Louise Penny: The Nature of the Beast Tuesday, Aug 25 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:40 am

Nature Beast
Readers of this blog know that Auntie M is a huge fan of Louise Penny’s series. She thinks if he were real she could marry Inspector Gamache, even in his retirement!

But is retirement really for Gamache or his wife, Reine-Marie? That’s the question the two are asking themselves as they enjoy their home in Three Pines. They spend their days involved in the rhythm of the village, enjoying Myrna’s bookstore, helping Clara with her grief, eating at the Bistro. There is a play being cast amongst the villagers, and the stories that 9 yr-old Laurent Lepage tells whomever who will listen, big whoppers of walking trees and alien invasions.

So it’s not a huge surprise that when the small boy with the big imagination he runs into the bistro with his story of a giant monster and an even bigger weapon hidden in the woods, that his story is passed off as one more day of the antics of the boy who cried wolf. Until Laurent disappears…

His body is found in the woods, a victim of an apparent biking accident. But something about the death appears off, and Inspt. Gamache finds himself asked to consult on the case after he insists the boy was murdered.

With his son-in-law Jean Guy Beauvoir on the case and a surprising new head of the Surete’, Gamache will assist them as they stumble deeply into the woods on the hunt of a murderer–and come upon a secret so surprising that it will turn the village on its head.

This secret will draw outsiders to the village as an old crime becomes the reason for the new one–and then there is a second murder, and Inspt. Gamache knows that the secrets of the past have come back to haunt those still living in Three Pines.

Penny consistently writes an absorbing book, and this entry is no exception. Her characters are always many-layered, complex individuals, and her writing style allows readers to see the story from many points of view.

Tackling an unusual subject, readers will be transported back to the village and its inhabitants as they do battle with secrets held and kept for far too many years. Highly recommended.

 

Across the Pond Winners: Casey, Donoghue, Robinson, Williams Saturday, Aug 22 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:46 am

Auntie M would like to mention that her second Nora Tierney Mystery, THE GREEN REMAINS, has won First Place in the Mystery and Mayhem Awards given by Chanticleer Media for BEST CLASSIC BRITISH COZY. Auntie M doesn’t use the term cozy herself: she describes hers as a mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural. But there’s no question her murders are set in small communities and that the puzzle is the highlight, not gore and violence. She’s not writing about psychopaths or serial killers (although she does enjoy reads that do), but rather she’s interested in what motive would allow an otherwise reasonable person to feel it’s reasonable to take another life.

In a related note, she’s also debuting her second series this month. The first Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery, DEATH UNSCRIPTED, will be in print shortly in hard copy and ebook. Here’s a peek at the cover:
Death Unscripted cover

Frequent readers of this blog know that the Nora Tierney’s are set in England, Auntie M features a host of authors from across the pond. Part of this is because she enjoys reading these books and they keep her mind in the UK when she’s writing. But even more is her desire to turn American readers on to great crime fiction they may be missing by not knowing of these authors.

Here are a few of her recent favorite reads:
The Kill

The Kill is Jane Casey’s fifth Maeve Kerrigan mystery and these procedurals keep getting stronger and stronger.

A wedding reception for a colleague is interrupted when Maeve and her Detective Inspector Josh Derwent are called back to London for a most unusual case: the murder of a fellow policeman in a park, in what could only be called a compromising position.

One of the highlights of the series is the abrasive Derwent and how Maeve handles and defends him. The two are surprised at the reaction of the victim’s wife and even his daughter when told the news. They have the feeling they are keeping things back from the investigators, and as their case heats up, they soon realize they are not the only ones with secrets to hide.

And Maeve find herself torn with the secret she knows about her boss, Superintendent Godley, whom she once admired. Things will come to a head in that direction in this taut and complex mystery that won’t disappoint.

no place to die

Darker and grittier is the second offering from Claire Donoghue in No Place to Die.

This second mystery featuring DS Jane Bennett opens where Never Look Back left off, and things are still in upheaval after the lousy end of that case for Jane and her boss, Mike Lockyer. Feeling the rift between them, his inability to concentrate on the work in hand heavily impact them both when their friend, retired police, goes missing.

