In Candidate for Murder, it’s election time in Spencer, Maryland, and the race for mayor is not a pretty one. In recent years, the small resort town has become divided between the local year-round residents who have enjoyed their rural way of life and the city dwellers moving into their mansions, taking over the town council, and proceeding to turn Deep Creek Lake into a closed gate community—complete with a host of regulations for everything from speed limits to clothes lines.
About Candidate for Murder
When the political parties force-feed two unsavory mayoral nominees on the town residents, Police Chief David O’Callaghan decides to make a statement—by nominating Gnarly, Mac Faraday’s German shepherd, to run as mayor of Spencer!
What starts out as a joke turns into a disaster when overnight Gnarly becomes the front runner—at which point his political enemies take a page straight out of Politics 101. What do you do when you’re behind in a race? Dig up dirt on the front runner, of course.
Seemingly, someone is not content to rest with simply embarrassing the front runner by publicizing his dishonorable discharge from the United States Army, but to throw in a murder for good measure. With murder on the ballot, Mac Faraday and the gang—including old friends from past cases—dive in to clear Gnarly’s name, catch a killer, and save Spencer!
About the Author
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries. The twelfth installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series, Candidate for Murder will be released June 2016.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, son, and four dogs (including the real Gnarly) on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV. You can connect with her on her website, Twitter and Facebook.
Learn how to live your life self-sufficiently with this new twelve step book!
About Live Self-Sufficiently
This is a twelve-step guide to living self-sufficiently with lessons on personal growth, self love, health and wellness, financial stability and healthy relationships.
You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and Alibris.
About the Author
Tisha Marie Payton is a certified life and relationship coach. She holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma. Her education is in human relations with an emphasis in art therapy. For over twelve years Ms. Payton provided service to her community as a Girl Scout, has competed in pageants, fitness and swimsuit modeling, and landed the cover of Playboy Magazine. Throughout her collegiate and modeling career, she found that many people live dependent upon others and aren’t truly living happily. She began a nonprofit organization called Building ME in Texas to build enlightened minds in youth and provide pertinent life skills to stop the cycle of dependency. This is a twelve-step guide to personal growth, self-love, health and wellness, financial stability, and healthy relationships.
Disclosure: This is a spotlight tour post, I received no compensation for this post. I loved the book’s description and wanted to share it with you my readers!
In this fast-paced sequel to Murder on Safari, The Berlin Package, finds Pero in Berlin on a brand new assignment.
About The Berlin Package
Film producer Pero Baltazar thought he was taking a Berlin filming assignment. He needed the work, needed to get back in the saddle after fighting off a life-threatening experience in East Africa—alShabaab had attacked his crew, intent on a much larger terrorist attack. Suddenly he finds himself under orders from his part-time employers at the State Department and the CIA when he is handed a mysterious package. It’s an assignment he doesn’t want. The problem is, it’s a job contracted by mysterious patrons who are prepared to kill him if he doesn’t deliver.
Pero—now in far too deep—turns to friends, old and new, to help him unravel the mystery of the package, uncover connections to Nazi concentration camp gold recently sold by the US Treasury, and thwart the ex–Stasi chief, now head of a powerful banking group.
In this fast-paced sequel to Murder on Safari, Pero calls on Mbuno, his friend and East African safari guide, to anticipate the moves of his enemies as if they were animals—dangerous vermin—who have kidnapped both the film star and director. Mbuno’s tracking skills may keep them from getting killed—provided Pero can rope in more help and keep the CIA at bay.
My Thoughts
Wow – this novel was just as stunning and fast paced as Murder on Safari, I fell in love with this novel and could not put it down. While it is a sequel to Murder on Safari, you don’t necessarily have to read the first novel to understand this one (but trust me you will want to because the first novel is just as great!).
The plot line is incredible and slowly unfolds piece by piece, only giving you what you need when you need to know (which I love!). Pero after his experience in Africa felt he was done with the CIA and their missions. He wants to get back to his film producing so he jumps on a story based in Germany. It is only when he is there, that he becomes trapped into a mysterious assignment that he never wanted.
