Mar 13

I’m welcoming author Elke Feuer to my blog to showcase her latest book, Deadly Bloodlines!

Deadly Bloodlines cover

 

Here’s a bit about the book…

Years after leaving Cayman because of her notorious serial killer mother, Angel Mason returns as an inspector on the police force. On the twentieth anniversary of her mother’s capture, someone is murdered in the same manner as her mother’s victims.

To complicate matters more, Angel’s old flame, Bren McDougal, is assigned to help her with capturing the killer, and soon it’s undeniably clear that the passion between them is hotter than ever.

As the killer repeats her mother’s deadly pattern, Angel must face the terrifying truth she’d been hiding for twenty years.

What people are saying…

“Elke Feuer skillfully keeps you guessing in this twisty-turny romantic suspense story about a Cayman investigator tracking a copycat killer-one imitating the crimes of a her own serial-killer mother. Suspenseful and satisfying!” ~Francine LaSala, author of The Girl, the Gold Tooth, & Everything.

Read an excerpt…

Angel Mason sat on the edge of her bed and squished the thick caramel carpet between her toes, assurance the deadly grip of another nightmare was gone.

On the nightstand her phone vibrated, startling her. It was Dustin Williams, Chief Superintendent. The time, 6:30 a.m., flashed in red from her clock. She cleared her throat and prayed there was no trace of the bottle of vodka she’d finished off the night before in her voice. “Inspector Angel.”

“Dead body at Galleon Bay.” He never minced words.

“Some tourist die in their sleep?”

“No, looks like she was murdered.”

Brittle silence hung in the air as the words echoed in her mind like a broken record.

“Angel?”

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” she stammered.

“Good, I want this dealt with quickly. There hasn’t been a tourist murdered on the island since…”

“Since Meredith,” she finished for him.

“Yeah, and we remember how that turned out,” he said dryly.

The phone imprinted her hand as she squeezed it. No one had forgotten how it turned out, least of all her—no matter how hard she tried.

“I want you to collect the evidence,” Williams said.

“What? Why?” She didn’t normally question his decisions, but she hadn’t worked in forensics since she had been promoted to inspector.

“You’re the most experienced scene of crime officer we have.”

“I’ll take care of it, sir,” Angel assured him.

“Johnson, Sanchez, and Ebanks are already there controlling the traffic and crowd,” he said, his voice sounding miles away.

“Yes, sir.”

The phone went dead without a goodbye, not that she expected one. He didn’t converse beyond necessity, but she never took it personally. He was like that with everyone.

She went to the bathroom, took out the bottle of painkillers on the second shelf of the cabinet on the wall, and downed two.

As the pills made their way to her queasy stomach, she searched the cloud in her head for how she had gotten to bed last night. Leftover Chinese and drifting to sleep during the nightly news in a vodka-induced haze was all she remembered.

Horrifying screams and blood splattered across her hand paraded before her, remaining trickles from her dream, and the smell of blood filled her nose.

“No!” She gripped the edges of the porcelain sink to steady herself and clear her mind of the images. Her dreams were becoming more frequent and the vivid details lingering long after she awoke.

She let out the breath she was holding and splashed cold water on her face. The reflection in the mirror was an unwanted reminder that she couldn’t escape her heritage or the history that came with it, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Once she showered and got dressed, she pulled her hair into a ponytail. She walked down the short beige corridor to the living room and grabbed her keys off the hook on the wall. The cool morning air blew against her makeup-free face when she opened the door. She inhaled the salty air, and watched the sun peaking over the horizon of the ocean. They calmed her nerves as she made her way down the stairs and to her car. Starting the engine, she pulled out of the parking lot and towards the hotel where Meredith, her mother, had worked before she was arrested for murdering the guests.

