Hi Fellow Readers,
Today is the first Friday of the month, and AuthorsXP is doing a Fresh Friday Share day for all the books that have just been released – mine included. See below:
Have fun checking out the new releases.
Click on the photo for a larger view
I hope you find a few books you may just love.
Here’s the link: https://authorsxp.com/fresh-friday-new-release-books
Please spread the word.
♦ ♣ ♥ ♠
Heather Stanton and her Aunt Julia are making a home for themselves in the small town of Willows Bend as Julia works to complete her community service hours. But dark secrets from her past are about to catch up to her.
Jimmy the Horse, Julia’s unscrupulous ex-partner and former suitor, arrives unannounced with plans to reignite their romance, but Julia and Heather question his true intentions when his associate is found dead at the bottom of their stairs, and they’re thrown into another murder investigation.
Aunt Julia turns to Cartomancy—a form of Tarot that uses playing cards—for guidance. Does Julia’s old deck, passed down from her grandmother, possess the ability to reveal clues to the killer, and guide her destiny towards riches, or is it the cause of all her troubles?
Featuring Makki, the bookstore cat
If you’ve missed reading the first 2 books in the Willows Bend Cozy Mystery Series,
You Bet Your Life,
and The Crone’s Curse, 
will be on sale for only .99 cents from August 25th through the end of the month of August.
Happy Reading.
Hello Everyone,
I recently came across this new innovation in helping authors, that you may or may not find controversial. So, I thought I’d put it out for you to make up your own mind. QuickWrite is called an evolution in writing technology. See if you agree:
Writing is an art that demands creativity, patience and skill; yet it is an exhausting and time-consuming task which drains both mental and physical energy. Technology has come to the rescue through QuickWrite AI’s development.
QuickWrite AI is an innovative writing tool powered by artificial intelligence to aid writers with the creative process. Featuring fast and efficient ways for you to generate ideas, create outlines, and produce content quickly and easily – QuickWrite AI makes writing extraordinary articles, essays and academic papers effortless!
QuickWrite AI was designed to assist writers with writer’s block, time management and content quality issues. Utilizing natural language processing (NLP), machine learning algorithms and predictive text analysis techniques it enables writers to produce high-quality writing at impressive speed.
QuickWrite AI’s Features This innovative program boasts numerous features which distinguish and make it highly efficient, such as:
1. Generating Ideas: QuickWrite AI provides authors with ideas based on their preferences and writing history to make getting started easier than ever!
2. Outlining: QuickWrite AI provides writers with an outline for their articles, essays or academic papers to quickly get writing process underway. By eliminating the hassle of starting from scratch when creating their outline quickly.
3. Content Generation: QuickWrite AI uses predictive text analysis to assist writers in rapidly creating content, shortening the writing process by decreasing time invested in creating it.
4. Editing: QuickWrite AI provides editors to assist writers with grammar errors, sentence structure issues and punctuation mistakes so that high-quality content is created without excessive labor costs. This feature ensures writers create high-quality work quickly.
5. Multilingual Support: QuickWrite AI can support multiple languages, making it a useful writing aid for those working across borders or writing in different tongues.
QuickWrite AI offers numerous benefits to authors. Here are just a few:
1. Time Efficient: QuickWrite AI helps shorten the writing process by quickly producing ideas and content faster than conventional writing methods.
2. Improved Accuracy: QuickWrite AI ensures that its content produced is of top-quality, free from errors such as grammar mishaps, punctuation inconsistencies and sentence structure issues.
3. Improved Productivity: QuickWrite AI empowers writers to complete writing tasks more quickly and more efficiently, thus increasing productivity.
4. Cost-Efficient: QuickWrite AI provides an affordable option to writers looking to produce high-quality articles at a rapid pace.
5. Increased creativity: QuickWrite AI can generate ideas which may not immediately come to writers’ minds, increasing both their creative writing abilities and writing capacities.
Conclusion
QuickWrite AI is an innovative writing tool which uses artificial intelligence to assist writers in the creative process. Offering many features and benefits that make this an efficient yet time-effective writing solution, QuickWrite AI makes producing high-quality content quickly easier so authors can work more efficiently and productively, thus making QuickWrite AI an essential asset to every author looking to enhance their writing process.
