Plans
April 3rd, 2021“For I know the plans I have in mind for you,” declares Adonai, “plans for shalom and not calamity –to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call on Me, and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
You will seek Me and find Me, when you will search for Me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:11-13 TLV
Adonai – Hebrew for the Lord
shalom – Hebrew for peace
Rogue Elements
April 1st, 2021THE PAST DOESN’T DIE. IT WAITS TO BE FORGOTTEN.
After completing the biggest case of his career, private detective Hank DeShear returns home to start treatment for a disabling genetic condition that could end his life, but he learns his partner on the prior case has just been murdered. Was he wrong to conclude the secretive killer known as The Greyhound had declared a truce? Or have disciples of The Greyhound surfaced to carry on with the murders?
DeShear is able to attach himself to an overseas goodwill mission headed by the U. S. Vice President, enabling him to pursue leads in foreign hospitals he thinks could be offshoots of Angelus Genetics’ illegal organ harvesting programs and human trafficking operations. Determined to pursue the truth wherever it leads, DeShear must also keep a low profile so he doesn’t become the next murder victim—but the onset of his debilitating condition may kill DeShear before the murderer gets a chance.
FANS OF ROBIN COOK, MICHAEL CRICHTON, AND AG RIDDLE WILL LOVE THE LATEST ADDITION TO THIS WELL-WRITTEN AND SUSPENSEFUL SERIES.
ISLAND BREEZES
At the end of The Gamma Sequence one couldn’t be sure if Dr. Hauser was dead. No matter, I was just looking forward to more adventures of the Lanaya and Hank team.
It was a bit disappointing to find Hank with a new partner. Can he really trust Jaden? Does she trust him? One does wonder.
It appears The Greyhound is still murdering people. It also appears that Angelus Genetics is still in business.
Hank is able to accompany the U.S. Vice President on an overseas trip so he can check out this possibility. It’s difficult to figure out whether the people he meets are the good guys or the bad guys. It’s an adrenaline filled trip with a surprise ending.
I’m so caught up in The Gamma Sequence books. I’m wondering how Book 3 will top this one. Thank you, Mr. Alatorre, for another gripping book.
***Book received without charge from the author.***
USA Today bestselling author Dan Alatorre has published more than 40 titles and is read in over a dozen languages around the world.
His fast-paced thrillers have gripped readers all over the globe, notably his USA Today bestseller The Gamma Sequence, a medical thriller series, his successful murder mystery Double Blind series, and more. Readers can’t put his books down.
Dan resides in the Tampa area with his wife and daughter.
Check out his Readers Club at DanAlatorre.com and find out about new releases before anyone else!
The Prayer Warrior
March 31st, 2021There is a thin line between the natural and the spiritual realm.
Ms. V., a humble servant of the Lord, has been placed on assignment at Center of Hope Christian Academy.
By day, she serves as a trusted counselor for students, giving them a safe haven to pour out their innermost feelings while providing professional and honest truth wrapped in a firm kindness and love that inevitably draws them closer to Jesus. Not to be outdone, the faculty also bends her ear from time to time.
By night, Ms. V. enters the spiritual realm and takes her place on the battlefield as one of God’s faithful prayer warriors. She wields her whispering sword, slicing through the enemy’s plans to bind the precious hearts under her charge.
Her assignment’s burden on her physical body is taxing, but can she withstand the strain and remain victorious?
Saving souls is her true mission, but at what cost?
Readers are in for a journey of spiritual intrigue and biblical insight as they experience the ramifications of each character’s life-altering decision.
ISLAND BREEZES
At the beginning of this book I’m thinking it must be a far out fantasy novel. It’s not. It’s Ms. V’s dream.
She is indeed a prayer warrior both in her personal life as well as in her professional life. As a school counselor she especially spends a great deal of time praying for her students. So much so that she has frequent dreams of being a real life warrior for these children.
I prefer to go into no more detail as I’m afraid I would give away too much of the plot. Just know that this is a book I would read again.
Thank you, Ms. Wooden-Carlise and Ms. Batten for giving me a book that keeps me thinking and praying.
***Book received without charge from the author.***
Traci Wooden-Carlisle began writing poetry and short stories as soon as she was able to form words on paper. She used that as a way of creating worlds, as well as, to communicate with God. A native of Los Angeles, California, she grew up attending United Methodist Church under the leadership of a pastor whose heart was for youth. Once she finished college she found herself at a loss. She felt caught in the transition between childhood and adulthood. She surrounded herself with saints and volunteered her services as a graphic artist. Through the early-morning prayer, all night Friday prayer and 3-day shut-ins she started on her journey toward her most desired gift, an intimate relationship with God.
Today, Mrs. Wooden-Carlisle lives in San Diego with her husband, Mr. Carlisle. She teaches fitness classes, runs a jewelry and craft business, and is currently writing the next installment in her Christian-fiction series.
D.Tina Batten is a gifted visual storyteller who is passionate about bringing encouraging messages of inspiration, and hope to every project she’s involved with. Whether the format is stage play, screenplay or manuscript, D. Tina Batten (affectionately known as Sister Batten) has a unique way of developing and creating fascinating stories that touch the heart of everyone who views her work. Sister Batten’s storytelling is portrayed in the most realistic manner that touches on subject matters of today. She will continue to be an inspiration to all those around her, bringing forth hope, love and joy to a dying world. With a humble heart and desire to bring people together in unity, D. Tina Batten will continue her work as a visual storyteller via stage, film, and books by spreading the good news of Jesus Christ one project after the other. She is an anointed woman of God who is on the battlefield for the Lord!