Some of the creepiest scenes are set in the underground tombs that are found after a young woman’s body is found one, apparently buried alive and watched by a camera feed.

Once the woman is identified, other tombs are discovered and the threads appear to lead to a local college and its psychology department. And then another young woman is taken and may still be alive, but can Jane and Lockyer find her in time to save her? And who is behind this?

Surprising and shocking at the end, Donoguhe is one who readers should add to their reading lists.

Dark Places
Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks are repeat favorites and this 22nd outing is no exception with In the Dark Places, also Abattoir Blues in the UK version. It boggles the mind to think of an author who can consistently write creative and entertaining mysteries time after time, yet Robinson never disappoints.

An ex-soldier walking his dog, recovering from injuries that leave him limping, is annoyed when his dog goes under a fence and disappears inside an abandoned hanger. When the dog refuses to return and barks consistently, Terry Gilchrist has not choice but to find his way inside and see what’s troubling Peaches.

He finds the dog circling and sniffing and barking around a stain that can only be blood.

In a seemingly unrelated incident, a missing van leads Banks and his team into the countryside. Then a delivery truck falls over a cliff during bad weather and uncover the driver, killed on impact… and his grisly cargo: in addition to the dead animals he was tasked with collecting they find another body, dead before the crash.

Banks will have one of his toughest cases to crack in this repeat winner. Annie Cabot is back, and a nice side story features DS Winsome Jackson.

Black Valley

Black Valley is Charlotte Williams’ followup to The House on the Cliff, which introduced Welsh psychologist Jessica Mayhew.

In this outing Jessica is separated from her husband as they try to decide if their marriage is over. She feels strangely numb to emotions and feelings as she listens all day long to her patients personal drama. So she’s when surprised shortly after said husband confesses to having a relationship with a younger newsreader, that she’s attracted to a stranger she meets at an art exhibit.

That she’s there at all is down to the exhibit’s connection to her newest patient, artist Elinor Powell. Elinor presents with a bad bout of claustrophobia that hits her after her mother is murdered in Elinor’s art studio. A twin, she also is developing paranoid ideation about her sister and brother-in-law, an art dealer whose business may not quite be as above board as she’d like the public to believe.

The issue revolves around a reclusive artist who seems to be the next big thing in the art world. Refusing to give interviews, the unschooled young man nevertheless has captured his share of attention with his huge, brooding canvasses that echo the miners and their broken lives.

The hills of Wales outside Cardiff come alive under Williams skillful retelling, the countryside, lovely and nature-filled during the day, turns bleak and uncompromising at night, filled with caves and towers that haunt the landscape–and figure in the rushing climax as Jessica tries to find the truth about the ghosts who haunt Elinor Powell.

The writing is skillful and the psychological aspect well-handled. Therefore, it comes as a painful surprise to learn that shortly after finishing the first draft of this novel, Williams was diagnosed with breast cancer and died at the age of 59. Sadly, there will be no more Jessica Mayhew thrillers, but the two that are in print are worth readers’ time and investigation.

Late Scholar

And just to remind readers of last year’s terrific Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mystery by Jill Paton Walsh, The Late Scholar is now available in paperback. This installment finds the duo adjusting after World War II and to the growth of their two boys when they are called to Peter’s alma mater, St. Severin’s at Oxford, to unravel a perplexing situation: the faculty and its warden have been unable to agree on selling a rare manuscript to keep St. Severin’s open, and now the warden has vanished. Paton Walsh captures the tone and language of the time and of these two sparkling characters and does Sayers proud.

 

Elly Griffiths: The Ghost Fields, Ruth Galloway #7 Wednesday, Jul 22 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:55 am

Ghost Fields

Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway is one of Auntie M’s favorite characters. Griffiths has created an original, smart woman who is very recognizable to readers as very, very human. In this seventh outing, THE GHOST FIELDS, Ruth is enjoying a summer dig with her archeology students when DCI Nelson asks her to view a crime scene. Seconded to North Norfolk’s Serious Crimes Unit as a forensic archeologist has had a profound effect on Ruth’s personal life in more ways than one.

