Jacqueline Seewald: December 2019

Friday, December 20, 2019

Interview with Award-winning Author Cathi Stoler

Holiday Greetings! I’m interviewing Cathi Stoler, a prolific, award-winning author. She is a three-time finalist & winner of the Derringer for Best Short Story, “The Kaluki Kings of Queens”. Cathi is a board member of Sisters in Crime NY, and a member of Mystery Writers of America & International Thriller Writers.

Question: What is the title and genre of your novel? Why did you select them?

Answer: OUT OF TIME A Nick Donahue Adventure is a mystery/suspense novel and is the sequel to NICK OF TIME. From the very beginning, I wanted to write a story featuring a male as the main protagonist. Like most writers, I wanted there to be something unique about this character; something that would make him stand out in the crowded mystery/suspense genre.

Question: What inspired this novel? How did it come about?

Answer: As I thought about who the character would be, I had the idea of creating an interesting and exciting professional gambler who becomes involved in solving crimes that are somehow related to his profession. I recalled being in a casino in Venice,

Italy

and watching all the well-dressed men and women playing high-stakes Blackjack, and knew that was the game for Nick. As a Blackjack player, he needs to get into the heads his opponents to stay ahead of the game and win. It’s the same for solving a crime.

The first book actually started with a short story in which Nick Donahue meets a mysterious woman, Marina DiPietro, who is being pursued by an International gang of jewel thieves. The story evolved into the novella, NICK OF TIME. By the end of the book, Nick discovers Marina is working for MI6 and they are living and working together.

Question: Could you tell us a little bit about the heroine and/or hero of your novel?

Answer: Nick is a character I really enjoy writing, Suave, sophisticated and smart, as a professional gambler, he’s also a risk taker—it’s what makes him a successful gambler, and he understands the odds are not always in his favor. He tends to figure things out in the long run and wants to be part of helping Marina solve the cases she now works on as a private investigator. As you’ll see in OUT OF TIME, this can lead to perilous situations in which he needs all the cunning, skill and subterfuge he possesses as a gambler to win.

Question: Can you tell us about some of your other published novels or work?

Answer: My first series includes the three-volume Laurel and Helen New York Mysteries featuring magazine editor Laurel Imperiole and private detective, Helen McCorkendale, in KEEPING SECRETS, TELLING LIES and THE HARD WAY. I’ve also written several short stories and am a three-time finalist & winner of the Derringer for Best Short Story.

Question: What are you working on now?

Answer: I’m working on an Urban Thriller Murder On The Rocks series. The first book is BAR NONE, with Lower East Side Corner Lounge bar owner, Jude Dillane who investigates murder and fraud at the Big City Food Bank. The next two books in the series, LAST CALL and STRAIGHT UP will be published next year.

Question: What made you start writing?

Answer: I was an advertising copywriter for many years and finally decided to try writing a novel, which I’d been thinking about doing for some time. Of course, I chose to write a mystery, the genre I loved to read since I was a child. If I couldn’t be a detective, at least I could write about one. So far, it’s been a great experience and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.

Question: What advice would you offer to those who are currently writing novels?

Answer: Be totally committed. Talent aside, writing and finishing a book is an enormous amount of work. But that’s just the beginning. Most of us spend months, if not years, searching for an agent, then an editor and a publisher who will to take a chance on you. It can be a very long process and not always financially rewarding. So, I’d say look deep inside and make sure you want to do this.

Question: Where and when will readers be able to obtain your novel?

Answer: OUT OF TIME, is available in paperback and eBook editions on Amazon. Here are the links:

Paper back: https://amzn.to/2rBt4Fz

eBook: https://amzn.to/2LaS8tX.

I hope you will enjoy reading OUT OF TIME.

Cathi welcomes your comments and/or questions. So don’t be shy!

Friday, December 13, 2019

Sharing Reading Suggestions for the Holidays 2019

The winter holidays are a great time to gift friends, family or yourself with books to read. With people going on vacation, many individuals enjoy relaxing with a good book. And there certainly are a lot of them being published! You can find books to suit every age and taste whether fiction or nonfiction. Let’s share recommendations, whether it be your own work or that of others. The only requirement for this blog is that the book was published in 2019.

I’ll start things going. I have short stories in five new publications which I recommend. They are: SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY MAGAZINE #27, THE BLEND INTERNATIONAL, ROCK AND A HARD PLACE, RE-HAUNT, and last but not least, A MURDER OF CROWS. This last anthology is a large collection of cozy mystery stories connected by a common theme.

