Spotlight on VICE AND VIRTUE by @LibbyKlein Plus a #Giveaway #SpotlightSunday

Spotlight on Vice and Virtue 

This year we say hello to a new kind of hero. Layla Virtue's career as a cop hit rock bottom in one incendiary moment that will forever live in Potomac County Police infamy. Now she finds herself living in the Lake Pinecrest Mobile Home Park trying to launch her backup career as a rock star about twenty years too late. 

She's competing against high school kids with garage bands who still live in their parent's basements and will work for tacos, while she's trying to pay the lot fees on her run down single wide.

At least she's alone and that's how she likes it. Far away from whispers of judgment and looks of pity. Until three women from her AA group decide to make her their fourth. She tries to shake them, but they are hanging on like Layla is bound to be their new bestie. Then there's this guy who keeps showing up on her front porch out of the blue.

Layla's dead broke so she can't afford to say no to any gig. That's how she gets stuck playing guitar for an eight-year old's birthday party surrounded by screaming kids who only want to hear Baby Shark.

 When the birthday party clown dies on stage, Layla knows she has to get out of there fast. This is her old precinct. She knows what's coming next.

She's too slow to escape the harsh scrutiny of her former colleagues, and before she knows it she's caught up in the world of trophy wives and trust fund kids where everyone has a secret, and a luxurious walk-in closet full of skeletons, trying to find out who killed the clown, and why?

 Layla's broken, but strong. Fragile, but fierce. She'll need a lot of help to make it in this life. If only she'd stop shutting everyone out. 

Vice and Virtue is full of humor and my love of Classic Rock, pulling from my life growing up with a musician for a father. 

My Life is Murder meets Mom meets Gilmore Girls meets Spinal Tap. 

Don't just take my word for it. Here are some reviews by people you might just recognize.

Read along to the Vice and Virtue playlist on Spotify.

Buy links  including Audiobook

Giveaway

I'll give a copy of Vice and Virtue to a lucky reader who can tell me their favorite classic rock song in the comments below. 

Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, 30-something recovering alcoholic and former cop is trying to reinvent herself as a musician—between AA meetings, dodging eccentric neighbors at her trailer park, and reconnecting with her mysterious dad—in this ​unforgettable new mystery brimming with hilarity and heart.

Layla is taking her new life one day at a time from the Lake Pinecrest Trailer Park she now calls home. Being alone is how she likes it. Simple. Uncomplicated. Though try telling that to the group of local ladies who are in relentless pursuit of Layla as their new BFF, determined to make her join them for coffee and donuts.

After her first career ended in a literal explosion, Layla’s trying to eke out a living as a rock musician. It’s not easy competing against garage bands who work for tacos and create their music on a computer, while all she has is an electric guitar and leather-ish pants. But Layla isn’t in a position to turn down any gig. Which is why she’s at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, watching as Chuckles the Clown takes a bow under the balloon animals. No one expects it will be his last . . .

Who would want to kill a clown—and why? Layla and her unshakable posse are suddenly embroiled in the seedy underbelly of the upper-class world of second wives and trust fund kids, determined to uncover what magnetic hold a pudgy, balding clown had over women who seem to have everything they could ever want. Then again, Layla knows full well that people are rarely quite what they seem—herself included . . .

Libby Klein writes ridiculously funny murder mysteries from her Northern Virginia office with a very naughty calico Persian named Miss Eliza Doolittle, and a sweet black Lab named Vader. She can name that tune for 70s and 80s rock in the first few notes, and she's translated her love of classic rock into her Layla Virtue Mysteries. Libby was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents her from eating gluten without exploding. Because bread is one of her love languages, she includes the recipes for gluten free goodies in her Cape May based Poppy McAllister series. Most of her hobbies revolve around travel, and eating, and eating while traveling. She insists she can find her way to any coffee shop anywhere in the world, even while blindfolded. Follow all of her nonsense on her website www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

Plays and Parfaits by Maya Corrigan #Giveaway #SpotlightSunday

Yesterday, November 25th, was the 71st anniversary of the longest running stage play ever. Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap opened in London in 1952 and is still going strong. Yesterday was also National Parfait Day. The Mousetrap and parfait are joined in my latest mystery, A Parfait Crime.

