A Cutthroat Update

I keep getting asked about more Cutthroat books, so I thought I'd clarify where we stand on those.

I'm currently about halfway through writing #7, which will be called KICKOUT CLAUSE, for real this time. I hope to have the book out by the end of the year, but I can't guarantee anything. Sometimes stuff happens, you know?

I have plans for books 8 and 9. Fairly sure I know exactly what'll happen in ...#8, and I have a good if basic idea for #9 based on what I know will have to happen in the series at that point. I'm working off a basic story arc here. The same way the first five books were planned together, these four (6-9) are planned as one long, over-arching storyline, too, with one book (hopefully) flowing seamlessly into the next. 

There may or may not be a wedding at the end of #9. I'm just not sure yet whether it'll fit there or not. It depends on length and how the end of #9 winds up. If there isn't a wedding in #9, I'll either write a book 10, or a novella or short story.

God willing and all that, of course. Again, stuff happens.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what'll happen. I could possibly foresee another book or novella, if things turn out the way I think they will, but it's hard to make a committed, settled relationship work in fiction, long-term. All the tension is gone, and it becomes sort of boring to read about. To write about, too. So I don't want to drag things out forever. I know you guys love Rafe and Savannah - I do too - but at some point it'll be time to wave goodbye and let them get on with their lives.

Not quite yet, though.

The Next Big Thing - take 4

Welcome, boys and girls, to another round of The Next Big Thing, this one courtesy of the fabulous Lexi George. If you haven't read the fabulous Lexi's books - starting with Demon Hunting in Dixie - you must. And just to whet your appetite, here's the fabulous Lexi herself, reading the Weenie scene, at the Olde City, New Blood conference in St. Augustine in February.

 

 

 

And now, onto the Next Big Thing, which brings it back to me and my latest book.

1) What is the working title of your next book?

 

Change of Heart. It's the 6th book in the Savannah Martin mystery series, about a recovering Southern Belle realtor in Nashville, Tennessee, and the trouble she gets up to in love and in life.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

 

It's the 6th book in a series, so I'm always looking for plot ideas that might fit what I've already got going. The inciting incident - the incident that kicks off the action, namely Rafe sneaking out of bed at 6 AM - was just the next logical progression in the relationship, and then it became about what else might happen when Savannah was up and out earlier than usual. Catching Tim Briggs rinsing blood off his hands in the office sink became the next thing that happened, and it went from there.   

3) What genre does your book fall under?

 

It's a romantic mystery with an amateur female sleuth.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

British-Nigerian actor O.T. Fagbenle looks a lot like I imagine Rafe in my head. Boris Kodjoe and Shemar Moore would be OK too, although they're both getting too old. And Savannah looks sort of like Faith Hill: a pretty and sexy girl-next-door type.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

It doesn't really have one. Or maybe I should say that I haven't taken the time to come up with one. The tagline on the book is "The honeymoon's over..."

6) Who is publishing your book?

It's part of my self-published series, so the short answer is, I am.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Two months. The amount of time it usually takes me to write this length book.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Most people seem to think the Cutthroat Business books remind them of Stephanie Plum. Not surprisingly, since that's what I was reading when I wrote the first book. There's more emphasis on the romantic relationship, though. The series is really one long romance novel more than anything else. Unless the mysteries are directly related to the romantic relationship, they're more in the vein of background.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My readers! I thought the series was finished after five books, but so many people emailed me asking for more, that I figured I'd give it a try and see if I could get back into it. It's been nice, visiting with old friends. I just hope I've managed to recapture whatever magic the original books had!

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

I have no idea. It's just the next installment of the ongoing saga of Savannah and Rafe, you know?

 

* * *

Change of Heart is available in digital format from the following e-tailers, starting today:
 

 

AMAZON

 

BARNES AND NOBLE

SMASHWORDS

KOBO


Kobo, Apple, Sony and a few others are on their way.

A tiny tidbit of Kickout Clause

Now that DIY-7, Home for the Homicide, is safely on its way to New York and Berkley Prime Crime - and a week ahead of schedule, too! - I am reading through the first 144 pages of Kickout Clause, the 6th Cutthroat Business mystery, preparatory to getting back to work on it.

