The Five W's: Helena Fairfax and Miss Moonshine's Emporium of Happy Endings, Giveaway

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog! Today we have British author Helena Fairfax as our guest to explain the Five W's in the new anthology, Miss  Moonshine's Emporium of Happy Endings. This anthology, filled with feel-good stories, is a collaboration of nine talented romance authors who live in the same region in England.

The Five W's Guest Author Series

I'm thrilled to find out the story behind this release and to let you know the authors are generously offering a paperback copy of the book to a lucky commenter.  Deadline for entry is Sunday, June 3, at 9 pm ET.

I am presently in the middle of the anthology and in awe of how unique each story is even when every one of them includes the quirky shop-keeper, Miss Moonshine. The settings of the story are the same, Haven Bridge, but the eras are different, yet each author takes care to keep Miss Moonshine the same, no matter what age. The stories are imaginative and entertaining. You may want to click the Amazon Buy Link now, instead of waiting to see if you win the FREE paperback.

Miss Moonshine’s Emporium of Happy Endings, by the Authors on the Edge
Anthology of romantic stories.

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW

by Helena Fairfax

 Thank you, JQ, for inviting me to take part in your series!

My latest story, Beatrice Marches for Women, is part of an anthology of stories written by eight other authors and myself – all friends from the north of England, and all romance writers. Normally when we are writing our novels or short stories, we work on the 5Ws completely alone, but being part of an anthology means collaborating on ideas in a different way. Putting this collection together with a thoroughly professional bunch of writers and a lovely group of friends has been a real pleasure from start to finish, and a break from our solitary writing pursuits.

So in backwards order, HOW did we come up with the idea to put together an anthology?

As I mentioned, we all of us live in the north of England. We meet regularly for lunch in Hebden Bridge, which is a historic mill town on the border between the counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. One day over lunch we got talking (we talk a LOT!) and we realised we all wrote different styles of romance. Then we got to thinking how much fun it would be to put a collection of our stories together. Since we meet on the border between two counties, we decided to call ourselves Authors on the Edge.

WHY put together an anthology?

Once you start writing professionally, sometimes the zest can go out of your writing. Maybe you have to meet a deadline, and so you’re burning the midnight oil at your keyboard. Maybe you are sending manuscripts off to magazines or agents, and you have to keep fielding rejection. Maybe you are on the fourth round of edits from your publisher, and you are sick of the sight of your own story. We thought putting an anthology together would be something we could do at our own pace, would allow us to be as creative as we wanted...and would above all be fun!

WHERE would the stories in the anthology be set?

That one is easy to answer. Hebden Bridge has always been our meeting place. It’s a beautiful and unusual old mill town, in a valley with rolling green hills around it, and full of historic old terraced houses, quirky shops, a canal lined with narroboats, and cafes. Haven Bridge became our fictionalised Hebden Bridge.

WHEN?

Now, this question posed a bit of a dilemma. Some of us write contemporary romance, some of us historical, and some of us flit between the two. After much conversation, we decided we should each choose the period that felt right for our own story, as long as the stories and characters were linked consistently through the anthology.

WHAT was I going to write about for my story?

For the past year, I’ve been researching into the lives of women in Halifax, which is another old mill town near Hebden Bridge, but much bigger. Researching the lives of the mill women has been an eye-opener. I decided to set my story in 1908, at the time of a real suffragette march in Hebden Bridge. My heroine is a young woman who wants to change her own life, but feels stifled by the time she’s living in. Then she meets....

WHO?

Miss Moonshine is the “Who?” of our collection. Dear Miss M has been the key to our anthology’s success so far, and she is the character who ties all of our stories together. Miss Moonshine owns a quirky shop on the High Street in Hebden Bridge. She’s an eccentric and she appears to have been in the town forever. In each of our stories, the heroine enters Miss Moonshine’s shop and finds the thing she most needs in life – even though sometimes she doesn’t realise there is anything missing.

Readers have really taken to our Miss Moonshine as she appears in each of our stories, and between the nine of us authors, we have started to think of her ourselves as a real character – someone whose shop we would love to walk into on the High Street in Hebden Bridge!

