Sneak Peek: R.E. Donald’s Ice on the Grapevine

Today we have a sneak peek of author R. E. Donald’s second book in the Hunter Rayne highway mystery series, Ice on the Grapevine:

Ice on the Grapevine CoverIce on the Grapevine is a traditional mystery featuring Hunter Rayne, a retired homicide detective turned long haul truck driver. The story opens on a July morning with the discovery of a frozen corpse at a brake check just south of the Grapevine Pass in L.A. County. Hunter is persuaded by his irascible dispatcher, Elspeth Watson, to help clear two fellow truck drivers who are arrested for the murder. His job is made more difficult by the fact that the suspects, a newlywed couple, won’t speak up in their own defense.

The circumstantial evidence is strong, and a rookie detective from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is eager to score a win. The investigation crosses the Canada-U.S. border when the victim is identified as a second rate musician from Vancouver, and it turns out there were more than a few desperate people happy to see him dead, including the accused couple. Hunter has to use all his investigative skills to uncover the truth.

Ice on the Grapevine is available at Amazon.com, Smashwords, and at ibooks and Kobobooks. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: R.E. Donald’s Ice on the Grapevine”

Sneak Peek: Barbara Gaskell Denvil’s Satin Cinnabar

Satin Cinnabar CoverToday we have a sneak peek of Barbara Gaskell Denvil’s novel, Satin Cinnabar: 

Set in 1485 against the aftermath of the Battle of Bosworth when the first Tudor King Henry VII took the throne from Richard III, Satin Cinnabar is both an off-beat historical romance and a straight forward murder-mystery-adventure. These plots and sub-plots interweave, held together by the strong atmospheric medieval backgrounds and the depth of characterization.

On his escape from the abandoned battlefield, Alex, younger son of a slain lord, throws off his armour which would mark him as a knight of the vanquished Yorkists. The Lady Katherine, having heard tales of marauding soldiers both vanquished and victorious, is dressed for greater safety as a boy. She and Alex, both in disguise, meet in unusual circumstances.

The consequent adventures take place against a background of reeking bustle, the confusion of medieval London’s prosperous growth, back alleys, the horrors of Newgate Prison, the sewerage ridden river, the quarrelsome and diverse population, and all the inevitable power struggle, politics and turmoil accompanying the very beginning of the new Tudor dynasty.

Satin Cinnabar is available on Amazon.com, Sony, Barnes & Noble and Apple’s iBookstore. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Barbara Gaskell Denvil’s Satin Cinnabar”

Sneak Peek: Renee Goudeau’s Dangerous Secret

Dangerous Secret CoverToday we have a sneak peek of Renee Goudeau’s historical novel, Dangerous Secret:

In 1922, a time when Jim Crow and its offshoot, the One-Drop Law, are at their height, a dangerous secret from the past rises like a cottonmouth to strike in the present. In Lake Badin, Louisiana, Odette Montagne Grandpierre discovers just how dangerous the secret is. Threatened with blackmail for her “one drop” of black blood, faced with losing her lifelong identify, being stigmatized as a member of a disdained race and stripped of her civil rights, she decides her only way out is to murder her tormentor. But she can’t follow through with it. When her niece by marriage, Giselle Richards O’Connell, discovers the blackmail and the jeopardy in which it places Odette, she takes up the cudgels in Odette’s defense. Using her weekly newspaper column Giselle tries to fight fire with fire—never dreaming that she, herself, will be caught in the firestorm she creates.

Dangerous Secret is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon.com. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Renee Goudeau’s Dangerous Secret”

Sneak Peek: Hettie Ashwin’s Literary Licence

Today we have a sneak peek of Hettie Ashwin’s novel, Literary Licence:

Literary LicenceImagine an author in her prime and she wants to retire.  Easy it seems. Except writing is in her blood.

Literary Licence follows the fortunes of Ursula Drewsbury as she discovers retirement is more than gardening and cups of tea. She creates a pseudonym only to discover he is larger than life and her ego is piqued. So what to do? Killing him off would be easy for the best crime and fiction writer. Or is it? Ursula is beset by more than a passing problem as she tries to kill her pseudonym Lloyd Langton and escape the law and the paparazzi.

Her postman, a rather large Russian, just complicated an already farcical situation by being hopelessly in love with her. Ursula’s problems compound when an imposter turns up purporting to be her pseudonym, and it takes more than a bit of wheeling and dealing, plotting, conniving and smooth talking for Ursula Drewsbury to come out smelling like a rose, with the help of the imposter, a postman, a savvy reporter and a 10,000 pound reward.

Literary Licence is available for purchase at Amazon.com and Smashwords. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Hettie Ashwin’s Literary Licence”