And I thought I'd share a little teaser for those of you who are eagerly awaiting the new release. It'll be sometime in May. Early May if the going's good, later May if something comes up or I can't keep up at my usual crazy pace. I have a little over half the book to go - 50,000 words or so; maybe 170 pages - and then it's yours, all yours.

But in the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this little excerpt from somewhere in - I think - chapter 4. Please forgive any errors; this is an unedited, unproofed excerpt and may or may not change in revisions.

I fully expected Rafe to slink in after I’d turned out the lights and attempted to go to sleep for a second night in a row. Imagine my surprise when he showed up around dinner time, as I was curled in a chair in the living room, deeply invested in the romance novel I had picked up at the grocery story this afternoon along with the hot chocolate and the cookies. I was enjoying a cup of cocoa and a few of the cookies too, since they’d only go to waste if I didn’t eat them.

The book was your classic tale of contemporary love, between the cold-hearted, money-grubbing billionaire and the sweet woman who turned him human. The tall, blond, gray-eyed hero had quite a lot in common with my ex-husband Bradley, not to mention Todd Satterfield, my brother’s best friend and the man my mother had designated as my second husband.   

My mother isn’t terribly fond of Rafe. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if there existed a list of all the men in the world my mother could imagine me getting involved with, Rafe would be at the bottom.

There are lots of reasons for this, beginning with his mother, his father, his grandmother, the rest of his family, his illegitimate child, his skin color, his past, his present, the fact that he seduced me, the fact that he knocked me up, the fact that he left me, the fact that he came back, the fact that he’s risked my life more times than mother is comfortable with—never mind the fact that he’s saved it a few times too. Most of all, it’s simply because he isn’t Todd. Mother wanted me to marry Todd. She’s dating Todd’s daddy, Sweetwater sheriff Bob Satterfield, while my brother Dix remains Todd’s best friend. If I were to marry Todd, it would set mother’s world to rights. And when I chose Rafe instead, let’s just say she wasn’t best pleased. Our relationship became official at Christmas, and she hasn’t quite gotten over it yet. I’ve done my best to keep the two of them apart since then, since my life is a lot easier that way.

Anyway, I was sitting there reading when Rafe walked in. First I heard the key in the door, and then steps in the hallway. A couple of thuds were the sound of his boots hitting the floor. A rustle was his leather jacket being hung on one of the hooks. And then I heard his footsteps padding down the hallway toward me, past the kitchen and the half bath, into the living room/dining room combination.

I looked up from the book, but I didn’t say anything. He didn’t either, for the first few seconds. We just looked at one another. And as usual, even in the midst of my worry and anger, the sight of him took my breath away.

It’s not just because he’s beautiful, although he is. Six foot three or so, all hard muscle and golden skin. LaDonna Collier was a blue-eyed blonde like me, while Tyrell Jenkins was black, and the combination is gorgeous. It’s also served Rafe quite well in his ten years of undercover work. He can look African-American, he can look Hispanic, he can look Middle Eastern or Greek, and dressed up in a suit and tie, he fits in quite well with the upper crust, too, as long as he tones down that far-from-upper-class Southern drawl.

At the moment he was dressed in a black T-shirt that pulled tight across his arms and shoulders, and a matching pair of cargo pants. With his hair in its usual barely-there crop, and with the viper tattoo on his arm peeking out from under the sleeve of the shirt, there was nothing refined or civilized about him at all. He looked hot as hell, and he also looked dangerous. I recognized the getup from early December, when he’d used it to play bouncer at La Havana nightclub.

As if to complete the picture, he reached behind him to pull out a gun and lay it on the coffee table, as easily and without fanfare as if it were an everyday occurrence. For him it was, or used to be. For me, it was becoming more so.

And then he sauntered around the table to brace his hands on the arms of the chair I was sitting in, one on each side of me. “Evening, darlin’.”

When he leaned in to kiss me, I turned my face aside. “You smell like smoke.”

There was a beat while nothing happened, and I could feel his breath against my cheek. Then he straightened. “Yeah?”

