Friday Flashback: Canadian Rockies

I usually do my flashbacks with fiction, but since I've shared a lot of fiction in the last two weeks, I thought I'd toss out an old photo post from 2014. (For anyone who's wondering, I'm too lazy this week to the Grand Canyon Part 6. Check next Friday!)
     This was part of my A to Z which I think was themed around mountains. The trip that is documented here was in summer of 2013. We spent a month in the Banff/Jasper/Kootenai area, all of it camping and backpacking.

 

Here's the original post:

Just a few of my favorite shots from Banff and Kootenay National Parks, and Mt. Robson Prov. Park.

The classic view of Moraine Lake, Banff National Park

Mt. Robson and Berg Lake, Mt. Robson Provincial Park, British Columbia.

Hiking near Snowbird Pass, Mt. Robson in the near distance. 

Hoary marmot

Some lunch counters are better than others.  The Rockwall, Kootenay National Park

Get up early.  No one saw this but us, as the sun rose on Floe Lake, Kootenay National Park

What teens do--scream defiance at a world way too big for them.  Emperor Falls, Mt. Robson Prov. Park

When you finish hiking, hijack an ice cream truck

At the time I posted this in 2014, Death By Ice Cream had just come out! Now there are 5 books and a novella in the series, all available as paperbacks, Large Type paperbacks, and ebooks. And I've pretty much had to give up eating ice cream :(

There was a link on the old post to this interview I did when the book came out on the blog of Carla Sarett. My thoughts on writing and self-publishing have matured some, but the interview basically captures what I like to do.

Flashback Friday!

 Flashback Friday is a monthly meme that takes place on the last Friday of the month.
The idea is to give a little more love to a post you’ve published on your blog before.  Maybe you just love it, maybe it’s appropriate for now, or maybe it just didn’t get the attention it deserved when you first published it.

Thanks to Michael d’Agostino, who started it all, there is a solution – join Flashback Friday!

Just join in whenever you like, repost one of your own blog posts, including any copyright notices on text or media, on the last Friday of the month.

Use the Flashback Friday logo above, as designed by Michael d’Agostino. Link it back to host Jemima Pett (there's a linky list!) and add a link to your post in the comments on Jemima's post (or mine, or any other participant's).

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I wanted a Pismawallops PTA story for Flashback Friday again, since the newest book just came out this week, so I hunted a long way back through the archives and found this story from 2014. It was written while I was working on editing the second book in the series, Death By Trombone. If you want to know more, both Death By Ice Cream (the story alluded to at places in this story) and Death By Trombone are on sale through April for only 99 cents!

This one's a little longer than usual, at about 1150 words.

Haunted House

"Kitty, have you heard the rumors about the LeMoine house?" I asked my best friend the question over our weekly binge at the Have-a-Bite bakery.

"Rumors like what?"  Kitty's response was not so much an inquiry as a caution. I wasn't sure just how to answer, now I'd brought the matter up. Should I say anything? The kids hadn't known I was listening to their discussion of the place. Maybe that was all the more reason to share what I'd heard.

"I gathered from something Brian and Kat said that kids are daring one another to spend the night there. That something might get them if they do." Presumably the ghost of Letitia LeMoine, I didn't need to add. "In any case, they expect something scary to happen."

"As a parent," Kitty said with a dryness I would have been proud to own, "it sounds like something scary all right."

We considered teens for a moment while consuming espresso brownies a nibble at a time. I only allow myself one a month, so I wasn't going to miss any of this one.

The LeMoine house had stood empty since Kat's daughter and my son and their best friends had found the owner strangled where the Pismawallops PTA usually stored ice cream bars. To the best of my knowledge, the house was empty because the ownership was under dispute, not because no one would live there. Letitia's daughter had gone to the mainland to live with her mother's aunt and she couldn't even rent it out because no one knew if it was hers.

"You don't suppose there's someone squatting there?" Kitty finally suggested. "That might lead to lights in the windows or whatever started the stories. Once they get started, you know how stories like that grow."

"And a story like that might allow someone to stay a long time, if they make it convincing enough," I agreed.

"You should tell Ron." Kitty winked when she said it.  As if I needed reminding that I had... something... going with the Pismawallops Island chief of police. I refused to rise to the bait.