Unwitting Accomplice
March 30th, 2021Unwitting Accomplice
by Sid Meltzer
March 1-31, 2021 Tour
Synopsis:
![Unwitting Accomplice by Sid Meltzer](http://www.partnersincrimetours.net/pict/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/unwitting-accomplice-by-sid-meltzer-cover.jpg)
How can a homicide be prevented when it’s still only in some stranger’s head?
Kim Barbieri, a tough, street-smart New York City crime reporter unfazed by male egos and mangled bodies, is sent an anonymous note with a sinister message:
I intend to commit a murder
She doesn’t know who the killer is.
She doesn’t know who his victim will be.
She doesn’t know where, when and how he will strike.
But there is one thing she does know: If she doesn’t learn to think like a killer, someone’s going to get away with murder.
Kudos for Unwitting Accomplice:
“The tension builds page after page, chapter after chapter, between the psycho driven to kill and the reporter determined to stop him—ending with a surprise twist I just didn’t see coming. And I’m a thriller writer!” ~ Steven Pressfield, bestselling author of Gates of Fire and A Man at Arms
Book Details:
Genre: Thriller
Published by: Rogue Phoenix Press
Publication Date: December 7, 2020
Number of Pages: 313
ISBN: 978-1-62420-579-8
Series: A Kim Barbieri Thriller
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
ISLAND BREEZES
Is Kim passively committing a crime that she wants no part of? After speaking with her lawyer it appears that she is.
But she isn’t sure how to get out of it since she’s so caught up in it. She’s also pulled photographer Delaney in on her secret messages.
It might be a bit of a pun, but Kim is really pushing the envelope here. She’s hooked on trying to figure out the who, what, when, where, why and how of the future crime. After all, she is a crime reporter.
We can also see the thoughts of the man who is intent on committing this murder. Will this guy actually get away with the perfect murder? Is Kim just a witness or will she end up as a second murder victim?
***Book provided without charge by PICT.***
Read an excerpt:
Chapter One
Friday, March 24
11:15 AM
One envelope stood out from all the others competing for Kim Barbieri’s attention. All it had was her name and address. The rest was blank. Clearly, it was meant for her eyes only, the note inside demanding to be read.
Wondering who would write her a personal letter, she put down her cup of coffee, opened the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper inside. Savvy as she was, she was completely unprepared for its stark, ominous message.
I intend to commit a murder.
There was no Dear Kim above the line, no Sincerely yours below it. Like the envelope itself, there was nothing to tell her the identity of the writer, or why it was sent specifically to her.
“Hell’s this?” she whispered to herself.
After a long, brutal winter, the sun had chosen that morning to come out and give New Yorkers a hint of the warmer weather to come. It was one of those early spring days, a little too chilly in the shade, yet absolutely glorious in the sun. Barbieri welcomed the retreat of winter, lying out on her patio for the first time since before Thanksgiving, enjoying her ritual first cup of morning coffee while listening to Verdi’s Il Trovatore on her ancient record player.
It was an opera she knew by heart, and as it came to an end, she forced herself to get up off the lounge chair, take the LP off the turntable, and pour a second cup of coffee. Her too-brief escape was over, and it was time to attack the backlog of mail that piled up whenever she was too worn out from chasing cops and robbers all over the city to wade through it. It’s not going to go away by itself.
She first tossed the 90 percent of it that was junk, then put aside the bills she had to pay. She saved for last the once-in-a-blue moon personal correspondence, like the mystery letter.
What am I supposed to do with this? What does it mean? Why did I win this particular lottery?
She put the disturbing note back in the envelope to examine it again with a critical eye, as if opening it for the first time. While she had not been called into work that morning—a slow news day, evidently—she never stopped looking at things from a journalist’s point of view. Sweat the details. Always. They tell a story all by themselves.
It was a standard, plain vanilla business envelope, white or close to it, with no embossing, watermark, or logo that could have given her the thinnest of threads to pull. Probably from Staples or Walmart. No help at all.
Printed on the front were her name, street address, apartment number, and zip code—all correct. The writer knew of her by seeing her byline, she assumed, which meant he also knew what she did for a living. Her stories appeared just about every day in the Daily News, the tabloid whose circulation pretty much ended at the city line. She gave her fellow New Yorker a small nod for accuracy. Whoever sent it had chosen a standard business typeface, and the envelope looked like it came out of a cheap home office printer you could get anywhere. Canon perhaps, or HP. They’re all pretty much the same anyway.
In the upper right corner was a common Forever stamp—Elvis before he became a lounge act—precisely aligned with the envelope’s top and side edges. Its postmark revealed it was mailed two days before, on Wednesday, and meant it was placed in her mailbox by a mail carrier rather than the sender. Had the postmark been completely legible, it could have helped her track down the post office where it originated. Unfortunately, only the last two numbers—0 and 9—were clear. The rest was an unreadable blur. I can’t even tell which city it came from. All in all, the envelope itself is giving me next to nothing to go on.
She took the letter out again as if she had not done so only a minute before, putting the now empty envelope aside. It was standard letter size and appeared to be the same stock as the envelope. It was folded in thirds, business style, by someone who took care to line up the edges perfectly.
One neat and orderly fellow. Or should I say lady? Lord knows men have no monopoly on weirdness. The opportunity to judge people was both an occupational hazard and a perk of the job. After so many years of interviewing cops, witnesses, victims, and assorted dirtbags, she could not help herself.
The sinister warning, I intend to commit a murder, was printed on the top inside third of the letter, flush left, in the same typeface as on the envelope. She noted again how the middle and bottom thirds of the paper were left blank.
