Release Day News: Trade Paperback Edition of UNSAFE HAVEN by Lucy Burdette

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Congratulations to our own Lucy Burdette! 

LUCY BURDETTE

On the paperback release of her thriller, UNSAFE HAVEN

Sixteen-year-old Addison is on the run. She’s leaving her life on New York’s streets behind for a new one with Rafe, armed with just his phone number on a scrap of paper. She’s taking the subway to meet him in New Jersey. He’ll take care of her. Or so he said…

Elizabeth Brown’s world has fallen apart and she can’t stop thinking about her newly ex-fiancé. Until she locks eyes with a teenage girl while waiting for the train doors to open, and a bundle is thrust into her arms as she leaves the subway. A baby, wrapped in a dirty coat.

Elizabeth phones the number she finds in the coat pocket. Then wishes she hadn’t. Someone wants Addison and the baby. And they’ll do whatever it takes to get them…

In a major departure from her lighthearted Key West mysteries, Burdette invites readers into the world of a chilling thriller. (Unsafe Haven is) a page-turner highlighting the problem of exploited runaways.

—Kirkus Reviews

UNSAFE HAVEN

To learn more or buy, 

CLICK HERE

Aunt Susan‘s Macaroni and Cheese @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I have a new book coming out very soon in a different genre, a thriller called UNSAFE HAVEN. (Actually it's out already in the ebook version, but the hardcover is coming soon...) This book feels risky--it's so different from the cozy-ish mysteries I've been writing. I'm sure hoping some of my Key West series fans will give it a try. In fact, this nerve-wracking book launch could make a writer turn to comfort food...such as macaroni and cheese!

There is very little food in Unsafe Haven, other than leftovers from a spoiled wedding. This feels so different from writing a very foodie mystery series like the Key West books where food is central to the characters and the plot. Actually the setting too, now that I think about it. And there certainly are no recipes at in the back of the book! But one of the main characters, Elizabeth, who has just been jilted by her fiancé when nearly at the altar, comes home to lick her wounds. Her mother's sister makes this macaroni and cheese because everyone craves comfort food at a time like this. Here's her secret recipe...

Ingredients

1 pound good quality Italian pasta

4 tablespoons butter

About 3 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 teaspoons sharp mustard

2 cups milk, whole if you have it

2 cups good quality cheese (I used 1 cup Prairie Lights cheddar and one cup mild Swiss)

Breadcrumbs for the top

Melt the butter, and mix in the flour until it is well absorbed. Whisk in the mustard. Gradually add the milk, whisking until smooth and thick. Stir in the cheeses.

Meanwhile, boil the pasta until almost done and drain well. Mixed the cooked pasta into the cheese sauce. Pour this into a well boiled pan. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs. You could get fancy mixing the crumbs with melted butter and grated Parmesan, but it’s pretty rich in its current iteration.

Bake the macaroni and cheese at 350 for half an hour until bubbling and beginning to brown. Serve with green vegetables. We had a salad and fresh green beans.

About Unsafe Haven: A chance meeting on the New York subway leads to the destinies of two very different women becoming intertwined with terrifying consequences in this nerve-jangling thriller.

Sixteen-year-old Addison is on the run. She's leaving her life on New York's streets behind for a new one with Rafe, armed with just his phone number on a scrap of paper. She's taking the subway to meet him in New Jersey. He'll take care of her. Or so she thinks . . .

Elizabeth Brown's world has fallen apart and she's thinking about her newly ex-fiancé. Until she locks eyes with a teenage girl while waiting for the train doors to open, and a bundle is thrust into her arms as she leaves the subway. A baby, wrapped in a dirty coat.

Elizabeth phones the number she finds in the coat pocket. Then wishes she hadn't. Someone wants Addison and the baby. And they'll do whatever it takes to get them . . .

In a major departure from her lighthearted Key West mysteries, Burdette invites readers into the world of a chilling thriller. (Unsafe Haven is) a page-turner highlighting the problem of exploited runaways.

—Kirkus Reviews

If you'd like a nibble before you buy, read the first chapter here. And if you'd like to read more about the genesis of the book, read this post from Jungle Red Writers yesterday.

Ways to buy your copy of UNSAFE HAVEN:

Book depository 

Indiebound 

Barnes and Noble 

Amazon 

Severn House 

And if this is not in your budget (which I totally get,) you can invite your local library to order a copy!

Welcome our guest Hank Phillippi Ryan!!

Hank is the on-air investigative reporter for Boston's NBC affiliate. She's won 32 EMMYs, 12 Edward R. Murrow awards and dozens of other honors for her ground-breaking journalism. A bestselling author of seven mystery novels, Hank has won multiple prestigious awards for her crime fiction: three Agathas, the Anthony, Daphne, Macavity, and for THE OTHER WOMAN, the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. National reviews have called her a "master at crafting suspenseful mysteries" and "a superb and gifted storyteller." Her 2013 novel, THE WRONG GIRL, has the extraordinary honor of winning the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and the Daphne Award for Mainstream Mystery/Suspense, and is a seven-week Boston Globe bestseller. Her newest hardcover, TRUTH BE TOLD, is a Library Journal Editor’s Pick and RT Book Reviews Top Pick, with starred reviews from Booklist and from Library Journal, which raves, “Drop everything and binge read!” She's a founding teacher at Mystery Writers of America University and 2013 president of national Sisters in Crime.

