Valerie Burns Spotlight @vmburns #spotlightSunday #giveaway

Friends, Valerie's been traveling and stuck in airports during this terrible storm. She's finally home and will pop in and respond to comments after she takes a nap! 

VMBURNS: It's me, Valerie (V.M.) Burns aka Kallie E. Benjamin. And, it's my turn in the spotlight. As you can see, I write multiple mysteries using several pen names. Today, I'd like to turn the spotlight on my Mystery Bookshop Mystery series, which I write as V. M. Burns. 

The Mystery Bookshop Mystery series was the first series that I ever sold. 

Samantha Washington and her late husband, Leon, were just average people. Leon was a cook and Samantha was a high school English teacher. Both loved reading mysteries and dreamed of one day quitting their day jobs, buying a building, and opening a mystery bookshop. When Leon dies, Samantha realizes that life is too short, not to follow your dreams. So, she quits her job. She sells her house, and she buys the building she and Leon always dreamed would house their bookstore. 

But opening a bookshop that specializes in mysteries was just one of Samantha's dreams. She also dreamed of writing British historical cozy mysteries. After Leon's death, Sam starts writing a British Historical cozy mystery set in the British countryside in 1938 before World War II.

Before her bookstore opens, the realtor who listed the building for sale is found murdered behind the building in the courtyard, and Sam is North Harbor Police's prime suspect. With the help of her grandmother, Nana Jo, and Nana Jo's friends from Shady Acres Retirement Village, Sam sets out to find the murderer. Each book in this series features two mysteries for readers to solve. There's the murder that Sam needs to solve in her 'real life.' There is also the British cozy that she's writing.

THE PLOT IS MURDER, the first book in the series released in November 2017.

There's a little bit of me in all of the books that I write, but The Mystery Bookshop Mystery series is probably the series that captures the most. This series is set in Southwestern Michigan in the fictional town of North Harbor. If you're familiar with Southwestern Michigan, North Harbor will look a lot like Benton Harbor, Michigan. At the time when I started writing the series, I was living in Benton Harbor.

Situated between the St. Joseph River and the Lake Michigan shoreline, Benton Harbor SHOULD be a great tourist mecca. Sadly, the city has experienced a tremendous economic downfall.

At one time, Benton Harbor had been a thriving, city that was the home to manufacturing companies that supported Michigan's automotive industry. It's beach front location was perfect for water enthusiasts, tourists, hotels, and it even had an amusement park. The large Victorian homes were a symbol of the town's wealth and culture. Sadly, most of those elegant homes have fallen into disrepair.

Just across the bridge, St. Joseph, Michigan had once been Benton Harbor's poor sister city. Although the two cities shared the same Lake Michigan shoreline, they were as different as night and day. Over time, those differences continued. As Benton Harbor declined, St. Joe thrived. St. Joe with its brick streets and quaint lake front shops provided a perfect post card image of a Lake Michigan resort.

Despite Benton Harbor's decline, there are still nice areas in the city and I lived there for several years while working the day job as a manager for a Fortune 200 company headquartered there. Like Samantha, I dreamed of quitting my day job and opening a mystery bookshop. I also dreamed of writing British historical cozy mysteries. I am happy to say that I am living part of that dream. I don't own a mystery bookstore, but I have written 27 cozy mysteries.

Eight years after THE PLOT IS MURDER was released, I'm excited to say that the series is still going. The 11th book in the series will release on January 27th. MURDER FROM A TO Z. 

One other similarity between me and Sam are the poodles. When I started writing this series, my publisher asked if they could include my dogs on the covers. So, Snickers and Oreo (Coco and Cash) have been immortalized on the covers. Although, they have both crossed the rainbow bridge and are no longer here, I get a thrill whenever I see them on the covers. 

FUN FACT: The illustrator, Mary Ann Lasher, who created the covers for my Mystery Bookshop Mystery series, actually painted the covers. She sent me the paintings for the first 9 books in the series and I had them matted and framed. Now, whenever I need inspiration, I can just look at the wall and see the crazy shenanigans that my poodles have gotten involved in.

READERS: Opening a Mystery Bookshop and writing British cozies was my dream. Do you have a dream job? Leave me a comment below. I'll enter your name in a drawing for a copy of MURDER FROM A TO Z , the 11th book in the Mystery Bookshop Mystery series.  Please include your email address in the comments to be considered. US Only.

MURDER FROM A TO Z




Nana Jo has volunteered her lawyer granddaughter, Jenna, to teach estate planning to retirees—with Sam providing her bookshop as the venue. But during the seminar, entitled Getting Your Ducks in Order, it quickly becomes clear someone’s up to Fowl Play. When elderly Alva Tarkington, accompanied by her niece, sits down for a consultation, Sam realizes the woman’s frequent blinking is actually Morse Code—S.O.S. The sisters get her alone, and Alva tells them she believes her life is in danger and must change her will . . .

Unfortunately, Alva is found dead the next day—seemingly from natural causes. But Nana Jo and the sisters suspect otherwise. In between penning her latest historical mystery, set in 1939 as England declares war on Germany and Lady Elizabeth Marsh pursues stolen paintings and a traitor, Sam teams up with the senior sleuths of Shady Acres to search for motives—beginning with Alva’s family. They soon learn not everyone is who they say they are, and someone is more than qualified to teach a class on cold-blooded murder . . .

BUY LINK