I already wished I could take it back, but it was too late. He didn’t wait for me to answer, just turned on his heel. “Guess I’d better take care of that.” He peeled the T-shirt up over his head as he sauntered toward the door to the bedroom and the shower beyond. Muscles moved smoothly under golden skin, and my tongue got stuck to the roof of my mouth. So much for pretending I was unaffected.

I thought he might disappear into the bedroom without looking back, but I guess he knows me too well. When he glanced over his shoulder as he passed through the doorway, the look on my face as I watched him must have told him everything he needed to know, because he winked. “Hold that thought, darlin’.”

No problem. I closed the romance novel and used it to fan myself.

 

# # #

The Next Big Thing

The fabulous Joyce Tremel threatened invited me to take part in this blog chain thing going around called The Next Big Thing. It's for writers, and has to do with our WIPs - or Works in Progress, for the uninitiated.

The deal is, someone tags you, you answer ten question about a new or recent project, and you tag five more people who wait a week and do the same. Joyce tagged me last week (check out her post and her WIP here), and I'm hereby tagging the following victims... um... writers for next week:

Jamie Lee Scott
Teresa Watson
Jody Wallace
Diane Alberts
Chloe Jacobs

Be sure to visit their blogs next week to learn about their WIPs.

Now, onto the good stuff:

What is your working title of your book?

Contingent On Approval - a real estate term that means that someone's concent or agreement is necessary to move forward with the transaction.   

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It’s a novella that takes place right after the events of A Done Deal, my 5^th Cutthroat Business mystery that was released last Christmas. It ends on Christmas Eve, with the hero and the heroine tumbling into bed together. It’s taken them five books to get there. Not physically, because they’ve been in bed together before, but to a point in their relationship where they’re actually committed to one another.

I thought the series was over at that point, or at least I never really planned past it. But as I was reading a lot of holiday novellas myself last Christmas, the idea came that maybe I should write Savannah and Rafe’s version of a Christmas novella.

I played with it a little last year, but then I had to start working on other things because deadlines were coming due. I picked it up again a week or so ago, and aim to have it finished and out by December 1. My very first novella!

What genre does your book fall under?

The Cutthroat Business series has been either a five-book mystery series or one long romance, depending on how you look at it. To me, it was always about the relationship between the two main characters, with the romance taking place against the backdrop of the mysteries, so to speak... but I suppose someone else might call it a mystery series with a romantic subplot. Either way, the novella is mostly just a little romantic interlude with not much mystery about it. The biggest question is whether Rafe will survive dinner with Margaret Anne Martin, Savannah’s sainted mother, who is fully capable of slicing a man to ribbons with nothing but her tongue—and whether he’ll still want to be involved with Savannah afterwards.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ever since I saw Agatha Christie’s By the Pricking of My Thumbs (2006) with O.T. Fagbenle as Chris Murphy, I’ve pictured him as Rafe. If I can’t have him, I’d settle for either Shemar Moore or Boris Kodjoe, although they’re both about 8-10 years too old for the role by now. As for Savannah... I’m not really sure. I’ve always imagined her a bit like Faith Hill: pretty, blonde, and Southern, a girl-next-door type rather than a femme fatale.   

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Guess who’s coming to (Christmas) dinner? Or maybe, Will Rafe and Savannah survive Christmas dinner with Savannah's sainted mother, or will Rafe decide Savannah isn't worth the trouble?  

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

This is my self-published series – as opposed to the DIY books, which belong to Berkley and the Good Fortune series, which goes through Entangled Publishing – so the novella will be self-published.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’m not done yet. I figure another week ought to do it, which will put me at about two weeks, all told. Rather a lot for a 20,000 word novella. I wrote 53K in 13 days in June...

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

If Janet Evanovich wrote a Christmas novella for Stephanie Plum, I guess maybe that’d come close. Gemma Halliday has a High Heels Christmas story, and Misa Ramirez has a Lola Cruz Christmas story... maybe something like that? It’s like any short novella wedged into an ongoing series, you know?

