Monthly Archives: November 2024

$20 GC – Runaway Hearts: Seduced By Danger by Elsa Jacobs @xpressotours

Posted on by
4

Runaway Hearts: Seduced by Danger
Elsa Jacobs
Publication date: November 1st 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Suspense

Have you ever wished to run away from your life?

Start anew and leave everything bad behind…

Marianne, a young woman hungry for a fresh start, can’t wait for her beach house getaway. But her plans take an unexpected turn when she picks up a mysterious hitchhiker on the way.

The irresistible stranger is the sole heir of a Japanese *organization*, and despite Marianne’s own anxiety struggles, she can’t say no to someone in need. As they travel together, swapping past traumas and dreams, love sparks. To heal her troubled mind, she must embrace her true desires, no matter how twisted they seem.

But as love deepens, an enemy from the man’s past threatens to pull them apart. In the midst of looming danger, Marianne must choose between sticking to her anxious ways or diving into the unknown for true love.

Get ready for a wild ride where each page brings new revelations and perils, leading to a destination unlike any other.

Runaway Hearts is a slow burn, steamy, contemporary romantic suspense with morally questionable characters. HEA.

Goodreads / Amazon

—

EXCERPT:

As I return to my car, a painful golden gaze greets me. The second I pull out of the alley, tires screech in the distance, a silver SUV closing in on us at great speed.

Stranger Danger turns his head when he sees my wide eyes. “Drive!” he yells with desperation.

And just like that, I’m thrown into a heart-pumping car-chase scene.

My hands grip the steering wheel with an iron resolve.

The engine roars as I speed through the city streets, determined not to be caught by my pursuers.

I’m not on the menu tonight!

My mind races, searching for an escape route. The unfamiliar streets of the city blur past me as I navigate through the labyrinth of alleys and side roads.

“Wow…” the wounded stranger says in the back.

I burst into a weird cackle. “Glad you’re enjoying the ride! Buckle up, it might be a rocky road.” Mm. Ice cream.

“Just try not to kill us both,” he replies, amusement and genuine concern in his voice.

Each turn is calculated, each maneuver executed with precision. I can’t afford a single mistake. It’s easier than the go-karts!

And I love it.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, I catch a glimpse of the pursuer’s SUV closing in. Their dark, tinted windows hide their identities, but their malevolent presence creeps like a shadow up my spine. A sentiment I can’t recognize fuels my every move, pushing me to the limits of speed and agility.

“Who’re they? Why’re they chasing you?” I shout, teeth clenched as I drift a tight turn.

“Not now! Just fucking drive!” he snaps, tension radiating from him like heat.

The answer should scare me, but instead, it ignites something within. A reckless defiance maybe. I punch the gas harder. The SUV fades in the distance.

Where’s the police now?

As I navigate through the streets, the city becomes a haze. The thrill of the chase is intoxicating, but the danger is very real.

“Just one more crazy move and I’ll lose them,” I say, pulse thudding hard in my throat as adrenaline spikes through my system.

I need to shake them off for good. Ahead lies a narrow alleyway, barely wide enough to fit my car. Shit. My fingers grip the wheel tighter. The alley is empty. On an impulse, I slam the gas, my heart drumming as I squeeze through the tight space. The pursuers hesitate, thrown off by the daring move. I bet their SUV is too large to come in here.

I cackle, my breath hitching with the rush, as I put distance between us and the furious men. The sharp sting of sweat trails down my spine, but relief crashes through me.

“Ha! Suck on that, you oversized tin cans!” I yell, voice ragged, throat dry from the wild tension that’s been gripping me.

It’s been ages since I’ve felt truly alive. I rush with abandon, the music blasting. Nothing can touch me at this moment of pure euphoria.

As the sky turns shades of pink and orange, I finally reach the outskirts. The energy from the chase has left me breathless yet exhilarated. With every turn, the weight of my life lifted off my shoulders, replaced by a newfound sense of freedom. I bite back the “whoop!” threatening to escape my mouth.

I didn’t even know I could drive like that. I slide the sun visor’s mirror to look at myself and burst out laughing. My cheeks are a deep pink, my eyes have an electric gleam, and my lips are stretched into the most wicked smile I’ve ever seen on myself.

“That was wild,” I whisper to myself.

Stranger Danger shakes his head with amusement and worry. “You drive like a maniac.”