 Photo by Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons

.  

Last year my spotlight focused on my writing journey from the first novel I wrote at age thirteen to my mystery series published decades later. A year after I wrote that novel, I had my first taste of live professional theater. As a high school freshman, I went on a class trip to the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut. Reading Macbeth for English class hadn’t turned me into a Shakespeare fan, but seeing Twelfth Night in a place resembling Shakespeare’s Globe theater did the trick. The language I’d found hard to read was easy to understand when spoken by the actors. The stage set was magical. And the play was very funny.

I grew up a subway ride away from Broadway, but tickets for shows then, as now, were expensive. For a while in high school, I had a well-heeled boyfriend who sprang for Broadway tickets, but most of the plays I saw as a teenager featured students playing the roles. The two I remember best were Murder in a Nunnery, performed at my girls high school, and Twelve Angry Men, at the nearby boys high school. Both dealt with murder, one similar to a cozy mystery and the other a gripping legal drama. Since then, I’ve seen many plays focused on crime and justice. The one that made the biggest impression was Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

When I was twenty, I saw Christie’s play in London. It's set in a snowbound country guesthouse, where the lodgers and owners are trapped with a murderer in their midst. I was on edge for much of the play, my heart racing, waiting for the killer to strike again. The surprise ending thrilled me. I liked the show so much that when I was in London five years later, I saw it again. Though I remembered the plot, including who the culprit was, the play was still gripping and enjoyable. The Mousetrap isn’t a whodunit that challenges your puzzle-solving skills. Rather, it stirs up fear and evokes sympathy. It’s an emotional ride punctuated by sound effects, music, and, at key moments, sudden total darkness in the theater. 

You don’t have to travel to London to enjoy Christie’s play. It’s often performed by school and community groups, like the one in my latest Five-Ingredient Mystery. A Parfait Crime centers on rehearsals for an amateur production of The Mousetrap. ​​My book doesn’t contain any spoilers about Christie’s play or reveal her culprit.  My sleuths, café manager Val and her energetic Granddad, are in the cast of Christie's play. When the amateur actors take a break during rehearsals, they enjoy tea and Granddad's parfaits, and they ponder how to catch a killer who has committed a perfect crime. 

Check out the yummy parfait recipe I shared here a few months ago.

To enter a drawing for a copy of A Parfait Crime, leave a comment by November 29 about your favorite parfait or your favorite mystery by Agatha Christie. 

Please include your email address so I can contact you if you’re the winner. The giveaway is open to anyone with a US address. 

A PARFAIT CRIME: Five-Ingredient Mystery #9

Set in a quaint Chesapeake Bay town, the latest novel in Maya Corrigan’s Five-Ingredient Mysteries brings back café manager Val Deniston and her recipe columnist grandfather – a sleuthing duo that shares a house, a love of food and cooking, and a knack for catching killers.

At the site of a fatal blaze, Val’s boyfriend, a firefighter trainee, is shocked to learn the victim is known to him, a woman named Jane who belonged to the local Agatha Christie book club—and was rehearsing alongside Val’s grandfather for an upcoming Christie play being staged for charity. Just as shocking are the skeletal remains of a man found in Jane’s freezer. Who is he and who put him on ice?

 After Val is chosen to replace Jane in the play, the cast gathers at Granddad’s house to get to work—and enjoy his five-ingredient parfaits—but all anyone can focus on is the bizarre real-life mystery. When it’s revealed that Jane’s death was due to something other than smoke inhalation, Val and Granddad retrace the victim’s final days. As they dig into her past life, their inquiry leads them to a fancy new spa in town—where they discover that Jane wasn’t the only one who had a skeleton in the cooler.

 

Library Journal: "Thanks to Val’s and her grandfather’s talent for exposing the truth, even a “perfect crime” will be uncovered...a satisfying read and a riveting murder mystery with a sweet ending."

