Janis Susan May

News from 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

Designed and maintained by Way2Kool Designs