The holiday season has begun. Today is Small Business Saturday and CyberMonday is fast approaching. If you like a book or an author, here are some quick ways you can spread the news and help your friendly neighborhood writer. 1. Leave a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, or other book sites. It doesn't have to be a long, detailed literary analysis. It can be a couple of sentences. Book retailers use the number of reviews for ad placement, author ranking, and marke

As I write this, I am distracted because what I want to be doing is reading Maggie King’s new release Murder at the Moonshine Inn, Book #2 of the Hazel Rose Book Group Mysteries. This distraction, luckily, feeds into my subject, the appeal and hazards of mystery series. Maggie’s book serves as an example of the “appeal”; I’ve had a recent read that I’ll put in the “hazard” category. I find Hazel Rose an engaging sleuth, so I want to know what she’s up to in this new book. Yes

There are different branches of law enforcement including, Tribal, Federal, task force, State Police, Private Security, Sheriff, Local Pol

Hazel Rose, the amateur sleuth in my Hazel Rose Book Group series, is a romance writer. She joins an impressive list of fictional writer sleuths. Here are just a few: Jo Bannister Dr. Clio Rees is a physician and mystery writer Ray Bradbury’s unnamed writer and amateur sleuth operates in Los Angeles, California Agatha Christie Ariadne Oliver is a mystery writer, friend of Hercule Poirot, and fan of apples. Here’s a list of the Christie novels where she appears. Natasha Cooper