If you’re interested in learning more about it or trying it out for yourself, here’s the link: https://www.quickwrite.ai/what-do-you-write/?orid=232042&opid=57
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this new innovation in writing, since almost the entire blog was written using QuickWrite. Please feel free to leave a comment.
Hello Everyone. It’s been a while since my blog has been active. But I’ve decided to reactivate it by hosting one of my favorite mystery authors: Marja McGraw.
Marja McGraw has worked in both civil and criminal law, state transportation, and for a city building department. She has lived and worked in California, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska, Arizona, Washington and Mississippi.
She wrote a weekly column for a small town newspaper in Northern Nevada, and conducted a Writers’ Support Group in Northern Arizona.
Marja writes two mystery series, The Sandi Webster Mysteries and The Bogey Man Mysteries, which are light reading with a touch of humor.
Marja says that each of her mysteries contains a little humor, a little romance and A Little Murder!
She now lives in Mississippi, where life is good.
Marja’s latest Sandi Webster mystery is:
The Trouble with Whistling.
Sandi Webster, P.I., is having a memorable week. The cases are piling up, and she has an eighty-something woman, Tillie, and a teenage boy, Mike, suddenly left in her care. All of the distractions have left her feeling clumsy and accident-prone.
Tillie seems to have a song to whistle for every occasion, and the young man, while mature for his age, might be a liability. However, they both aspire to the same thing; to go on ride-alongs with Sandi.
While investigating a burglary case, a man is murdered in the same neighborhood. Should Sandi take on this latest case? Or are her hands full with burglars, elderly victims and stalkers?
And why would whistling be a problem? After all, it’s just a form of entertainment for a happy senior citizen.
Here is a short excerpt:
Money! The root of all evil, or so it’s been said. Maybe it was the root of all broken hearts.
My mind was wandering into the past, and I didn’t like that. I figured it was because I was tired.
Mike spoke to me again, thankfully diverting my attention. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was after eleven-thirty.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“There’s another man at the end of the block, and he’s coming this way. What do I do?”
I stood and tried to see Mike and Bubba, but it was impossible.
“If you’re on alert, Bubba will sense it. If he growls, let me know and I’ll come running. Keep your eye on the man.”
I no more than got that out of my mouth and set down the walkie talkie when, out of the blue, someone hit me from behind!
I dropped like a rock.
My✰✰✰✰✰ Review
It was a pleasure to read the latest Sandi Webster mystery, as it is with each of her mysteries. But this time, Ms. McGraw borrowed a few characters from her other novels, which made this story seem familiar, and even more enjoyable. Loved the songs being whistled by a wonderfully refreshing elderly character. They brought back fond memories. While Sandi had her problem cases, as a private investigator she managed to solve them with a minimum of trouble, but always with a maximum of reading enjoyment. I’m sure you’ll like it as much as I did.
Marja’s blog can be read at http://marjamcgraw.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marja.mcgraw
Books available at: https://www.amazon.com/s?
k=marja+mcgraw&i=stripbooks&crid=1HLSWUZAT5Z14&sprefix=marja+mcgra%2Cstripbooks%2C173&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
Twitter: @McMarja
Please feel free to leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Welcome Mystery Readers,
The first novel in my Willows Bend Cozy Mystery Series, You Bet Your Life, will be on sale May 2nd thru May 7th on Amazon for 99 cents. Just in time for the Kentucky Derby. Don’t miss your chance to discover this delightful, Author Shout Recommended Read, Silver Award winner.
As a marketing executive, Heather is used to spinning anything negative that comes her way into gold, but now both her personal and professional lives have hit a glitch, so she cuts her losses and boards the first train out of town, leaving it all behind.
Heather never expects to run into her independent, free-wheeling Aunt Julia in a speck on the map called Willows Bend. Nor does she expect the turn her life takes when her aunt is suspected of murder.
Putting her own problems aside, Heather teams up with a handsome ex-private investigator to clear her aunt’s name. But will Julia’s innocence be questioned when the odds turn against her in a race to catch the killer?