 

Miss Moonshine’s Emporium of Happy Endings by the Authors on the Edge

Miss Moonshine’s Emporium of Happy Endings by the Authors on the Edge is available in print and as an ebook on Amazon.

Back of the Book:

Sometimes what you need is right there waiting for you...
Miss Moonshine’s Wonderful Emporium has stood in the pretty Yorkshire town of Haven Bridge for as long as anyone can remember. With her ever-changing stock, Miss Moonshine has a rare gift for providing exactly what her customers need: a fire opal necklace that provides a glimpse of a different life; a novel whose phantom doodler casts a spell over the reader; a music box whose song links love affairs across the generations. One thing is for certain: after visiting Miss Moonshine’s quirky shop, life is never the same again...
Nine romantic novelists from Yorkshire and Lancashire, including best-selling and award-winning authors, have joined together to create this collection of uplifting stories guaranteed to warm your heart. This intriguing mix of historical and contemporary romances will make you laugh, cry, and believe in the happy-ever-after.

Authors on the Edge members are Mary Jayne Baker, Sophie Claire, Jacqui Cooper, Helena Fairfax, Kate Field, Melinda Hammond, Marie Laval, Helen Pollard, and Angela Wren.

Much cake was consumed by these authors in the making of this anthology.

Amazon Buy Link

About Helena:

Helena Fairfax is a British author who was born in Uganda and came to England as a child. She's grown used to the cold now which is just as well, since these days she lives in an old Victorian mill town in the north of England, right next door to the windswept Yorkshire moors. Helena walks this romantic landscape every day with her rescue dog, finding it the perfect place to dream up her heroes and her happy endings. Subscribers to Helena's newsletter receive news of free stuff, competitions with prizes, gossip, and links to cool websites she's been looking at when she should have been writing.

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cR_m71

Connect online with Helena:

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cR_m71 (all new subscribers receive a free novella)

Website: www.helenafairfax.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HelenaFairfax/

Twitter https://twitter.com/HelenaFairfax

Pinterest https://uk.pinterest.com/helenafairfax/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/helenafairfax/
Remember to leave a comment to win a digital file of  Miss Moonshine's Emporium of Happy Endings. 

AND my birthday celebration continues through May 31. Prizes will be selected from the Birthday Grab Bag for lucky commenters. Find out more below. Thank you for stopping in!

Here's the Birthday Grab Bag loaded with gifts for you.

WHAT'S IN THE GRAB BAG?
📘COUPONS for mystery suspense eBook, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard
📙PAPERBACK COPY of Romantic suspense, Dangerous Sanctuary
📗FOR WRITERS--PDF COPY of Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing: 
Helpful Tips on the Writing Process, Publishing and Marketing
📚PDF COPY-Quick Tips on Vegetable Gardening
🍬🍫CHOCOLATE and CANDY
DEADLINE FOR ENTRY-11:59 PM MAY 31

3 WAYS TO ENTER to win one of these prizes: 

1. Leave your name below in the comments box
2. Like my Facebook page and FB message me or leave a comment

Click here for my FB J.Q. Rose author page.

3. Email me--jqrose02 at gmail dot com  

On June 1,  I'll grab a gift to send the winners via FB Messenger or email. 

Print books will be sent via snail mail US only.

In Remembrance of Those Who Served, Giveaway

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog. We pay tribute during Memorial Day weekend to those who gave all to our country. Please, during this weekend that kicks off the unofficial beginning of summer, take time to remember those who served and the families and friends of these service men and women.

Nothing makes me happier than to give gifts, so add some joy to my life by signing up to grab a gift from the Birthday Grab Bag!

Let's Celebrate My Birthday Giveaway
May 23-31

Here's the Birthday Grab Bag loaded with gifts for you.