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

No one and nothing, other than that it seemed a logical continuation of the series as it stood. As for what inspired me to write the series in the first place, it was a combination of reading all the Stephanie Plum books, hearing Tasha Alexander tell me that if she could write a book and become published, I could too, and going through real estate school where there was a lot of talk about safety and empty houses. I had the idea for a new-minted realtor walking into an empty house and finding a dead body, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I don’t imagine anything much will. People who have read the first five books in the series, will probably enjoy seeing Savannah and Rafe’s first day together as a couple, but this probably isn’t a good place for anyone not familiar with the series to jump off. I’m mostly just writing it for fun and to keep the readers happy while they wait for book 6, Kickout Clause, to be available in the spring,   

* * *

So there you have it. The nitty-gritty on this week's WIP, Contingent on Approval, in which Savannah wakes up in bed in the Martin Mansion in Sweetwater, looking at Rafe and the rest of her life... just as soon as they both live through Christmas dinner with Mama Martin. The novella should be available around December 1, or so I fondly hope.

Until next time!  

 

A Cutthroat Business - a few words on darkies, trailer trash, and other un-PC terms

So I got this 1-star review on Amazon yesterday, for A Cutthroat Business.

I've been waiting for it, both because - when a book goes free - a lot of people download it who wouldn't ordinarily buy it, but more because I figured it was just a matter of time before someone picked up on the racial issue and took it the wrong way. It's pretty much a miracle that it hasn't happened before.

Except of course it has. Not in reviews, but back a few years, when A Cutthroat Business was about to be released by its first publisher, I went hunting for author endorsements. Since the book is Southern fiction and dealing to a very large degree with issues that are still alive and well in the South, I approached several well known Southern mystery authors. A few of them refused to endorse the book because of the racial slurs.

One, a brilliant Southern mystery writer whom I adore, both as an author and a person, went so far as to tell me she thought the book was accurate, but she couldn't put her name on it because her - New York, Big Six - publisher would have a conniption. Not PC enough.

And I can respect that. We all have to do what we have to do. But I did figure, when the book went live, sooner or later someone would come along who'd miss the point of the racial references.

Now it's happened.

Here's the review:

So, I'm not sure why the author found it necessary to refer to African-Americans as "darkies" in this book. I am beyond shocked that she thought this was acceptable. I stopped reading after multiple negative or derogatory references to black people.
Disgusting. I wish I could negative stars.

And I'm responding to it here, not on Amazon, because you don't engage the crazies. Ever. It would turn into a mud-slinging, and I don't need that. I'm proud of A Cutthroat Business. I wouldn't change a word of it. Especially not that one. And if you don't know me personally, obviously you don't know whether I'm a racist in real life or not. As it happens, I'm not, although that isn't really the point. As far as I'm concerned, the book makes it clear, and I'm only sorry she got so caught up in the words that she wasn't able to look past them to the meaning.

Here's the thing:

A) Yes, the word "darkie" is in the book. It's in dialogue. As in, someone said it. Doesn't mean I'd say it myself; doesn't mean I think it's an OK thing to do. That's not my call. But any halfway decent author lets his/her characters use the words they want, because that's who they are. It's not an endorsement, and it doesn't mean the author would; it just means that here's a person who'd use that kind of language. Our job as authors - one of them - is to faithfully record what the characters do and say, and not to censor them. If that makes some readers uncomfortable, so be it.

B) The guy who said it, Rafe Collier, is himself half black. Or half African-American, to use the PC term. Here in the real world - and in the South - people still say black. Sometimes they even say colored (another word that's in the book) and darkie. And white trash. Yes, those are in there, too. And Rafe's grown up hearing them. All of them. He has an attitude. Can you blame him?

C) He only says it to make Savannah, the heroine, feel embarrassed about her family's past. In antebellum times, before the Civil War - the War Against Northern Aggression, in Savannah's and Rafe's parlance - the Martins had a plantation and were slaveowners. She grew up in the old Martin mansion. Some people have that past. A lot of the old antebellum mansions are museums these days, but there are some that are still privately owned and that serve as homes. Savannah's is one of them.

D) Does she have racial prejudices? Sure. It's more "us and them" than it is "superior and inferior," but they're there. She couldn't have grown up the way she did and avoid racial prejudices, I think. That's kind of the point of the book. Yes, it's fun and happy, a sexy, sassy mystery, but in the subtext, it's about a young woman who, for the first time in her life, is on her own - out of her parents' house, away from her Southern gentleman ex-husband - and who is able to see the world without that filter for the first time, and to start to question the "truths" she's always taken for granted. In its way, it's actually a pretty deep book. Of course, if you only look at the surface, you might miss that.