Thanksgiving Solution!

from Hank Phillippi Ryan

Thanksgiving is coming! (You don’t need me to remind you, I know.) Every time I think of Thanksgiving, I think of my mom. She taught us that turkey was best if it was dry, not juicy. Seriously. I grew up thinking that juicy turkey was undercooked.

At our Thanksgiving table, you’d hear—“Oh, yum, Mom, this turkey is great, it’s really dry.”

Good going, mom. Fooled us all these years. (I still prefer dry turkey. But that is another blog.)

TRUTH BE TOLD, there’s no such thing as a holiday for a reporter, so the last time Jane Ryland (the lead character in my latest series) sat down to a fabulous holiday dinner is—well, never.  I know the feeling. As a reporter for the last 40 years, I’m often working on Thanksgiving, so all I get are the leftovers.

However! Making something out of nothing is the hallmark of a good reporter—as well as a good story-teller. And in this case, it’s especially wonderful if the “nothing” includes wine and fresh mushrooms. And leftovers.

First, get the leftovers from a roast turkey. (Okay, I know this may be a problem. If you’re doing Thanksgiving, it’s easy. If not, get some turkey. But it can’t be sliced deli turkey. It’s got to be authentic turkey that a real person actually cooked.)

Then, read this recipe all the way through before you start because its success depends on doing several things at the same time--and having the ingredients prepped and the utensils ready to go. It sounds a little more complicated than it actually is, and the first time I made it I burst out laughing--it looked like I had used every pan I owned. Now I've made it so often I don't even need the recipe anymore!

You can use more or less pasta and mushrooms and turkey--it doesn't really matter. An added bonus--your kitchen will smell fantastic while this is cooking.

This serves about 6-8 people-- and reheats beautifully. This is so delicious and decadent, we look forward to this just as much as our holiday turkey.

And read to the end for a special MLK only giveaway!

 Turkey Tetrazzini ala Hank

INGREDIENTS:

*1 pound mushrooms

*1/4 to ½ pound spaghetti or macaroni

*two or three cups shredded cooked white meat turkey (leftover from your holiday turkey!)

*3 Tablespoons butter, plus three more tablespoons butter

*I clove chopped garlic

*3 Tablespoons flour

*2 cups chicken broth

*1 cup heated whipping cream (fat-free half and half will also work)

*3 Tablespoons dry white wine

*salt and pepper
* grated Parmesan cheese.

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 375.

Saute:

*1 pound sliced mushrooms

 Saute' in butter and chopped garlic...keep warm, while at the same time you

Cook

*1/4 to ½ pound spaghetti or macaroni.

While this is cooking,

Take the leftover meat from your holiday turkey--shred it so you have

*two or three cups shredded turkey

(I like just using white meat--but it works with dark too)

Set aside in a bowl large enough to allow you to add to it.

Okay, I know this sounds complicated, but at the same time you're going to make a sauce:

Melt

*3 Tablespoons butter

Sprinkle with

*3 Tablespoons flour

Stir to make a paste, then add  (a little at a time…)

*2 cups chicken broth

Allow to thicken...this will take about 15 minutes.

Remove from heat, then stir in

*1 cup heated whipping cream (fat-free half and half will also work)

*3 Tablespoons dry white wine

*salt and pepper

Now

**Drain the pasta, put it back into the pan and mix in the sautéed mushrooms. Add one half of the sauce to this mixture.

**Add the other half of the sauce to the bowl of shredded turkey.

**Put the pasta and mushroom mixture in a greased baking dish. Make a hole in the center, and

**put the turkey/sauce mixture in the middle.

**Sprinkle the top with

* grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake till lightly browned and cooked through...at least 20 minutes.

SO delicious! You will not believe it. So--make a lot.

HANK: Well, now I’m hungry. But do you have any turkey secrets? Leave a comment..and you’ll be entered to win the Hank book of your choice: THE OTHER WOMAN, THE WRONG GIRL, or TRUTH BE TOLD! Remember to leave your email address so Hank can contact you if you win.

Visit Hank online at HankPhillippiRyan.com, on Twitter @HankPRyan and Facebook at

HankPhillippiRyanAuthorPage.

Here's a teaser for:






TRUTH BE TOLD begins with an all-too-familiar tragedy in today’s headlines: a middle-class family evicted from their home in the suburbs of Boston. In digging up the facts on this heartbreaking story—and on other foreclosures—reporter Jane Ryland soon learns the truth behind a big-bucks scheme and the surprising players who will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep their goal a secret.


Boston police detective Jake Brogan may have a liar on his hands. A man has confessed to the Lilac Sunday killing, a long-unsolved murder that haunted Brogan’s police-commissioner grandfather. While Jake’s colleagues take the confessor at his word, Jake is not so sure.


In the meantime, Ryland and Brogan’s paths are once-again intertwined—and as their private relationship heats up, it may mean difficulties in their professional lives.


Financial manipulation, the terror of foreclosures, the power of numbers, the primal need for home and family and love… What happens when everything you believe is true turns out to be a lie?