WHAT'S IN THE GRAB BAG?
📘COUPONS for mystery suspense eBook, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard
📙PAPERBACK COPY of Romantic suspense, Dangerous Sanctuary
📗FOR WRITERS--PDF COPY of Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing: 
Helpful Tips on the Writing Process, Publishing and Marketing
📚PDF COPY-Quick Tips on Vegetable Gardening
🍬🍫CHOCOLATE and CANDY
DEADLINE FOR ENTRY-11:59 PM MAY 31

3 WAYS TO ENTER to win one of these prizes: 

1. Leave your name below in the comments box

2. Like my Facebook page and FB message me or leave a comment

Click here for my FB J.Q. Rose author page.

3. Email me--jqrose02 at gmail dot com  

On June 1,  I'll grab a gift to send you via FB Messenger or email. 

Print books will be sent via snail mail US only.

Readers Circle: G. L. Rockey's The Journalist, Giveaway

Summer Readers Circle
J.Q. Rose blog every Friday

Hello and welcome to the J Q Rose blog. 
This week, contemporary fiction author, G.L. Rockey takes his seat in the Readers Circle. This author has his finger on the pulse of today's news in his latest release, The Journalist.

G.L. has generously offered to give away a digital copy of The Journalist to a lucky commenter. Please leave a comment to be entered in the drawing. Deadline to enter is Tuesday, July 11, 10 p.m. EDST.

* * *

G.L is sharing an interview with questions asked by our publisher, Books We Love. Check out his entertaining answers, then find out more about his contemporary thriller, The Journalist.

BWL: Why did you choose the genre you write in? Is it your favorite to read, or another reason?

G.L. Rockey: Like a lady reporter/reviewer once wrote, "He writes in all genres." I like to read first person stuff like Nelson DeMille's Plum Island . . .

BWL: Describe yourself using 5 words.

G.L. Rockey: Unfinished, unfinished, unfinished, unfinished, unfinished

BWL: What might readers be surprised to learn about you?

G.L. Rockey: I once directed David Letterman when he was a part time TV weather man at WLWI-TV in Indianapolis. I was a TV director. Letterman was also a booth announcer (did tags for commercials, etc.) I told him over headsets when to "announce", "stand by," etc.

BWL: What was your favorite book as a child or young adult?

G.L. Rockey: I didn't read as a child or young adult, managed to get a B.A. by going to class, listening to lectures . . . started reading books around 23 when I woke up one rainy night in Sullivan, Indiana and thought about writing one. It tuned our to be the novel, Time & Chance.

BWL: What super power would you like to have and how would you use it?

G.L. Rockey: To have wings, fly...bypass long airport lines and airplanes . . . get to warm islands around the equator . . .

THE JOURNALIST – Taking FAKE NEWS to a higher level

Contemporary thriller

BACK OF THE BOOK: Set in 2020, fake “breaking news” video is presented to TV stations and leads to a media “feeding frenzy,” riots, charges of terrorism, and enactment of martial law.

THE JOURNALIST REVIEWS:

“...captivating book...had me reading quickly to follow the developments as they occurred...extremely believable characters...the writing is very well executed to stir up so much in the reading.” Angie Mangino

“...book has frightening ring of truth...compelling...” Sam Boyer, Brunswick Sun Times

“Thrilling...captures you in the opening sentence and hold you spellbound till the end...it will also scare the socks off you...a must read.” Kim Gaona

ABOUT G.L.

Author G.L. Rockey

G. L. Rockey has worn many hats–construction worker; drama student; car salesman; adjunct college teacher; television cameraman, producer/director, program executive; restaurant manager; free-lance writer, and author. By way of Carnegie Mellon Drama Department and Michigan State University, he pursued a career in the television industry. From Providence to Phoenix and cities in between, he produced and directed a variety of television programs and managed TV station programming. While program manager at KTSP-TV in Phoenix, he represented NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) to Germany. He has a master's degree from Cleveland State University and taught a course there. 

His writing includes, Five Star Review, a young novelist’s encounter with Satan. Other works of fiction are: Truths of the Heart, a college professor’s love affair; The Journalist, a five-star thriller with a "freighting ring of truth"; Time & Chance, a mystery/suspense set in Nashville; and a collection of sixteen "off-the-wall" short stories, Bats in the Belfry, Bells in the Attic. 