E) Savannah is embarrassed by what Rafe says, not just because of her family's past and Rafe's throwing it in her face, but because the word he uses is ugly and she knows it. She'd never use it herself. He knows she wouldn't. That's why he does.

F) At the risk of giving away a major plot point: this guy is the love interest. Think about that for a minute.

G) The series is about whether Savannah can overcome her upbringing - her ingrained racial prejudices and her need for her family's approval - to commit to the guy she's falling for, who's everything she knows she shouldn't want, but whom she loves anyway. Because unlike her perfect Southern ex-husband, and her perfect Southern suitor, and her perfect Southern mama, he lets her be herself. She can't say or do anything to shock him, because he's already seen or heard worse.

***

It was very, very hard to sell A Cutthroat Business. It made the rounds in New York for a couple years, gathering rejections, before someone finally took a chance on it. And when it was released in 2010, sadly, it didn't do very well at all. I'm sure the PC world and the subject matter had a lot to do with both of those, because - at the risk of sounding self-congratulatory - I don't think it's the writing that's subpar. I'm far from the best writer in the world, but I don't have any problem selling other books.

I wouldn't change a word of it, though. I'm proud of A Cutthroat Business. Everything about it is exactly the way I want it to be.

Because you know what? I didn't write about racism because I think racism is OK. I wrote about it because I don't.

Racism is still alive and well, not just in the South, but everywhere. And it's ugly. And books need to be written about it. When we become so PC that we can't reflect the real world, and the ugliness in it, and shine a light on it and maybe make someone think, for fear that we'll be called racists ourselves, then we've lost something precious.

I knew A Cutthroat Business would be uncomfortable reading for some people. I figured there'd be those out there who were put off by the subject matter. I wish they were put off by the racism itself, and not the words I chose to highlight it, but I guess it comes to the same thing in the end.

Thanks for reading.

A Done Deal

It's official: A Done Deal, the last - at least so far - book in the Cutthroat Business romantic mystery series, has entered the world.

You can find it for sale from these fine etailers:

AMAZON

BARNES and NOBLE

SMASHWORDS


The iBook version, along with Kobo and Sony and Diesel and a few others, goes through Smashwords, so it'll be a week or so until it's available there, but in the meantime, if you have an ereader that isn't a Kindle or a Nook, Smashwords should have a format you can use.

Here's a taste of Chapter 1:

Todd looked coy.“What would you like Santa to bring you, Savannah?”

Rafe, I though, and immediately chastised myself. He was gone, he wasn’t coming back, he didn’t want me. I smiled. “Nothing. I have everything I need.”

“Diamonds?” Todd suggested.

“God, no.” That brought to mind engagement rings, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to turn down another proposal in front of my entire family on Christmas Eve.

“A puppy?”

From his expression, it was almost as if he thought a puppy would make up for the baby I’d lost. My baby had been barely bigger than a blueberry when I miscarried, but after all the agonizing I’d done over whether or not to keep it, it had become very real to me. And as much as I like puppies, it wasn’t the same.

“I live in an apartment,”I said. “With a no-pets policy.”

“I guess a kitten is out of the question too, then.”

“You could get me a goldfish. I’m allowed to have those.”

Todd’s expression lightened. “Do you want a goldfish?”

“Not really,” I said apologetically. “I was joking. I don’t really need a Christmas present.”There was nothing anyone could give me that I wanted. Especially Todd.

I wondered if I ought to ask him what he wanted for Christmas, but I was afraid of what the answer would be. And I’d bought him a sweater in any case.

I speared a mushroom with my fork and lifted it to my mouth.

“Isn’t that Collier?” Todd said, looking over my shoulder.

For a second, my heart skipped a beat and I almost choked. Then I realized two things: 1) he’d probably only said it to get a reaction from me—Todd was suspicious of my feelings for Rafe long before there were any feelings to speak of—and 2) there was no way he could be right.