As unsettling as the message was, there was something else creeping her out. This is an unwelcome invasion of my privacy. Somebody out there knows my name, what I do, and where I live. What else does he know about me? My account numbers? My passwords? My family?
She put the letter back in the envelope, careful not to leave any more of her own fingerprints or ruin any the writer had left. Tempted as she was to toss it out as a waste of time, she chose instead to hold on to it for now. As a reporter, she knew better than to dismiss a promising lead. Besides, she did enjoy a good mystery, and the killer-in-waiting might decide to give her clues actually meaning something later on.
The mail all taken care of, Barbieri poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, grabbed her copy of the Times, and reclaimed her prime sunbathing location on the lounge chair. She had finished reading the paper earlier in the morning, but was never really done with it until she filled in every last square of the crossword. A few more minutes of warmth provided by Mother Nature herself, rather than the down coat she had worn all winter, sure beat rushing to yet another savage crime scene
Chapter Two
Barbieri grabbed her cell off the kitchen counter. She had put the mystery letter aside the day before, but could not put it out of her mind. For twenty-four hours, she had thought about little else except her new anonymous pen pal. Her best course of action was to hash the message out with the one person she could trust to keep his mouth shut.
“What?” Pete Delaney was not known for idle banter or witty repartee. Social skills were not one of his strengths. Speaking in monosyllables was. With those two, small talk was kept to a minimum by mutual agreement, if not dispensed with altogether.
“Come over.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Twenty.”
Kim Barbieri was as good as any male with man-talk. She spoke it fluently and was comfortable distilling conversation into its purest form with her partner. When she and Delaney communicated with each other, they competed in waxing ineloquent, and the duels always induced a small smile she found hard to suppress. Reminds me of the stupid secret codes I used to dream up with my girlfriends after school.
Delaney was a photographer for the same newspaper, a stringer like Barbieri. Stringers were usually assigned to work together at random, based on who was up at the time. Except for homicides. To the metro desk editor, these two were the go-to team where dead bodies were involved. Working stories together sometimes ended with them hanging out together afterwards, which over time morphed into a sort of friendship. Not romance, certainly. There was no chemistry between them, only a high level of mutual comfort, respect, and trust, which was why Barbieri decided to loop him in on the anonymous letter.
Delaney was strictly a news photographer, and he looked the part. On the short side with long brown hair, a scruffy beard that defied grooming, and what seemed like a permanent cameraman’s squint, he went about his work with a brusque, no-nonsense demeanor he had cultivated on the job. Rain or shine, night or day, his camera vest, bulging with lenses and filters, was his security blanket. No shot was impossible as long as he wore it.
Growing up in the suburbs, he had imagined himself leading camera safaris in darkest Kenya, where he could apply his photographic skills and critical eye to capture the brutal symbiosis of big cats and their prey. Life had other plans. Until he made it to the Serengeti, the dark urban streets of New York City would have to do.
While she waited for Delaney, Barbieri checked her mailbox. No second mystery note. Her mind went back to the troubling message. How did the sender, whoever he or she is, know how to pique my interest? Why would the writer send it to me and not some other journalist? New York has plenty to choose from. Hundreds, I bet. She wanted no part of a planned murder. That much she knew. Yet she was not a fan of loose ends. She liked closure. The sinister message left a lingering bad taste she could not get rid of.
In her decade or so of covering crimes, she had seen only a handful of homicides go unsolved. The open cases still kept her up some nights, long after the white shirts in the NYPD decided to stop working on them. Cold cases seemed like a waste of manpower when there was never a shortage of new homicides needing to be solved. No matter how much she tried to block them out of her memory, Barbieri could never stop thinking about what the investigators might have missed. Was it the follow-up call they didn’t make? Maybe the witness who decided he didn’t recognize the perp after all? The DNA sample disappearing off the face of the Earth?
Blue lives mattered a great deal to her. When cops and reporters meet day after day, night after night, over stiffs from the seemingly endless supply the city offers up, a bond forms. Maybe a morbid bond, yet a bond nonetheless. When she was with them, she spoke their language, the slang they used only among themselves, not her own. Where else would I get to slip “badge bunny” or “Duracell shampoo” into a conversation? Her empathy for the stiffs and the cops came with the territory.
“Got something,” Barbieri greeted Delaney at the door. So much for pleasantries. They went right into their shorthand.
“What?”
“Patience, young man.”
Delaney followed his partner to her desk in the study, a literate woman’s version of a tormented writer’s man cave. Books were piled on every shelf not covered by yellow writing pads, each virgin territory after the first few pages, and atop the center of the desk was an old bargain-basement Dell laptop good for word processing and email, and not much else. She and the Dell went way back. Even after she finally succumbed to peer pressure and treated herself to a Macbook, she could not bring herself to toss it. One day I’ll get around to discarding the old apps and files. Then it’ll run faster, won’t it?
She took out the envelope from the drawer, opened it, gingerly removed and unfolded the one-page letter, and placed both next to each other on top of the desk. Delaney’s eyes went from one to the other until he focused on the message. “I intend to commit a murder. ” He waited a nanosecond before asking her, “Fuck does it mean?”
“What it says.”
“When?”
“When did I get it?”
“When will he kill?”
“Could be a she. Not anytime soon. My guess.”
“Nothing to ID the sender.”
“Could be anybody.”
“From anywhere. Professional, maybe.”
“Educated.”
“Grammar counts for something.”
“One perp, acting alone.”
“One victim, not more. Singular.”
“Mental case?”
“Worker going postal?”
“Computer literate.”
“Uses Word. Sends file to the printer.”