Nelson explains that a builder, Edward Spens, had equipment digging for a new development in the fields and has found a plane, probably WWII, buried in a field–with a pilot is still inside. The plane is American, probably from the nearby Lockwell Heath airbase, but Ruth feels the dirt around the plane has been more recently disturbed and that the dead man has been posed in the cockpit.

Then Ruth announces that this was not an incident of a downed plane during the war: the pilot sports a bullet hole through the middle of his forehead.

The pilot and the land tie in to the Blackstock family, a disparate group with several generations living in the nearby manor house, others emigrated to the US, and a grandson running a pig farm, which comes into play in a particularly grisly manner.

Complicating Ruth and Nelson’s investigation is the appearance of American documentarian Frank Barker, the academic who Ruth met when filming the program Women Who Kill. Despite an attraction at the time, it’s been over a year since Ruth has heard from Frank, yet here he comes across the pond to head up an American film company and star in a documentary about Norfolk’s deserted airfields, those Ghost Fields as they’re known, and to muddle up Ruth’s investigation and her life.

It will take all of Ruth and Nelson’s smarts and his team’s efforts to unravel the complicated situation that is at the bottom of this mess once it becomes apparent there’s a murderer still on the loose in the Ghost Fields.

Griffiths adds to our interest with a nice interweaving of the lives of repeat characters besides those of Ruth and Nelson. They enhance rather than detract from the business at hand, a meeting of old friends as it were, and add a texture to the very human dramas that play out against the investigation. These atmospheric novels are strong, wonderful reads for any mystery lover. Highly recommended.

 

Nicola Upson: London Rain Wednesday, Jul 15 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:11 am

London Rain
Nicola Upson’s series featuring Josephine Tey has long been a favorite of Auntie M’s, earning her carefully chosen “highly recommended” rating in each previous novel. In London Rain, Upson brings Tey to London during the glorious Coronation ceremonies of George VI after the agony of the abdication of Edward VIII, yet all of the glitter and pageantry becomes secondary to the murder of one of the BBC’s best-known broadcasters.

Josephine is in London for a BBC radio program of her play Queen of Scots, but she’s not immune to the atmosphere at Broadcasting House, the modern bastion that houses the BBC’s offices and studios. The cool, austere building reflects the icy demeanor inside, ripe with petty jealousies, adultery and enough emotion to make itself known to the sensitive Tey.

Some of the gossip makes Josephine acutely aware of her own personal situation and she resolves to define her relationship better with her partner, Marta, a sensitive topic at the best of times. She’s aware that the atmosphere is controlled by Julian Terry, fellow detective novelist and now the BBC’s director of her play. His brother, John, has a lead role in Tey’s play, yet it’s Lydia Beaumont, who Josephine originally wrote the play for, who has been demoted in the radio play to a minor role, a situation that will add to the strain of the women’s relationship with Marta.

Josepine meets Vivienne Bereford, too, acting editor of the popular publication Radio Times; her husband Anthony Beresford is one of the BBC’s top radio broadcasters. Viv’s sister, Olivia Hanlon, was the owner of a sketchy Soho club, and her drowning death ten years ago is still talked about in some circles with suspicion. But that is the old news; the newer is that Anthony Beresford is having an affair with the actress Millicent Grey, who is playing the Queen in Josephine’s play.

Bereford’s murder is no surprise to readers. When Tey’s friend DCI Archie Penrose is called in to head the case, he finds the politics of the place get in his way. With the Coronation as the backdrop, there will be heightened security, the heady trappings of the event, and the major influx of people into London–all of which frustrate Archie’s investigation.

Josephine and even Marta will become involved in helping him sort out the secrets that have led to this murder, leaving Josephine to wonder about her recklessness in the situation and the guilt it leave her with when there’s an unexpected ending twist–and even more of a twist for Archie.

This is Upson’s sixth Tey novel, and it won’t disappoint, both in its characterizations and in the plotting of a terrific mystery. The period details are perfectly done and provide a lovely backdrop to a literate and well-written story. Highly recommended.

