Tag Archive for: women sleuths

A Christmas Like No Other

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A Christmas Like No Other

By Lois Winston

When I was a child, we didn’t have much in the way of holiday celebrations. Without going into lurid details, let’s just say my parents never should have had one child, let alone four. However, the one thing I did learn from them was how not to be a parent. As a result, I’ve always made sure holidays were a big deal in my family — decorating, tree trimming, cookie baking, listening to holiday music, and watching holiday movies are some of our favorite activities. I even enjoy shopping for those perfect gifts for everyone. And always topping my holiday list is gathering with family and friends. 

Of course, Covid-19 has forced us to pare that down severely this year, but instead of moping, I’ve decided to focus on next year’s holidays when—hopefully—this awful pandemic will finally be behind us. First up on my to-do list will be booking a flight to California to visit our son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren we haven’t seen for what seems like forever, except on FaceTime.

 

For much of my adult life I juggled three careers at once. I’m now retired from two of them and concentrating full-time on my writing. I’m used to spending my days working from home. That’s the one part of my life that hasn’t been impacted by the pandemic. Escaping into the world of Anastasia Pollack, my reluctant amateur sleuth, has been a way for me to block out all the horrible things that have occurred during 2020. 

 

She, of course, would have it otherwise, but I get it. She didn’t ask to go from a normal life as a middle-class working wife and mother to a debt-ridden single-parent who constantly stumbles across dead bodies. Then again, conflict is the name of the game when writing, and cozy mysteries do need their fair share of dead bodies. Readers kind of expect that. Besides, otherwise, what would an amateur sleuth do for 300 pages?

 

So far, I’ve written nine novels and three novellas in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, but the action has taken place over little more than a year at this point. When the series arc brought me to December, I knew I was going to have fun writing a Christmas mystery. As a matter of fact, I had so much fun writing Drop Dead Ornaments, Book 7 in the series, that I decided to write a second Christmas mystery. Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide, Book 8, picks up days after Drop Dead Ornaments ends.

 

Hey, there’s nothing like a little murder with your eggnog and gingerbread cookies, right?

 

As a holiday gift to my readers, the ebook edition of Drop Dead Ornaments is currently on sale through the end of December for only .99 cents.

 

Happy holidays, everyone!

 

Drop Dead Ornaments

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 7

 

Anastasia Pollack’s son Alex is dating Sophie Lambert, the new kid in town. For their community service project, the high school seniors have chosen to raise money for the county food bank. Anastasia taps her craft industry contacts to donate materials for the students to make Christmas ornaments they’ll sell at the town’s annual Holiday Crafts Fair.

 

At the fair Anastasia meets Sophie’s father, Shane Lambert, who strikes her as a man with secrets. She also notices a woman eavesdropping on their conversation. Later that evening when the woman turns up dead, Sophie’s father is arrested for her murder.

 

Alex and Sophie beg Anastasia to find the real killer, but Anastasia has had her fill of dead bodies. She’s also not convinced of Shane’s innocence. Besides, she’s promised younger son Nick she’ll stop risking her life. But how can she say no to Alex?

 

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

 

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A Thanksgiving Like No Other

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By Lois Winston

In Little Women Louisa May Alcott opens with Jo March grumbling, “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.” This year, for many of us, Thanksgiving won’t be Thanksgiving without family gathering around the dinner table. Such is life in the time of Covid. 

 

In past years, the day before a normal Thanksgiving would find me in the kitchen, either my own or one of my son’s kitchens, baking apple and pumpkin pies and prepping for the next day’s marathon of cooking. However, this Thanksgiving will be unlike any previous Thanksgiving. We won’t be hosting a houseful of relatives or traveling out of state to spend the holiday with either of our sons and their families. 

 

Turkey dinner for two? Hardly seems worth the effort or the expense. Besides, turkey leftovers are great the next day, but even with the smallest bird, we’d wind up with way too much leftover turkey. In the past I’ve tried freezing leftover turkey, but I’ve found it doesn’t freeze well. It always becomes too dry, no matter how much gravy I soak it in. So I’ve placed an order for two turkey dinners to be delivered from one of our local restaurants.