“Maniac but living!” I reply, a wild grin on my face.

But the adrenaline surge recedes, leaving my heart rate back to normal and my heart empty. A quick look to the rearview mirror shows me an empty road.

Phew.

Stranger Danger has changed his clothing, but he remains lying across the back seat. I didn’t even see him change his underwear, and that’s a disappointment. A car chase will do that to you.

Author Bio:

I’m Elsa Jacobs, an indie author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense/thriller. I write unique love stories with a substantial amount of twists, turns, and spices.

Let me tell you how it all started. A few years back, I was battling brutal insomnia that just wouldn’t quit. Nights were a blur of characters and plots swirling around in my head, refusing to let me catch some shut-eye. It was maddening. Writing became my escape hatch—I had to get these stories out of my head.

In less than a year, I wrote four drafts, all because I needed an outlet for the chaos that was keeping me up at night. Publishing wasn’t even on my radar; I just needed some peace of mind. But then, something unexpected happened. I sent a chapter to an editor, not really expecting much to come of it.

But instead of a brush-off, I found myself teaming up with that editor to bring my first novel to life.

It was a game-changer. That’s when I decided to take the plunge and share the rest of my drafts, bit by bit, with the world.

My stories might have been born out of sleepless nights, but they’ve become my sanctuary, and I hope they become yours too.

Cheers,

Elsa.

Website / Goodreads / Instagram / Facebook


GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

—

  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • I am an Amazon affiliate/product images are linked.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

$25 GC – Here Lyeth by Johanna Frank @xpressotours

Posted on by
3

Here Lyeth
Johanna Frank
(A Lifeline Fantasy Novel)
Publication date: November 1st 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Supernatural

A small-scale supernatural fantasy on big, real-life values. A story of rewiring unworthiness and searching for a place to belong. Pre-order your copy today for an extraordinary, heartwarming read that is sure to unearth you. Release date, November 1, 2024.

Answers are buried beneath a grave marker. Only it happens to be her own.

Something was missing. It was easy for Lexxie to bury that niggling sense, she had all the love and protection a young woman needed. But when the man she thought to be her father spilled a fever-pitched confession—that she’d been taken from her real family as an infant—her content and isolated life ended.

STIRRING… EXTRAORDINARY… UPLIFTING…

Angry and heartbroken, Lexxie left the people she loved on a mere hint—her true father lived in Vereiteln Dorf, two villages over. Once there, she’s drawn to an unconsecrated graveyard. Since answers don’t come easy from the locals, she’s forced to make many assumptions and patch puzzling pieces together. But the more she does, the more her presence in this superstitious village becomes a threat, and the more she gives credence to a voice coming from a pit of ashes. The perils of a noose amid a 1688 witch hunt lay heavy on her shoulders.

Years earlier, in the same village, young Meginhardt succumbs to a vicious attack. Ethereal beings take him on a time-traveling journey to shake away the lad’s deeply rooted struggles of unworthiness.

But when Meginhardt learns that some woman named Lexxie is the chosen one to carry forward his father’s line of descendants, he throws away all he’s been shown. Fits of jealousy ensue—a dream shattered. It should have been him. He becomes frantic to ensure the demise of this undeserving woman. In apparitional form, he delivers Lexxie a message, face to face.

Her future lyeth in his words.

-The standalone background story to the Prologue in The Gatekeeper’s Descendants
-Book length approximately 90,000 words
-Recommended for Young Adults (14+) and up
-An edifying story involving feelings of unworthiness and a need to belong
-A small-scale fantasy representing the outskirts of heaven

More from the author:

The Gatekeeper’s Descendants, a standalone family drama involving bullying and grief

Jophiel’s Secret, a standalone adventure involving unforgiveness and grief

Goodreads / Amazon

—

EXCERPT:

Anger tucked aside, she scurried up without bothering to read the inscriptions on the risers. Needing the strength of both arms, she pulled the door open wide. The haunting drawn-out creak confirmed a renewal of focus on her single priority. Find my lineage, my true father. Then new life is certain to follow.

An entrance hall revealed itself, though dark with looming shadows. Unable to avoid inhaling the displeasing odor, a mixture of lingering day-old incense and strong lye soap, her throat did a gaggle. Nothing like the sweet-pine pews inside her white-stucco church.

Attempting to step quiet-like, she still clicked her shoes against the marble floor, her feet inside all that lavish commenced to swell and pine for attention. Huh, stomping through town in modish spikes, ’tis not wise.

A figure across the room sat up on its knees and twisted a neck to inspect the visitor. Even in the darkness, the woman appeared maturely aged.

Unfolding with a painful slowness, the woman stood and rubbed her hands into her apron. With such a crippling figure, she couldn’t have had an easy go at life. Her head, a weighty slump, her neck, cranked to one side. Had she eaten in a while? So thin. And dressed in all black. Scrubbing a floor that already shone—preparing for a wedding or cleaning after the ceremony of a disposed corpse perhaps?

“State yer business,” the woman gnarled.

The plucky tone surprised. “Guten morgen, I’m, ah, here to examine the registers for births and deaths—if I may.” Politeness best protect her from being turned away. Harmon always said one achieved more with kindness than with harshness.

“Yer a stranger.” The woman’s shaking middle finger accused.

Huh. This woman the epitome of the latter.

“Madam, ’tis that I am. Please be, I intend no harm. I assure you. Just seeking. I shan’t be long.” Should be easy to check births around the time of her own, though this woman need not know that specific detail.

“Seeking? Huh, seeking ye what?”

Was it so wrong to seek? Lexxie sucked in a full breath. Her throat irritated by resins, she stifled a cough. But nay, she hadn’t come all this way to permit some grumpy old spinster to blockade her. Forget the kindness of honey, Harmon. Time for some harsh vinegar.

“Are ye cloaking history? Is that what you are saying, madam?”

The old woman shot an indication to a wooden door hidden beside the nave.

Lexxie jockeyed between pews in the direction the bony finger specified, stifling the clicks of her shoes as much as possible.

Whew. She knocked.

“We don’t lock history.” The old woman’s crusty voice echoed, having the last word.

This door, not nearly the heft nor clangor as the one fronting the church, Lexxie nudged and invited herself in. Larger than one might expect, the narrow room hosted wooden shelving loaded with books up to the ceiling sidelong. A movable ladder rested against the end wall, and an unlit kerosene lamp awaited on the single high table.

Help would be nice, some guidance as to the order of records. Lexxie glanced back where the scowling woman gave her a second glance. Then again, Lexxie could figure it out herself. After lighting the lamp, she shut the door for privacy.

A musty flavor and layers of dust from decades past awoke and scurried about. No window to allow a breeze of any sort. Once her sneezes settled, she walked the length of the room, thankful now for those daylong lessons in reading and writing with Grossmutter. ’Twas the age of enlightenment, Grossmutter would say. She kept at least one lesson ahead of Lexxie, so as to in turn share the blessing.

A thin cotton curtain covered one section of shelving beside a nailed sign—Prohibited Books. She edged closer to shelving with books of various sizes, difficult to distinguish due to caging, each row with its own locked latch. Huh, don’t lock history, say you?

She wandered to a series of consistent volumes laying heavy on their own, their leathery pasteboard covers bound with cord and red edging their pages. Numbers stitched atop.

Years, yes! Those ones were organized by years. They had to be the records she sought.

All she possessed now was her birth year. Harmon wouldn’t have lied about her age, would he?

A shiver ran through her veins. There had to be over seventy books, each covering a year, each varying in thickness.

Here it be: 1671. Energizing another dust cloud with a loud exhale, she heaved the book off the shelf and clutched it tight to her bosom. Her heartbeat thumped against the pasteboard cover. The registry for the year she was born must speak to her, reveal information she was desperate for. Vital to get on with any way of future.

She released her gripping hug, placed the heavy book on the table, and wiped dry her sweaty palms down the skirt of her new frock.

Overwhelm assaulted her. Harmon, the loving father she adored all those years. Grossmutter, the wise, gentle, and kind grandmother, her only female influencer. Was it true they be not her family? Would opening this book mean turning her back on them?

’Course, she’d already done so, hadn’t she?

If only they were cruel or unloving. Made her work like a slave. Cussed and cursed her day in and day out. This then would be so much easier. Her fingers twitched to shove the book back onto its shelf. Her legs urged her to take flight, run all the way back to Avondale, and bury this outlandish nonsense.

But nonsense, it weren’t.