I also humbly suggest my just published historical romance SINFUL SEDUCTION which is receiving excellent reviews:

https://luminositypublishing.com/book/sinful-seduction/

Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999306635

B&N

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sinful-seduction-jacqueline-seewald/1132774631?ean=9781999306632

Nook

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sinful-seduction-jacqueline-seewald/1132774631?ean=9781999306625

Kobo

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/sinful-seduction-13

Okay, now it’s your turn. Please share the books and publications you think will make for good holiday reading. Feel free to talk about work you’ve recently had published if you’re an author. Readers, please mention books you have on your wish list and/or recently read and enjoyed.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

New Novel Reveal

Today is the publication date of my latest novel, an historical romance from Luminosity Publishing. I would like to introduce SINFUL SEDUCTION to you.

Brief Synopsis:

They met and loved passionately in a time of revolution.

Anne McIntyre, a schoolmistress in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey at the outset of the American Revolution, is serious-minded, intelligent, and patriotic. Anne supports her sister in her marital problems and helps the ironmaster’s widow manage a difficult situation with her daughter.
Peter Kensington should have been an earl, but thanks to the duplicity of his younger brother and his own reckless nature, he has ended up an officer in the colonial war. Spying is alien to his gentlemanly code. Yet he must do exactly that. Anne is suspicious of him from the first but as passionately attracted to him as he is to her.

SINFUL SEDUCTION has received an excellent review from the Historical Novel Society:

“Sinful Seduction sets a romantic domestic drama against the backdrop of the American Revolution in an innovative way… an enjoyable read.”

You can check out the complete review here:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/sinful-seduction/

Excerpt:

New Jersey, 1776

AT FIRST, the trip to Princeton was not frightening. There were no armies of soldiers on the road. Yet the smell of fear was in the air. Anne McIntyre had been told the Continental Army was retreating across New Jersey with the British army in hot pursuit. The coach pressed on. She grimly kept her skinning knife at one side and the spare pistol at the other — just in case. Visions of red-coated soldiers pillaging and raping marched through her mind.

A few miles outside of Princeton, old Jacob sped up the coach. Anne could hear horses racing and drawing near. Soon there was the sound of voices yelling at Jacob to halt.

“Is it soldiers?” Delia Baincroft asked in a small, frightened voice that made her sound more childish than her sixteen years.

Anne turned her head toward the window at the rear of the coach and peered out. There were four armed men on horses chasing after them, but they were in civilian dress.

“It looks like highwaymen, although I cannot be certain.”

The coach could not outrun the men on horseback, and they were forced to pull over. Anne’s heartbeat increased as she gripped the pistol beside her.

“Where are you goin’, driver? And who are the folk within this fine coach?”

“Who wants to know?” she heard Jacob return sharply.

“Do not be rude to your betters, old man, or I’ll slice out your tongue.”

Fanny Baincroft slightly opened the coach door and peered her head outside. “Step away, man. My daughter is ill, and we are on our way to seek a physician.”

“Then surely you fine ladies have money with you to pay a fat fee. Get out of the coach and hand over your valuables.”

“How dare they!” Delia sputtered indignantly.

“Stand and deliver.”

There was the sound of a pistol fired and then another in exchange. Anne brushed past Fanny to see what was happening. Jacob had obviously tried to shoot one of the robbers, but his aim wasn’t good enough. The old man gasped, holding his chest where blood spurted forth. While the men had their eyes turned on Jacob, Anne took up her weapon and aimed it at the leader of the group.

“I’ll shoot you if you don’t get out of here,” she said, cocking the mechanism.

The highwayman laughed at her in a crude, menacing way. “And what does a young woman like yourself know of weapons?” He started moving toward her. “I think you need to be taught a lesson in how to yield right and proper.”

Anne let loose her shot and caught the man in the head. She saw the look of astonishment as he fell from his horse, blood trickling down his temple. She hoped that without a leader, the others would turn and ride away, but that was not the case. Three men charged toward her, and she could only think to remove her knife from its hide casing in readiness. She would not die without a fight.

But suddenly she heard a pistol discharging and then another. A tall man on a great horse dispersed the robbers, another of whom fell from his horse, bleeding profusely while the other two rode away.

“Are you all right?” The man’s black horse reared up.

Anne found herself trembling. She had been fine in the moment that required her greatest effort, but now she felt weak. It was as if her legs could no longer support her. Their savior seemed to sense this. He climbed down from the spirited stallion and put his arms around her, holding her close as if she were a child. Normally, she would have been shocked and offended by such behavior from a stranger, but these were not usual circumstances. She felt his gesture of comfort suffuse her flesh with an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation of warmth.

“They won’t be back,” he said reassuringly.

He ran his hands over her back and continued to press her close against the hard length of his masculine body. Her reaction to him was peculiar. She felt herself begin to tremble as if in the grip of a raging fever. It took all the strength she could summon to pull free of him.

Anne looked up into the handsomest face she had ever seen. The man removed his hat and bowed to her. His eyes were of a deep, dark blue, hair completely blond on top and sandy beneath. He was well-dressed in a great, black cape and fully armed with a sword and brace of pistols. When he returned his hat to his head, he cocked it jauntily like a military man.

This book is available in print and all e-book formats.

Some Book Links: