Home Paris Ben climbed the stairs from the metro station at Saint Germain and turned north on Rue Bonaparte under the late morning sun. Its rays did nothing to ease the winter cold, and he altered his route to his flat in the 16th arrondissement to take him past a favorite café. In the ten months of Ben’s posting there, Paris had stolen his heart. He loved his country, certainly, but his American roots had thinned. His parents had him late in life and passed while he was still muddling around in his six years at Rice University, deciding what he wanted to be when he grew up. He knew he didn’t want to be a cabinetmaker, so he’d sold the family business, the last tie binding him to his hometown, and moved on. No siblings. No connections. The Company sought out people like him. They’d recruited him—­rescued him—­during his first year as a commodities trader. Life at the schoolhouse ended nine months later with his death. Drug overdose. Tragic. His professors at Rice would have never guessed. The Company resurrected him in London as Ben Calix, and he’d never looked back. With a fresh cup of tea to warm…

As I write this blog my flower beds are in bloom. My irises are gorgeous, my daisies are abundant, and my carnations are fragrant. It’s too bad something dark and sinister is creeping into the shadows. That’s right, a murderer is on the loose in my garden and an APB won’t do my beauties any good. Because tonight they will face one of the worst killers known to their kind—Jack Frost. Their death by his hand (or heroic saving by mine) might lead to some nail-biting moments on my part, but I have a feeling I’m the only one who’s truly invested or interested in their next chapter. I mean it’s not like the New York Times will write about their premature death or my valiant attempt to save their lives. But I have dug up some truly newsworthy mysteries Jack Frost can’t touch. The covers caught my eye like the blossoms in my yard, the plots are much better formed than my best buds and the characters charmed me with their style and wit. Yes, the mysteries are in bloom, and all we have to do to catch the culprits is keep turning the page. Wicked Honeymoon  An Ivy…

How can I describe the chaos that is a dim sum restaurant in the heart of San Gabriel Valley at 11 a.m.? The place is filled with close to a hundred round tables, each one occupied by a different family, many of them with three to four generations of people present—there are gray-haired, prune-faced Ah Mas holding chubby babies on their laps. Steaming carts are pushed by the waitresses, though if you called them “Waitress” they’d never stop for you. You must call them Ah Yi—Auntie—and wave frantically as they walk by to get them to stop. And once they do, customers descend like vultures and fight over the bamboo steamers inside the cart. People shout, asking if they’ve got siu mai, or har gow, or lo mai gai, and the Ah Yis locate the right dishes somewhere in the depths of their carts. My Mandarin is awful, and my Cantonese nonexistent. Ma and the aunts often try to help me improve by speaking to me in either Mandarin or Indonesian, but then give up and switch to English because I only get about 50 percent of what they’re saying. Their grasp of the English language is a bit wobbly,…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present TOM TURNER! Writes: Crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers with a ton of action, characters you love, characters you hate, humor, and yes, dare I say it, some steamy stuff, too. My latest, CHARLIE CRAWFORD – NEW YORK HOMICIDE, is a prequel novella set in New York, a year before my protagonist heads down to the Sunshine State to fight crime, solve murders and hook up with a Florida hottie or two. About: I have no life. Writing, going to the gym, then knocking back a cocktail or two. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I love going to art galleries, museums, listening to live rock ‘n roll at my favorite gin mill, and playing my new favorite sport, pickleball (is there a lamer name for a sport?) What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Readers who like to devour murder mysteries with action and humor and try to figure out whodunit. Ones who appreciate a recurring cast of characters who…

Everyone needs a break, including authors. I’ve been on a personal hiatus for several months from everything but family, and I have to say it was nice. Like all good things, however, my recess had an end date. Now I’m back with fresh a perspective, and a whole bunch of books to talk about! (No reader actually takes a break from cracking open a new book, do they?) While away I found several new authors that made me wonder what rock I’ve been under the past few years. (No, it wasn’t Dwayne.) I mean seriously, these are good books, how did I miss them? One series in particular just rocked my world, the Veronica Speedwell Mystery series by Deanna Rayburn.  And this series has the added bonus of audiobooks performed brilliantly by Angele Masters. I was hooked with the first book A Curious Beginning and lucky for me, book six, An Unexpected Peril, was released March 10, 2021—Yay! So yes, since December I have listened to books 1-5 and have thoroughly loved the characters and the mysteries and I’m totally thrilled to have this latest release in cue for this weekend! An Unexpected Peril  A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Rayburn 3/10/2021 A…