"I'm sure he already knows."

In the end, we shrugged it off. Kids like a scary story, and an empty house belonging to a murdered woman offered good material.  Our job was to make sure Brian and Kat were not among those who tested the ghost story. I wasn't too worried.

#
A week later I was less sanguine.  Not about the kids, who were behaving well, but about the LeMoine house.

"I drove by there again, and someone is definitely changing the curtains around and stuff," I told my best friend when we met for our weekly coffee.

"Maybe a real estate agent, trying to keep it from looking empty?"

"Nice try, Kitty. But everyone on the Island knows about it, so what's the point?" I took another bite of my low-fat blueberry scone and tried to convince myself it was as good as the brownie had been the week before.

Kitty shrugged. "Then we're back to squatters."

"Do you think we should have a look? If someone's broken in, we should do something.  Chantal LeMoine may be a piece of work, but that house is her only inheritance."

"The police, JJ.  Talk to Ron."

#
I'm not an idiot, despite some evidence to the contrary, and I was on good terms with Ron that week so I did what Kitty suggested. I did it at the police station, though. Neither of us could be trusted in private just then, and I didn't know what I wanted from the relationship. Ron knew all too well what he wanted. At the station he couldn't very well make a play for it.

"I've heard the rumors, JJ, but when one of us drives by, there's no sign of anything."

His department consisted of himself and a worse-than-useless deputy.  Leave it to a pair of guys to miss the changes in the curtains.

"Can I take you to dinner?" He changed the subject, asking his usual question. That was the trouble with Ron. He didn't care if the world knew how he felt about me. He'd have kissed me in front of the whole Island, so long as he wasn't in uniform.

"No." Until I resolved some of my existing issues, I wasn't taking on any more.

#
Really, Ron left me only one option. I'd have to investigate the LeMoine ghost myself. Or rather, with Kitty, because I wasn't going there alone.

"Oh, come on, Kitty," I wheedled. "It'll be a lark."

She reminded me of a couple of other things I'd talked her into that hadn't worked so well, and I winced. "We won't go at night. We can just stop in for a minute, look in the windows, and see if it looks like anyone is living there."

Kitty was still reluctant. "Your ideas always sound good," she began.

"Because they are," I insisted. We exchanged looks, her dubious, mine stubborn.

She gave in first. "Oh, fine. I'll go."

"After dinner tonight."

"That's not broad daylight."

"It's light until late, this time of year. It won't be later than 7:30."

"Fine." Odd. She sounded a lot like Brian at his most teenaged.

#
In fact it was a little later than 7:30, and a little duskier than I'd expected, when we approached the "haunted house." We hadn't told anyone where we were going, for fear of being laughed at. Suddenly, I wished we had. I ignored the unworthy thought.

I parked in front of the house and we stepped up on the porch with pointless caution. I peered in the front window and let slip a word I don't let Brian use.

"What?" Kitty squeaked.  She seemed jumpy.

"I can't see anything. Too dark." I moved to the door before she could say, "I told you so," and laid a hand on the knob. The door swung open with a small squeak, just like in the horror movies.

We exchanged looks. Then I went in, before Kitty could get reasonable and drag me away.

The front room was neat, and what I could see of it looked much as I'd last seen it.

Too much so. I realized that once again someone was sitting on the couch in the dusk, just as they had that day. . . . I screamed. I'm not proud of it, but the memory was too strong, and I'd nearly died that day.

The figure on the couch jumped up and turned into a teenaged girl. "Oh, my god, I'm sorry!"

I thought I knew who it was, and reached for the light, but of course the power was off.

"Hang on," said Chantal LeMoine, and a moment later a flashlight came on.

I glared at the dead woman's daughter. "You have some explaining to do."

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2014
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!


Check out the review of A is for Alpine by picture-book author Elaine Kaye--just went live today!

Giveaway!

Since Book 3 of the Pismawallops PTA Mysteries is coming out soon, I decided to run a giveaway for Book 1 (Death By Ice Cream) so that anyone who hasn't met the intrepid JJ MacGregor can do so!