 

Jane Casey: Bet Your Life Sunday, Mar 15 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:07 am

Auntie M is a huge fan of Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan series (The Last Girl, The Stranger You Know, et al). So it should come as no surprise that when she turned her hand to YA novels and introduced Jess Tenant in How to Fall, that she had another hit series on her hands.
BetYourlife
The second Jess Tenant Bet Your Life, has the same realistic teen dialogue and situations as the first.

There’s Jess’ complicated family life and her even more complicated attraction to Will, the person who makes her brain fuzzy and who she decides is better off without her. At sixteen, Jess is pretty mature, living in a tiny seaside English town for the past few months, keeping an eye on her mom while pretending she’s not missing Will, away at school.

Hallowe’en night changes everything. Seb Dawson has been left for dead at the roadside with a serious head injury. Jess isn’t a fan of Seb’s, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him.

With her feeling the police are not taking his attack seriously enough, it falls to Jess to find out who was behind Seb’s attack, and her investigation takes her places she doesn’t want to go. It turns out Seb wasn’t the nicest of young men, a secret predator who plays dangerous cakes to abuse girls, from blackmail to spiking their drinks with drugs.

The list of victims who could have a motive for revenge on Seb becomes long. Or could it have been a bunch of them banding together? Even more so, could there be someone else with a need to silence Seb?

The tension rises the deeper Jess finds herself involved until her own life is in jeopardy. Casey has created believable characters and situations that make Bet Your Life a gripping read for adults and teens alike.

 

My Favorite Reads of 2014: 16 Who Rose to the Top Sunday, Feb 1 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:05 am

Auntie M reads between 2 and 3 books a week and last year reviewed 86. Out of those reviewed, these 16 authors were her top picks for those of you looking for an author to follow. In no particular order:

Jill Paton Walsh’s fourth Wimsey/Vane mystery, The Late Scholar, gets the tone of Sayers duo just right as the couple and their two sons have grown and mystery brings them back to Oxford.

Michael Robotham’s Watching You takes psychologist Joe O’Loughlin, one of Auntie M’s favorite characters, to one of his most twisted cases yet, when Marnie Logan asks for his help.

Frances Fyfield continues to write amazing psychological crime novels with strong characterizations that never fail to surprise Auntie M. The Goldigger is a case in point.

Sophie Hannah had a banner year. Her two, Kind of Cruel and The Telling Error are vastly different but both with compelling and complex plots. She was chosen by Agatha Christie’s estate to write a new Poirot novel, and in The Monogram Murders, gets the Belgian detectives voice just right.

Aline Templeton continues her DI Marjory Fleming series with a strong entry in Bad Blood.

Elizabeth Haynes Under A Silent Moon proves that there IS a new way to tell a crime story, with this strong entry into police procedurals that includes the forms used in an investigation to follow the clues.

Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan series is a favorite, with two entries: The Last Girl and The Kill.

Harry Bingham’s DC Fiona Lewis brings her unusual background and personality to Love Story, with Murders.

Nicola Upson continues her Josephine Tey series with The Death of Lucy Kyte, based on a real historical murder, and filled with mid-20th century details.

A D Garrett’s debut, Everyone Lies, launched an unusual crime duo who they will bring back in Believe No One.

Deborah Crombie’s Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series keeps getting stronger, as evidence by this 16th offering in To Dwell in Darkness.

James Oswald’s Inspector MacLean series, set in Edinburgh, continues to be a page turner with Dead Men’s Bones.

Tana French has another strong crime novel, this one spanning just one very long day, in The Secret Place.

Tony Parson’s debuted a new series featuring DI Max Wolfe, a single parent to a young daughter, in The Murder Man.

Susan Hill’s Simon Serailler series is a continued delight. She never hesitates to take chances other writers would shy away from, and this is apparent in The Soul of Discretion.

Finally, last but certainly not least of all, we have John Harvey’s last Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness, a fine tribute to the series of a well-loved detective.

Auntie M hopes if readers haven’t discovered these authors, you will seek them out!

 

Perfect Sins: Jo Bannister Wednesday, Jan 28 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed Auntie M Writes Crime 12:56 am

Perfect Sins

Jo Bannister departed from her Brodie Farrell mysteries in Deadly Virtues, when she introduced a new series featuring young police constable Hazel Best, and the “Rambles with Dog” character of Gabriel Ash, a former government employee whose life has been turned upside down.

