’s Harbor resident to meet a not-so-jolly fate.
 
Kick back with something sweet and indulge in three bite-sized Yuletide tales too good to resist!


Former Army brat Molly Owens is ready to put down roots, and the picturesque seaside town of Britton Bay on the Oregon Coast seems like the perfect place for it. Especially when she lands a job as editor of the local paper. But she's got one colleague who's very bad news . . .
As an experienced journalist, Molly is eager to bring the struggling Britton Bay Bulletin up to speed. But when she pushes Vernon, one of her less welcoming reporters, to dig a little deeper into the story of a prominent local family, the man ends up dead. The fact that he wasn't well-liked makes finding the killer extra complicated. The lists of suspects range from his ex-wife to his own son to Molly's boss, who has a secret of his own. But when Molly's attempts to sleuth out the truth result in her receiving frightening threats, the trouble is just beginning . . .
The one bright spot is Molly's newfound flirtation with Sam Alderich. The sexy mechanic is used to taking things apart and piecing them back together, and between the two of them they just might be able to solve this deadly puzzle-if Molly can survive peaceful small-town life long enough . . .
 

It’s time for the Harvest Festival again, and Phyllis is determined to bake a killer pecan pie.
Hollywood comes to Weatherford, Texas, as a movie company arrives to shoot scenes for a film based on the novel by Phyllis Newsom’s friend Eve. But movie fantasy turns to deadly reality as a murder recreated for film turns out to be the genuine article, and once more Phyllis has to track down a cunning killer to see that justice is done.
DEATH BAKES A PECAN PIE is the fourteenth novel in the critically acclaimed and best-selling Fresh Baked Mystery series. Phyllis and her friends tackle another complex case with all the humor, camaraderie, good-hearted warmth, and delicious recipes that have made readers around the world fall in love with this series.
Recipes included!


When something goes bump in the night . . . it’s most likely a plumbing problem, or something equally mundane. But fake medium Eleanor Wilde is happy to investigate and cleanse your home of spectral presences—for a fee. Hey, it’s a living . . .
 
Ellie has an ailing sister to care for, and working as a ghost hunter who doesn’t believe in ghosts helps cover the bills for both of them. When she’s lucky, it also pays for the occasional tropical vacation. Her brother doesn’t exactly approve, but Ellie figures she’s providing a service. On her latest job, though, she may be in for some genuine scares.
 
The skeptical, reserved, and very rich Nicholas Hartford III has flown her all the way to his family’s ancestral estate in England—supposedly haunted by a phantom named Xavier. Nicholas thinks it’s all just as much a crock as Ellie’s business is, but the fact remains that something is causing the flashes of light, mysterious accidents, and other apparent pranks in the chilly, eerie castle. His mother is sure that Xavier is real, and he’s willing to employ Ellie if she can get to the bottom of it and put a stop to the nonsense.
 
While the food and accommodations are somewhat disappointing (dorm-room furniture? Really?), Ellie is finding it an adventure to get to know this eccentric family and their houseguests, and to poke around in the nearby village for clues. But when an actual dead body appears—and subsequently disappears—at Castle Hartford, she’ll have to apply her talent for trickery and psychological insight to solve a 
flesh-and-blood murder.







Which ones are you adding to your bookshelves?

Monday, October 29, 2018

Today I'm joining Berkley Mystery
in celebrating these great authors and their wonderful books.

Laura Childs Terrie Farley Moran
and
Cleo Coyle

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

GLITTER BOMB
Book 15 in the Scrapbooking Mysteries
by Laura Childs with Terrie Farley Moran


An exploding Mardi Gras float has got to be the strangest murder weapon scrappy sleuth Carmela Bertrand has ever encountered in this latest Scrapbooking Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author.

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans and scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand is excited to be attending the Pluvius Parade along with her best friend Ava. Carmela's ex-husband Shamus rides by the duo on his float at the head of the parade, when suddenly the revelry turns to disaster. Shamus' float crashes and explodes, and although Shamus escapes unhurt, a member of his krewe is killed.

Carmela and Ava plunge into an investigation of the krewe-member's death, but as they dig deeper it starts to look less like an accident and more like a murder....and Shamus seems less like a victim, and more like a suspect.

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

!!!GIVEAWAY!!!
1 lucky reader will win a print copy of

GLITTER BOMB

USA only

Enter using the Rafflecopter form at the end of this post.

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

MY REVIEW


In this installment of the New Orleans Scrapbooking Mysteries, murder during Mardi Gras is colorfully explosive and makes for a great read!

Author Laura Childs knows how to pack a punch into a mystery. GLITTER BOMB is exciting, fun, and at times, intense. And I’ve noticed a subtle change in the tone of the stories since author Terrie Farley Moran has come on board. It’s a good change. You can’t go wrong with two fabulous authors writing a book together.

Over all, GLITTER BOMB was an excellent mystery with plenty of twists and turns, as well as false leads to keep my inner sleuth guessing all the way to the end.

Returning fans of the series are going to love GLITTER BOMB. New readers will enjoy it as well and may become hooked enough to start the series from the beginning.

I do offer a profanity warning to cozy mystery purists.

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

THE GHOST AND THE 
BOGUS BESTSELLER
Book 6 in the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries
Cleo Coyle


Penelope Thornton-McClure and her bookshop's ghost-in-residence Jack Shepard are back on a new case in this delightful paranormal mystery from New York Timesbestselling author Cleo Coyle.

A big bestseller leads to small town trouble.

Bookshop owner Penelope Thornton-McClure didn't believe in ghosts, until she was haunted by the hard-boiled spirit of 1940s private investigator Jack Shepard. Now Jack is back on the job, and Pen is eternally grateful... 

After an elegant new customer has a breakdown in her shop, Penelope suspects there is something bogus behind the biggest bestseller of the year. This popular potboiler is so hot that folks in her tiny Rhode Island town are dying to read it--literally. First one customer turns up dead, followed by another mysterious fatality connected to the book, which Pen discovers is more than just fiction. Now, with the help of her gumshoe ghost, Pen must solve the real-life cold case behind the bogus bestseller before the killer closes the book on her.

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

!!!GIVEAWAY!!!
1 lucky reader will win a print copy of

THE GHOST AND THE 
BOGUS BESTSELLER

USA only

Enter using the Rafflecopter form at the end of this post.

πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“šπŸ“–πŸ“š

MY REVIEW


Though not my first book by Cleo Coyle, this is my first in this series. I’ve already added the book one, THE GHOST AND MRS. MCLURE (written as Alice Kimberly), to my TBR.

Before getting into my review, I’d like to quickly say, I love books with short chapters, titled chapters (reminds me of my Nancy Drew days), and quotes (or other interesting information) before each chapter. This book has all three! A fun reading triad for me.

THE GHOST AND THE BOGUS BESTSELLER is a wonderfully crafted whodunnit. With the action taking off at a fast pace in the first chapter, I found myself turning the pages quickly in my quest to solve this mystery. I finished in one breathless, head spinning sitting.

While the whole 1940s gumshoe character was never a favorite of mine, I very much enjoyed PI Jack Shepard the ghost. There were so many times he had me laughing out loud. The relationship with Jack and series protagonist, Penelope “Pen” Thornton, was a pleasure to read, and I look forward to more adventures with them.

With a feeling of old meets new, THE GHOST AND THE BOGUS BESTSELLER has a little something for every mystery reader.

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


a Rafflecopter giveaway



As always, please leave a comment and 
let me know what you think!

Follow my blog by submitting your email in 
upper right hand corner of this page
(on the side bar).

Reading from your phone? Scroll to the bottom of your page and click "View web version".
Then follow the above directions.