 

 Elke Feuer Deadly Bloodlines

 

Elke Feuer Author Photo

Elke was born and raised on Grand Cayman and lives there with her husband and two kids who keep her on her toes. She has a sarcastic, quirky sense of humor not everyone gets, and is in a race to become the first Caymanian in space. When not writing, she’s helping other writers in Cayman through her organization CayWriters. Elke is the author of For the Love of Jazz and Deadly Bloodlines, book one in her Deadly Series scheduled for release in March 2014. She stumbled into writing romantic suspense because of her fascination with serial killers, but also writes other genres because characters keep telling her their stories and she’s a sucker for a crazy story.

You can connect with Elke:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Enter to win a copy of Elke’s first book, FOR THE LOVE OF JAZZ.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Mar 13

 

You’re never too old to have one more adventure 
 
Brought to life by Steve Ferchaud’s vibrant drawings, this story for all ages by Dan O’Brien lets us know that it is never too late to have one more adventure. 
 
 
An Excerpt:
 
Robert Pendleton opened one eye as the light of a passing car flashed over the window, shattering the darkness into prisms. He rolled onto his back on the beat-up couch and yawned as he reached his hands up and rubbed his eyes unceremoniously.
He looked out over the darkness at the digital clock. The red digits spelled out a quarter ‘til midnight––nearly fourteen hours of sleep. He smiled and grabbed one of the cushions of the couch, burying his head in it. Just enough sleep, he reminded himself. Robert felt that anything less than twelve hours of sleep was very nearly too little.
He grasped blindly for the TV remote.
Groaning as he lifted his head, he looked at the empty table––his eyes drawn by another flash of a passing car. He couldn’t see clearly, but he knew that the remote had been there before he had fallen asleep nearly half a day ago.
“Could have sworn….” he mumbled as he pushed himself up and brushed his hand around the top of the table, finding nothing. “Where did….”
Another groan escaped his lips as he lifted his body to a sitting position and threw aside the cluster of pillows that he had gathered around himself. He reached out for the lamp, but instead knocked it to the floor with a resounding thud.
Robert muttered as he stood up from the couch, and then sank to his knees to search around in the darkness for the fallen lamp. Reaching around on the shadowed floor, shards of the broken lamp scattered like pieces of light.
He turned his head, peering beneath the large space underneath the couch and saw the reflection of the buttons on the remote. The off-gray piece of machinery was underneath the couch––only darkness lingered beyond it. He reached out as he spoke again.
“How did it get all the way down there?”
Robert flexed his hand and strained as he twisted his back to reach farther; yet, the remote remained just out of reach. He pulled his arm away with a huff and craned his neck to the side, staring underneath into the darkness below the couch.
His eyes widened as he saw the impossible: there was something beyond the remote. He shook his head and closed his eyes, whispering to himself that he didn’t see what he thought he had.
“I saw a little man,” he whispered to himself as he opened his eyes once more and nearly gasped as he did so.
The figure was closer now and he could make out the outline clearly. A tiny man rested just beyond the remote.
“What in the name of…?”
“Not here in the name of nobody, laddie. I be a friend though,” crooned the miniscule figure as he interrupted Robert and stepped forward, placing a hand on the darkened and slick surface of the remote.
A tam-o’-shanter crested his bright red hair, the shaggy mane blending perfectly into his equally crimson, neatly trimmed, beard.
A billow of whitish smoke drifted from the long-stemmed pipe that he held clenched between his lips.
Robert fell back and knocked aside the adjacent table. Rubbing his eyes, he spoke a single word: “Leprechaun.”



About the Author:
 
Dan O’Brien, founder and editor-in-chief of The Northern California Perspective, has written over 20 books––including the bestselling Bitten, which was featured on Conversations Book Club’s Top 100 novels of 2012. Before starting Amalgam, he was the senior editor and marketing director for an international magazine. In addition, he has spent over a decade in the publishing industry as a freelance editor. You can learn more about his literary and publishing consulting business by visiting his website at: www.amalgamconsulting.com. Contact him today to order copies of the book or have them stocked at your local bookstore. He can he reached by email at amalgamconsulting@gmail.com.

 

Would you like to win a remarked copy of Conspirators of the Lost Sock Army and Loose Change Collection Agency signed by the author and illustrator?

Simply follow the author here and here and a few winners will be randomly selected on March 20th!