“Home office. Not safe for work.”
“Definitely. Probably online. Maybe leaving a trail.”
“Leading back to him. Her.”
“What now? Police?”
“Not yet.”
“Nothing they can do.”
Barbieri folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and left it on her desk. As she followed Delaney out to his car, she fought the urge to remind him to keep the anonymous threat just between them. There was no need to; she knew he would not say a word to anyone.
The reporter was not impressed with the brilliant deductions they had made based on some generic stationery and a single sentence. It was simple logic at work, and it did not really bring her any closer to identifying the sender. Regardless, by bringing in her loyal sidekick, she now had a better picture of the person threatening to commit a capital crime. The would-be perpetrator morphed from an abstraction, a cipher, into a human being with a name, a family, an address, and perhaps an online history, waiting to be exposed. She felt they had inched the cryptic note closer to becoming a critical piece of evidence in an out-and-out criminal case.
On the other hand, their brilliant deductions could all be bullshit, and she knew it. The whole thing could be a hoax some sicko was playing on her. They had been wrong one or two times before, on matters a lot more trivial than murder. They could have been just reinforcing each other’s sloppy thinking. If not, it could turn out to be Barbieri’s first opportunity to cover the premeditated part of premeditated murder. How many reporters get the chance to put a story like this in their scrapbook?
She was not sure how exactly, but she felt herself being drawn into a game with an element of danger to someone else, not herself or Delaney. This game might or might not have a lethal ending, and she wanted to know how it would turn out if it was just the three of them playing.
Bringing my playmate into this arena is complicating my own involvement. Her mystery guest was now communicating with two outsiders, not just one, and Barbieri was not sure if he would appreciate Delaney becoming her full partner just yet. While she trusted Delaney more than anyone to keep quiet, the writer himself would have no reason to trust him. Her photographer could go to the cops if he ever got spooked.
Telling them about her new pen pal was something her inner control freak would not allow just yet.
Chapter Three
When did I start thinking it would be a good idea to murder a complete stranger in cold blood?
Can’t say for certain, but I do know things really started to get ugly for me when I put in my papers, posed for pictures with my new Rolex, and realized I’d made myself useless. If my plan to stick a knife in someone’s chest had a start date, this was it.
That’s why you drove all the way up here to Almost Canada, isn’t it? To hear my side of the story? Trust me, I’ve wanted to tell it as much as you want to hear it.
I used to be a real big shot, you know? It took a few years to escape the grunt work, but eventually I turned into a pretty important guy in the office. I was a big swinging dick, and I rather enjoyed it.
Me, I was old-school. I started at the bottom, sharing a tiny cube with another peon. I watched how my bosses made money, and eventually their bosses let me into their world. I worked alongside them, shadowing them. Then one day, I found myself making money like them. King of the world, I felt like. I became my own little profit center for the firm and took off from there.
See, as far as the higher-ups were concerned, my job description was very simple—make money. Make sure the company had more in the bank when I clocked out at night than it did when I’d clocked in in the morning. Simple.
I was what the corporate world called a rainmaker. It’s a horseshit word for someone who knows how to drum up business and rake in the bucks. I don’t want to brag, but I made a ton of money for the company. A ton. They let me keep a big chunk of it to make sure I didn’t jump ship; between salary and bonuses, pretty soon I was taking home more than I knew what to do with, frankly.
As long as I made it rain buckets, the gods were never angry. In my world, money definitely equaled love. You bring in money for the company, and the company shows you how much they love you by giving some of it back to you. They got rich, and I got raises that meant a lot and fancy new titles that meant nothing.
Let you in on a secret. All the client wanted from me was to dig him out of the hole he had somehow dug for himself. Help him get home before his kids went to bed once in a while and help him sleep a little more soundly. This was what he was paying me for. You do this for him, you’re golden.
Guys in the office looked to me to make the big decisions. They had the business degrees and connections, while I had the kind of wisdom you only get from hard times. I had the scars and bruises, they didn’t. I could spot opportunities. I came up with ideas, set goals, planned. I budgeted, motivated, negotiated, and I sold. I assembled teams, assigned tasks, and managed resources. I cut costs, anticipated roadblocks, put out fires, and made gut calls. I made plans, then executed them. To the HR guys who have a box to fill in the org chart, this job description would’ve been all I needed to get me in the door for an interview.
The upstart MBA types I was forced to work with spoke a language the Navajo Code Talkers couldn’t break. Say one of them needed you to pitch in on a project. He didn’t ask if you had the time. He asked if you had extra bandwidth. Seriously, bandwidth? Whoever made this a word, they should bring back the death penalty just for him. My colleagues used ten-dollar words like resource allocation and immunization strategy to describe our job, bullshit terms created to make their work seem harder than it was, and impress outsiders who didn’t speak the language. Gave even our junior guys instant authority, as if they knew what they were talking about.
Personally, I never knew what they were fuckin’ talking about half the time, and I was their boss.
Consulting in retail was never hard as cutthroat businesses go. It was always challenging, sure, and I could always come up with gimmicks to help stores keep customers coming back and keep their doors open. Everybody thought I’d eventually make partner, even me. Especially me.
Then Amazon came along, followed close behind by Josh Kelleher. There wasn’t much I could do to make my clients competitive with Amazon. You want to see what that monster’s done, just walk up Broadway. About the only thing missing is the tumbleweed. There wasn’t much I could do to keep my company from making this douchebag a partner, either. Kelleher was the CEO’s son-in-law, and all my earnings suddenly meant squat in comparison.
