Mistress of Lies by Holly West
Available: September 29, 2014
Format: Ebook
Price: $2.99
Book description:
Book
description: London, 1679. Isabel, Lady Wilde, mistress of King Charles II, has made a good
living disguised as fortune teller Mistress Ruby, counseling London's elite.
But after the murder of one of her customers, business has taken a downturn,
and Isabel is on the verge of accepting the king's offer to move into the
palace.
Isabel's plans are interrupted when a beggar girl
named Susanna shows up at her home, claiming to be her niece. Isabel always
believed that her older brother, Adam, died alone during the plague. When
Susanna reveals that Adam was actually murdered, Isabel is compelled to take up
an impossible task: discover the truth about her brother's death, twelve years
after it happened.
Isabel's investigation leads her through the gamut of
London society, from bear-baiting matches and brothels to the realm of wealthy
bankers. But as she uncovers her brother's dark secrets, Isabel begins to
wonder whether the past is better left buried—especially when uncovering the
truth could lead to her own funeral.
*Be sure to check out Mistress of Fortune, book #1 in this series by Holly West
Excerpt:
Monday, 13 January 1679
I hardly remember when I first
noticed her, the girl who would change everything. She was simply there one
evening, huddled in the narrow overhang of a tavern near my home, soliciting
spare change from passersby.
For all of her beauty—and
despite her dirt-smudged face and dull brown hair, she was a pretty young
poppet—she appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary beggar, or possibly a
prostitute, the sort of girl London devoured in one quick bite. Her thin wool
cloak seemed woefully inadequate, for it was now January and winter held the
city firmly in its grasp. As I dropped a farthing into her outstretched palm I
knew it would do little to ease her suffering, but beyond that, I didn’t pay
her much mind. I had troubles enough of my own to contend with.
During the past
six years I’d made a good living disguised as Mistress Ruby, a fortuneteller
and healer catering to London’s elite. But the murder of one of my customers
three months prior had left my life in pieces. My body still retained some
evidence of the terrible assault I’d suffered as a result of my investigation
into the killing, and visits from patrons to the room in Coal Yard Alley where
I conducted my business had fallen off drastically.
Worst of all, my
friend and bodyguard, Sam Turner, had gotten it into his head that he was no
longer any use to me. He disappeared with nary a word several weeks ago,
leaving my household and my life woefully incomplete.
Given these
circumstances, I had neither the time nor the inclination to sort out wayward
girls. But the following day she crept closer and the day after that closer
still, until finally, she sat cross-legged on the cobbled stone pathway in
front of my house in Covent Garden, a modest timber structure with four rooms
on each floor and three stories high. My housekeeper, Alice, first alerted me
to the girl’s presence when she returned from emptying a chamber pot.
“There’s a
beggar outside, m’lady,” she said as she entered the kitchen, where I sat
sharing a supper of baked oysters and mallow salad with my waiting woman,
Charlotte. “’Tis a shame, really, she’s such a pretty little thing, naught but
a child. I told her to move on but she insists on talking to you.”
Holly
West
Holly
West is a crime fiction writer based in Los Angeles. She’s the author of the
Mistress of Fortune series, set in late 17th London and featuring amateur sleuth Isabel Wilde, a
mistress to King Charles II who secretly makes her living as a fortuneteller.
The first in the series, Mistress of Fortune, was published by
Harlequin’s Carina Press in February 2014 and its sequel, Mistress of Lies,
is forthcoming in Fall 2014. Find her online at hollywest.com.
Murder in Real Time by Julie Anne
Lindsey
Available: September 29,
2014
Format: Ebook
Price: $2.99
Book description:
With the chaos of summer tourists and fall birders out of town,
counselor Patience Price is looking forward to the quiet life she remembers.
She longs for some peace. And an apple fritter. But the calm is cut short when
a reality show sets up camp to film a special about ghosts on her little
island. Now fans, reporters and crew have flocked to sleepy Chincoteague. Who
knew ghost hunters had an entourage?
When two cast members are killed in a room at the local B&B—a
room usually occupied by Patience's FBI agent boyfriend, Sebastian—she finds
herself on the case. Sebastian doesn't want Patience ruffling any feathers but,
as always, she can't help herself.
Patience promises to let Sebastian
handle the investigation—he is FBI, after all—but
after a drive-by shooting, her wicked curiosity gets the best of her. And with
the TV show forging ahead with filming, the list of suspects (and the line of
food trucks) only grows. But has the shooter already flown the coop? And how do
you find a killer when you don't know who the target is?
*Be sure to also check out the first
two books in the Patience Price Mysteries series, Murder by the Seaside & Murder
Comes Ashore
B&N: http://www.
Excerpt :
Todd
snorted. I scooted around him on the sidewalk. “Stop following me.”
He
matched my pace. “What if the gunman had shot you while you were laying in a
heap over your ex-lover?”
I
hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. Don’t call him that. His name’s Adrian
Davis.”