I swallowed the mushroom and made sure my voice was steady. “I doubt it. If he were back in town, I’m sure someone would have told me.”

And it probably wouldn’t have been Rafe himself. If he hadn’t stuck around when I lost the baby, and he didn’t get in touch after I was shot, he wouldn’t bother to call to tell me he was back in Nashville, either.

I had, however, become friendly with Tamara Grimaldi, homicide detective with the Nashville PD, and she knew Rafe too, and kept tabs on him through her contact in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. I trusted her to let me know if anything important happened. Like, if he died. Or if he’d been shot or hospitalized.

Or if he’d come back to Nashville.

Todd nodded, reassured by my lack of interest, and forked up another piece of veal.

I continued my internal monologue while I chased mushrooms around my plate. Even if Rafe was back in town and nobody had bothered to tell me, he wouldn’t be here at Fidelio’s. He despises the place. I’ve had dinner with him here twice, and both times he treated the fancy cuisine and snobbish waiters with irreverent amusement. He wouldn’t choose to come here unless it was with me. And since we were over and done, he had no business being here. It was probably just someone with a passing resemblance to Rafe. Todd was a little bit paranoid on the subject; he was probably just seeing things.

“Are you sure he’s not back in Nashville?”Todd said. “Because that really looks like him. Just the kind of woman I’d expect him to be with, too.”

Woman?

I twisted on my chair. “Where? I really don’t think...”

And then my breath went when I saw that yes, it was indeed Rafael Collier on the other side of the restaurant, just sitting down at a romantic table for two. A table I had once shared with him, as it happened. Behind a pygmy date palm. And the woman he was with was exactly the kind of woman I would expect him to be with, too.

A woman very much not like me, I might add.

Like Rafe, she looked like she might be of mixed race. Long, dark hair fell straight like a waterfall down her back, and she had exotic almond-shaped eyes in a stunning face with flawless caramel skin and red lacquered lips. She was shorter than me, and even in four inch heels she barely came up to his shoulder. Granted, he’s tall—six three, give or take—but she was still on the petite side. And she was poured into a short, tight, Christmas-red dress that clung to every curve she had, and his hand was right there, on the exposed skin of her back. That, more than anything else, hurt. He was touching her. In a sort of intimate way. Skin to skin. The same way he’d touched me.

I own a red dress too. I’d bought it to coax a proposal from Todd, back when I thought being engaged to Todd would make me less likely to indulge in my feelings for Rafe. Instead, it had been Rafe who peeled it off me at the end of the night.

My dress isn’t as short or as tight—hers looked like lycra; mine’s satin—but it’s also backless, and I could remember disconcertingly well the feeling of his hands on my back, warm and hard and a little rough. I could remember what happened afterwards too, and the thought that they’d be leaving Fidelio’s and going home to make love in his bed—the bed where he’d made love to me—was enough to turn the Chicken Marsala to sawdust in my mouth.

# # #

#SampleSunday - a taste of Contract Pending

A few pages from chapter 2 of Contract Pending for your enjoyment:

Chapter 2

“Spicer and Truman found her walking down the street in her housecoat and slippers,” Detective Grimaldi said twenty minutes later.

I had driven hell for leather into downtown, found a parking space a block and a half from Police Plaza, and hoofed it up to her office with five seconds to spare, only to find her entertaining Tondalia Jenkins, who was drinking Diet Pepsi and eating peanut butter crackers from a vending machine, in front of a TV in the lounge. Her fuzzy slippers were dirty and worn through on the bottom—clearly not meant for walking long distances outside—and her hair stood out at weird angles to her head, the way it had back when she was living in an old folks’ home where nobody cared for her.

“They drove her back to the house, but no one was there. Since they didn’t feel good about leaving her by herself, to wander off again, they brought her to me.”

“And you called me,” I said. She shrugged unapologetically.

“I figured you’d be the most likely person to know how to get in touch with her grandson.”

We were standing in the doorway to the lounge, keeping an eye on Mrs. Jenkins, but far enough away that she couldn’t hear our conversation. Or so I thought.

“You figured wrong. I have no idea how to get in touch with Rafe. I haven’t heard from him since he left. For all I know, he’s been dead for the past five weeks.”