 

Read an excerpt and see where to buy A Parfait Crime  

• Visit my website for easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a culinary mystery story. 
• Sign up for my newsletter. One subscriber wins a free book each time I send a newsletter.
• Follow me on Facebook.

📚

 

Spotlight on BULLETPROOF BARISTA by @CleoCoyle + Book & Tote #Giveaway

 

Once a month at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, each of us takes a turn under the heat lamp of the Kitchen spotlight. Today it's me, trying to stay cool under the circumstances because, frankly, these aren't especially comfortable to do!

Okay, so here goes...if you're new to this blog or me and my work. I'm Alice Alfonsi and I write two different mystery series under the name Cleo Coyle in collaboration with my husband, Marc Cerasini...

Above is a photo of me and Marc
posed in front of some of the earlier covers in our
long-running Coffeehouse Mystery series...

Marc and I have been partners in crime-writing for going on twenty (good grief, 20!) years. We were both born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, but we didn't meet until our adulthood (1991 actually), long after we'd moved to New York City. 

When we got married in the year 2000 (at the adorable Little Church of the West), each of us had a separate, successful publishing career going. 

Marc and I published many books under our own names (and I also ghostwrote), and we each hit the New York Times list with different projects. After we took a chance on getting married and living together under one roof, we decided to go for three and roll the dice on writing together, too.

We started by collaborating on a few tie-in projects, and then we decided to write a wholly original work of fiction, a mystery set in a landmark Greenwich Village coffeehouse. This "Coffeehouse" series was based on my own experiences, living in the East Village of NYC, and if you'd like to learn more about that creation and development, click here or the coffee cup below to visit our "Secret New York" site...

Anyway, our first title (published in 2003) was Coffeehouse Mystery #1 ON WHAT GROUNDS, which turned out to be a pioneering effort as a coffee-centric "urban cozy." The book was a national bestseller and the fan feedback was great, so we kept on writing, idea after idea, book after book, year after year...

During all these years of writing, we drew from our own experiences. Inspired by the strange, absurd, heroic, hilarious, and endlessly entertaining aspects of the city around us, we told the stories that we wanted to tell, in our own offbeat way. And it worked. So far, anyway. This September, we'll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the series. We're happy about this career milestone because it will not only mark our 20th year writing mysteries together, it will also mark the publication of our 20th Coffeehouse title...

And that's why we're focusing today's 

Sunday Spotlight on the cover reveal of...

Coffeehouse Mystery #20 

BULLETPROOF BARISTA

(and, yes, the mystery is as much fun
as the title and cover imply)...

Coming November 2023!

To learn more or pre-order,
click a link below:

Amazon (ebook) click here

Amazon (print) click here

B&N here

Bookshop.org

+ Many More Buy Links

And finally....

As most of you know, we also write The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries. After we successfully launched the Coffeehouse series, we turned our attention to a little Rhode Island town where an earnest young widow named Penelope Thornton-McClure began to solve crimes with the help of the hardboiled (and ultimately irresistible) PI ghost she discovers haunting her bookshop.

The very first book in our Haunted Bookshop series, THE GHOST AND MRS. McCLURE was published in 2004. We followed that with four more titles, all of which were national bestsellers. Marc and I then took a ten-year hiatus, but our ghost wouldn't stop haunting us, so we returned to write more adventures in the series. Given the 2004 launch of the first book, however, looks like we'll be celebrating another 20th Year Anniversary (next year, God willing, as always) for our "Jack and Pen" Haunted Bookshop crew.

In the meantime, we're happy to share some of the lovely reviews coming in on the latest release, Haunted Bookshop #9 THE GHOST GOES TO THE DOGS. We hope you all get a chance to read it and enjoy it!

"The talented duo Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini, who write under the name Cleo Coyle, continue to deliver clever, light-hearted, extremely satisfying reads in a mystery that crosses many genres. This blend of noir, paranormal, cozy, and a dash of romance sizzles with sparkling dialogue and unique plots. This is the ninth of a series that began in 2004 and still shows no sign of slowing down or losing any of its appeal."

