Evelyn Cullet – Romancing a Mystery

This week I am my own guest author, and I’m excited to announce that my very first novel, Romancing a Mystery, has been updated, re-edited and given a different book cover. It’s now available on Amazon Kindle, and in print

Romancing a Mystery is the first novel in my series featuring executive administrative assistant, Charlotte Ross, and her mystery writer friend, Jane Marshall.

In this novel, all Charlotte Ross wanted was a get-away vacation. She hadn’t counted on solving a centuries-old mystery or falling for a handsome aristocrat. 

A young woman in her prime, Charlotte is bored living in the small town where she grew up — and is tired of her controlling mother trying to marry her off to the oldest and wealthiest men in town. So when her mystery-loving friend Jane Marshall suggests a driving trip across England, Charlotte eagerly packs her bags. But Charlotte gets more than she bargained for. Just two days in, their car breaks down in a thunderstorm and the ladies take refuge in Blake Hall, an ancient aristocrat’s lair with a long and rumored past. As guests of the British aristocracy, these out-of-place Americans stumble their way through a fox hunt– encounter imagined ghosts–and find a mysterious clue to a centuries-old murder that has remained unsolved–until now, at least. 

This lighthearted mystery, influenced by the novels of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jane Austen, is smart, savvy and at times, warmly romantic.

Here is an excerpt:

A thick blanket of clouds hung low in the sky. The rain had subsided again by the time they reached the tall iron gate, but the trees shuddered as if the violent wind was intent on shaking their branches loose.

After passing through, the gusty wind hurried everyone up the length of the long, circular driveway. Jane, the first to arrive at the front door, rang the bell.

“I hope someone answers the door soon. I can’t stop shaking,” Erin said, breathless.

Charlotte scanned the roiling clouds. The endless wait and the emerging thunderstorm left her sinking neck deep into despondency. Finally, she said what they all had to be thinking. “What if no one lives here?” She trembled at the prospect of having to spend the long, cold night, soaking wet, huddled in the doorway of an old, abandoned house.

“The bell might be out of order.” Jane lifted a large brass door knocker in the shape of a lion’s head and slammed it down against the ornately carved oak door. The wait seemed interminable. She was just about to knock again when the door was slowly opened by a short, elderly man.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a shaky octogenarian voice.

Charlotte started babbling with relief. “May we please use your telephone? I can’t get a cell signal. Our car died on one of the back roads, and now it’s stuck in a ditch of some sort. Can you possibly help us?”

“I’m sorry, miss. But there wouldn’t be any use trying to use the telephone. It’s out of service.”

Jane rolled her eyes. Erin appeared to be crying again, but it was hard for Charlotte to tell if the tears were real or just drops of rain dripping from her face. Her own tears bubbled up from inside, but she swallowed them back as the old man closed the door.

“Please.” She flung herself at the door jamb. “Isn’t there something—anything—you can do for us?”

The wild wind raged as a sudden violent gust ripped the door out of the old man’s hand, forcing it open, and pushing the girls in with it. His gray hair lay plastered against his head, and he grasped the front of his navy blue robe as if it too would be ripped away from him by the wind. “It’s not a fit night out for man nor beast.”

Amazon Print Book: http://tinyurl.com/ocqs9yz

Kindle edition: http://tinyurl.com/q653ksu

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