The two return in this compelling sequel, Perfect Sins, along with Ash’s dog, Patience, whose thoughts only Ash can hear, but who makes the kind of measured and sometimes snarky comments that add to the tone. Bannister doesn’t overdo Patience’s comments, either, keeping them to a minimum, but they lighten up what could be a somber tone, as Ash is trying to find out if his wife or two sons, kidnapped by pirates, could possibly still be alive.

Four years have past since their disappearance but Ash remains committed to following up any lead he possibly can in order to keep his fragile sanity and continues to follow his own path of questions. With Hazel still on leave after the shooting that ends Deadly Virtues, they finds themselves visiting Hazel’s father at the gatehouse of Byrfield House, an estate that has been in the aristocracy for generations.

The plot revolves around a mound near the ice house on the grounds belonging to Pete, Lord Byrfield, that is opened by a local archeologist, David Sperrin. Hazel has known Pete for years and considers him a friend, so it’s no surprise she becomes involved when the mound turns out not to be an ancient burial mound, but the more contemporary resting place for a little boy from about thirty years ago. Just who those bones belong to bring up more secrets kept than any of the participants can possibly imagine.

As Hazel is drawn back into the police work she loves, Ash finds his own questioning has stirred up some very nasty consequences for them both that put their lives in danger. One of the nicest things is that Hazel values friendship. Hers with Ash is not a sexually charged relationship, but one that shows that men and women can truly care about each other and remain caring friends without becoming romantically involved.

Intricately plotted, and with a nice touch for the vagaries of family life and relationships, this complex plot has a few surprises to reveal and its ending packs a wallop that will have readers searching for the next installment.

 

Nele Neuhaus: The Ice Queen Sunday, Jan 25 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:58 am

IceQueen

German author Nele Neuhaus’ series with Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver Bodenstein is almost a prequel of sorts to the other books that have been translated in the series, Snow White Must Die, and Bad Wolf, the latter now in paperback.

But nothing is lost in reading them in this order as the stories are so interesting and this one is no exception. The body of a Holocaust survivor, American citizen Jossi Goldberg, is found shoat to death in his home with a five-digit number scrawled nearby in his blood.

Why would anyone bother to murder a 92 yr old man near the end of his life? Then the autopsy reveals an old tattoo on his arm, a blood marker used for Hitler’s SS. Who was Jossi Goldberg after all? A survivor of the Holocaust, as he’d lived his life, or was he really a Nazi?

While investigation his murder, two more execution-style murders of elderly people occur. The only connection between these people turns out to be that they were lifelong friends of Vera von Kaltensee, a baroness and the well-respected head of a philanthropic family.

With Oliver and Pia treading a fine line of political correctness as they try to investigate the Baroness, their trail leads them all the way to Prussia and secrets of long ago. They will encounter secrets, lies, and treachery reaching back decades as they find their way to the heart of the mess that started so very long ago.

There is an excellent mystery at the heart of this novel, one that will startle the reader as the story reaches its conclusion. A continued series well worth reading. Highly recommended.

 

Susan Kroupa: Christmas Goes to the Dogs Wednesday, Dec 17 2014 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:07 am

Please welcome guest Susan Kroupa and her Doodlebugged Mysteries:

Bad-Mouthed4 (1)

Christmas Goes to the Dogs, er, um, Sheep

The Doodlebugged Mysteries are humorous cozies narrated by Doodle, an obedience-impaired labradoodle who flunked out of service-dog training because in his mind, “smart and obedient don’t always go hand in hand.”

After a career change, where he’s trained to be a bed bug detection dog, Doodle gets adopted by “the boss,” Josh Hunter, and meets Molly, the boss’s ten- year-old daughter. Between Doodle’s nose and Molly’s independence, the two of them always seem to be in some kind of trouble.

The newly released fourth book, Bad-Mouthed, takes place over Christmas, and working on it got me thinking about dogs and their place or lack of it in Christmas tradition. There are plenty of songs featuring sheep and shepherds, and there are legends about donkeys and camels. But dogs?