Just follow the link and enter the Giveaway at Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Death By Ice Cream

by Rebecca M. Douglass

Giveaway ends January 14, 2018.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

If you just can't wait, you can order you own copy of the book here or from Amazon.

Trick-or-Treat for Books! Death By Ice Cream

 

Trick-or-Treat Reads is a book-giveaway blog hop! Authors are giving away copies of their books--completely free. Consider it brain candy, if you will.

Death By Ice Cream for Halloween

The Ninja Librarian is giving away copies of the first Pismawallops PTA mystery, Death By Ice Cream, because what's better on Halloween than a spot of murder? But hurry--this is a one-day giveaway!

JJ MacGregor and her best friend Kitty Padgett struggle to hold the Pismawallops PTA together, and new volunteer Letitia LeMoine isn’t making it any easier. But when Letitia’s strangled corpse turns up where the ice cream bars should have been, things get a whole lot worse. JJ has to shoehorn in a search for the killer along with all her other problems: divorce, a 15-year-old son with his first girlfriend, a desperate race to complete the Yearbook on time, and her own tendency to get all wobbly-kneed around the Chief of Police. JJ just can’t help asking a few questions. But a loud mouth and insatiable curiosity can be a dangerous combination. Especially when someone wants her stopped.

Death By Ice Cream is a cozy mystery (light, no violence or bad language) for adults.

How to get your free copy:

To get your FREE copy of Death By Ice Cream this Halloween, go to Smashwords.com via this link and buy the book, using the coupon code BN35R. Your price should chance to $0.00. If it doesn't, check to see if you are too late--the price is only good until Nov. 1! Once you "buy" the book, you can download it in whatever format(s) you like.

And if you read it and like it...Death By Trombone will be on sale for just $1.99 with the coupon ZH24V through the end of November, so you can catch up on the series before Book #3, Death By Adverb, comes out at the end of the year!

Now hop on over and check out the other great book treats in the hop!

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O is for...Kevin Olsen #AtoZChallenge

O is for Kevin Olsen, of the Pismwallops PTA mysteries

In a nutshell: Kevin Olsen is a high school senior who plays a minor role in each of the Pismawallops PTA books. He plays football and gets his heart broken a lot.
Biggest Secret: He isn't much for keeping secrets, really. JJ finds it easy to get information out of him, most of the time.
Favorite Line: "But man, you know, I really liked her."

What do you serve when all you have in the freezer is an ice-cold corpse? 

JJ and her best friend Kitty struggle to hold the Pismawallops PTA together, and new volunteer Letitia LeMoine isn’t making it any easier.  But when Letitia’s strangled corpse turns up where the ice cream bars should have been, things get a whole lot worse.  JJ has to shoehorn in a search for the killer along with all her other problems: divorce, a 15-year-old son with his first girlfriend, a desperate race to complete the Yearbook on time, and her own tendency to get all wobbly-kneed around the Chief of Police.  JJ just can’t help asking a few questions.  But a loud mouth and insatiable curiosity can be a dangerous combination.  Especially when someone wants her stopped.

Amazon as Paperback or Kindle.
Smashwords (all ebook formats) 
Barnes and Noble for Nook or paper 
iBooks
Kobo Store 
Paperbacks also in the Createspace Store!


Following the suggestion of fellow blogger and amazing author Jemima Pett, I'm doing a very simple A to Z with characters from my writing and the books of my author friends! I'm just posting a brief profile, sometimes a quote, and the book cover with links. Though you may also see some of my typical reviews (when I feature other peoples’ books) and the usual Friday Flash Fiction.

B is for Mt. Baker...the view from Pismawallops Island

Well, Mount Baker might be the view from Pismawallops on a clear day, if Pismawallops existed outside of my imagination and my books (see Death By Ice Cream). Of course, it being Puget Sound, there aren't so many clear days.

Mount Baker...second largest volcano in Washington State. "The Mountain" for residents of the Bellingham area, the way Mt. Rainier is "The Mountain" for the Seattle area.

Baker is 10,781' tall. Like Rainier, it rises almost from sea level, so it looks more impressive than some much higher peaks. And it is covered with snow and glaciers year around (so far), making it one of the classic peaks of the Cascades.