I worked. Kelleher coasted. He got my partnership. I got a watch. Life’s unfair. I was more than a little pissed, so I walked.
Of course, I had to remind myself my company didn’t put me out to pasture when I reached mandatory retirement age. I’d stopped working on my own—my decision, not theirs. They didn’t fire me; I fired them. Maybe I was too angry at being passed over to think clearly. Maybe I should’ve eaten crow and stayed. But this didn’t make my new carefree existence any easier. To my mind, it was not so much things weren’t working out the way I’d planned. Like everything else, my retirement was a work in progress. You tried one way of doing things, one new set of routines. If it didn’t work out, you went to plan B. No big deal.
All I could do was hope it would all be OK in time. I’m sorry, bandwidth. Being home all the time, I spent many hours thinking about where I’d found myself and imagining taking a whole new direction no one could’ve predicted—least of all me.
***
Excerpt from Unwitting Accomplice by Sid Meltzer. Copyright 2021 by Sid Meltzer. Reproduced with permission from Sid Meltzer. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
![Sid Meltzer](http://www.partnersincrimetours.net/pict/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/unwitting-accomplice-by-sid-meltzer-author.png)
Sid Meltzer took a couple of worthwhile detours on his way to becoming a crime fiction writer.
He started out as a NYS Supreme Court Probation Officer, a job that helped him see things from a criminal’s point of view— and let him peer into their minds’ many dark alleys.
Working with ethically-challenged rascals prepared him well for the caliber of people he met in his next career— advertising. That is where he learned how to craft stories that draw readers in and keep them engaged.
Unwitting Accomplice is his debut novel.
Catch Up With Sid Meltzer:
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Instagram – @sidmeltzer
Twitter – @sid_meltzer
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Seamless Seams
March 21st, 2021It seems that I have not created any seams for over a year. I’m determined to do better.
So far I’ve managed to get out some mending and matching thread. I even took the cover off my beloved Pfaff.
Why is it I always feel I can’t really create something unless I first do some mending that’s been put off so very long?
Do any of you all have that problem? Maybe you’re able to sit down and create a garment or something for your home without a mending guilt trip.
Light vs Darkness
March 20th, 2021Besides this, you know the time –that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first came to trust.
The night is almost gone and the day is near, so let us put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us walk properly as in the day –not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and envy.
Instead, put on the Lord Messiah Yeshua, and stop making provision for the flesh–for its cravings.
Romans 13:11-14 TLV
Yeshua – Hebrew for Jesus
The Indebted Earl
March 16th, 2021Can Captain Wyvern keep his new marriage of convenience all business–or will it turn into something more?
Captain Charles Wyvern owes a great debt to the man who saved his life–especially since Major Richardson lost his own life in the process. The best way to honor that hero’s dying wish is for Wyvern to escort the man’s grieving fiancée and mother safely to a new cottage home by the sea. But along the way, he learns of another obligation that has fallen on his shoulders: his uncle has died and the captain is now the Earl of Rothwell.
When he and the ladies arrive at his new manor house in Devon, they discover an estate in need of a leader and a gaggle of girls, all wards of the former earl. War the new earl knows; young ladies and properties he does not. Still wishing to provide for the bereaved Lady Sophia Haverly, Charles proposes a marriage of convenience.
Sophie is surprised to find she isn’t opposed to the idea. It will help her care for her betrothed’s elderly mother, and she’s already fallen in love with the wayward girls on the Rothwell estate. This alliance is a chance to repay the captain who has done so much for her care, as well as divert her attention from her grief. When Wyvern returns to his sea commission, she’ll stay behind to oversee his property and wards.
It sounds so simple. Until the stalwart captain is arrested on suspicion of smuggling, and Sophie realizes how much he’s come to mean to her. Now she’ll have to learn to fight, not only for his freedom but also for his love
ISLAND BREEZES
Captain Charles Wyvern and his friend were both injured in battle.The captain survived while Major Richardson didn’t. His dying request was that the captain would take care of Sophia, his betrothed.
Charles thought would be easy enough, but it became more complicated when he agreed to help Sophia and Rich’s mother get set up in a seaside cottage.
But Charles had a few surprises along the way. He inherited a title and estate along with three orphans. All Charles really wanted was a ship to captain.
Everyone had some adjustments to make. They weren’t easy. Would Sophia ever have a life of her own? Would Charles finally be assigned to another ship?
Thank you, Ms Vetsch. I’ve enjoyed the Serendipity & Secrets series. I wish it didn’t have to end.
***Book provided without charge by Audra Jennings PR.***
Best-selling, award-winning author Erica Vetsch loves Jesus, history, romance, and sports. She’s a transplanted Kansan now living in Minnesota, and she married her total opposite and soul mate! When she’s not writing fiction, she’s planning her next trip to a history museum and cheering on her Kansas Jayhawks and New Zealand All Blacks. You can connect with her at her website, www.ericavetsch.com where you can read about her books and sign up for her newsletter, and you can find her online at https://www.facebook.com/EricaVetschAuthor/ where she spends way too much time!
Sweet Dreams
March 15th, 2021Misty is a single mom, struggling to give her daughter a better life.
Misty Stewart found Christ shortly after the birth of her baby, causing her to make drastic changes in her life. Short-tempered and street-smart, she realizes being around her unsaved, dysfunctional family is draining her, so she feels the Lord wants her to distance herself from her relatives. She hopes this distance from her family will allow her to deepen her faith, making it possible for her to raise her two-year-old daughter, Jennifer, in a better environment. Struggling to raise her daughter alone, she bonds with her new neighbor, Sterling Richards. She’s drawn to kind-hearted Sterling, but wonders about the deep sadness that he harbors. Sterling has familial problems that run deep, and romance is the last thing on his mind.
