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.