Last erupting about 6700 years ago, Baker is a stratovolcano, made up from many flows of mostly rather gummy lava, over many thousands of years (tens to hundreds of thousands). The USGS (US Geological Survey) considers its risk level to be high, as the volcano is scarcely even dormant (though no lava has escaped in 6700 years, it's hot in there, and fresh magma intruded into the volcano as recently as 1975), and the region in the danger zone fairly well populated.

If the mountain erupted, Pismawallops Island would be a better place to be than the mainland, but might still not be far enough away to be safe!

For a special treat, today we have some photos from visiting travel photographer Tom Dempsey. Note: the photos are copyrighted, and Tom is a professional photographer. If you wish to share or use these pictures, please contact him for appropriate permission.

All photos © Tom Dempsey / PhotoSeek.com

First, the view from the Island, or nearby:

Washington State Ferry near Bellingham (and thus near Pismawallops) with Mt. Baker in the distance.

Rotting tug and Mt. Baker

North Cascades seen from the Sound. Mt. Baker obscured by clouds.

 Now, some gorgeous views from closer to the mountain! Thanks again to Tom Dempsey for sharing his work.

Iceberg Lake

Fall colors (mountain huckleberry).

Lenticular cloud on Baker.

If you like these photos, please visit photoseek.com! And if you are interested in travel photography,

consider buying the book "Light Travel: Photography on the Go"  by Tom Dempsey to learn more about the magic of portable digital cameras and techniques for photographing the world.

Back to School Sale!

School's starting up again, and we moms are back to the old PTA work, with all the frustrations and fun that entails. Just to keep everyone smiling, and to remind us that things could always be worst, I'm offering a special deal on the first Pismawallops PTA mystery!

From today through Sept. 10, buy  Death By Ice Cream for just $2.99 at the Kindle store. And because I firmly believe in supporting other platforms, use coupon code PJ97S to get the same price from Smashwords, which sells all formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook.

Pismawallops Island is a quiet place where nothing much happens, even at the High School.  That’s how JJ MacGregor likes it.  So when a new member of the PTA threatens to disrupt the even tenor of life in the middle of Puget Sound, JJ insists they have to take a firm stand against her.  But when Letitia Lemoine shows up very dead in the freezer where there should have been 30 boxes of ice cream bars, JJ worries that someone might have taken her command too seriously.  Not the sort to sit back while other people solve her problems, JJ just can’t help asking a few questions.  But someone wants her to stop—and an acerbic sense of humor, insatiable curiosity, and carefully hidden dedication to duty lead her into more trouble than she knows how to handle.

Welcome to the Pismawallops PTA--a fun and exciting new mystery series from the author of The Ninja Librarian.

###

Because you can never have too much ice cream.

Special price for Death By Ice Cream!

School's starting up again, and we moms are back to the old PTA work, with all the frustrations and fun that entails. Just to keep everyone smiling, and to remind us that things could always be worst, I'm offering a special deal on the first Pismawallops PTA mystery!

From August 30 to Sept. 10 you can get  Death By Ice Cream for just $2.99 at the Kindle store. And watch this space for a coupon to get the same price from Smashwords, because I firmly believe in supporting other platforms.

JJ MacGregor likes the peaceful life on Pismawallops Island, volunteering with the PTA at her son’s high school and enthusiastically boosting Brian’s Cross-Country and Track teams.  She doesn’t even mind that her long-distance marriage hasn’t got much life.  But she does mind that Island newcomer Letitia LeMoine is disrupting everything.  And maybe she loses her temper a little about it.  But when JJ shouts that Kitty Padgett, PTA President and her best friend needs to “do something” about the pushy outsider, she only means she needs to have a talk with her.

When LeMoine shows up dead where there should have been thirty boxes of ice cream for the Friday afternoon fundraiser, JJ starts to worry.  Will Pismawallops Police Chief Ron Karlson think someone took her advice too seriously?  Or even that JJ herself took direct measures?  JJ can’t help herself—she starts nosing around after some answers.  Besides, anything beats thinking too much about the other disaster that has overcome her: her husband has apparently tired of living 2000 miles apart and has filed for divorce—and wants to claim their son.