Also published is a nonfiction book, From the Back of the House-Memories of a Steak House Clan. 

Click here to connect online with G.L. Rockey.

 :

What IS a Cozy Mystery?, FREE eBook on Writing

Click here to listen to the recording of today's blog post, What IS a Cozy Mystery.

Welcome, Spring!
"Spring has sprung, the grass is riz.
I wonder where the flowers iz."
My mother used to say this silly poem every spring! 

Hello and welcome to the JQ Rose blog. Thank you for stopping in today.

Dangerous Sanctuary by J.Q. Rose

What IS a Cozy Mystery? by J.Q. Rose

When my romantic suspense novel, Dangerous Sanctuary, was first released, I received this review from Susan B. "It was a delightful cozy, with some romance, some religion, and lots of mystery. This novel has an interesting cast of characters, humorous situations, and was filled with surprises."

As I read the review, I wondered how many readers had heard of a cozy mystery. How many writers? For sure, when I began writing Dangerous Sanctuary, formerly published as Coda to Murder, I wasn't thinking "cozy mystery." I just wanted to write what I like to read. 

I like stories with 
▶ a mystery and some humor, 
▶ a strong female protagonist, 
▶ not a lot of blood and gore, 
▶ and some sweet romance. 

I had to research police procedures for my novel, Dangerous Sanctuary.

I didn't choose a main character who was in law enforcement mainly because I have no experience with police methods.  Because there was a crime committed in my story, I had to research a few procedures. Thank goodness my neighbor was a policeman and a valuable resource.

Until I received Susan's review I never even considered I had written a cozy mystery! I definitely began looking into the elements needed to fit the qualifications for a cozy mystery. Author Kassandra Lamb has lots of mysteries to choose from at amazon. She listed the following points on her Cozy Thrills Facebook page.

Criteria for a Cozy Mystery by Kassandra Lamb

1. Amateur sleuth (although may have significant other who is a P.I. or police officer)
2. Something (setting, main character's vocation, etc.) is different and interesting (think Cabot Cove/Murder She Wrote).
3. Crimes happen, usually murder, but minimal on-screen violence and no gory descriptions
4. Sex is off-screen
5. The community where the story is set is often an integral part of the story.

Click here to read the article, What Makes a Cozy Just That at The Cozy Mystery List website.

You're welcome to add another cozy element to the list by leaving a comment below.

If you enjoy reading cozies, please check out books from my author friends, Susan Bernhardt and Marsha R. West.

✻✻✻✻

Romance and Mystery Authors On Writing
Compiled by J.Q. Rose

If you are a romance or mystery writer, find helpful tips on writing, publishing and marketing from fifteen experienced talented authors, Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing. 

Request a FREE e-copy at jqrose02 at gmail dot com.

Dangerous Sanctuary Virtual Book Tour, Giveaway

Dangerous Sanctuary Virtual Book Tour

Hello and welcome to an early edition of the J.Q. Rose blog.

I wanted you to know that the Dangerous Sanctuary Virtual Book Tour is now in full swing. This week I'm visiting several bloggers and do they ever ask a LOT of questions!!  I feel especially privileged to be a guest, I think one of the best unexpected "perks" when becoming a writer, is finding support from the writing community. Each author wants another writer to succeed. In fact, I found so many new "friends" who were willing to make the path to publication less bumpy, I put together their writing tips. 

Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing
Helpful writing tips from experienced authors
Available at amazon

AND as a prize, today through Thursday, December 15, 10 pm EST, I'm giving away a copy of the compilation of helpful writing tips from fifteen authors entitled Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing: the Writing Process, Publication and Marketing. If you want a PDF copy, just leave your email address in a comment below or email me to request one. My email address is jqrose02 at gmail dot com. Everyone is a winner. Just leave a comment or email to get yours. Tell your friends and family too. We want to get this e-book into the hands of writers whether they are a new or seasoned writer.

Here's the schedule for this month's Dangerous Sanctuary blog tour. I hope you can join me and enter drawings for free gifts. I also share excerpts from the romantic suspense at many stops. You'll get insight into the main character, Pastor Christine Hobbs.