The series also features Makki, the bookstore cat. An adorable, much-loved, trouble-making, black feline who’s sure to make you smile. 
If you like fun, fast-paced cozy mysteries, read You Bet Your Life, because as Aunt Julia always says, “Sometimes you have to take a chance.”
*Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/You-Bet-Your-Life-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B07B5C2PSK/
*Price may change without notice or be dependent upon region or retailer – please verify that the deal is still available before downloading.
I’m pleased to welcome back a favorite author of mine,
Nancy Boyarsky
Nancy has been a writer and editor for her entire working career. She coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book, with her husband Bill Boyarsky. She has written several textbooks on the justice system, as well as articles for publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Forbes. In addition to her writing career, she was communications director for political affairs for ARCO. She is currently producer, director of the podcast “Inside Golden State Politics.”
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, journalist Bill Boyarsky.
In this fast-paced mystery, P.I. Nicole Graves agrees to an unusual, short-term assignment working for MI6 in Russia. It sounds straight-forward, even pleasant: a two-week luxury riverboat cruise on the Volga, observing a group of fellow passengers and filing a daily report on their activities. It’s simple enough, except for one caveat: No matter what these people do, she’s to tell her handler at MI6—no one else, especially not the Russian police. When one of the riverboat passengers winds up dead, Nicole realizes this assignment was anything but straightforward.
Here’s a short excerpt:
Nicole sat up, suddenly alert, heart thumping as if from a nightmare she
couldn’t remember. She turned on the bedside lamp. It was 3:00 a.m. by her
watch. Now she was wide awake and fairly certain she wouldn’t be getting back
to sleep anytime soon.
She put on her coat and opened the sliding door that led to the suite’s
private deck. She hoped for some brisk night air and her first look at of the
Moskva River. But all she could see was the ship docked next to hers. She left her
cabin and started down two flights of stairs that led to the main deck where she
might have a better view. The deck’s lighting had been dimmed for the night, but
when she neared the bottom of the stairs, she had a clear view of three men
standing by the ship’s railing. They had their backs to her. One of them appeared
drunk, and the other two seemed to be holding him up. But when he started to
struggle, it was clear they’d been restraining him. He said something she couldn’t
understand; perhaps it was in Russian. His voice grew louder as the other two
lifted him over the railing and pushed him. He screamed as he fell into the water
and there was a loud splash. The men turned in Nicole’s direction. She froze for
the briefest moment before ducking under a nearby lifeboat, one of several
suspended upside down along the deck’s perimeter.
She was stunned, not just by the violent act she’d witnessed but by the fact
that she recognized the two who’d thrown the third overboard. They were two of
her targets, people whose photos Ian Davies had given her.
My✰✰✰✰✰ Review
Disenchanted with the way her job is working out at Colbert & Smith, private investigator Nicole Graves takes on an assignment for, who she believes to be, the British Government. It sounds simple, just observe some of her fellow passengers on a riverboat cruise in Russia, and report their behavior. What could be easier? And it was, until she witnesses a murder. Then her life takes a turn for the worse, and she’s forever just one step ahead of being arrested by the KGB, that is, until she can escape the country. But when that falls through, she’s on her own.
This is a page-turner that I’m sure you’ll be as delighted to read as I was. Believable characters, hair-raising situations, wonderful setting descriptions, and sharp dialog make this a riveting thriller you won’t want to miss.
Hi Mystery Readers,
I’m excited to announce that my latest mystery, The Crone’s Curse, A Willows Bend Cozy Mystery – Book 2, is now available for purchase on Amazon.
Heather Stanton’s aunt’s past is slowly catching up to her. Julia had always run away from situations she chose not to deal with, but running these days is impossible since she’s stuck in a small town doing community service.
Ever since Heather ran into her aunt in this speck on the map called Willows Bend, dead bodies have been turning up.
Julia believes the murders, and every bad thing happening, are because she’s plagued with an evil curse, cast upon her by an old crone for a perceived injustice in her recent past. So she seeks out Madam Z, a dubious occultist, to assist in getting rid of it.
Can Heather convince her aunt there’s no such thing as a curse before Julia becomes so entrenched in her beliefs she’s arrested for murder, for finds herself the next victim?