Just to complicate JJ’s life, Brian is in the throes of first love—with Kitty’s 9^th-grade daughter.  Everyone but the kids thinks they are too young, and Brian isn’t pleased with limits on their relationship.  Nor is he happy about the divorce, especially as it is showing him the Dad he thought he had is something a bit different.  Worse, love must be in the air, because JJ finds herself more and more attracted to Ron Karlson, and the feeling is pretty clearly mutual.  But she can’t do anything that might interfere with the custody battle brewing, and must continue to keep love at bay.

Kitty does her best to distract JJ from both murder and domestic crises, as they realize that there was something the dead woman failed to leave behind her: any sign that she had begun work on the Yearbook, a project she’d insisted on taking over.  There is only one week to the deadline, and Kitty wants JJ to concentrate on that.  JJ is game, but not giving up her sleuthing.

Fueled by strong coffee and espresso brownies, JJ and Kitty attack the giant Yearbook project, and keep looking for the killer at the same time.  JJ raises more questions than she answers, and makes a lot of people annoyed, but someone thinks she’s a threat, because attempts are made both to frame her and to kill her.

In the end, the detested Yearbook project provides the key to both the murder and a grotesque abuse of power, and JJ puts almost everything together.  The gaps in her vision of the crime nearly cost her everything, but Kitty and Brian keep a pair of level heads and ride to the rescue in the nick of time.

Pick up your copy during my special back-to-school sale starting Saturday! 

Ice Cream party at the Ninja Librarian's blog!

Death By Ice Cream has gone live!

Dig out the ice cream scoops and chocolate sauce--the long-awaited (by me, anyway) launch of my first cozy mystery has finally happened!

Let's just admire it for a minute.

What do you serve when all you have in the freezer is an ice-cold corpse?

JJ MacGregor and her best friend Kitty Padgett struggle to hold the Pismawallops PTA together, and new volunteer Letitia LeMoine isn’t making it any easier.  But when Letitia’s strangled corpse turns up where the ice cream bars should have been, things get a whole lot worse.  JJ has to shoehorn in a search for the killer along with all her other problems: divorce, a 15-year-old son with his first girlfriend, a desperate race to complete the Yearbook on time, and her own tendency to get all wobbly-kneed around the Chief of Police.  JJ just can’t help asking a few questions.  But a loud mouth and insatiable curiosity can be a dangerous combination.  Especially when someone wants her stopped.

And now. . .

Astonishingly, a blog tour celebrating this fine, fun and funny mystery launched this weekend, complete with giveaway for an ebook (well, five, actually, so you have a pretty good chance of winning).  Here's the blog tour scoop.  I can't tell you exactly when everyone will post, because it's a surprise (okay, I write better than I organize).  But all of these are worth following!  Here's the list of blogs participating in the Tour, with interviews, reviews, and guest posts by yours truly:

• Jemima Pett--tour kick-off is live now!
• http://willmacmillanjones.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/stop-me-and-die-one/
• http://outwherethebusesdontrun.com
• http://Storeybookreviews.com
• http://rosaleeRichland.blogspot.com --April 1
• Lisa Frieden--live March 28
• http://carlasarett.blogspot.com/2014/04/april-foolishness-interview-with-author.html--April 2

Amazon has the Kindle book and the paperback.  Or you can drop me an email and a paypal payment for just $16, and I'll ship you a signed copy anywhere in the US.  Or trot on over to Smashwords for an ebook in any format you can imagine!

At last, here's what you've been waiting for, the Rafflecopter gizmo!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So let me know what kind of ice cream you'd like, add some chocolate sauce, nuts, and a cherry on top, pull up a chair, and dig in!  I'll be the one in the corner with a giant bowl of double chocolate with chocolate chunks.  And a spoon in each hand.

A to Z Theme Reveal Blog Hop!

It's almost here--the crazy exercise known as the A to Z Challenge.  Hundreds of bloggers sign on each year to blog almost daily through April (we get Sundays off.  Isn't that generous?) in a big blogging party.  Why?  There are several reasons.  One is to increase traffic and (hopefully) active followers for our blogs, because a huge part of the Hop is going about and reading the blogs of others, and following those that you like.  For some of us (okay, for me), another reason is one similar to the reason for doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month): it creates a focus on my writing in my own head and life.