Dangerous Sanctuary
Available at amazon in ebook and paperback

Please join me on the blog tour for giveaways, excerpts, and fun. Thank you!

DECEMBER
9	Diane Burton
13	Foxes and Hounds
13	Marsha West
19	Juneta Key
20	Books We Love Insider Blog
27 and 28	Janet Lane Walters

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose

What a week of riches! I'm also a guest at Paranormal Romantics featuring Henry the Shadow Man in my romantic suspense, Deadly Undertaking. I also share tips on the care of Poinsettias and today--Monday is National Poinsettia Day! Timely advice, eh? Come and join us. Do you have a poinsettia in your home?

Romance Readers Want to Know: Author Helena Fairfax, Free Romantic Suspense eBook

Romance Readers Want to Know
Thursdays on the J,Q. Rose Blog

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Hope you're wearing your green today otherwise you'll get pinched. Our guest author, Helena Fairfax, is also wearing her green because she celebrates in  England too. 

Besides celebrating with the Irish, we are also throwing a party for Helena's new romance novella, just released last weekend--The Scottish Diamond, a romantic suspense novella.
Be sure to read on to discover how you can receive a free copy of the Palace of Deception, the romantic suspense novella which first introduces us to Lizzie and Leon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Romance Readers Want to Know by Helena Fairfax

Thanks so much for inviting me to take part in this series, JQ. I’ve loved getting to know new authors through your posts - and I love answering readers’ questions!

A question I’ve been asked a few times by readers is “How do you write a whole book?”

I know exactly what they mean. Even though I’ve written four full-length books now – and several short stories and novellas – I still find it both exciting and daunting to be faced with that blank page and the start of a new novel. It’s a very long way from having an idea for a story, to actually putting that idea down on paper and creating a full-length novel out of it.

The way I approach writing a new romance novel is to have a clear idea of the romantic conflict between the hero and heroine before I start. What is it that is keeping my characters apart? Why are their goals in conflict? Why – if they are two attractive, single people – can’t they get together on page one?

After that, I begin writing the novel, sometimes with no clear idea of how I’m going to progress – how will I avoid that “saggy middle”? What happens in chapter twelve? – but as long as I remain true to the characters, and true to their conflict, I keep writing and keep dreaming up situations that test this conflict to the max. I’m often hit with inspiration on the way, which leads me to question two:

“Where do you find your ideas?”

I love this question, and it’s a source of endless fascination to me where writers (and all artists) get their creative ideas from. I wish I had the answer! What I’ve found works well is having an enquiring mind. I’m quite a curious person (my husband might say “nosy” :) ) and I often find myself wondering “What would happen if…”

I’ve had most of my ideas from asking myself questions. I love antiques, and while watching a reality TV programme about antique shops, I started asking myself, “What would it be like to own an antique shop and be surrounded by these wonderful connections with other lives in history?” My novel The Antique Love grew directly out of this question. I dreamed up a heroine who is a romantic dreamer and who is fascinated by old objects.

I ask myself these questions all the time. Have you ever walked past a lighted window and cast a surreptitious look inside and wondered, “Who lives there?” If you are as nosy as me, you could be a writer :)

“Did you always want to be a writer?” I often get asked this question, too. The answer is yes – but as a child I was more in love with the idea of being a published author than actually sitting down to the painful process of writing! There is a famous quote that goes “It’s a wonderful thing to be a writer. It’s a terrible thing to write.” (I’m sorry, I can’t remember who said it.) I think that sums it up. I do love being a writer – I love the days when my book is released. It’s a very exciting feeling. But the reality of writing is a long, hard slog to get your book to a publishable state, involving a lot of hard work and persistence.

# # # #

Here is the blurb to my latest release, The Scottish Diamond:

The Scottish Diamond by Helena Fairfax

 What do you do when nothing is what it seems…even the man you love?