The pounding in her chest begged to keep going, threatening to explode if she stopped now. She almost missed the rubbing of hinges, the only door to this library tomb opening, a male figure entering, the unwelcoming floor-polishing ogre poking her head around him to catch a glimpse.

“Searching, are we?” The man’s monotoned query struck an unexplainable chord.

Author Bio:

Not proud to admit, I’ve struggled with authority and routine since I can remember. A feisty red-headed child, I’ve barrelled my fist through windowpanes, ran away numerous times (to a bowling alley of all places), and even once, used a water pistol on my high school science teacher (right in his face, it was a dare). I actually managed to attain a master’s degree in business (though, really didn’t use it much). Instead, I preferred weekday evening classes in theology and weekend scribbling sessions of fantasy fiction. Losing a beloved teenage daughter to cancer snapped me to attention, then another (the second, a dear step-daughter) really did me in. Besides relishing the dearness of my husband and our other three children and their families, I write fantasy fiction with meaning. My mantra (which I made up of course) …because even a little heavenly imagination can loosen the chains of life. – Johanna Frank

“Frank, one of Canada’s emerging authors in spiritual fantasy, walks a fine line between general fantasy and faith-based fiction. Her work aims to innovate and transcend traditional boundaries, catering to a hungry market of curious readers who don’t want to be preached to but are open to exploring spiritual themes through fantasy.” – Sheri Hoyte, Reader Views

Website / Goodreads / Instagram / Facebook


GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

—

  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • I am an Amazon affiliate/product images are linked.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

Giveaway – If You Lie by Caleb Stephens @xpressotours

Posted on by

If You Lie: A Thriller
Caleb Stephens
Publication date: November 1st 2024
Genres: Adult, Thriller

A buried past. A new-age cult. A floating prison with no way off.

Seven years ago, Olivia woke up in the trunk of a stranger’s car—and barely escaped with her life. She’s been looking over her shoulder ever since.

Now, Olivia is a true-crime podcaster on a mission to help other women avoid her fate. But years spent covering violence and crime have left her burned out. So when Olivia’s estranged sister Quinn invites her to reconnect on an exclusive cruise, she jumps at the chance for a break…only this trip won’t be the relaxing vacation she’s hoping for.

The ship is elegant, the meals are divine, and the people are friendly—maybe too friendly. But Quinn isn’t the sister Olivia remembers. And strange things are starting to happen that echo Olivia’s past in unsettling ways.

When someone on the ship goes missing, Olivia realizes she’s playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Only this time, she might not survive.

Goodreads / Amazon

—

EXCERPT:

Sounds came.

The steady ping of rain drumming against steel.

The muted whoosh of wind. The high whine of rubber kissing asphalt.

I was moving.

Why am I moving?

Air clawed up my throat and slid back down again—slowly, painfully—my lungs pulling harder than my esophagus would allow, my chest rising and falling in uneven shifts. I couldn’t breathe.

I should be able to—

My eyelids snapped open to darkness. Pure black. I tried to scream and couldn’t. My voice was gone, lost in my burning throat. Another sound came instead—this one closer, directly overhead.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

I raised my hands and brushed a loose rod, then pushed past it and felt cool metal press against my palm. I followed it lower, the metal curving behind my head until it terminated in a rubber seal.

A car, I thought. I’m in a trunk.

Oh, God …

Oh, fuck.

It’s why my knees were jammed in a fetal position, why a rough pad of carpet burned against my cheek and scratched my neck. A shot of cold panic swam down my spine. Time stuttered, and I wheezed for oxygen. It felt like I was breathing through a straw. I was going to pass out if I didn’t get it together and fast.

Focus, Olivia. Stay calm.

And then: He thinks I’m dead.

It’s why my hands weren’t bound, why my mouth wasn’t gagged. It’s why my ankles weren’t slung in an interstate of knots. The man who’d done this to me thought I was dead. I could still feel his fingers squeezing, digging into my neck, could still hear his voice burning hot in my ear.

Fucking die, already!

Those words pouring over me in a shower of sour breath.

Clack. C-Clack. Clack.

Think, Olivia! You have to think!

I slowed my breathing and forced my mind to calm. There had to be a way to open the trunk or signal another car. A wire to rip free from the brake lights or a latch to pop. Didn’t all the newer cars have those specifically for situations like this? For women who, like me, simply disappeared?

And I would disappear if I didn’t find a way to get out.