***
This is a whimsical look into the craziness that was my aunt Julia, with a little of my mom, and a trouble-making feline thrown in. Needless to say, life was never dull.
All the mysteries in the Willows Bend Cozy Series feature:
Makki, the bookstore Cat
If you’re looking for a way to escape your everyday life, read The Crone’s Curse, ebook available on Amazon. Check the right hand side of this page.
Visit Gail on line at http://www.gailkittleson.com/
That Homesick Feeling
“Home for the traditions. Instilled in each person are the customs of their family, community and religion. The familiarity of performing the same ceremonies each year brings security. The lighting of the Christmas tree, ice skating at the pond on Christmas Day, exchanging gifts, baking special cookies, candlelight, or bringing in pine laden branches to decorate.
As the soldiers lay on their cots or kept their heads down in a foxhole, these traditions waved over them with eye watering memories.
Home for the sounds of Christmas. Fortunately, the Armed Forces Radio Services with Bing Crosby produced programs and music for the troops. Songs like White Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Happy Holidays brought the nostalgia of home to the front, producing a melancholy sing-along for many.
The music of the season also varied with the home town of the military personnel. Those from the big cities missed hearing the orchestras play Handel’s Messiah. Small town soldiers longed for the school pageant with young siblings dressed in bathrobes singing Away in a Manger. From the Appalachian Mountains, the strum of a dulcimer bringing I Wonder as I Wander to life would have brought peace to a sailor. Many missed carolers in the streets, singing hymns from door to door.
Home for the church services and family. Christmas Eve and Christmas morning were times when the family dressed up and attended church together to ponder the meaning of the season.
For those entrenched overseas in the war, there would be no Christmas truce like there had been during the First World War. Especially in 1944, American soldiers hunkered in and celebrated the best they could during the Battle of the Bulge and the Siege of Bastogne.
For American soldiers within Bastogne, Christmas services were held by the Army Chaplain. For the soldiers on the battlefield outside the city limits, their hearts became the sanctuary for worship and remembrance of the birth of the Prince of Peace. Even in the midst of shelling, they took time for personal reflection on the meaning of the day.
Belgian families took in some troops. “We were out in the outskirts of Bastogne, we found this farmhouse…Inside was a man and woman, and a little boy and a little girl…the wife, she gave us some soup and black bread. We stayed there all night in this farmhouse. The war was going on fiercely outside, (but) the farmhouse never got hit. We were there Christmas Eve. We sang Christmas songs with this Belgian family: Jingle Bells and Silent Night. The words were different, but the music was the same.”1
In the simplicity of sharing, the true spirit of Christmas filled these soldiers with comfort and hope.
On December 24, 1942, Rev. Fred Gehring, a Catholic priest from Brooklyn, New York joined Barney Ross, a Jewish boxer from Chicago to bring hope and build morale. Amid the foxholes of Guadalcanal, Gehring and Ross held a midnight Mass service for their fellow soldiers in B Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. Ross learned to play Christmas carols on a violin, and Gehring tickled the ivory on an organ. Men from so many different stations and backgrounds sang in unison, making this a Christmas Eve to remember because the birth of Jesus brings the promise of an eternal home after this earthly home has ended.2
Meanwhile, the most frequently sung tune during the war only intensified the lonely, empty feeling of being separated from all that had been familiar. As Bing Cosby crooned, tears fell on the home front as well as overseas.
A Short Review
These are two wonderful books that I think everyone will love, especially of you’re into nostalgia. But even if you’re not, reading about what it was like for the solders to scrounge for food, and how moms fed their families at home on what little they could get to eat was fascinating. Food was not only important to the solders and the moms at home, but the nurses overseas who had to feed themselves and the wounded as well.
The Holiday Scrapbook captures what it was like not only for the solders, but also families on the home front at Christmastime in 1942. I can’t begin to get into all the marvelous information that’s packed into these two small books, you’ll just have to read it all for yourself. And the pictures are absolute gems.
These slim volumes complement each other and are loaded with recipes from that era. So get your copies today. I think they would make excellent Christmas gifts.
