A Holland Reads: Sleuthing Women II by Multiple Authors

Book details

Sleuthing Women II: 10 Mystery Novellas

Cozy Mysteries

Self Published

Publication Date: September 5, 2017

Print Length: 675 pages

ASIN: B074TVL3HG

Book description

Sleuthing Women II: 10 Mystery Novellas is a collection of ten mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem by ten critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling authors. Each novella is a tie-in to an established multi-book series—a total of over 800 pages of reading pleasure for lovers of amateur sleuth, caper, cozy, and female P.I. mysteries.

Frosted, A Moreno & Hart Novella by Allison Brennan & Laura Griffin—Three years ago LAPD Detective Scarlet Moreno and rookie cop Krista Hart were nearly killed during a botched sting operation. Now, they’re best friends and partners in the Orange County private investigation firm of Moreno & Hart. But their routine assignments are anything but safe.

Crewel Intentions, An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Novella by Lois Winston—Craft editor Anastasia Pollack receives a desperate call for help from former fashion editor Erica Milano, now in Witness Protection. Erica is being stalked and is afraid to notify the authorities. She once saved Anastasia’s life. Will Anastasia be able to return the favor before the stalker strikes?

No Quarter, A Cleopatra Jones Novella by Maggie Toussaint—Amnesia, the doctor says when accountant Cleopatra Jones wakes in a distant hospital. Hours later most of her memory returns. Detective Jack Martinez visits Cleo’s nearby wealthy client, only she’s dead and broke. To Cleo’s horror, she’s a murder suspect. Will she totally recover her memory before the killer returns?

What the Widow Knew, A Kali-O’Brien Novella by Jonnie Jacobs—Attorney Kali O’Brien takes on the case of a young woman accused of murdering her much older, very rich husband. As evidence mounts and other possible suspects are eliminated, Kali’s doubts about her client’s innocence grow. Meanwhile, Kali is also grappling with her feelings for longtime boyfriend Detective Bryce Keating.

The Magnesium Murder, A Periodic Table Mystery by Camille Minichino—While freelance embalmer Anastasia Brent prepares the body of a young bride-to-be, she learns the girl’s mother suspects foul play. Once again Anastasia is pressed into service as a sleuth, following a trail of clues in search of a murderer and justice.

Honeymoons Can Be Murder, A Lee Alvarez Novella by Heather Haven— When PI Lee Alvarez goes on her honeymoon with bridegroom, Gurn Hanson, they find a dead woman practically on their doorstep. Kauai breezes may be soft, but there are gale force winds of accusation against Gurn. Will Lee find the real killer before her new hubby gets sent to a Hawaiian hoosegow?

Smoked Meat, A Carol Sabala Novella by Vinnie Hansen—Baker and wannabe sleuth Carol Sabala visits her mother for a family Christmas get-together. It’s murder, in more ways than one.

A Deadly Fundraiser, A Talk Radio Novella by Mary Kennedy—When radio talk show host Dr. Maggie Walsh and her pals start digging up clues in a scavenger hunt at a glitzy fundraiser, the game suddenly turns deadly. Will Maggie and her team be able to crack the case and solve the crime?

The Color of Fear. A Kelly O’Connell Novella by Judy Alter—Kelly receives a written kidnap threat targeting her infant daughter, Gracie. Kelly’s assistant Keisha narrates as Kelly and her family plot their precautions, but as time passes and the threat still looms, fear takes a toll on the family…and on Keisha.

Papa’s Ghost, A Gladdy Gold Mystery Novella by Rita Lakin—Gladdy and her girls accept an assignment iat a famous resort in Key West, thinking it will combine business with pleasure. Once they arrive, Gladdy suspects something is strange. Not only is their client an unexpected shock, but so is the case of murder they are expected to solve. Can they succeed when a whole city is against them?

Some explicit language in a few of the stories.

Meet the author - Lois Winston

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Website: www.loiswinston.com

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter at https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

Newsletter sign-up: https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z1z1u5

Purchase Links

Kindle http://amzn.to/2vLSTRe

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sleuthing-women-ii-lois-winston/1126978529?ean=2940154729670

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/sleuthing-women-ii-10-mystery-novellas

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1271786491

Character Guest post

My Not So Quiet Life

By Anastasia Pollack

Some people crave the spotlight. Me? I’m a private person who would prefer to live a quiet middle-class life on my quiet middle-class street in a quiet middle-class suburban New Jersey town. I was doing just that until author Lois Winston came along. For the life of me, I don’t know why she set her sights on me, but ever since, my life has been anything but quiet.

My name is Anastasia Pollack, and I’m the magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth of Lois Winston’s Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. I suppose I should be honored that I have a series of books written about me, but given that Lois continually drops me into the middle of murder and assorted mayhem, I would have preferred the option of telling her to pick on someone else—or at least write me into a romance instead of a mystery. But no, she decided I needed to spend my days tripping over dead bodies.

As if that weren’t enough, she also pulled the carpet out from under my comfortable middle-class existence. Before Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, even opened, she killed off my husband. Turns out the guy had led a double life. After he dropped dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas (I thought he was at a sales meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), I discovered he’d been lying to me for years. He’d gambled away all our savings, including our sons’ college accounts, and left me in debt equal to the GNP of many a Third World nation. And did I mention the loan shark? Karl owed him fifty grand, and he didn’t care that Karl was dead.

Then, on my first day back to work after the funeral, I discovered a dead body glued to my office desk chair. It would be the first of many dead bodies I’d come across since Lois took over my life six books and three novellas ago.

Did Lois stop there, though? No, she did not. She moved my self-proclaimed Russian princess mother and my curmudgeonly communist mother-in-law into my home where they’re forced to share a bedroom. They get along as well as Mama’s cat and my mother-in-law’s dog get along. Their constant verbal fireworks receive play-by-play from Ralph, the Shakespeare-quoting parrot I inherited from a great-aunt. Believe me, I would have preferred inheriting her Royal Doulton china!

In Crewel Intentions, the novella that’s part of Sleuthing Women II: 10 Mystery Novellas, Lois at least gives me a respite of sorts when she sends me off to Western Pennsylvania for a weekend visit with our magazine’s former fashion editor. Of course, Lois couldn’t leave it as just a friendly visit. And once again I’m off doing the reluctant sleuth thing as I try to track down a stalker.

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