Sterling Richards, a professional baker, is grieving over the recent death of his father/business partner. Since his father left him as the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy, his relationship with his identical twin brothers is strained. Why would his father fail to include his twin sons as part of the inheritance? He now struggles to mend the relationship with his brothers, struggling to run his father’s bakery alone.
Misty is a single mom, struggling to give her daughter a better life.
Misty Stewart found Christ shortly after the birth of her baby, causing her to make drastic changes in her life. Short-tempered and street-smart, she realizes being around her un-saved, dysfunctional family is draining her, so she feels the Lord wants her to distance herself from her relatives. She hopes this distance from her family will allow her to deepen her faith, making it possible for her to raise her two-year-old daughter, Jennifer, in a better environment. Struggling to raise her daughter alone, she bonds with her new neighbor, Sterling Richards. She’s drawn to kind-hearted Sterling, but wonders about the deep sadness that he harbors. Sterling has familial problems that run deep, and romance is the last thing on his mind.
Sterling Richards, a professional baker, is grieving over the recent death of his father/business partner. Since his father left him as the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy, his relationship with his identical twin brothers is strained. Why would his father fail to include his twin sons as part of the inheritance? He now struggles to mend the relationship with his brothers, struggling to run his father’s bakery alone.
Can Sterling and Misty find the courage to love one another?
ISLAND BREEZES
Sterling’s father died and left him to deal with his younger brothers. Then his neighbor’s niece moved in and brought problems with her as she tried to deal with her daughter’s father.
Sterling had problems of his own. Why did he have to get involved with other people’s problems? He was already running on a sleep deficit.
Some of the problems involve secrets. . . Will those secrets come out and help the characters do a better job of coping? Or will they make things more difficult?
BTW, will the guy end up with the girl?
I still haven’t read a Cecelia Dowdy book that I didn’t enjoy. Thank you, Ms Dowdy.
***Book received without charge from the author.***
Cecelia Dowdy is an Amazon bestselling author who lives near Washington DC. She enjoys listening to old tunes with her husband and chauffeuring her teen-aged son to his school sports events. Baking is one of her favorite passions. She loves experimenting with bread recipes using her sourdough starter. Serving homemade desserts to friends brings her joy. Her love of baking shines in her romance novels. When she’s not in the kitchen, or spending time with her family, she’s cooking up delicious faith-filled plots. Fans say reading her tasty novels makes them hungry. Join her newsletter at ceceliadowdy.com.
You can find out more about Cecelia by visiting her website:
http://ceceliadowdy.com/
The Turncoat’s Widow
March 9th, 2021The Turncoat’s Widow
by Mally Becker
February 22 – March 19, 2021 Tour
Synopsis:
![The Turncoat's Widow by Mally Becker](http://www.partnersincrimetours.net/pict/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/the-turncoats-widow-by-mally-becker-cover.jpeg)
Recently widowed, Rebecca Parcell is too busy struggling to maintain her farm in Morristown to care who wins the War for Independence. But rumors are spreading in 1780 that she’s a Loyalist sympathizer who betrayed her husband to the British—quite a tidy way to end her disastrous marriage, the village gossips whisper.
Everyone knows that her husband was a Patriot, a hero who died aboard a British prison ship moored in New York Harbor. But “everyone” is wrong. Parcell was a British spy, and General Washington – who spent two winters in Morristown – can prove it. He swears he’ll safeguard Becca’s farm if she unravels her husband’s secrets. With a mob ready to exile her or worse in the winter of 1780, it’s an offer she can’t refuse.
Escaped British prisoner of war Daniel Alloway was the last person to see Becca’s husband alive, and Washington throws this unlikely couple together on an espionage mission to British-occupied New York City. Moving from glittering balls to an underworld of brothels and prisons, Becca and Daniel uncover a plot that threatens the new country’s future. But will they move quickly enough to warn General Washington? And can Becca, who’s lost almost everyone she loves, fight her growing attraction to Daniel, a man who always moves on?
Praise for The Turncoat’s Widow
The Turncoat’s Widow has it all. A sizzling romance, meticulous research, and an exhilarating adventure. Becca Parcell is too independent for both 18th-century Morristown and her feckless English husband. Her individual plight when she is pressed into service as an unwilling spy after her husband’s death reflects the larger situation of colonists during the American Revolution, whose lives were upended by a political fight they cared nothing about. Becker balances the ruthlessness of George Washington and the underhanded charm of Alexander Hamilton with the excesses of the British, as part of a detailed picture of how the colonies were governed during a war that was far from a simple fight between two opposing nations. But historical exactitude is balanced by dashing romance between Becca and Daniel Alloway, the escaped prisoner charged with protecting her, and plot full of bold escapes and twists. A great series debut. I can’t wait for the next installment.
– Erica Obey, author, Dazzle Paint (coming 02/2021), The Curse of the Braddock Brides, and The Horseman’s Word.
An exciting Revolutionary-era thriller with a twisty mystery, great characters, and historical accuracy to boot.
– Eleanor Kuhns,author of the Will Rees mysteries
The Turncoat’s Widow reminds readers that treachery from within and without to our republic were real, and those early days for American independence from the British were fragile, the patriot cause, unpopular. This is a rousing debut novel with insights into the hardships of colonial life, the precarious place of women in society, while giving fans of historical fiction a tale with suspense, surprises, and anoutspoken and admirable heroine in Becca Parcell. Mally Becker is an author to watch.
– Gabriel Valjan, Agatha and Anthony-nominated author of The Naming Game
Book Details:
Genre: Historical Suspense / Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: February 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953789-27-3
Purchase Links: Amazon || Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
Chapter One
Morristown – January 1780
There was a nervous rustling in the white-washed meeting house, a disturbance of air like the sound of sparrows taking wing.
Becca Parcell peered over the balcony’s rough, wood railing, blinking away the fog of half-sleep. She had been dreaming of the figures in her account book and wondering whether there would be enough money for seed this spring.
“I didn’t hear what ….” she whispered to Philip’s mother.
Lady Augusta Georgiana Stokes Parcell, known simply as Lady Augusta, covered Becca’s hand with her own. “Philip. They’re speaking of Philip.”
Becca couldn’t tell whether it was her hand or Augusta’s that trembled.
“The Bible says, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, does it not?” The preacher’s voice was soft, yet it carried to every corner of the congregation. “They’re here. Amongst us. Neighbors who toast the King behind closed doors. Neighbors with no love of liberty.”
Philip was a Patriot. He had died a hero. Everyone knew. Minister Townsend couldn’t be talking about him.
The minister raised his eyes to hers. With his long thin arms and legs and round belly, he reminded her of a spider. She twisted her lips into the semblance of a smile as if to say “you don’t scare me.” But he did.
“Which of your neighbors celebrates each time a Patriot dies?” Townsend’s voice rose like smoke to the rafters, took on strength and caught fire. “Their presence here is an abomination.” He rapped the podium with a flat palm, the sound bruising in the quiet church. “Then cast them out. Now.”
Men pounded the floor with their feet.
Becca flinched. It wouldn’t take much to tip the congregation into violence. Everyone had lost someone or something to this endless war. It had been going on for almost five years.
Townsend’s thin arm rose, pointing to her.
Becca’s breath caught.
“And what of widows like Mrs. Parcell? Left alone, no longer guided by the wise direction of their husbands.”
Guided? Becca pulled her hand from Augusta’s. She rubbed her thumb along the palm of her hand, feeling the rough calluses stamped there. She had learned the rhythm of the scythe at the end of the summer, how to twist and swing low until her hands were so stiff that she’d struggle to free them from the handle. She’d fallen into a dreamless sleep each night during the harvest too exhausted even to dream of Philip. She, Augusta and their servant Annie were doing just fine.
“He hardly slept at home, as I hear it,” a woman behind her sniffed to a neighbor.
Becca’s spine straightened.
“No wonder there were no babes,” the second woman murmured.
Becca twisted and nodded a smile to Mrs. Huber and Mrs. Harrington. Their mouths pursed into surprised tight circles. She’d heard them murmur, their mouths hidden by fluttering fans: About her lack of social graces; her friendship with servants; her awkward silence in company. “What else could you expect from her?” they would say, snapping shut their fans.
Relief washed through Becca, nonetheless. This was merely the old gossip, not the new rumors.
“Some of you thought Mr. Parcell was just another smuggler.” The pastor’s voice boomed.
A few in the congregation chuckled. It was illegal to sell food to the British in New York – the “London Trade” some called it — but most turned a blind eye. Even Patriots need hard currency to live, Becca recalled Philip saying.
“He only married her for the dowry,” Mrs. Huber hissed.
Becca’s hand curved into a fist.
Augusta cleared her throat, and Becca forced herself to relax.
“Perhaps some of you thought Mr. Parcell was still a Tory,” the minister said.
The chuckling died.
“He came to his senses, though. He was, after all, one of us,” Minister Townsend continued.
One of us. Invitations from the finer families had trickled away after Philip’s death.
“We all know his story,” Townsend continued. “He smuggled whiskey into New York City. And what a perfect disguise his aristocratic roots provided.” The minister lifted his nose in the air as if mimicking a dandy.
“The British thought he was one of them, at least until the end.” The minister’s voice swooped as if telling a story around a campfire. “He brought home information about the British troops in the City.”
Becca shifted on the bench. She hadn’t known about her husband’s bravery until after his death. It had baffled her. Philip never spoke of politics.
Townsend lifted one finger to his chin as if he had a new thought. “But who told the British where Mr. Parcell would be on the day he was captured? Who told the Redcoats that Mr. Parcell was a spy for independence?”
Becca forgot to breathe. He wouldn’t dare.
“It must have been someone who knew him well.” The minister’s gaze moved slowly through the congregation and came to rest on Becca. His eyes were the color of creosote, dark and burning. “Very, very well.”
Mrs. Coddington, who sat to Becca’s left, pulled the hem of her black silk gown close to avoid contact. Men in the front pews swiveled and stared.
“I would never. I didn’t.” Becca’s corset gouged her ribcage.
“Speak up, Mrs. Parcell. We can’t hear you,” the minister said in a singsong voice.
Townsend might as well strip her naked before the entire town. Respectable women didn’t speak in public. He means to humiliate me.
“Stand up, Mrs. Parcell.” His voice boomed. “We all want to hear.”
She didn’t remember standing. But there she was, the fingers of her right hand curled as it held the hunting bow she’d used since she was a child. Becca turned back to the minister. “Hogwash.” If they didn’t think she was a lady, she need not act like one. “Your independence is a wickedly unfair thing if it lets you accuse me without proof.”
Gasps cascaded throughout the darkening church.
From the balcony, where slaves and servants sat, she heard two coughs, explosive as gun fire. She twisted. Carl scowled down at her in warning. His white halo of hair, fine as duckling feathers, seemed to stand on end. He had worked for her father and helped to raise her. He had taught her numbers and mathematics. She couldn’t remember life without him.
“Accuse? Accuse you of what, Mrs. Parcell?” The minister opened his arms to the congregation. “What have we accused you of?”
Becca didn’t feel the chill now. “Of killing my husband. If this is what your new nation stands for – neighbors accusing neighbors, dividing us with lies – I’ll have none of it. “Five years into this endless war, is anyone better off for Congress’ Declaration of Independence? Independence won’t pay for food. It won’t bring my husband home.”
It was as if she’d burst into flames. “What has the war brought any of us? Heartache, is all. Curse your independence. Curse you for ….”
Augusta yanked on Becca’s gown with such force that she teetered, then rocked back onto the bench.
The church erupted in shouts, a crashing wave of sound meant to crush her.
Becca’s breath came in short puffs. What had she done?
“Now that’s just grief speaking, gentlemen. Mrs. Parcell is still mourning her husband. No need to get worked up.” The voice rose from the front row. She recognized Thomas Lockwood’s slow, confident drawl.
She craned her neck to watch Thomas, with his wheat-colored hair and wide shoulders. His broad stance reminded her of a captain at the wheel. He was a gentleman, a friend of General Washington. They’ll listen to him, she thought.
“Our minister doesn’t mean to accuse Mrs. Parcell of anything, now do you, sir?”
The two men stared at each other. A minister depended on the good will of gentlemen like Thomas Lockwood.
The pastor blinked first. He shook his head.
Becca’s breathing slowed.
“There now. As I said.” Lockwood’s voice calmed the room.
Then Mr. Baldwin stood slowly. Wrinkles crisscrossed his cheeks. He’d sent his three boys to fight with the Continental Army in ’75. Only one body came home to be buried. The other two were never found. He pointed at Becca with fingers twisted by arthritis. “Mrs. Parcell didn’t help when the women raised money for the soldiers last month.”
A woman at the end of Becca’s pew sobbed quietly. It was Mrs. Baldwin.
“You didn’t invite me.” Becca searched the closed faces for proof that someone believed her.
“Is she on our side or theirs?” another woman called.
The congregation quieted again. But it was the charged silence between two claps of thunder, and the Assembly waited for a fresh explosion in the dim light of the tired winter afternoon.
With that, Augusta’s imperious voice sliced through the silence: “Someone help my daughter-in-law. She’s not well. I believe she’s about to faint.”
Becca might be rash, but she wasn’t stupid, and she knew a command when she heard one. She shut her eyes and fell gracelessly into the aisle. Her head and shoulder thumped against the rough pine floorboards.
Mrs. Coddington gasped. So did Becca, from the sharp pain in her cheek and shoulder.
Women in the surrounding rows scooted back in surprise, their boots shuffling with a shh-shh sound.
“Lady Augusta,” Mrs. Coddington huffed.
Independence be damned. All of Morristown seemed to enjoy using Augusta’s family title, her former title, as often as possible.
“Lady Augusta,” she repeated. “I’ve had my suspicions about that girl since the day she married your son. I don’t know why you haven’t sent her back to her people.”
“She has no ‘people,’ Mrs. Coddington. She has me,” Augusta’s voice was as frosty as the air in the church. “And if I had doubts about Rebecca, do you think I’d live with her?”
Becca imagined Augusta’s raised eyebrows, her delicate lifted chin. She couldn’t have borne it if her mother-in-law believed the minister’s lies.
Augusta’s featherlight touch stroked her forehead. “Well done,” she murmured. “Now rise slowly. And don’t lean on me. I might just topple over.”
“We are eager to hear the rest of the service on this Sabbath day, Minister Townsend. Do continue,” Thomas Lockwood called.
Becca stood, her petite mother-in-law’s arm around her waist. The parishioners at the edges of the aisles averted their eyes as the two women passed.
As they stepped into the stark, brittle daylight, one last question shred the silence they left behind: “Do you think she turned her husband over to the British?”
Someone else answered. “It must be true. Everyone says so.
***
Excerpt from The Turncoat’s Widow by Mally Becker. Copyright 2021 by Mally Becker. Reproduced with permission from Mally Becker. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
![Mally Becker](http://www.partnersincrimetours.net/pict/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/the-turncoats-widow-by-mally-becker-author.jpeg)
Mally Becker is a writer whose historical suspense novel, The Turncoat’s Widow, will be published in February 2021 by Level Best Books. She was born in Brooklyn and began her professional career in New York City as a publicist and freelance magazine writer, then moved on, becoming an attorney and, later, an advocate for children in foster care.
As a volunteer, she used her legal background to create a digest of letters from US Supreme Court Justices owned by the Morristown National Park. That’s where she found a copy of an indictment for the Revolutionary War crime of traveling from New Jersey to New York City “without permission or passport.” It led her to the idea for her story.
?A winner of the Leon B. Burstein/MWA-NY Scholarship for Mystery Writing, Mally lives with her husband in the wilds of New Jersey where they hike, kayak, look forward to visits from their son, and poke around the region’s historical sites.
Catch Up With Mally Becker On:
www.MallyBecker.com
Goodreads
Instagram – @mallybeckerwrites
Twitter – @mally_becker
Facebook – Mally Baumel Becker
Tour Participants:
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This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Mally Becker. There will be Five (5) winners for this tour. One winner will receive a $20. Amazon.com Gift Card, Two (2) winners will each win a physical copy of The Turncoat’s Widow by Mally Becker (U.S. addresses only), and Two (2) winners will each win an eBook copy of The Turncoat’s Widow by Mally Becker. The giveaway begins on February 22, 2021 and runs through March 21, 2021.
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