O is for Older, on-the-ball, and definitely on-to-the-next-big-adventure! Who says you have to be young to have fun?
U is for Uptight, says Zara. U is for Uninhibited, says Lilly!
R is definitely for Relatives. As in, are you sure we’re related? And Who the h—is this person claiming to be our relative?
L is for Lilly, of course! Zara’s older sister—by 11 ½ months—taller, buxom, hair still black thanks to an abundance of product, free with her love and her advice!
Y is for Yes. As opposed to No. As in, shouldn’t Lilly have said Yes to the Grand Jury, when asked if she had any of the stolen artifacts?
I is for Insurance Fraud. Don’t do it, and if you do, don’t get caught!
N is for New. A new apartment. A new purported sister. A new problem. And a bunch of New Lies.
G is for Generational Trauma. Inherited grief from the suffering of those who went before. And for Grant Deed. Whom did Dad leave this apartment to? Why her? Good Golly!
K is for Kindred Spirits. Zara and Lilly may have been apart for a few years, but nothing can keep them separated for long. Especially when there’s a family mystery to solve.
I is for Involved. Sometimes, Involuntarily Involved. As in, dragged into the family mess.
N is No other way out. Zara and Lilly have to find out who this woman is. And why she’s claiming Kin. And who broke into Lilly’s house? And did their dad die of natural causes? There’s no other way, because if they don’t figure it out, they could be Next.
Our Lying Kin is the sequel to Nine Tenths of the Law. Both are classified as mysteries, though I tend to think of them more as sisters-novels, with a mystery flowing through them.
In Nine Tenths of the Law, the sisters, Zara and Lilly, are haunted by their mother’s spirit, who demands that they recover a menorah stolen from her hands 70 years ago, when she was thirteen, during the Nazi invasion of Poland. The menorah has turned up in a museum, but promptly disappears again, and the curator is murdered. The sisters, urged on by their mother’s voice, search for the lost menorah while desperately evading the killer.
Our Lying Kin finds the sisters with a bunch of new problems. Again, it’s a sisters novel with a mystery flowing through it.
The tight bond of the sisters has been seriously frayed by the pandemic. Zara, the narrator, has completely isolated herself in California, becoming more and more insular and judgmental. Lilly, still in New York, has taken to drinking, swearing, and searching online for ancestors and relatives.
She’s also managed, unintentionally no doubt, a neat bit of insurance fraud.
Meanwhile the murderer from Nine Tenths finds a way to get at the sisters despite being in jail awaiting trial; a nurse is rather free with insulin injections; and Lilly’s current boyfriend is discovering his own legacy from World War II.
The book also follows the tangled threads left their father, Daniel, who died years before. He too was a second-generation trauma survivor, but from an era where John Wayne movies dictated how a man dealt with his emotions. He has left an unfortunate legacy of anger and violence. Also, an apartment, a mysterious death, and woman claiming, well, a few awkward things.
Zara and Lilly have to find a way to re-approach each other, pandemic notwithstanding, in order to survive this newest onslaught of attacks.
There’s a third book on its way…
OUR LYING KIN by Claudia Hagadus Long
“Hello? I knew your father…better than you did.”
Zara and Lilly are back, but their relationship has some cracks in it. Through the long pandemic isolation, Zara’s gone from straight-laced to rigid, while Lilly, true to form, has indulged in some dubious — and not-particularly-legal — adventures. But they’re still sisters, and sisters are special.
While Zara is visiting New York to help Lilly testify against the thief and murderer Walter Rosen, a surprise phone call rocks their view of their family: a woman claims a shocking relationship to their deceased father, and now to them. Zara and Lilly turn their considerable sleuthing talents toward unraveling a series of family mysteries…but their quest begins in earnest when they learn that Rosen, who nearly killed Lilly the last time they met, has escaped from custody.
Can Zara and Lilly discover the truth about their new-found — possibly ersatz — relative, while keeping themselves and their loved ones safe from a Nazi’s vengeance?
Laced with verbal photographs of a family’s secrets, and filled with humor, sibling rivalry, and love, Our Lying Kin tells a human, haunting and rollicking story of the ravages of the pandemic and the power of family.
Suspense | Women’s Fiction Psychological [Kasva Press, On Sale: January 20, 2023, Paperback, ISBN: 9781948403337 / ]
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About Claudia Hagadus Long
I am novelist Claudia H. Long, and here you can read all about me, my historical fiction novels, and follow the latest book news and events. I’m a weaver of words, catcher of dreams, and chronicler of the spaces between the lines in the history books: women’s stories, women’s dreams, her-story. In my alternate life I’m a new grandmother of two spectacular grandsons, mother of two marvelous kids, chocolate-loving lawyer-mediator, wife and cook.
My books live in rich historical settings that show the lives, loves, and lusts of women immersed in a society that they want to be a part of, but as themselves. Jewish women living as Catholics in colonial Mexico. Professional female writers struggling to effect change in early 20th Century California. Crypto-judaic feminist historical fiction sounds like a mouthful, but at their heart my books are sweeping romantic tales.
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