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair..."  When Lizzie Smith starts rehearsing Macbeth with her theatre group in Edinburgh, she's convinced the witches' spells are the cause of a run of terrible luck. Lizzie's bodyguard boyfriend, Léon, is mysteriously turned down for every job he applies for, until he's finally offered the job of guarding "The Scottish Diamond," a fabulous jewel from the country of Montverrier.

But the diamond's previous guard has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The Scottish Diamond has a history of intrigue and bloody murder, and Lizzie is plagued by nightmares in which Macbeth's witches are warning her of danger.
Then Lizzie discovers she's being followed through the streets of Edinburgh, and it seems her worst fears are about to be realised...

Excerpt

I continued to frown up at him, troubled. He took my face in his hands and kissed me.

‘I know what it is,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘It’s all your talk of witches and ghosts. Your Scottish superstitions are rubbing off on me and I’m seeing things in this gloomy weather that aren’t there at all.’

He swung me into his arms and kissed me again.

After that, Léon dismissed his vigilance as something brought on by the strangeness of his new city. And once he began his new job at the Castle, he didn’t mention being followed again, and in fact, all the tension he’d been showing disappeared, and he became almost his old self. He left the house with a sense of purpose that had been lacking in his previous aimless wanderings around Edinburgh. And the best thing was, he was beginning to understand more and more of our Scottish brogue every day.

I later discovered it wasn’t just our Scottish way of speaking he was mastering. A few days after he started work, I was in the kitchen preparing our evening meal, when I heard the front door close and Léon’s light tread in the hall. Usually he went straight upstairs to change, but this evening he came directly to the kitchen and put his head round the door. His eyes brimmed with amusement.

I stepped closer to give him a kiss, and he pushed the door wide. My mouth fell open. He was dressed in a kilt. The green tartan cloth was thrown over one broad shoulder in Highland fashion, and the pleated skirt revealed an inch or two of tanned, muscular leg above a pair of thick, cream-coloured socks.

‘Wow,’ I stuttered. ‘You look…’ I breathed out in a long whistle. ‘You look amazing.’

He smiled broadly, showing his white, even teeth in one of the first real smiles I’d seen him give since we left Europe.

‘This is my new uniform.’ He spread his arms a little, glancing down at himself. ‘Not a bad effort for a half-Italian, half-Montverrian. What do you think?’

‘Not bad at all.’ My face decided right then and there to turn a decided pink, and to hide the fact that I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, I threw my arms around his neck and planted a kiss below his ear.

His arms encircled me, and he murmured, ‘Ever made love to a man in a kilt?’

And after that, everything between us was perfect again. All my worries about Léon wanting to go home to Italy, and all his former tension vanished, and we were just as we had been during those idyllic two weeks we’d spent at his home on the Amalfi coast that summer.

But of course, perfect times can’t last forever. Everything changed when I realised it wasn’t Léon who was being followed. It was me.

Buy Links  for The Scottish Diamond by Helena Fairfax
Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon CA

About Helena:
Helena Fairfax writes engaging contemporary romances with sympathetic heroines and heroes she's secretly in love with. Her first novel, The Silk Romance, was a contender for the UK's Romantic Novelists' Association New Writers' Scheme Award and a runner-up in the Global Ebook Awards. Helena Fairfax was shortlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize in 2014.
Helena is a British author who was born in Uganda and came to England as a child. She's grown used to the cold now, and these days she lives in an old Victorian mill town in the north of England, right next door to the windswept Yorkshire moors. She walks this romantic landscape every day with her rescue dog, finding it the perfect place to dream up her heroes and her happy endings.

Social Media Links

If you’d like to get in touch, or find out more about my books, writing, and photos of my settings or the Yorkshire moors where I live, please follow my newsletter by subscribing here.

All new subscribers to my newsletter will receive a FREE copy of Palace of Deception – a romantic suspense novella

You can also visit Helena online:
 Helena Fairfax website 
Facebook, 
Twitter 

On Helena's website you can see photos of Edinburgh, Scotland - the setting for The Scottish Romance  here

Helena also talks about the superstition that surrounds Macbeth - the Scottish play - in this post.

And there is an interview with Helena at the blog of her fellow British author Helen Pollard here.