My heart sloshed in my chest, and I rolled to my right, toward the sidewall of the trunk, and extended an arm. My fingers brushed over objects I recognized. Jumper cables, and a can of gas. Coiled rope and boxes. A hard plastic case. Duct tape. Nothing else.

Jesus, no latch.

I tried the other side, muttering a prayer as my hands crawled through a graveyard of clinking bottles, my fingers scraping over the dry brush of cardboard and through the crinkle of plastic sacks. Dust tickled the back of my nose, and I nearly unleashed a sneeze before I bit it off. Don’t! He’ll hear you. Then I tried again, moving slower this time, feeling for what had to be there.

And it was—nestled a few inches above the floor of the trunk.

A trunk release. A lever to pull.

Reality wobbled. My heart fluttered and crashed.

Work, I thought. Please, God, work.

I pulled.

There came a click, and the world exploded into a fireball of light. A gray sky moved above me, swollen with thunderheads, trees sweeping past on either side. Headlights coasted behind the car in a sea of rushing metal. Cold rain lashed against my neck. I forced myself upright, and the brakes slammed and sent me hurtling backward as the car screeched to a stop.

Move! Move! Move!

I scrambled from the trunk.

One foot connected with the ground. The other slipped. I crashed to the road, and the sound of rain filled my ears along with the heavy thunk of a door opening. Two boots hit asphalt.

His boots.

Air scabbed over my lips. The world swam.

Go! I pushed myself upright—and I ran. Across the white line on the shoulder of the road and into traffic with brakes shrieking all around me. Horns tearing past. Rain pelting my face. Wind hissing in my ears. Behind me came a full-throat roar.

“Stop, you fucking bitch!”

My lungs burned for air, everything smearing to a blur.

“I said, stop!” Louder this time. Closer.

But I didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. I kept running—pushing through the fire in my chest, ignoring the pain in my throat—until I stumbled off the road and tumbled down a grass-slicked descent.

Rolling now. Everything spinning. Gasping for air.

I splashed into a pool of muddy water and came up coughing, wiping my eyes to a sight that filled me with terror. The man stood above me on the hill, looking down with one hand balled into a fist and the other holding a knife.

You’re dead, I thought. He’s going to kill you.

A cloud of blue and red light rose behind him followed by a voice. “Remain where you are! Drop the knife!”

But the man didn’t. He just stared down at me with his breath turning to mist.

And took a step. Took another.

Then the gunshots rang out.


Author Bio:

Caleb Stephens is an award-winning author writing from Denver, Colorado. His novels include the thrillers If You Lie, The Girls in the Cabin, and Feeders, as well as the darkly humorous urban fantasy novel, Soul Couriers, which is forthcoming in 2025. His fiction collection If Only a Heart and Other Tales of Terror includes the short story “The Wallpaper Man,” which was adapted to film by Falconer Film & Media in 2022. He’s hard at work writing his next thriller.

Website / Goodreads / Instagram / TikTok


GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

—

  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • I am an Amazon affiliate/product images are linked.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

$25 GC Giveaway – Dying For Monet by Claudia Riess @goddessfish @ClaudiaRiess

Posted on by

DYING FOR MONET Claudia Riess

GENRE:  Mystery

BLURB:

Dying for Monet, book 5 of Riess’s art history mystery series, opens on a gala evening auction at Laszlo’s, an upstart auction house in New York City. After a much sought-after Impressionist still life painting is without notice withdrawn from the auction block, its broker is found dead at the foot of an imposing statue in Laszlo’s courtyard. Amateur sleuths Erika Shawn and Harrison Wheatley are once again drawn into an investigation involving an art-related homicide, this time with one sharing an unnerving coincidence with violent crimes occurring abroad.

EXCERPT

Greenwich, Connecticut  January 5, 1927

It was time. The mavericks, all thirty of them represented at the first Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, 1874, had passed away. Not that a clean sweep was essential to the plan, but there was a sense of closure about it, as useless yet gratifying as an account ledger balanced to the penny.

The framed canvases were propped up against the far wall of the living room like hostages awaiting their release. The overstuffed couch with its mesmerizing pattern of exotic birds had been moved into the dining room to clear the wall space for them. The drapes were drawn and the room was bathed in artificial light, yet the paintings seemed to be standing out in the open, beneath the sky. It was the sheer vibrancy of color that created the illusion, Elizabeth Barden thought, as she surveyed the display, guilt creeping into her enjoyment of it. Though there’d been no law against it, it had been criminal to have kept these luminous visions in the dark all these years. If only she hadn’t been bound by a promise!