~ Cynthia Chow, librarian and branch manager of
Kaneohe Public Library on the island of Oahu,

for Kings River Life magazine

gif courtesy of @warnerarchive and Giphy 

OUR BOOK & TOTE 

GIVEAWAY!

"A DELIGHTFUL TALE" --Kirkus Reviews

"TERRIFIC SERIES" --Criminal Element

Leave a comment on this post with your email address,

and you'll be entered to win an autographed copy of our

new "Jack & Pen" Haunted Bookshop Mystery,

The Ghost Goes to the Dogs, along with a sturdy, canvas
 "Jack is back" tote bag and a set of autographed 

Cleo recipe cards.

Good luck! 

Comments open through 

Saturday, June 3rd

This giveaway is now over.
Congrats to our winner:

FAITH ASDELL!

Cleo is now working on her 
next book and Newsletter!

Don't miss her book news, 
bonus recipes, and fun 

prize package giveaways!

TO SIGN UP...

SPOTLIGHT ON V. M. (VALERIE) BURNS #SPOTLIGHTSUNDAY

 

It’s May and my turn in the spotlight. So, here’s my story. My name is Valerie Burns and I was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, which is in the Northwestern corner of the state and close to the Michigan border. My family lived three blocks from a branch library and my best friend and I spent a lot of time at that library. Although I loved to read, I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a writer. However, I did have a secret. If I read a book that I liked and wanted to know what came next, I would imagine it (complete with dialogue). If I read a book that didn’t quite live up to my expectations, I’d imagine a new ending. It was years later before I realized everyone didn’t imagine new twists, endings, or sequels. That’s when I learned to keep my “imaginings” secret.

I attended Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois) as an undergraduate. Northwestern is well-known for the Arts. Several famous actors have attended, and while I majored in Political Science and Urban Studies, one of my close friends was a talented aspiring screenwriter named Kelly. After graduation, I spent a year at Georgia Tech where I worked on a master’s in City Planning until I ran out of money and returned home. My first “real” job was working as Planner for the Area Agency on Aging in St. Joseph, Michigan in Southwestern Michigan. I planned services for seniors in Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren Counties and reviewed the agencies funded to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local regulations. During the five years I worked for the Area Agency I met some vibrant, amazing seniors. These people became my inspiration for Nana Jo and her friends from Shady Acres Retirement Village, featured in my Mystery Bookshop Mystery series. My secretary, Rebecca (85) was on a “no aging diet” and walked to work every day. My data clerk, Kathleen (55), taught me to knit. Our office manager, Dorothy (60s) was close to six feet tall and liked to wear fancy dresses, fishnet pantyhose, and high heels every day. Dorothy used to go to the liquor store behind our building and buy lottery tickets. She taught me to “play the numbers.” Our receptionist, Gertie (70s), was barely five feet tall and less than one hundred pounds. She was a heavy smoker with a raspy voice who used to wear four-inch hooker heels and became the inspiration for Irma.

I left the Area Agency to work as a computer training specialist at the University of Notre Dame and moved back to South Bend. I transferred my credits from Georgia Tech to Notre Dame and started back working on my master’s degree. After two years, I left Notre Dame to work as a training specialist for a CPA firm, Crowe Chizek. My job at Crowe Chizek involved traveling to various locations and training the auditors on various software applications. While traveling, I reconnected with my college friend who was now married with a son. Kelly dusted off her writing aspirations. After hearing me say one time too many, “You should write a screenplay about…” (my imagining never stopped), Kelly politely suggested that I should be the one to write (whatever). She shared a book on writing screenplays, and that’s when my desire to write was born. While working for the CPA firm, traveling, and working on my master’s, I wrote 3 screenplays and started writing my first mystery, Travellin’ Shoes. After 12 years, I left Crowe Chizek to work as a Training Developer for Whirlpool Corporation and moved back to Southwestern Michigan.

Not long after starting my job at Whirlpool in 2006, my boss was relocated to Canada. While cleaning out her office, she found a voucher for a plane ticket. She wasn’t going to use the voucher and offered it to me. For years, I’d been attending writing workshops, conferences, seminars, and pitch sessions, in an attempt to “break into” Hollywood. Thanks to that voucher, I was able to attend the Maui Writers Conference. Unlike most of the screenwriting conferences I’d attended in L.A., the Maui Writers Conference also included book authors and publishers. On a whim, I pitched my mystery to an editor from Berkley Crime and she LIKED IT! That inspired me to finish writing it and to switch from screenwriting to books. Sadly, when the manuscript was finally finished, the editor passed. However, now I was hooked. I kept writing and sending out queries. I got a lot of rejections, but I kept writing.

One day while reading the biography of one of my favorite cozy mystery authors, Victoria Thompson, I discovered that she was an adjunct professor at Seton Hill University in the Writing Popular Fiction Program. I wasn’t interested in getting another master’s degree. I had one. What I wanted, was to be a published author. After tons of rejections, I knew I needed to do something different to make that happen. That’s when I decided to apply to Seton Hill University (SHU). The good thing about SHU was that it was a low residency program, only requiring two weeks per year on campus. I was able to keep my job and complete the rest of the program virtually. In June 2012, I started my first term. Attending Seton Hill was the best decision I ever made, and I graduated in January 2015. By the end of that year I had an agent and three months afterward, my first book contract. My debut novel, The Plot is Murder, was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2017.

I went on to sell Travellin’ Shoes, the first book in my RJ Franklin Mystery Series. 

I then went on to sell my Dog Club Mystery series.

In August 2022, my 16^th book will be released, Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder, the first book in my new Baker Street Mystery Series. 

People ask how I’ve written 16 books in 5 years. The answer is, I didn’t. I started writing long before my first book was published. I joke that I have enough rejects to wallpaper my house. However, rejections, didn’t stop me from writing. I’m still with the same company, but I have since relocated to the Southeastern region at the Eastern Tennessee/Georgia state line where I live with my two poodles, Chloe and Kensington (yes, she’s named after my publisher).

I love to read and write cozy mysteries. To find out what the poodles are up to, get entered for giveaways, and keep up with new releases, visit my website and sign up for my newsletter at vmburns.com.

SPOTLIGHT ON PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON #SpotlightSunday

 

Today is my day in the spotlight.  Goodness, it’s bright.  I’ve always been rather shy about being “in the spotlight” but I’ll do my best.

 

I’ve written a number of series, the most current of which is my Open Book Series, which is set in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, a fictional town in England.  Our plan to go to England and Scotland had to be cancelled due to Covid so by setting my series “across the pond” I was able to do a bit of armchair traveling.

 

Penelope Parish has a degree in Gothic literature, which didn’t prove too useful until she decided to write her own Gothic novel.  No one was more astonished than Penelope when it became a bestseller.

 

But the heat was on to produce another bestseller and she was suffering from terminal writer’s block.  Hoping a change of scenery would get her creative juices flowing, she applied for a writer-in-residence position at the Open Book, a bookstore owned by Mabel Morris, a former MI6 analyst.  Currently there are three books in the series:  Murder in the Margins, A Fatal Footnote and Peril on the Page.  I am working on number four now.

 

I wrote the books as Margaret Loudon, which is actually one of my real names.  Peg is short for Margaret (I know—it doesn’t make any sense!) and Loudon is my surname from my first marriage.  I go by Peg and since I remarried after my husband died, I added Cochran to my name. If I need any more pen names, I still have my maiden name to go with.

 

I grew up in New Providence, NJ, a suburb 25 miles from NYC.   The town features in my humorous Lucille Series.  I lived in New York City for ten years where I worked for the Pierre Matisse Gallery (yes, he was the son of Henri!)  I eventually moved back to NJ, one town over from where I grew up.

 

My second husband and I had been dating for two years when he was offered a job

in Grand Rapids, Michigan.   We got married in June (coming up on 20 years this year) and moved to Michigan that July. That has to score pretty high on the stress scale!  Several of the small towns on Lake Michigan were the inspiration for my Cranberry Cove Series.