* * *

Thank you so much for having me today, JQ. It’s been a lot of fun taking part in this series! I hope your readers enjoyed my post. If anyone has any more questions – or any comments at all – I’d love to hear them!

Blog Swap: Heather Haven's Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries, Giveaway

Stack of books

Welcome mystery lovers and all readers!. I'm excited today to be swapping blogs with one of my favorite mystery writers and friend, Heather Haven. Heather released the third book in her Persephone Cole series. 

Please leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing for the newly released e-book The Chocolate Kiss-Off.   Deadline to enter is Sunday, November 15 at 9 p.m. EST.

• She's here with background on the birth of the series, and I'll be at Heather's blog. I dedicated my book, Deadly Undertaking, to my friend and mentor, Bernie. After enjoying Heather's article here, please  Visit Heather's blog to see why I chose this special lady. 

The Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries

by

Heather Haven

Thank you for hosting me, J.Q. What a treat to be coupled with you in the blogging experience. It’s a lot of fun!

The Chocolate Kiss-Off, book three of the Persephone Cole Vintage Mysteries, came out September 1^st 2015. I’m proud of the book and the series. The series came to life several years ago when I was challenged by my then publisher to write a protagonist who was not your standard or typical beauty. I can do that, I said, using New York City during the 1940s as the backdrop. The era directly after the Great Depression, in particular the year 1942, is a fascinating time in American history. I’d delved into the happenings of that year for my stand-alone noir mystery, Death of a Clown. I didn’t want to throw all the learning aside!

So enter Persephone ‘Percy’ Cole, who’s bucking the odds and pounding the pavement of Manhattan as one of its first female private detectives. Joining the ranks of other gumshoes such as Sam Spade, Lew Archer, and Phillip Marlowe, this five-foot eleven, full-figured gal has the same hard-boiled, take-no-prisoners attitude, but with a difference. She’s a shamus with a wicked sense of humor and the mother of an eight-year old son. Whether it be on the Great White Way, in the Diamond District, or knee-deep in chocolate, Persephone Cole blazes a trail for all other lady dicks to follow. Percy finds her holiday cheer in solving crimes of the most deadly kind - murder.

The Chocolate Kiss-Off by Heather Haven
Mystery

The Chocolate Kiss-Off

Book Three

by

Heather Haven

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and vats of delicious chocolate are being cooked up to win fair lady’s heart.  But at Carlotta’s Chocolates, Carlotta is found cooking in her own vat of chocolate, and not so deliciously. Arrested for her murder is chocolatier Howie Goldberg, good friend to Persephone ‘Percy’ Cole.  As one of Manhattan’s first female private detectives, Percy is determined to hunt down the real killer. But the sleuth, herself, is being stalked by the murderer, who not only keeps a diary of the latest kills, but records who is next. Percy Cole tops the list. When the lady shamus finds the elusive killer, will Death be her Valentine?

A little About Heather Haven

After studying drama at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida, Heather went to Manhattan to pursue a career. There she wrote short stories, novels, comedy acts, television treatments, ad copy, commercials, and two one-act plays,

Mystery author Heather Haven

which were produced at Playwrights Horizon and well-received. Once she even ghostwrote a book on how to run an employment agency. She was unemployed at the time.

One of her first paying jobs was writing a love story for a book published by Bantam called Moments of Love. She had a deadline of one week but promptly came down with the flu. Heather wrote "The Sands of Time" with a raging temperature, and delivered some pretty hot stuff because of it. Her stint at New York City’s No Soap Radio - where she wrote comedic ad copy – help develop her long-time love affair with comedy.

Heather lives in the foothills of San Jose with her husband of 33-years and her two cats, Yulie and Ellie.

Heather Haven, writer

San Jose, California 95135

http://www.heatherhavenstories.com/

Heather's blog at: heatherhavenstories.com

https://www.facebook.com/HeatherHavenStories

Twitter@HeatherHaven

Heather’s author page at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Heather-Haven/e/B004QL22UK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1372537066&sr=1-2-ent

Email me at: Heather@HeatherHavenStories.com

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