As he tries to deliver the package, he finds out unbelievable truths about Nazi concentration camp gold, individuals in power and his mysterious package. He must use his skills to thwart an enemy that he is never too sure who they are, to discover the details of the package and to ensure it remains out of the hands of his enemy (not to mention save his friends!).
The Berlin Package is beyond exciting, full of surprises that you never quite see coming and an exciting plot line that will have you unable to put the novel down. Peter Riva writes exceptional novels that are fresh, thrilling and full of adventure. I can not wait to see if we have another novel featuring Pero!
Peter Riva has spent many months over 30 years travelling throughout Africa and Europe. Much of this time was spent with the legendary guides for East African hunters and adventurers. He created a TV series in 1995 called Wild Things for Paramount. Passing on the fables, true tales, and insider knowledge of these last reserves of true wildlife is his passion. Nonetheless, his job for over forty years has been working as a literary agent. In his spare time, Riva writes science fiction and African adventure books. He lives in Gila, New Mexico. You can connect with him on his website, Twitter and Facebook.
The Giveaway!
Enter now to win one of five copies of Murder on Safari and The Berlin Package. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!
Kathryn Kelly: The Moll Behind “Machine Gun” Kelly is a biography of the woman who made a career of crime.
About Kathryn Kelly: The Moll Behind “Machine Gun” Kelly
With a lust for danger, she masterminded the crimes that took her and her husband, and others who included her own mother and stepfather, on a spree across Minnesota, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas. Starting with smaller crimes the included bootlegging, smuggling liquor onto an Oklahoma Indian reservation and other petty crimes, she encouraged her husband, George Barnes aka Georgle Kelly, toward a life of more serious criminal activity that escalated into bank robberies, kidnapping and extortion.
Many believe that it was Kathryn, after giving him a machine gun, who developed George’s feared persona and the name of Machine Gun Kelly. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was even convinced that the two were somehow connected in the Lindbergh kidnapping. Kathryn and Machine Gun Kelly were eventually captured after kidnapping Charles Urschel, a wealthy Oklahoma City oilman, and collecting a $200,000 ransom the largest ransom ever paid at that time.
Eventually, the two were captured in Memphis, where Kelly had grown up as boy. During their trial in Oklahoma City, movie cameras were allowed into the courtroom for the first time as curious spectators across the nation watched. Kathryn, while claiming to be an innocent victim in a bad marriage, remained unrepentant, smiling and primping for the cameras, and writing threatening letters to the judge and attonrys assigned to the case as well as her victims.
Convicted in 1933, Kathryn served twenty-five years of her life sentence at FPC Alderson, West Virginia, when in 1958 she was finally released into obscurity. Although much has been written about Machine Gun Kelly, there is very little known about Kathryn.
Through narrative, FBI files, rare quotes from George Kelly’s son and other relatives and associates, extensive research, and several photographs, Kathryn Kelly ¬The Moll behind Machine Gun Kelly is the first book ever written about a woman who chose to follow a life of crime during the Prohibition era.
My Thoughts
This is one of my first biographies that I have read and reviewed. When I first saw the cover and read the book description, I knew I had to read this book. A woman who was confident, courageous, dangerous and a criminal? I had to find out her story, especially as I had never heard about her before.
The book starts off by giving us some insight into how and whom Kathryn and George grew up. It showed us the turning points for both of them and how they went from small crimes to the one crime that made them famous. We see this intimate side of Kathryn and how she may have helped masterminded the kidnapping. I wasn’t even aware that at the time in history, kidnapping was common for ransom money! We are given very detailed information about the kidnapping, their hideout afterwards and their subsequent apprehension and trial. I was amazed that during this whole time, Kathryn had no fear – she believed she would be out in no time that George would save her.
I loved the amount of detail and research that went into this book. The depth that Barbara goes into is amazing. You feel as if you really know Kathryn, her struggles, fears and what she loves. This novel was an incredible journey into a dangerous time in history full of crime, love and passion.
