Happy March! This is a special month because there are three novels coming out in my re-releasing marathon! Three!
But first some fun stuff… For some reason The Husband and I were invited to two very posh gallery show openings last month, which was very strange. First of all, we aren’t anywhere near the economic stratum that would pay over $35,000 for a 4 foot by 6 foot black and white photograph, however beautiful it is. Neither are we particular fans of modern/experimental art… though I admit some of the pieces really reached me. Some… some were just plain fun. Some… some… well, moving on!
Here I am, a big brown furry thing at the Spencer Hansen opening at the Samuel Lynne Galleries… and what do I meet? A big white furry thing! Kismet? There was even a little bitty pale brown furry thing…
Our next trip was supposed to be on Valentine’s Day, when the fabulous JD Miller did live painting at the same gallery… Well, to start with The Husband had stomach troubles and couldn’t go, so I went just for a quick visit… and it turned out quicker than I had thought! Although I got there just about the time it started the gallery was packed – and I had to park over three blocks away! There wasn’t even enough space for me to get pictures of JD’s pictures and as for watching him paint (which I had really wanted to see) I would have had to be seven feet or more tall to see over the crowd. Sigh.
Anyway, I did get a picture with my dear friend Emily Gregoire, who works there, and we found big blue fuzzy left from the last show to pose with. And here’s a picture JD did, though not the one he ‘live painted’. And I must tell you the glasses with the little red hearts I’m wearing don’t belong to me <darn it> – one of the girls at the gallery loaned them to me for the picture.
Now to the really nifty stuff – my books!
On March 1 GHOSTS OF BELLE FLEUR (Janis Susan May) goes live. It’s a combination of women’s fiction and a paranormal ghost story…
Fleeing the scandal and disgrace of her late husband’s crimes and subsequent confiscation of everything she owned, Melanie Winthrop is shocked to discover she has inherited not only a fortune but a Southern plantation and mansion from a woman she scarcely knew. Unfortunately, the mansion harbors undreamed of dangers and secrets, including what can only be a phalanx of hostile spirits.
There are temporal dangers too; the unexpected arrival of Melanie’s bitter and estranged sister Michelle makes the situation unbearable. Things are only exacerbated by a near-fatal accident that might not have been accidental and the discovery of a murdered body in the cellar – the body of a woman who had challenged Melanie’s right to the inheritance. Then the murderer comes after her, and Melanie has to accept that there is no one on this earth who can save her.
March 15th’s release is something very special. LURE OF THE MUMMY (J S May) was originally released under the name of Janis Susan May by Carina, a division of Harlequin, but this is no romance. Set in my beloved Egypt, this is the story of a man and the very special mummy of a cat. When I signed the contract I was told this was the very first pure horror tale ever published by Carina and by Harlequin, too. It even seems like this story won some awards, but I don’t remember for sure. I had to wait a loooong time to get the rights back, so please enjoy this book!
Bert Carmody can’t catch a break. As a hieroglyph translator he’s actually quite good – but being pudgy, bald and awkward, he’s always in the shadow of his young, charismatic coworkers.
Disillusioned and bitter, Bert spends his free time scouring the markets of Cairo looking for a native stupid enough to sell him a genuine artifact for the pittance a scholar can afford. His latest find is another piece of rubbish, just another animal mummy – one of literally millions of votive offerings from the ancients to one god or another.
Or is it?
Suddenly things start looking up for Bert. But as he starts to get the recognition he deserves, there are deadly consequences for his coworkers. Will Bert finally be set for life or will the lure of the mummy destroy him?
The last book, releasing on March 29th, is THE SWABIAN AFFAIR (Janis Susan May). I got the idea for this little adventure tale when The Husband and I went on a tour of Bavarian Christmas Markets a couple of years ago – and it was fun, so much fun we’re going to do pretty much the same tour again this year! The description of the Stuttgart Christmas Market is quite real. Oh, and the necklace shown on the cover is mine… but it’s most definitely not an emerald. The Husband bought it for me years ago and I love to wear it on dress-up occasions.
Escaping from an importunate ex-husband, recent heiress Alice Monaghan accompanies her friend Jeanine to Stuttgart to visit the famed and extensive Christmas Market. It seemed an innocent enough trip – until she gets lost and rescued by Grigori Brcko, their mysterious but oddly attractive waiter, and life is never the same again.
Taken hostage by a conscienceless criminal who believes she knows the location of a fabled emerald, she is rescued by Grigori, whom Alice realizes cannot really be just a waiter. As they flee across Stuttgart in an attempt to save their lives, Alice is distressed to find her ex-husband, still intent gaining part of her newly inherited fortune, is also in Germany and determined to find her. Then things become as complicated as they are dangerous making Alice realize that if she and Grigori are to survive, everything depends on her courage.
And one last thing… just a couple of days ago I received rights to a short story called DANGER FROM WITHIN (Janis Patterson), Yes, another reversion – I think this makes around 25 or 26. Instead of slotting it in the re-release queue I just put it up on Amazon/KU for $.99. It’s about a murder in the 1970s in an airport USO during a typhoon – short and great fun!
Well, that’s it for this newsletter. Next month there’ll only be two releases and I can’t wait to tell you about them! Until April…