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Janis Susan May
February 2012
My goodness, where has the time gone? I’ve been
remiss (again) in posting here, but with good reason – sold two –
yes, two! – mystery novels in December. (For those of you keeping
count, that makes 6 sales in 2011!)
BEADED TO DEATH, a lighthearted cozy from
Carina Press, is about a middle-aged widow who makes her living
going to art and craft fairs where she sells beaded jewelry and bead
bouquets. When she returns home from a sales trip, she unlocks the
front door, turns off the alarm, notices that the house is brutally
cold in spite of it being high summer… and there is a dead man whom
she has never seen before lying on her living room rug. From there
on she gets involved with drug smuggling, murder, a dangerous FBI
agent who may or may not be rogue and a 7’3” nephew on the run from
an unwanted basketball scholarship. It was great fun to write!
EXERCISE IS MURDER, a darker and much more
complex cozy from 5Star, is about murder in the health salon of a
very posh condominium building. Rebecca Cloudwebb is a former police
detective invalided out of the force after being crippled in a
shoot-out set up by her dirty-cop lover, who may or may not have
known she was going to be there. Flora Melkiot, wealthy widow of a
jeweler, is in her 70s and can be most charitably described as the
dark side of Miss Marple. Convinced she can do anything if she
really wants to, she blackmails Rebecca into helping her solve the
case. They grapple with politics, big money, extortion, adultery and
illegal gambling and in doing so finding that almost every suspect
has reason to kill almost every other suspect, except that no one
had a reason to kill the victim.
Note to self – never sell two 80,000+ word
books to two different publishers in the same month. Each wants the
same things (edits, revisions) at the same time and it’s exhausting!
It doesn’t seem like it’s over a year since I
spent a magical Christmas and New Year’s in Germany with The
Husband. Of course, it’s better now that he’s retired from the
military (yea!) and home to stay, but that was a spectacular trip.
One thing I remember especially was that everyone and all the signs
said ‘Merry Christmas’ – there was none of this dratted PC ‘Happy
Holidays’ rubbish. It was wonderful. Funny thing – last year was
called the Storm of the Century and there was snow up to my hips.
(Snow is something we don’t see much of in my part of Texas.) This
year that part of Germany has had only quickly vanishing one or two
inch dustings. Glad I was there to see the beautiful snow. Also very
glad I don’t have to contend with that sort of snow in my everyday
life!
Have just finished the first round of edits on
both these stories and gotten them off to my wonderful editors. Now
just one more deadline is breathing down the back of my neck. After
many fits and starts, I hope to get the final copy of A FIELD GUIDE
TO TEXAS MUSEUMS off to the publisher. It’s been very time and labor
intensive and I’m astonished at how many museums regard a request
for simple information (most of which can be found on-line anyway)
for a free listing as some kind of a con or sales-snare. Our world
has become so cynical and distrustful that anything offered free is
without question regarded as dishonest, and I find that sad.
When FIELD GUIDE goes to the publisher, I can
finally get back to writing. THE CURSE OF THE EXILE, a traditional
gothic mystery a la Phyllis A. Whitney and Victoria Holt,
only lacks 25,000 words or so to be complete. It’s set in 1850s
Scotland and has a ghost, and a curse, and a murder, and that
unnatural creature (for the time!) a female librarian. Oh, and an
absolutely delicious Scottish laird. After that’s done I’ll pick up
THE EGYPTIAN FILE, a romantic suspense about antiquities smuggling
and a lost tomb and an absolutely delicious professor of Egyptology.
This one is about one-quarter done and great fun.
INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS, my modern gothic from
Carina is out next month, and I’m looking forward to seeing what
everyone says about it. The cover is below and I’ve posted a nifty
excerpt. It is also going to be an audio release from Audible! I
feel sorry for the poor reader, who has to pronounce all the words
and names from the fantasy world of my heroine’s late father’s books
– a world that may or may not be totally imaginary.
And one late tidbit for those who missed it –
THE HOLLOW HOUSE, a cozy mystery set in 1919 in Denver, was released
in mid-November and three days after its release was marked as a Top
Pick by RT! I’m proud of that…
Now I must go back and finish the museum book,
because there are two books to be finished, and so many ideas
swarming in my head for others that I fear I shall not live long
enough to write a fraction of them.
November, 2011
Today is the 14th, and it’s release
day for THE HOLLOW HOUSE (written under the name of Janis
Patterson). Yea!
I’ve been so excited about this
book, and to know that it is now available to readers makes me want
to dance with joy. THE HOLLOW HOUSE is a very special book and I
hope you enjoy it.
Saturday was a special day for me –
The Husband arranged for us to attend a BMW driving school with a
mini-gymkhana/slalom track set up on a giant parking lot. Haven’t
driven a performance car over a high-speed track like that since my
racing days (mumblemumblemumble) years ago. It was exhilarating!
Unfortunately, it only lasted half the day, so we spent the
afternoon at a dinosaur dig out in the country. Sponsored by a local
university, it allowed visitors this one day as it is the last day
of the dig season.
We even got to poke around a bit
with a trowel. One man found a nice piece of a scapula from a
Protohadros. I found mud. Not even a rock. Just mud. Still, it was
neat and we’re in discussions about coming back in the spring as
official volunteers. If I can’t dig for pharaohs in Egypt, I guess I
can dig for dinosaurs in Texas!
The day was an incredible amount of
fun, but Sunday wasn’t. I was so sore I hurt in places I didn’t even
know I had, and could barely totter in to the computer to work on
the copy edits for DARK SUN, which is now titled INHERITANCE OF
SHADOWS. This is a classic gothic mystery and will be released from
Carina in the spring under my Janis Susan May name.
So – that’s about it for now. I’m
working on a couple of new ideas – and on the final edits for
INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS and TIMELESS INNOCENT, my scary new horror
novella – and applying the muscle-pain-removing cream liberally.
Please remember that THE HOLLOW
HOUSE is available, starting today!
What's New!

HOLLOW HOUSE- Now Available at
Carina Press
The year is 1919, the
place is Denver. The Great War has ended and the Influenza Epidemic
is over. All should be good, but when a murder occurs in her
employer’s home, Geraldine Brunton knows she must solve the crime to
hide the fact that she herself is a killer.
Coming Soon

Read an except here

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