Mrs. Jenkins glanced up at that, her beady eyes concerned. I mustered a smile. “Sorry, Mrs. Jenkins. I’m sure he’s not. I just haven’t heard from him, is all.”

I lowered my voice again, and added, for Detective Grimaldi’s benefit, “And I have absolutely no idea how to get in touch with him.”

“He didn’t tell you where he was going? Give you a phone number to use in case of emergencies? Call or write?” Tamara Grimaldi’s voice was disbelieving. I shook my head.

“He mentioned Memphis, in a throwaway sort of way, but he didn’t actually say he was going there. And the only phone number I’ve ever had for him, is the one I gave you back in August, after Perry Fortunato’s… um… death. You said it had been disconnected.”

“And you have no other way of getting in touch with him?”

“None at all,” I said firmly. “Have you tried asking Julio Melendez? You’ve still got him locked up, right? Or what about Ishmael Jackson? Doesn’t one of them know how to find him? What would Julio do if he had another job for Rafe?”

“According to Julio,” Detective Grimaldi said, with a wolfish snap of strong, white teeth, “Mr. Collier was the one who approached him, not vice versa.”

I opened my eyes wide. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It doesn’t matter what he says, either, because he can’t prove it. We can’t even prove that Mr. Collier was involved. He left town before I had the chance to ask him about it, but all he’d have to do, would be to say that he knew Julio and Ishmael and the others socially, but that he wasn’t involved in anything criminal. There’s no law against playing pool, even with known felons.”

I hid a smile. “Sorry to hear that.”

“No, you’re not. But that’s neither here nor there. Right at the moment, I need to get in touch with him because his grandmother is all alone and wandering around. If we can’t find him and get him to make alternative arrangements, we’ll have to put her back into the Milton House for the time being.”

Mrs. Jenkins’s hearing must have been acute when it came to things that mattered to her, because she looked up at the name of the nursing home where she had spent a few miserable weeks. Brenda Puckett had arranged for her to live there, after she had swindled Mrs. Jenkins out of her house, and as soon as Brenda’s murder was solved, the first thing Rafe did was get his grandmother out of the Milton House and back into her old home.

“You can’t do that!” I protested, turning away so Mrs. Jenkins couldn’t read my lips. “It’s a horrible place. They never combed her hair or washed her clothes or did anything nice for her.”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“The best thing would be to find Marquita Johnson. Any idea where she is?”

“None at all,” Tamara Grimaldi said. “From what I understand, she got a phone call on Saturday afternoon, and left. Mrs. Jenkins thought she went to Sweetwater to see her children.”

I nodded. “That’s what she told me too, when I was there on Saturday. I was a little worried about leaving her by herself, but she assured me that Marquita would be home by evening. She said Marquita goes to Sweetwater to visit her children regularly.”

“From what we can gather, she didn’t come back. I’ve contacted the sheriff down there…”

“Bob Satterfield,” I said. She nodded.

“He talked to her ex-husband, apparently he’s a deputy sheriff…”

I nodded. “Cletus Johnson. They’ve been separated for a while.”

“He claimed not to have spoken to her since last week sometime, and he certainly didn’t call her on Saturday to tell her to come down to Sweetwater. They’re fighting over custody and visitation rights, and he’s not about to give her any more time with those children than he has to.”

“What a guy,” I said. Detective Grimaldi snorted.

“Though he told us that if anything had happened to her, he knew who was to blame.”

“Let me guess. Rafe Collier.”

The detective nodded. “Some history there, I take it.”

“Marquita had a crush on Rafe in high school. Cletus liked her, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day when Rafe was around. Then Rafe went to jail and Cletus and Marquita got married. I don’t think Rafe had anything to do with their splitting up, but I guess Cletus felt he needed someone to blame.”

“I’m sure,” Detective Grimaldi agreed. “We’ll keep looking for her, of course, but aside from talking to her friends and acquaintances down there, there’s not a lot we can do. Sheriff Satterfield said he’d tell his officers to keep an extra eye out as they go about their business, just in case someone has seen her. In the meantime, I have to decide what to do about Mrs. Jenkins.”

