Meet Cici Wilde

Thanks for stopping by the website for my vintage clothing store. Located as it is in the small town of Grace Gulch, Oklahoma, a lot of its success comes from online sales.

However, business has boomed in the last few months. Everyone wants an authentic outfit for our town’s celebration of the 1891 land run. That’s when our part of Oklahoma was opened to white settlement.

Audie Howe, my new boyfriend and interim director of the Magda Grace Mallory Theater (we call it the MGM), has planned a reenactment of the most famous gunfight in Grace Gulch history.

You see, although our town is named Grace Gulch, after Bob Grace, his rival Dick Gaynor arrived seconds later. He always accused old Bob of cheating. They even exchanged gunfire once.

With Audie directing the reenactment play, my old friend Cord Grace playing his great-grandfather Bob, and my sister Dina handling the prop guns, I hope everything goes well.

I see them out in the street now. Cord is exchanging insults with Penn Hardy, the newspaper editor portraying Dick Gaynor.

Both men pull their guns, shoot, and fall down. Only—Penn Hardy remains on the ground.

He’s … dead!

Award-winning author and speaker Darlene Franklin resides in the Colorado foothills with her mother and her lynx point Siamese cat Talia. She has two grown children and two grandchildren. She loves music, reading and writing. She has published one books previously (Romanian Rhapsody, Barbour, 2005), as well as numerous devotions, magazine articles, and children’s curriculum. Gunfight at Grace Gulch is the first book in the Dressed for Death series. Visit Darlene’s website at http://www.darlenehfranklin.com/

Homicide at Blue Heron Lake

When Emily Gray returned to the tiny, lakeside town of Baxter, Maine, all she intended to do was clean up her mother’s island cottage and sell it. She didn’t expect to see her childhood sweetheart, Nate Holman, again—not that she wouldn’t be glad to see his parents, if they still ran the Baxter Marina. And she did sort of hope they’d tell her what Nate was up to now. But she certainly didn’t expect to find Nate himself running the business and eager to give her a boat ride out to her cottage. Another thing she didn’t expect that golden day on the island with Nate: discovering a murder victim.

Why would anyone kill senior citizen Henry Derbin, who liked to spend quiet summers in his cottage on the island? And now that he’s dead, can Emily break his old rule about trespassing?

Come to Baxter and meet Emily, Nate, and the other residents. Everyone is talking about the murder—or is it two murders? Truly Vigue will talk about anything, anytime. Her plump son Rocky wants friends badly, but has secrets of his own. Raven Miller, owner of the Vital Women Retreat Center, has ideas about the killer. So does Felicia Chadwick, owner and editor of the Baxter Journal. Then there’s Detective Blakeney, who wants Emily out of his way, but grudgingly listens to her and Nate.

My daughter Megan and I concocted this story together. We created Baxter and Blue Heron Lake based on the small towns and gorgeous lakes of Maine that we know and love. We live near the real life “Golden Pond” (Great Pond), where author Ernest Thompson used to spend summers. There’s still a mail boat, and across the state there are still little towns where the people all know each other well, but still have secrets to hide. Join us in the MAINEly Murder series.

Learn more about Susan Page Davis and Megan Elaine Davis at http://www.susanpagedavis.com/.

Happily Ever Buried

I love fiddling with words as if I were mixing colors on a palette. All painters want to produce just the right effects with their medium, and so it is with writers. I spend long hours in front of my computer, trying my best to add just the right light and color to my work, hoping to make it real and inspiring and memorable. At least, that’s always my desire.

My latest writing endeavors are cozy mysteries! Another Stab at Life will be the first cozy in The Volstead Manor Series. The novel is about a young woman, Bailey Walker, who’s lost everything—her family, her job, and her home. She has nowhere to go, except the dilapidated mansion she’s just inherited from her granny Minna. Unfortunately, Bailey discovers that the house has a history as shadowy as its hidden passages and finds the neighborhood overflowing with some rather quirky folks—as well as one particularly appealing bachelor. Bailey feels like she’s trapped inside the pages of a gothic novel but with a comedic twist. In order to honor her grandmother’s wishes and stay at Volstead Manor, Bailey must unravel a string of mysteries and secrets, which all seem determined to stay happily ever buried.

You might ask, “Now, Anita, what made you want to write about such a sinister mansion?” Well, growing up in a creepy one-hundred-year-old farm house in the middle of nowhere probably helped a little. Our old place had bats in the attic, a dank cellar, and a mysterious place under the floorboards like in Poe’s, The Tell-Tale Heart, for hiding money. Or for hiding whatever. So, there was plenty of fodder in that old place for my young imagination to chew on, and it was only a matter of time before those shadows made their way into my writings. So, when you read my mysteries, The Volstead Manor Series, I hope you’ll remember that old farmhouse and how it got me pondering about secret places and puzzling crimes.

Mysteriously Yours,
Anita Higman

Please feel free to drop me a note at ahigman@msn.com or stop by my website at http://www.anitahigman.com/ to enter a drawing for a chance to win a free signed copy of Another Stab at Life.

Meet Priscilla Crumb!

Dear Reader,

Retirement is not at all what I envisioned. I’ve often compared it to one of my prized cheese soufflés gone flat. Dull, dreary, and monotonous. Thankfully, my son Nathan was desperate enough to fly me to his upscale hunting lodge, or I’d more than likely be sitting at my card table right now, putting together one of those five-hundred-piece puzzles he gave me last Christmas. Filling in for Nathan’s full time cook, who came down with a serious case of the West Nile virus four months ago, had become my escape from the mundane routine of retirement. Or so I thought.

That was until my guest list turned into a suspect list. . .for murder. You can believe me when I say that I never expected to be involved in a real life mystery, but that’s exactly what happened when my informal buffet turned to chaos, and Charles Woodruff was found dead after sampling one of my salmon-filled tartlets.


Now up until this unfortunate event, I’ve always been known as superb cook and articulate hostess--save one regrettable incident involving Dr. Witherspoon and an expired jar of mayonnaise--but now my very reputation has been tarnished. So to save my name, and that of my son’s lodge, you can bet I’ll find out the truth.


Sincerely,


Pricilla Crumb

P.S. Want a chance to win a copy of Recipe for Murder? Sign up today at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LisaHarris/. Drawing will be held this month!


Visit my blog at http://pricillacrumb.blogspot.com/ or

Lisa Harris’s blog at http://myblogintheheartofafrica.blogspot.com/
for more information.




Lisa Harris is a wife, mother, missionary, and award-winning author who has been writing fiction and nonfiction for the Christian market since 2000. She and her husband currently live with their three children in Brazil and are learning Portuguese in preparation for a return to Africa. To learn more about Lisa and her ministry, check out her website at http://web.mac.com/sgharris/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html