 

As for those pies, If I bake them, we’ll eat them, and neither my husband nor I need all those extra calories. I’ve discovered Covid Weight is worse than the Freshman Fifteen! Or maybe it’s that I’m older, and my metabolism has slowed down. Either way, with only one person with whom to split the calories, I’m nixing the pies.

 

As much as I’ll miss spending time with my family this Thanksgiving, Anastasia Pollack, the reluctant amateur sleuth of my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, is thrilled to be ditching some of hers. She’s sailing off on a cruise in A Sew Deadly Cruise, the ninth and newest book in the series. She certainly deserves a relaxing vacation after all the murder and mayhem I’ve dumped on her in the eight previous books and three novellas.

 

There’s just one problem: I write a mystery series. You can’t have a mystery series without mysteries, and in Anastasia’s life, that usually means at least one dead body—often more. Being the devious author that I am, since I gave her a respite from her most annoying relatives, I dumped more than one mystery and several dead bodies onto the cruise ship. 

 

Of course, Anastasia is not happy with me, but what else is new? We’ve always had a tension-filled relationship. After all, before I dragged her into a starring role in my series, she was a happily married, middle-class wife, mother, and crafts editor at a women’s magazine. With a few strokes of my keyboard, I killed off her duplicitous husband, plummeted her into debt greater than many Third World nations, and permanently stuck her with the communist mother-in-law from Hades. I have to admit, her anger is justified.

 

A Sew Deadly Cruise

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 9

 

Life is looking up for magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack. Newly engaged, she and photojournalist fiancé Zack Barnes are on a winter cruise with her family, compliments of a Christmas gift from her half-brother-in-law. Son Alex’s girlfriend and her father have also joined them. Shortly after boarding the ship, Anastasia is approached by a man with an unusual interest in her engagement ring. When she tells Zack of her encounter, he suggests the man might be a jewel thief scouting for his next mark. But before Anastasia can point the man out to Zack, the would-be thief approaches him, revealing his true motivation. Long-buried secrets now threaten the well-being of everyone Anastasia holds dear. And that’s before the first dead body turns up.

 

Craft projects included.

 

Buy Links

Paperback

Amazon 

Kobo

Nook

Apple

 

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.


Find more about Lois and her books at her website where you can sign up for her newsletter. You can also find her at her Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers blog, Bookbub, Pinterest, Twitter, and Goodreads.

 

They’re Back!

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by Bethany Maines

In 2015 when I wrote An Unseen Current, I had no intention of writing a sequel.  It was a quirky, semi-cozy mystery with a heroine based on an ex-coworker of mine. My friend Jennifer, became Tish Yearly, an ex-actress who returned from the wilds Hollywood and channeled her creative energies into… Marketing? My friend (who I did ask before borrowing her life story) moved on to the next adventure—working at a winery.  (Which, no matter which way you slice it, is WAY better than working for an architecture firm.)  And in my book, Tish gets fired from the architecture firm and is forced to move in with her ex-CIA agent grandfather on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. And of course, murders, mysteries and the zaniness of island life ensues.

I also wrote the book in part as a catharsis for having been let go during the great economic downturn and while I left room for sequels I didn’t think that I would emotionally feel the need.  And then… I had a dream.  I have author friends who have routinely based their works on dreams.  Not me.  I am generally wide awake and noodling about what would happen if I took two weird ideas and mashed them violently together in a fictional soup of deliciousness.  However, in this instance I had a very brief dream about riding a ferry and when I woke up the opening scene of Against the Undertow hit me like a brain wave.  And not just the scene, it arrived with the title!  Or at least the Undertow portion of the title.  I’ve never had an idea arrive quite that way before, but I wish it would happen more often.  I felt like a genius.  Of course, it took me most of a year to figure out the rest of the plot and write the dang thing and that does take the feeling of geniosity down a notch, but still… welcome to the world little sequel.

Against the Undertow is now available for digital pre-order.  Print and digital will be available June 12.  >>PRE-ORDER NOW!<<

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery Series, Tales
From the City of Destiny, San Juan
Islands Mysteries, Shark Santoyo
Crime Series, and numerous short stories. When she’s not traveling to
exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in
karate, she can be found chasing her daughter or glued to the computer working
on her next novel. You can also catch up with her on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.