Last year, doing the Hop for the first time (having jumped in at rather the last minute on an impulse), I met a number of great bloggers, and also figured out what I really wanted to do with this blog.  Not bad, for something just tossed into the hopper without much thought.

This year, with my blog chugging along pretty well (as you know, I've settled into a pattern of two reviews and a Flash Fiction each week, and yes, it does encroach on my novel-writing time, but probably in a good way, since it keeps me reading and keeps me writing fiction even when all about me is editing and formatting and marketing, oh my!) (I apologize for an inexcusably long parenthetical digression. .  . now where was I?), I am a little more conscious of what I'm doing and why.  And I have a THEME.

Yeah, yeah, you say.  Get to the point already.  What is that glorious theme?

First, I'm going to tell you what it's not.  I was sorely tempted, but my theme is NOT Ice Cream (it would have been a nice marketing ploy as my new mystery, Death By Ice Cream is launching in just a few days.  But just a little too much.  And the research would probably cause serious weight gain).

Nor is my theme haiku, though the brevity of that form made it tempting.

You could write a haiku about these almond blossoms.

I toyed with the idea of world travel.

Okay, I cheated.  This isn't in Holland.  It's a few miles from home, in Golden Gate Park.  But it originally came from Holland.

And in the end, I went with my great passion: Wilderness.

Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado

Here's what the month will look like:
Mondays: Reviews of adult books on wilderness/wilderness travel/backpacking.
Tuesdays: Original fiction and non-fiction pieces on wilderness travel.
Wednesdays: Reviews of children's books on wilderness, wilderness adventures, and settling the Wild West.
Thursdays: Photos.  I do a LOT of backpacking (the US style, i.e., wilderness travel with everything I will need on my back, sleeping in tents and cooking on a dinky alcohol-burning stove).  I will be highlighting some of my best photos from around the West (US and Canadian Rockies).
Fridays: Flash Fiction.  If possible, I will do these from the Chuck Wendig prompts, and force them to fit the letters of the day.  Should be interesting.
Saturdays: a return to something I've not done much recently: posts on writing.  I'm not sure how that will relate to the wilderness theme, except writing is all about the inside of my head, which is pretty much an untamed wilderness.  We might call it the writer's journey, too.

And, of course, as often as possible, I will mention ice cream.  Because. . . you know why!

So check out the list and hop around to see what some of the exciting themes of A to Z 2014 will be!

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In related news: only three days left to enter to win a paperback copy of Death By Ice Cream.

Click the link above or in the side-bar!  Do it by Monday or lose your chance!

Okay, I lied about that.  Because tomorrow kicks off the Death By Ice Cream blog tour and e-book give-away.  Visit jemimapett.com on March 22 for a review and a chance to enter to win!

The other participating blogs are:
Gus Sanchez
Will MacMillan Jones
Storybook Reviews
Rosalee Richland
Lisa Frieden
Finishing with Carla Sarett on April 2

Blurb Reveal: Death By Ice Cream

Last week I revealed the cover for Death By Ice Cream.  This week, I'm unveiling the blurb, AKA Product Description!  The release date is March 24--watch this space!

Death By Ice Cream

What do you serve when all you have in the freezer is an ice-cold corpse?

JJ MacGregor and her best friend Kitty Padgett struggle to hold the Pismawallops PTA together, and new volunteer Letitia LeMoine isn’t making it any easier.  But when Letitia’s strangled corpse turns up where the ice cream bars should have been, things get a whole lot worse.  JJ has to shoehorn in a search for the killer along with all her other problems: divorce, a 15-year-old son with his first girlfriend, a desperate race to complete the Yearbook on time, and her own tendency to get all wobbly-kneed around the Chief of Police.  JJ just can’t help asking a few questions.  But a loud mouth and insatiable curiosity can be a dangerous combination.  Especially when someone wants her stopped.

From the author of The Ninja Librarian, an exciting mystery that never loses sight of its sense of humor.  

*****

In other big news: If you'll be near Tucson, AZ on March 15, I will be signing books at a table in the Children's Tent at the Tucson Festival of Books.  It's on the Univ. of AZ campus, and the festival is free, so stop in and say Hi!