She remembered her parents sitting her down at the kitchen table in this very home, thirty-three years ago it was, the two of them planting themselves opposite her, looking more grimly serious than she’d ever seen them. She was fourteen years old at the time and not yet settled on what to make of herself, looks and intelligence ratings still torturously pending. She imagined she was about to hear that she’d been adopted or had three months to live. What they told her was less dire, but required a more sustained focus to take in. The paintings would be her legacy, they said, but in order for this to be the case, she must follow their instructions down to the letter. She had to clasp their hands in hers—as good as swearing on the bible—and promise to do so. The mood lightened only once during the interview, and that was when she’d pronounced the artist’s name as if it rhymed with “bonnet.” “Monet,” her mother had corrected, grinning. “Mow the grass. Neigh says the horse.”

The memory did not draw a smile. How could it, when these prisoners stood before her in dutiful formation? How brilliantly they’d persevered without a trace of reproach marring their freshness! And wasn’t it curious, how her gaze seemed to be drawn—and return when it wandered elsewhere— to the still life of a Wedgewood vase teeming with flowers—gladioli, lilies, wildflowers; a riot of color she would hardly call “still.” Not her favorite genre, still life, but she’d felt the same sort of instant affinity to this painting as she’d had with her lover, Jacob, not at all her type, but upon an exchanged look, bound to him body and soul. And of course, in a manner of speaking he, too, like the painting, had been hidden for far too long from the embrace of natural light. She must free him, too, from the dark. She had been intending for a year—what was she thinking, more than a year—to tell her most dear but tiresome husband of her affair and the necessity for a divorce. The imminence of the afternoon’s scheduled eve

nt strengthened her resolve. She would end the secrecy tonight.

Hard to believe that barely one hour from now, unless God or chance intervened, the transaction would be under way. The wealthy young art collector, Lewis Keller, along with the gallery owner who had used his networking skills to nose him out and was serving as broker in the deal, would soon be rapping at the door of the sprawling old ranch-house where Elizabeth had lived all her life, half of it with her husband, Wallace. The gallery owner’s entourage of packers and transporters would be on hand as well. The collector, a bit wet behind the ears, she’d discovered when he’d first come to look over the paintings, had seemed to rely more on the gallery owner’s aesthetic judgment than on his own. Like a pet owner forced by circumstances to give up her precious charge, she hoped that the man to whom she was relinquishing the paintings would treat them with the care they deserved.

Before withdrawing to her room to freshen up, Elizabeth stepped into the kitchen to see how her husband was coming along with the needless crudité platter he was arranging for their guests.

“Ah, Wally,” she said rather sadly, thinking of what was ahead for the poor man tonight, “an unaccompanied champagne toast would have been quite sufficient.”

“I know, Liz, I know,” Wallace said, putting down the knife with which he had been slicing carrots into sticks. “But you must admit, a little gesture of thoughtfulness goes a long away.” He tapped his apron-bibbed chest for emphasis.

“You’re right, dear,” Elizabeth agreed, gritting her teeth at his habit of speaking in aphorisms. The knife was lying on the counter unattended, and she imagined, for an instant as fleeting and pleasant as a sunny landscape striking an Impressionist’s eye, of stabbing him with it.

AUTHOR Bio and Links

Claudia Riess has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and has edited several art history monographs. Stolen Light, the first book in her art history mystery series, was chosen by Vassar’s Latin American history professor for distribution to the college’s people-to-people trips to Cuba.  To Kingdom Come, the fourth, will be added to the syllabus of a survey course on West and Central African Art at a prominent Midwestern university.  Claudia has written a number of articles for Mystery Readers Journal, Women’s National Book Association, the Sisters in Crime Bloodletter, and Mystery Scene magazine.  To read more about Claudia and her work, visit the author’s website.

  • Website: http://www.claudiariessbooks.com
  • Twitter: http://twitter.com/ClaudiaRiess
  • Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaRiessBooks
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claudiariessbooks/
  • Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/claudiariessbooks/
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the tour and comment. The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. Follow the tour HERE.

  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • I am an Amazon affiliate/product images are linked.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!