Synesthesia is a rare neurological condition where sensory paths are crossed in the brain. You might see musical notes as colors, taste textures like “triangles” or “squares” while eating food, or have a sequence-space form in which dates and numbers occupy a spatial location in your mind. The condition has always intrigued me, and I’ve long wanted to write a novel in which the main character experiences the world through this lens. In my latest book, NOT ONE OF US, Jori Trahan has a rare form of synesthesia commonly known as “colored hearing.” For Jori, every person’s voice has particular colors and textures as they speak. This ability ultimately gives her a unique edge to solve an old murder. Jori, like most synesthetes, enjoys her condition; for her, this is just the way the world is. But sometimes the condition can be overwhelming if she is enclosed in a noisy room. In one scene at a crowded bar, the background noise “formed a steady drumbeat of colors that swirled and morphed into blackish splatters of ugly blobs.” Her friend Dana’s voice is the color of “fizzing green arrows” and another character’s voice is “a bruising purple-black, the color of storm…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Amy Pershing! Writes: I write the Cape Cod Foodie Mysteries, which (obviously) revolve around food and Cape Cod. And murder.  And romance. Or, at least in the first book of the series, A SIDE OF MURDER, it was a romance. Now it’s, well, complicated. It all begins when Samantha Barnes — once an up-and-coming New York chef until an unfortunate YouTube video went viral — retreats home to Cape Cod.  There Sam finds herself dealing with a falling-down house, a ginormous puppy, and a job writing restaurant reviews. Oh, yeah, and a dead body. And the town’s new harbormaster, Jason Captiva.  Who, it turns out, was Sam’s high school crush. . . About: Like Sam, I am a total foodie.  I’ve edited cookbooks, reviewed restaurants, and pretty much eaten my way around the world. I’m also a total fool for love.  Especially first loves.  At 16, I thought my guy was the cutest, smartest, funniest, sexiest guy in the room.  I still do.  For more about me…

Looking for a Galentine’s Day treat? Author Olivia Blacke has a vegan-friendly cake ball recipe that is sure to delight. KILLER CONTENT’s amateur sleuth, Odessa, works at a bookstore/cafe and has a great group of co-workers and friends to share this with during after-hours fun.  Of course, we’ll be back tomorrow with the next featured author during the week-long Valentine’s Day Recipe Roundup—hope to see you again!  KILLER CONTENT’s (Feb 2, 2021, Berkley) Odessa Dean isn’t much of a cook. When she decides to leave her hometown of Piney Island, Louisiana for a summer in the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, she’s overwhelmed by the unique and ever-evolving flavors of New York City. From food trucks to pop-up eateries to the eclectic menu at Untapped Books & Cafe where she works, there is always something new for her to taste. As much as she loves sampling unique dishes, she doesn’t have a lot of experience in the kitchen. Not that it would stop her from trying to make something fun and tasty for her friends when they decide to throw a Valentine’s Day party after hours at the cafe! While cake balls and cake pops might be blase in Brooklyn…

1–What is the title of your latest release? MURDER WITH A VIEW 2–What is it about? Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck have bought an old roadside motel at a tax auction, and they’re planning to turn the place into condominiums. But during demolition, Whitney’s cat Sawdust uncovers a body in one of the rooms. The murder victim is none other than Beckett Morgan, an up-and-coming country singing sensation whose song “Party in the Pasture” is a mega hit. Detective Collin Flynn–who Whitney has begun dating–is faced with a long list of suspects, ranging from female groupies, to jealous musicians, to the star’s manager and a record label exec, among others. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  Not only is Nashville a beautiful city with its rolling hills and the Cumberland River running through it, but the mid-century motel is a fun, kitschy touch. As a child on family vacations, I stayed at motels just like the one featured in the book, with pink porcelain in the bathrooms and massaging beds that would vibrate for three minutes if you stuck a quarter in a bedside machine. I have many happy memories swimming in the pools…

Chapter Four Amara’s next stop was the one she most dreaded. Zachary Coleman’s parents. When she’d phoned the father, his raspy, monotone voice penetrated her heart and sent an ache through her chest. The man’s joy was gone. Back in Property Crimes, she dealt with her share of angry and frightened people, but that paled in comparison to this. The Colemans lost their son. How did a person deal with that? When Amara’s dad died, the pain had been deep and overwhelming. How much more at the loss of a child? The death of Benjamin Reyes, the five-year-old boy who triggered the investigation into Cotulla, at least had a silver lining. Nearly fifty other children saved because of his bravery. Had that eased the pain for his parents? Could it? And the Colemans had nothing like that to cling to. Their son died and nobody could tell them why. Natural causes or OD or bad luck or homicide. Would any of those reasons be better or worse than the others? Zachary was gone, and he wasn’t ever coming back. Dr. Pritchard had texted last night to let her know the boy’s body was being released to the parents. The funeral…