“Fair
enough. What were you thinking?”
How I needed him. That
I couldn’t lose him. To lose Adrian again
would be like ripping my soul down the center. I faltered and then regained my
speed. Clearly I was traumatized.
“What
does your boyfriend think of your attachment to your ex?”
I
hustled around the corner toward my apartment. “There was a shooting,” I
growled. “My love life is hardly interesting in comparison. I’m not the story
here.”
He
laughed. Loud. “Come on. You’re smarter than this. You want to know why I’m
interested in your story? Let me see.” He tapped his chin. “Someone’s trying to
kill one of your boyfriends. Three times this week, in my humble opinion. That
puts you at the center of my investigation. Aside from that, your island
interests me, and half the shenanigans I read up on lead back to you somehow.
You’re like the linchpin of all strange happenings. Where were you when Rick
and Anna were shot?”
I
skidded to a stop. “You think I’m a suspect? I was in the Range Rover with
Adrian the other night, and I ran to help Adrian today. You stink at your job,
buddy. I mean, Lou.”
“Getting
mad won’t change the fact you know exactly what I mean and why I’m following
you. Those men orbit around you like you’re their home planet. If I stick to
you, this story will unwrap itself and land in my lap. The icing for me is that
following you is fun. Your parents are a hoot. People randomly corner you to
unload personal and, let’s face it, kind-of-funny stories. Some lady in
skin-tight sequins wants you to be her spokesmodel so bad she put you on her
store window. I saw you hiding at a food truck from her. Some angry guy made
fun of your hair for no reason. Your life’s got spunk.”
He
was right about that last part. My life was bananas, but they were my bananas,
and I didn’t want them posted online.
Julie
Anne Lindsey
Julie
Anne Lindsey is a multi-genre author who writes the stories that keep her up at
night. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd with a penchant for words and proclivity
for fun. Mother of three, wife to a sane person and Ring Master at the Lindsey
Circus, most days you'll find her online, amped up on caffeine and wielding a
book. Julie started writing to make people smile. Someday she plans to change
the world.
Julie
is a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW), Sisters in Crime
(SinC) and the Canton Writer’s Guild.
Elvis Sightings by Ricardo Sanchez
Available: September 29,
2014
Format: Ebook
Price: $2.99
Book description:
I'm Floyd—no last name needed, thanks—and I'm a P.I. The only
other thing you need to know about me is that I'm not
an Elvis impersonator. I live my life fast and hard and yes, in sequined
jumpsuits, but more importantly I live my life the way Elvis would have wanted
me to. Honestly. With integrity.
It was a tip that the King was still alive and living under an
assumed name that brought me to Kresge,
Wyoming. But there's something bigger than Elvis happening out
here. I've been beaten bloody by an acrobatic bartender, roped into the search
for a missing councilman, fallen for a bearded lady, and threatened by men in
black who really don't want me poking my
nose into the town's business. Half of my leads look like dead celebrities. The
other half are either refugees from a broken-down circus or spear-holding
Viking wannabes.
I'm in Crazytown, USA, but I can't leave. Not yet. If I don't find
the missing councilman soon, Kresge will be turned into a Danish-themed
amusement park. I've never been so close to finding Elvis. And I need to know
if my new self-appointed sidekick James Morrison is really who he claims to be.…
Excerpt :
“Now
let’s hear that Elvis hunting story! You don’t think he’s dead?”
“Well. There’s a lot of inconsistencies about
his death. First, he said less than a month before he died that he was getting
tired of being Elvis Presley.”
“Mr.
Mojo Risin’,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,
go on.”
“At
the end of his last show, Indiana in ’77, he said, ‘adios.’ That’s Spanish for
goodbye.”
“I
know that’s Spanish for goodbye. I’m not an idiot.”
“Sorry.
But it’s significant. He always closed his shows with some variation of ‘see
you again real soon.’ Elvis had a lot more shows booked, but he cancelled
orders for all of his show suits right before the one in Indiana. He also let
four long-time employees go a few days before he supposedly died.”
“That’s
pretty thin, man.”
“There’s
more. He faked his death once before. Had a guy shoot him with blanks while he
was wearing a blood pack. And two hours after Elvis was reported dead, a man
looking just liked him booked a plane ticket for Buenos Aires under the name
Jon Burrows. That was his pseudonym. He used it to check into hotels whenever
he toured.”
“Better,”
Morrison conceded.
Despite
my doubts, I did have to admit there was a fair bit of evidence to support
Buddy’s belief.
“You
assholes want these drinks or what?” Goliath had snuck up on us again.
Morrison
looked over the side of the table. “You are a sneaky short man. Where’s your
shoe box?”
“Just
take your drinks, Morrison.”
Morrison
reached down and came back up with a whiskey in each hand, setting one down in
front of me.
“You
overhear his story, short man? You think Elvis is alive?”