 

As much as I enjoy traveling, I also enjoy going back in time.  I’ve always loved movies from the 1930s and 1940s.  My Murder, She Reported Series is set in New York City in 1938.  Society girl Elizabeth “Biz” Adams gets a job as a crime photographer for the Daily Trumpet and with her reporter partner Ralph Kaminsky, ends up solving several murders.

 

I’ve wanted to write since I began to read.  In high school I wrote a “bodice ripper” I had to keep hidden from my mother.  I wrote three mysteries on the train on my commute to my job in NYC. They were great practice but went nowhere.  Then ten years ago, I sold my first cozy and it’s been a fantastic journey ever since.

 

So far, I have written the following series: Gourmet De-Lite, Vintage Lingerie (as Meg London,) Cranberry Cove, Lucille, Farmer's Daughter, Murder She Reported and Open Book. 

 

On a more personal front, I have two daughters, a stepdaughter, stepson and two granddaughters.  And hopefully more on the way eventually—my youngest got married in October.

 

Links:

My web site is PegCochran.com

Murder in the Margins (Open Book Series):  Amazon   Barnes & Noble
Berried Secrets (Cranberry Cove Series):  Amazon   Barnes & Noble Note: the e-book is currently $2.99
Murder, She Reported (Murder, She Reported series):  Amazon   Barnes & Noble
Confession Is Murder (Lucille Series):   Amazon    Barnes & Noble
No Farm, No Foul (Farmer's Daughter series)  Amazon    Barnes & Noble
Murder Unmentionable (Vintage Lingerie series) Amazon   Barnes & Noble.  Note: e-book is $2.99
Allergic to Death (Gourmet De-Lite series)  Amazon    Barnes & Noble   Note: e-book is $2.99

 

 

Who is Tina Kashian? from @TinaKashian1 #Giveaway #SpotlightSunday

 Hello! TINA KASHIAN here. I’m excited to be the first MLK author for our Spotlight Sunday. What is Spotlight Sunday? It’s a chance for each of us to talk a bit about ourselves, our writing journey, and our books. Since I’m relatively new to MLK, many may not know much about me. I’ll have an upcoming February release, MURDER IN THE MOUNTIAINS, that I’ll talk about below and offer a giveaway. 

Pre-Order for only $0.99 here: https://bit.ly/3naP5W0

 

I write the Kebab Kitchen mysteries set at a Mediterranean restaurant at the Jersey Shore. The first book in the series is “Hummus and Homicide.” Lucy Berberian is a recovering Philadelphia lawyer who returns home to her family’s restaurant and promptly encounters the new health inspector, a former high school rival and bully. After the health inspector serves up a list of bogus heath violations, she eats at Kebab Kitchen’s famous hummus bar, then drops dead in the parking lot. Lucy, who served the woman her last meal, is a prime suspect.

 

This is a series from my own heart. I’m a first generation American and my Armenian parents owned a restaurant for thirty years in south Jersey. I grew up in the business. My mother carried me around as a baby to greet customers. I worked as a tween rolling silverware in napkins, then as a teenager hostessing and waitressing. The tips paid for my prom gown. I have memories of local customers, chatty waitstaff and temperamental cooks in a hot kitchen. My mother was a talented cook and spoke five languages. Yes, five! I’d often come home from school to the delicious aromas of simmering grape leaves, stuffed peppers and tomatoes, and shish kebab. Lunch at school was hummus and pita instead of peanut butter and jelly at a time when hummus wasn’t as popular as it is now. It wasn’t always fun as a teenager to have an eccentric, ethnic family. But I’ve grown to value my own roots and my own colorful cast of family members. In contrast, my husband can almost trace his roots back to the Mayflower. We have two daughters who have the best of both worlds, and yes, they know how to make hummus and like it.

 

I shared my hummus recipe on the MLK blog HERE:

 

As for my writing journey, it started when I discovered my love of reading. I began late, 8th grade. English was my second language and I struggled with reading as a kid. But boy did I catch up fast and started devouring books. I began to write my own stories. I wrote my first book when I was sixteen. I was thrilled to finish, but that book is under my bed and will never see the light of day.