Barbara Casey is a partner in Strategic Media Books, and president of the Barbara Casey Agency, representing authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. She is also a manuscript consultant and the author of numerous articles, poems, and short stories.
Her award-winning novels have received national recognition, including the Independent Publishers Book Award. Her novel, The House of Kane, was considered for a Pulitzer nomination, and The Gospel According to Prissy, also a contemporary adult novel received several awards including the prestigious IPPY Award for Best Regional Fiction. Her most recent young adult novel, The Cadence of Gypsies, received the Independent Publishers Living Now Award and was reviewed by the Smithsonian for its list of Best Books.
Ms. Casey makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest Georgia with her husband and three dogs who adopted her: Benton, a hound-mix, Fitz, a miniature dachshund, and Gert, a Jack Russel terrier of sorts. You can connect with her on her website.
The Giveaway!
You can now enter to win one of five copies of Kathryn Kelly! Enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!
In The Cadence of Gypsies, on her 18th birthday Carolina Lovel learned that she was adopted and was given a letter written by her birth mother in an unknown language.
About The Cadence of Gypsies
After years of research she travels to Italy, on a mission to find the truth about her past. Carolina is accompanied by three gift but mischievous students (the FIGS) from Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women. In an effort to help their favourite teacher, the FIGs will have to use their special abilities to decipher the Voynich Manuscript, the most mysterious document in the world, and the one thing that is strangely similar to what Carolina had been given. Their search will take them into the mystical world of gypsy tradition and magic, more exciting and dangerous than any of them could have imagined.
My Thoughts
An intense and mysterious story of a young gifted woman who sees so much of herself in the young, talented but often misunderstood FIGs. It is with the help of these young girls, that Carolina sets out on a trip to discover her past, her story and in turn her future. Each FIG has been blessed with a special skill that is essential to uncovering Carolina’s past but it is Carolina’s love for them which helps give guide and motivate them to help her.
We have this tied into the mystical and misunderstood world of gypsies and their traditions that really takes this novel to a new level. Carolina’s Mom is a powerful yet gentle and kind woman who would do anything for her daughter. Each one of the characters in this story you feel as though you get to know them intimately and the way their lives and paths cross is amazing.
I loved the history in this novel, the look into the gypsy culture from a place of understanding and appreciation, as well as the wrong fear that many had of gypsy cultures. The story itself was very unique in the way it was told, it was just not a simple adopted young girl searching for her birth mother, instead it was layers of history and story telling of lives that brings the story to life. The Cadence of Gypsies is a truly unique and special story that you will love over and over.
Barbara Casey is the author of several award-winning novels for both adults and young adults, and numerous articles, poems, and short stories. In addition to her own writing, she is an editorial consultant and president of the Barbara Casey Agency, established in 1995, representing authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan.
In 2014 Barbara became a partner in Strategic Media Books Publishing, an independent publishing house that specializes in true crime and other cutting-edge adult nonfiction.
Barbara lives on a mountain in Georgia with her husband and three dogs who adopted her.
Author Interview
How did you do research for your book?
The Cadence of Gypsies was a fun and interesting book to write. It involves gypsies, the Voynich Manuscript (the most mysterious manuscript in the world), and three young women – all three orphans, and each considered a genius. In order to write about gypsy customs and practices, I found old documents, out-of-print books and herbal guides used by gypsies throughout time. Since the Voynich Manuscript really does exist, I was able to get a copy in order to study it. The three young women, or F.I.G.s (Females of Intellectual Genius as they call themselves) were completely from my imagination.
Which was the hardest character to write? The easiest?
Probably the hardest character to create was Lyuba, the gypsy mother. She is a choovihni—a wisewoman—for her tribe. The easiest character was Carolina, the F.I.G.s’ teacher and mentor.
In your book you make a reference to the Voynich Manuscript – how did you come up with this idea?
I had read about the Voynich a few years ago and was fascinated by its mystery and history. I knew that one day I would have to write a book that included it.
What made you write a book about orphans?
When I attended the university in Raleigh, NC, I used to live near an orphanage. I think I must have started creating a story than about the children who lived there and the people who worked there on the campus.
