Hey lovelies! It gives me
great pleasure today to host all these fabulous authors and their new book, “Happy
Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime”! For
other stops on their Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the
banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the end
of this post to enter to win a $50 Etsy Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with these
wonderful authors and to increase your chances of winning!
This book is on SALE during the tour for ONLY $0.99!!! See below for more details.
The authors are sending readers a special gift when you email them. See below for more details.
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime
by 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
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GENRE: Cozy Mystery Anthology
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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.
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EXCERPT ONE:
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?”
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GUEST POST:
5 Reasons People Will Want to Read "Happy Homicides 5: The
Purr-fect Crime" – and a Little Background on the Series
By Joanna Campbell Slan
The
Happy Homicides Cozy Mystery Series was designed to help folks discover a new
favorite author.
1. In each Happy Homicides book, you’ll “meet”
a variety of authors. For example, Happy Homicides 5 features the work of
eleven writers.
2. All the mysteries in our books are “clean”
traditional mysteries with no graphic sex, graphic violence, or offensive
language.
3. These books are reasonably priced. The
pre-order price for Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime is only 99 cents.
4. Every Happy Homicides book comes with a
free gift. There’s a super-secret email address inside so you can send away for
a bonus file full of recipes and craft ideas.
5. Each book has a particular theme. Cat
lovers will rejoice because this anthology raises kitty litter-ature to a whole
new level. All the stories in HH5 feature feline frolics. Whether it’s a
hissing fit between two friends or a crafty catnapper conspiring to con money,
our sleuths don’t pussyfoot around. A crime is a cat-astrophe, pure and simple.
Our crime solvers aren’t about to let a hairball or two stand between them and
justice.
Background:
The
Happy Homicides anthology series grew out of a discussion I had with my friend,
Linda Gordon Hengerer. With a new book being published on Amazon every five
minutes, it has gotten harder and harder to rise above the crowd and get
noticed. In writers’ speak, this problem is called “discoverability,” and the
big question is this: Given the vast number of books being published every day,
How does any author get discovered?
Our
solution was to create the Happy Homicides Cozy Mystery Series, a series of
short story collections by a variety of authors. Editing and publishing these
anthologies has been an education, a challenge, and a joy. We’ve made new
friends, learned new skills, cracked the Amazon bestseller list, and best of
all…we’ve expanded our readership.
This
year we’ll produce two new books in the Happy Homicides series: Happy Homicides
5: The Purr-fect Crime and Happy Homicides 6: Cooking Up Crime (Fall 2017). We
hope you’ll give us a try!
Pre-order
your copy of Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime (Release date May 12, 2017)
for only 99 cents. Go to http://amzn.to/2qUyGVZ.
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AUTHOR BIOS
& LINKS:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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BOOK BUY LINKS
& BOOK SALE INFO:
** Happy
Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime is on SALE during the book tour for ONLY
$0.99!!!**
Amazon Kindle:
Goodreads:
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The authors are supplying a bonus gift for readers. They can receive it by sending an email to
HH4Bonus@joannaslan.com.
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
The authors will be awarding a $50 Etsy GC to a
randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase made I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just
helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
To enter, follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter below: 