 

I was also a very shy teenager. I had scoliosis and had to wear a brace. The doctor told me I had to wear it 23 hours a day, only a one-hour break to shower. The only exception was if I was in a swimming pool. There’s no gravity in the water and it’s much easier on the spine. I immediately joined the swim team as a thirteen-year-old. I loved the freedom of the water—the escape from that awful brace! I’ve never stopped swimming, and I’m an avid lap swimmer. 

 

Thereafter, I graduated college with a mechanical engineering degree, then a law degree. During my commutes to a Philadelphia law firm, I plotted books in my head. I started writing a historical romance. I loved Jane Austen, especially “Pride and Prejudice'', and rooted for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The Regency period fascinated me–the gowns, the carriages, and the manners. I published thirteen books for Kensington and Entangled Publishing under the pen name Tina Gabrielle. I still practice part-time law, but to have more time with my children, I’ve pivoted to working as a middle school librarian, my most challenging and rewarding position so far (other than as a mother.)

 

Meanwhile, I started reading mysteries. I discovered cozies. I began including more and more mystery in my romances. My most popular historical novel published by Kensington Books is “In the Barrister’s Chambers” which featured an English barrister and a lady who seeks his help to clear her beau’s name of murder. Publisher’s Weekly called it, “a Regency series with legal backbone…the tale is bolstered by enthusiastically detailed portrayals of England's Regency-era legal system, and witty comradely repartee.”

 

Learn more: http://www.tinagabrielle.com/inthebarristerschambers.html

 

So, what’s new from me now?

This past fall, my short story was published in an anthology, “MIDNIGHT HOUR” with Crime Writers of Color from Crooked Lane Books. My Story is "CAPE MAY MURDER." The anthology received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, as well as wonderful reviews from Kirkus, and the NY Journal of Books.

 

Learn more: https://bit.ly/3I6FBCJ

 

UPCOMING RELEASE! I’m excited for my upcoming February 1, 2022 release, “MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS.” Nine authors are participating in this anthology, including our own MLK author, Leslie Budewitz. My story is “A KILLER POCONO HIKE,” and it features my Kebab Kitchen amateur sleuth, Lucy and her BFF Katie. To escape the stress of wedding planning, Lucy goes on a week-long getaway with Katie, her maid of honor, to the Pocono Mountains. The two friends look forward to leaf peeping, hiking, dining in the resort’s five-star restaurant, and receiving relaxing massages. But murder foils their plans…

 

This story is based on a real-life Pocono getaway. My husband’s entire family is from the Poconos, and we visit often. During Covid and quarantine last fall, we went a bit stir crazy stuck in the house with the kids and with John working from home. But what could we do safely? A group of families with tweens and teens the same age as our girls decided to go on a fall Pocono hike. The trees were ablaze with color and the fresh mountain air was a lovely escape. We came upon a karst cave, as deep and deadly as a sinkhole. No fence surrounded the sinkhole and one of the mother’s yelled at her son to stay back from the ledge. My writer’s mind immediately came up with a killer plot.

You can pre-order “Murder in the Mountains” for a special price of only $0.99!

 

 Pre-Order for $0.99 here: https://bit.ly/3naP5W0

  

GIVEAWAY!  Winner’s choice. You can pick from an ebook of “Murder in the Mountains” when it releases on 2/1/22 or a signed, print copy of “On the Lamb,” my Easter cozy mystery in my Kebab Kitchen series. (U.S. Only for print). My books are set at the Jersey Shore and now at the Poconos. So, what is your favorite getaway? A winner will be selected from one of the comments. Please leave an email address. 

 

Learn more here:https://amzn.to/2PP9nEd

 

Last, please visit my website at www.tinakashian.com to join my newsletter, receive delicious recipes, enter contests, and more.

You can also connect with me at:
Website: www.tinakashian.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TinaKashianAuthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TinaKashian1
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinakashian/

 

Thank you for reading our first Spotlight Sunday. I love my MLK family!

Tina (sharing a pic of my puppy Joy)
xoxo