Hang onto your socks--The Death By Ice Cream cover is here!

What can I say?  It's done, and it's beautiful!  I am delighted to reveal the cover for Death By Ice Cream, due to be released March 24.

And, since it will be released in paperback as well as an ebook, here's the whole cover, front, back and spine:

 Huge thanks to my incredible cover artist/designed, Danielle English!

The Title is Settled, and no more debate!

Okay, not only did the poll decide it--just barely--but my Mom confirmed it: the title of the new book (previewed Friday) will be Death By Ice Cream.

Here's the rationale, as thought out by one of my friends, in a nutshell: Death By Ice Cream "is unabashedly cutesy cozy."  And that's the right tone.  I'm not sure if "cutesy" is 100% on, but I do want a potential reader to see at once that there's nothing hard-boiled about this mystery.  Mom felt that The Corpse in the Cooler could as easily be a bit grim, but the whole ice cream thing pretty securely anchors it in the cozy section.  And that's where I want it to be.  She also noted that much would depend on the cover, which must indicate a hint of the absurd.

So, that settled, I'm off to the cover artist.  By the way, I had said elsewhere that I would give an ARC to the person who suggested the winning title.  Oddly, as far as I can tell, Death By Ice Cream was my suggestion.  If anyone knows better, let me know.  And I'll send a copy to the runner-up, Charlene from the Goodreads.com Cozy Mysteries group (who came up with The Corpse in the Cooler, truly a great title as well!), instead.

Thanks to everyone who helped!  Your input and thought really did help me get a grip on what the title should be and do, as well as which one it should be.

Here's to many more goofy mysteries with the Pismawallops Island PTA!

Fiction Friday: Sneak peak at Death By Ice Cream

Well, the poll has made a fairly strong showing for Death By Ice Cream for the title of my new mystery.  I have to say, I'm still waffling a little.  I really do like The Corpse in the Cooler.  And really the voting is pretty evenly split.  I  may let my Mom decide.

Either way, it's time to reward those who've been helping me decide, or fail to decide, with a sneak preview of the first few pages of the book, as they currently stand.  There are still two or three more steps to go through before this is ready for release (another overall edit to check the changes I made, a read-aloud to find things that just don't sound right, and a final proof reading at the least).  But this is far enough along to share.  So, in place of Flash Fiction Friday, I offer. . .

Sneak Preview Friday!  (Bet you thought I'd go for the alliteration and make it Sneak Preview Saturday.  Ha!  Fooled you!)

DEATH BY ICE CREAM

Chapter One: Everybody Wanted Her Gone

“Curse it, Kitty, do something about that woman!”

To emphasize my point, I pounded my fist on the battered and scarred table between us, banging hard enough to make Maddy’s cell phone jump.  Kitty Padgett flinched, her chair scraping as she tried to shift a bit farther from me.  My hand stung from the blow.  Instead of apologizing, though I felt bad for startling her, I glared at our PTA President and waited. 

“But—” Kitty waved her hands vaguely.  Kitty was my best friend, but I couldn’t deny that sometimes she was way more mouse than cat.  Her lack of spine increased my irritation, so I pushed on.

“If she quits the Yearbook, fine, we’ll manage.  I’ll do it myself it I have to.”  Everyone gasped, shocked by what I had just said.  But it was too late to take it back.  Desperate cases call for desperate measures. 

A chance gripe session among friends had morphed into an emergency meeting of the Orcaville High School PTA.  We four—me and Kitty, Maddy and Carlos—had gravitated to the teachers’ room to plot damage control, and now I’d put my foot in it.  I took a deep breath and stuck to my guns.  I didn’t like to back down, even from myself.  “Letitia LeMoine is boorish, overbearing, and opinionated, and she’s alienating everyone in the PTA.  Heck, everyone on this Island!”

“She sure is.”  That was Carlos Hernandez, our Secretary.  We all looked at him and he shrugged.  “She tells me I am not smart enough to run the Spring Faire.  And that my English is not good enough to be Secretary.”  Carlos spoke with a slight accent, but his English was better than that of most people who post opinions on the Internet.  “I do not need that crap.”