I
leaned over the side of my chair to get a better look at Goliath, who turned
his grapefruit-sized head toward me.
“That
fat, drugged-up, bacon-gobbling, talentless rip-off artist is rotting in his grave.”
He
had it coming, but I shouldn’t have hit the midget.
Ricardo
Sanchez
Ricardo
is a writer, creator, and T-shirt collector. He’s written for DC Comics,
including work on Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Teen Titans Go! and
Resident Evil, among others. His short story Death and Life of the Hero
appeared in the Gods of Justice superhero anthology and in 2013 was turned into
a successfully funded Kickstarter graphic novel, A Hero’s Death, which will be
coming out in fall 2014. He was also the Emmy winning creator of the animated
series Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, which was part of Tomb Raider’s 10th
anniversary celebration.
When he's not writing, Ricardo maintains a
vintage toy blog, drives 70's muscle cars, and shops year round for Halloween
decorations for his home in California.
Code Runner by Rosie Claverton
Available: September 29,
2014
Format: Ebook
Price: $2.99
Ex-con Jason Carr has faced down the toughest thugs in Cardiff,
but being assistant to a brilliant, eccentric hacker who hasn't been outdoors
in ten years has its own challenges. Still, he and Amy Lane can solve cases
even the cops can't crack. And when a corpse washes up on a beach, Jason can't
resist chasing the clues—or defying Amy by infiltrating the very gangs he once
escaped.
Amy is distraught when Jason's pursuit gets him framed for murder.
He's thrown back in prison where he's vulnerable to people who want him dead.
He needs Amy to prove his innocence. Fast.
But Amy hasn't been honest with him—her panic attacks aren't
getting better. And now, with everything that makes her feel safe ripped away,
she must stand alone, using her technological skills to expose a baffling
conspiracy and a new kind of online crime. Can she clear Jason's name before
danger closes in?
*Be sure to also check out Binary
Witness, book #1 in the Amy Lane Mysteries.
Excerpt :
Making his way down
St. Mary’s Street in Cardiff’s piss-poor excuse for a city centre, Rich checked
his watch, rubbing at the rain that splattered it. Twenty minutes—he could
stroll it. He passed McDonald’s and the chavs propping up the windows, disaffected
youth in fake designer gear and gold-looking chains. He clocked three of them
who he’d seen on the unsolved boards in the office. Petty theft, possession of
a negligible amount of cocaine, school arson. What a gallon of twats.
Speaking of twats… Rich became
aware of a skinhead coming up behind him on the street, and automatically
pulled his jacket closer. He subtly checked him out in the reflection of the
shop window: a tall, broad twenty-something with a light coating of stubble on
his cheeks. He wore a nice leather jacket—looked vintage, but you could buy
that crap from the indoor market for a pittance. Cheap Chinese crap that kids
thought made them look cool.
This boy didn’t look
like the usual breed of neo-Nazi scum, but DI Hesketh had been wittering on
about an increased presence of English Defence League—or was that Welsh Defence
League?—hooligans on their streets. They were supposed to be on the lookout for
racially motivated crimes, but Rich had never been keen to police what was
going on in someone’s head. And if the Welsh bastards wanted to keep Wales for
themselves, they were welcome to it.
Yet this kid made him
antsy precisely because he didn’t fit the bill. He had his shoulders hunched
down and was walking at a pace that his long legs could easily have exceeded.
Why was he walking so damn slowly?
Rich suddenly felt a
deep sense of unease, the hairs on the back of his neck rising up. Had he done
something to piss off the boys down in grubby Splott? Had they sent a friend to
take care of him? He regretted leaving his badge at home.
It wasn’t yet nine
o’clock but the streets were dark and quiet, falling into the lull between the
day’s shoppers heading home and the nightlife coming out to play. There were
barely twenty people the entire length of the street and no one close to them.
The skinhead could easily come up behind him, slide a knife between his ribs,
and that would be him done. Nobody would even know until Rich spilled his
lifeblood on the ground, spreading pink in the rainwater gutters of the street.
Rosie
Claverton
Rosie
Claverton grew up in Devon, daughter to a Sri Lankan father and a Norfolk
mother, surrounded by folk mythology and surly sheep. She moved to Cardiff to
study Medicine and adopted Wales as her home.
Her
first short film Dragon Chasers aired on BBC Wales in Autumn 2012. She co-wrote
the ground-breaking series of short films The Underwater Realm. Her debut novel
Binary Witness was published by Carina Press in May 2014.
Between
writing and medicine, she blogs about psychiatry and psychology for writers in
her Freudian Script series, advocating accurate and sensitive portrayals of
people with mental health problems in fiction.
Currently
exiled to London to train in psychiatry, she lives with her journalist husband
and their pet hedgehog.
GIVEAWAY
Blitz-wide giveaway (US/Canada)
- Digital copy of each book featured in this blitz
- Murder Mystery Party game
- Magnifying glass necklace
a Rafflecopter giveaway