Do a Google search on “dogs and Christmas” and beyond The Barking Dogs singing Christmas carols, there not much to find. No touching stories about dogs helping the baby Jesus or stories of dogs at the North Pole. Even in the song “The Friendly Beasts,” dogs are left out.

Of course, being a dog, Doodle’s knowledge about Christmas is limited to his experiences such as, “I know all about Christmas trees from my service dog days, of course, since our bosses took us into all sorts of stores, rest homes, and schools that had them. We learned that we were not allowed to eat anything on the tree, or even sniff it, and we absolutely weren’t allowed to lift our leg anywhere near it. Just sayin’.”

Doodle is baffled by the idea of a white Christmas. Does the day come in colors? And what’s with all the gift-giving? He notices that dogs don’t get mentioned much at Christmas, something he gripes about when he has to play a sheep in a pageant because his labradoodle coat is thick and curly. As he tells it, “I’m a sheep. Not really a sheep, of course. I’m a labradoodle who works as a bed-bug detection dog, which means I have a finely tuned, highly trained sense of smell . . . But in this Christmas pageant, I’m supposed to be a sheep. So, here I am onstage beside Molly and her best friend, Tanya, who are dressed as shepherds in long robes, wearing odd scarves held on their heads with thick ropes. I have what are supposed to be sheep’s ears—no sheep scent on them at all— tied onto my head. Why anyone would prefer a sheep to a dog is beyond me, but it seems to be a Christmas thing.”

Naturally, Doodle gets into trouble and he and Molly end up with mysteries to solve and, inDoodle’s case, bad guys to chase, but along the way, Doodle learns a lot more about Christmas. Because this is one book where Christmas goes to the dogs, or, um, dog.

Called “the perfect blend of mystery, suspense, and laugh-out-loud doggy observations,” by best-selling mystery author Virginia Smith, the Doodlebugged mysteries have delighted dog and cozy mystery lovers from ages 9 to 92. In Bad-Mouthed, Doodle’s back for another adventure.

Who knew chasing a rat in the middle of a Christmas pageant could cause so much trouble? Certainly not Doodle, the obedience-impaired labradoodle who works for “the boss,” Josh Hunter of Hunter Bed Bug Detection, nor Molly, the boss’s ten-year-old daughter. But then Doodle’s the first to admit he doesn’t quite get Christmas.
Doodle’s antics during the pageant draw the attention of a popular video-blogger, who asks to do a feature on his sniffer-dog skills. But when the blog airs, pretty much the opposite of what Molly and the boss expected, the boss’s phone rings off the hook with distraught customers who think Doodle’s bed bug “finds” can’t be trusted.

Throw in a handful of threatening letters, some lost dogs, and a devastating fire, and Molly and Doodle have their hands—well, in Doodle’s case, his paws—full finding out just who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.
Available at most ebook retailers and will be released in paperback on Dec 18th.

DSC_6681

Susan J. Kroupa is a dog lover currently owned by a 70 pound labradoodle whose superpower is bringing home dead possums and raccoons and who happens to be the inspiration for her Doodlebugged books. She’s also an award-winning author whose fiction has appeared in Realms of Fantasy, and in a variety of professional anthologies, including Bruce Coville’s Shapeshifters. Her non-fiction publications include features about environmental issues and Hopi Indian culture for The Arizona Republic, High Country News, and American Forests. She now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Southwestern Virginia, where she’s busy writing the next Doodlebugged mystery. You can find her books and read her blog at http://www.susankroupa.com and visit her Amazon Author page at http://amazon.com/author/susankroupa.

 

Dee Phelps: The Disappointment Room Sunday, Dec 14 2014 

Award winning novelist , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:47 am

Please welcome fellow retired nurse, Dee Phelps, who will describe her own journey to the writing life, and her award-winning novel, The Disappointment Room. disappointrm

Out of the Closet
By Dee Phelps

In my former life I was a nurse. As a nursing student – a million years ago – my husband and I and our three year-old son lived in a tiny apartment. To get any study time accomplished, I needed a quiet No Mommy Zone. We had a walk-in-closet that was, thankfully, big enough to smoosh a little writing desk up against the back wall. It was my saving grace and it served its purpose; albeit claustrophobic and filled with the fragrant aroma of old sneakers. The closet worked – then.

