New England authors « Stacy Juba

Thanks to everyone for entering! The winners were Lora and Betty!

Welcome to the Spring Blog Carnival, sponsored by Pure Imagination, Reading Angel, Candace’s Book Blog, and The Book Swarm. During this giveaway hop, different blogs are hosting booths. Each booth has a fun challenge for you to do to enter their giveaway. More than 200 blogs are hosting giveaways for this fun event. (you can access the other giveaways via clicking any of the above links.)

While you’re here, please feel welcome to download my brand new, hot off the press, short mystery story Laundry Day for free on Smashwords, about marriage gone awry. Then at my stop, you’re invited to attend a “taping” of the mock reality show Sink or Swim, which is a regular feature on my blog. For newcomers, this on-line “game show” is inspired by my mystery novel Sink or Swim. In the on-line version, authors can enter their characters as contestants. Today’s contestant is Bree MacGowan, 30, of South Royalton, VT, the protagonist of Kate George’s mystery novels Moonlighting in Vermont and the brand new California Schemin’. Two lucky commenters will win paperback copies of California Schemin’. This giveaway is open in the U.S. Deadline is midnight on May 8th.

Here is how to enter. Please note that you must leave a separate comment for each entry.
1. Leave your name and email address in the comments.
Bonus Points:
2 Follow this blog via Google Friend Connect or Networked Blogs +1 for each.
3. Subscribe to Kate George’s blog. +1 (and check out her Spring Blog Carnival Contest!)
4. Follow Kate on Twitter. +1
5. Follow me on Twitter. +1
6. Tweet this post or share on Facebook. +1 for each share. (Share links in upper right sidebar)

Remember, leave a separate comment for each entry and leave your email address at least once. But first, I hope you’ll stay for a few minutes to enjoy Bree MacGowan’s contestant interview for the fictional reality show Sink or Swim, coming at you live from the Spring Carnival.

1. Tell us about yourself and the book or series you’re from. My name is Bree MacGowan, and I’m featured in a series about some wild incidents in my life. The two currently available are Moonlighting in Vermont and California Schemin’ by Kate George. I don’t think Kate would be writing about my life at all, except that dead bodies keep dropping into my life. Without the bodies who would want to read about a small town Vermont girl who can’t keep a boyfriend? You can find both books at Mainly Murder Press or Kate’s Amazon.com author page: http://tinyurl.com/4fh33v7 .

2. What is something about yourself that no one else knows?
When I was in high school, I used to skinny dip in the White River. I take it back, one other person knows that; Beau Maverick used to follow me down there hoping to catch a peak. So what does no one know? Sometimes I let my dogs sleep in bed with me because I’m still afraid of the dark.

3. Tell us about an unusual job or hobby that you’ve had?
When I was in college, I used to drive Mercedes cars from Canada into the United States for an auto importer, That was until one of the other couriers was caught with a trunk full of drugs. She swore she didn’t know about it, and I believed her. After that my dad made me quit.

4. What is the strangest or most exciting thing that has ever happened to you? Besides the dead bodies? A skunk once took up residence in one of my dog beds on the porch.

5. What would you do if you won a million dollars?
Remodel the farm. Build a new horse barn. Get another dog.

6. Please tell us briefly about your author and list web sites.
www.kategeorge.com is Kate George’s web site and blog. You can also find her on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com and a couple of other places.

Click the picture to download this short story free on Smashwords as a PDF or in the ebook format of your choice.

I’m pleased to welcome one of my fellow Sisters in Crime, Barbara Ross, author of the debut novel The Death of an Ambitious Woman. In July, Barbara became one of the editor/publishers at Level Best Books which has produced an anthology of crime stories by New England writers every fall for the last seven years. The eighth edition, titled Thin Ice, will be released in November. Barbara and her husband divide their time between Somerville, Massachusetts and Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Barbara, tell us what you were doing 25 years ago?

BARBARA: My daughter was born in 1984, so 25 years ago, I was a busy working mother with a husband, a house and two little kids. I thought of myself that way for a long time—so long in fact that when I wasn’t anymore, it took me a little while to figure out who I was. I used to say I had a perfectly balanced work and home life—too much of both!

The protagonist of my first novel, The Death of an Ambitious Woman is also a busy working mother with a husband and two kids. At the outset of the novel, Acting Police Chief Ruth Murphy finds out she’s been formally recommended for the job of permanent chief of the large, economically diverse suburban city where she lives. Then she senses something is wrong about the car accident that kills a prominent mutual fund manager (another busy, working mother), and Ruth has to choose between pursuing the murder and potentially losing the job of her dreams.

It was important to me to explore the theme of work-life balance. Not in the cartoonish, “My kid called the babysitter ‘mommy,’” sort of way we sometimes see, but to examine the accommodations everyone in a family makes to a career—any career. As Ruth investigates the victim’s life, she learns some things about her own.

Twenty-five years ago, Ruth Murphy was just starting her police career. As the book says, “Ruth thought of herself as a member of a second generation. The first generation of women, who filed the lawsuits, fought the unions and held fast through the years of litigation, had been largely too old or too long in the narrow disciplines of juvenile officer, dispatcher or meter maid to benefit from their own hard work. Ruth’s generation had reaped those rewards, but their tests had come in the station house.” Now, of course, women have been police chiefs in major cities like Washington D.C., Detroit and Boston. But there’s still a long way to go—across the country less than 1% of police chiefs are women.

The book isn’t about the changing nature of women in police work, or about working mothers and the choices families make, but both provide important background and context for the puzzle and pursuit of the killer.

Read more about Barbara on her web site. Also check out The Death of an Ambitious Woman on Amazon.