Carlos’s complaint unleashed the feelings Madeleine Takahira had been keeping politely bottled up.  Before Kitty could offer Carlos reassurances that his English was quite good enough for us, Maddy was airing her own gripes.

“She thinks I’m no good!  She says my books are a total mess.”

Kitty and I exchanged glances.  We’d known Letitia LeMoine’s opinion about Maddy’s bookkeeping, but hadn’t known she’d insulted Maddy to her face.  Matters had gotten even worse than I’d thought.  It didn’t matter that Letitia was right about Maddy’s skills as Treasurer.  If anything needed saying, it was Kitty, not Letitia who should have brought it up.  Kitty hadn’t, because Maddy knew she had a problem.  What on earth was LeMoine trying to do, anyway?

“She said she didn’t know anyone could be so incompetent!”  Maddy sniffed and swallowed hard.  I hoped she could keep her tears under control.  Sloppy emotions make me cranky.  “I can’t help it if I have trouble with numbers,” Maddy nearly wailed.  But she didn’t cry.

I took a deep breath, tapped into some store of patience I didn’t know I had, and reached out a hand.  “Okay, Maddy. I’ll help you straighten out the books.  I just wish you’d come to me sooner.”  She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose.  For just a moment, I wondered if she was bothered by more than accusations of incompetence.  I dismissed the idea as soon as I’d thought it.  Mrs. Loudmouth’s bullying was justification enough for tears, at least for someone as sensitive as Maddy Takahira. 

“We were just fine until That Woman came along.”  Maddy’s thoughts echoed my own.

“Yeah,” Carlos agreed. 

“Like I said, Kitty,” I began.

Kitty Padgett sighed.  She knew we were right.  She just hates conflict even more than I hate tears.  “Okay, okay.  You guys are right.  But I hate to do it.”  She eyed me.  As her VP, I’m supposed to do whatever needs doing.  “Can’t you talk to her, JJ?”

“Do you really think that’s a good plan?”

“No.”  She sighed again.  Kitty’d known me for seven years, ever since I came to Pismawallops Island.  She knew tact wasn’t one of my strengths.  She might even have wondered if it was in my vocabulary.  “Okay, I’ll talk to her.  She really does need to back off and let other people work in their own way.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” I encouraged.  “You’re the President.  We do not need someone who makes everyone else want to leave.”

I must’ve been a little firmer in tone than I’d realized, because Annette Waverly, the principal, stuck her blonde head in the door just then, an unseemly wrinkle of concern creasing her carefully made-up face.

“Is everything quite alright?  I thought I heard someone, ah, yelling?”

Nobody was yelling.  Just being . . . emphatic. 

“Everything’s fine,” Kitty assured her before I could say anything to further upset the principal’s equanimity.

“Okay, then.”  Annette’s face reorganized itself into something like a smile.  “I’ll leave you to it, then.”  She withdrew, closing the door gently, in exaggerated contrast to my banging and raised voice.

“Should I have told her about Ms. L?” Kitty wanted to know.

We all shrugged.  Ms. Waverly was new that year and still, in April, something of an unknown quantity.  Nor was the Vice Principal, Elvis Fingal, likely to be much use.  If he were, it would be a first.

“I think it would not be helpful,” said Carlos.  As the school custodian, he was in the best position to know how the principal would react.  “It would just upset her.  You talk to Mrs. L., Kitty, and it will be okay.  You are good with people, you know.”

Kitty sighed, unconvinced by the compliment.  “If only she’d at least learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’  But there you are.  If she did, she’d be someone different, wouldn’t she?”  Kitty got to her feet.  “The Orcaville PTA is not going to kowtow to Letitia LeMoine, even if she is from the City, and we’re just Islanders.”  Out here in Puget Sound, Seattle was the Big City, even for those of us up closer to Bellingham.

From what I’d heard, Ms. L. probably was a bit more local than she let on, but I wasn’t going to bring that up just now.  It was enough that Kitty was ready to stand up and put the woman in her place before she could make a complete mess of our PTA.  I just hoped she wouldn’t get all huffy and quit the Yearbook, because I really, really did not want that job.

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