Ten years ago my husband passed away suddenly and tragically. I was at a crossroads in my life. Would I continue on nursing, or, veer off the familiar path and venture down the thicket-filled, dark and scary lane of writing? Choices can sometimes be confusing, and sticking with the safest alternative is most often the easiest way. Having mucked in blood and guts for over twenty five years, and having raised three boys, easy was not in my vocabulary.

With My Three Sons, aka, The Three Stooges, grown and happily ensconced in their own lives and professions, I decided to delve into my lifelong pursuit of writing. I decided to live the dream.

“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

I retired my bedpan and hung up my stethoscope and went back to school. After all, what did I know about writing? I had trouble spelling aye – I mean, I. With a new degree under my stretchy-waisted jeans, I took the next step along the unknown literary road.

But, herein lies the vast difference of my closet days and these days. I still hear my youngest son’s plaintive cry: “Mom! You sold my bedroom furniture and made my room into an office?” With no remorse, I responded, “Why yes. Yes I did! No more closet for me!” The look on his face was priceless.

Out of that one-windowed bedroom with a lovely view of my neighbors chain-linked fence, came dozens of magazine articles, a children’s book and The Silver Falchion Award winning novel for Best First Novel 2014, The Disappointment Room. No pun intended!

I live a little life, in a little house in a little town, but I sure do feel like a millionaire! But, for all my blessings, it is still time for changes. Time for growth and new experiences. I have rented an apartment in the Tuscan hills for six months at a writers and artist’s retreat. It is an ancient walled villa perched on a hill and my writing space overlooks Florence, an olive grove and a vineyard.

By chance or by design, we must move forward toward self-fulfillment and our own personal nirvana. Despite adversity and day-to-day passivity, keep your dreams close and stive to make them a reality.

Whether it’s a closet, a make-shift bedroom office or Tuscany—no matter what your view—make your dreams your main focus.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT ROOM

The past collides with the present in this exciting tale that begins in 1844 on Coffin Point Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina. Beginning with Charles Knight, locked away in a Disappointment Room, with only Munday, his black nanny, and Helen, her daughter, for companions, the Knight family saga is set in motion.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT ROOM is a gripping story of human bondage and the relentless search for freedom; freedom from the ghosts, secrets, terrors, and atrocities of the past. But the past keeps coming back.
A fast-paced, exciting read infused with the Gullah culture, voodoo, slavery, and the politics of the antebellum and contemporary South.

“Phelps’ amazing first novel is a spellbinding saga of a young man imprisoned in a hidden room in a South Carolina plantation where dark family secrets, slavery, and the Gullah culture of superstition come to life on the page. Don’t miss this one!” CASSANDRA KING, bestselling author of The Sunday Wife and Moonrise.

“A compelling saga of the past meeting the present, told in the author’s distinctive voice.” JEFFERY DEAVER, international bestselling author of The Bone Collector, XO, The Kill Room and The October List.

“A haunting and fascinating first novel of a boy hidden in an attic room in a Carolina plantation home by a conspiring mother whose personal ambitions outweigh her love for her family.” PAT CONROY, bestselling author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, Beach Music and South of Broad.

“The Disappointment Room is a fast-paced novel infused with the Gullah culture, slavery, and politics in the antebellum South. A young boy from a plantation family is confined by his politically ambitious mother to a secret room in the house on Coffin Point Plantation. His quest for personal freedom parallels those of the slaves who travel with him on a difficult journey to freedom. A powerful debut from author Dee Phelps.” MARY ALICE MONROE, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Girls.

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DEE PHELPS is an alumnus of The University of Pittsburgh and Wharton School of Nursing. Dee was inspired to write THE DISAPPOINTMENT ROOM as a result of fascinating and sometimes harrowing stories passed down from her ancestors, who once owned a Lowcountry cotton plantation near Beaufort, South Carolina. She is the author of the children’s book THE FLOWER IN THE THICKETS, written under the pen name, Marcella Miller. She has written numerous international travel articles for national magazines. A surgical nurse for over twenty-five years, Dee lives in Beaufort, South Carolina.

 

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