I nodded gloomily. She continued, “I don’t really have a desire to put her back into the Milton House—I was there with you, remember, and I know what it’s like—but Mrs. Puckett did pay for her care there, so they wouldn’t be able to turn her away, and sad as it is to admit, it’s a nicer place than some I’ve seen.”

“That’s a scary thought.”

“She can’t stay in her house alone. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, and I won’t allow it.”

“So what do you suggest?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know.

She grinned. “Didn’t you tell me that Mr. Collier asked you to keep an eye on her while he was away? Maybe you can move in with her until we either find Miss Johnson or until Mr. Collier comes back.”

I had known what was coming, but that didn’t mean I liked hearing it. “What am I going to do with her when I have to go show a house? Or write a contract? I have a committee meeting for the Eye Ball tonight, although I suppose I can cancel that. But I also have a date with Todd tomorrow. And believe me, he’s not going to be happy about me bringing Rafe’s grandmother along. Anyone’s grandmother, really, but especially Rafe’s.”

Tamara Grimaldi smirked. “I met Todd Satterfield once, did I tell you that?”

“He told me. He said he gave you those pictures of Rafe and Ishmael Jackson and the others, that he got from his tame P.I. back in September. Isn’t there a law against civilians hiring private investigators to follow other civilians around?”

“You’d think,” Detective Grimaldi said, “but you’d be wrong. Anyway, I formed the impression that Mr. Satterfield doesn’t care for Mr. Collier, or for anyone associated with him. I’d cancel that date, if I were you.”

“On the other hand, it would almost be worth bringing her, just to see his face.” I grinned unbecomingly for a moment, and then got myself under control again. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice. I mean, I promised Rafe I’d look after her. She can move in with me. I’d rather do that, than spend days or weeks in that house on Potsdam Street. I’m sure it’s not haunted, but I still avoid looking into the library whenever I’m there, just in case. And it’s where Walker tried to kill me, too. I have bad memories of the place. I’d rather stay in my apartment. I’ve only got one bedroom, but she can have that, and I’ll sleep on the sofa. And if I have to go show houses, she can come with me. I’ll just have to cancel Todd and the Eye Ball.”

The Eye Ball is a charitable event benefiting the optometry department at Vanderbilt Hospital. I was doing some volunteer work for them, preparing for the gala.

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot to figure out,” Detective Grimaldi said pleasantly. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Right. “I suppose you have work to do?”

“Two dead in a house fire, both with bullets through their brains, and a fatality during a domestic brawl. A woman stabbed her husband four times with a carving knife. Thanks for asking.”

I was sorry I had.

“If you think of any way to get in touch with Mr. Collier, let me know. I’ll let the Memphis PD and the TBI know we’re looking for him, just in case he shows up on their radar. And I’ll let you know if I find out anything about Marquita Johnson.”

“Please do. Believe me, the sooner you find either her or Rafe, the happier I’ll be.”

Detective Grimaldi didn’t answer, but she smiled.

# # #

Contract Pending will be available on or around July 1 from Amazon, BN, and Smashwords.

#SampleSunday - Hot Property

Here you go: the first four pages of Hot Property, Cutthroat Business mystery #2, for your enjoyment:

1.

The first open house robbery took place on the second Sunday in August, just at the time I was busy apprehending a murderer.

Before I go any further, I guess I should make it clear that I’m not actually in the business of law enforcement. Walker Lamont was the first, and I sincerely hope the last, murderer I’ll encounter.

My name is Savannah Martin, and what I am, is a Realtor. Walker was my boss. Up until the moment I happened to be standing next to him when he came face to face with someone who could put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, we’d had a very good relationship, and I’m sure he meant it sincerely when he apologized for having to kill me.

But I digress. As I was pushing the business end of a lipstick into Walker’s back, trying to make him believe it was a gun, another Realtor – Kieran Greene with RE/MAX – was being gagged and tied to a chair on the other side of town. After he was safely trussed, four masked men proceeded to strip the house of anything of value and cart it off in a rented moving van, leaving Kieran sitting in the kitchen waiting to be rescued.

The incident made the news, but was treated as sort of a sidebar to Walker’s arrest. Violence against Realtors, Part II. Poor Kieran’s ordeal was buried on page 4 of the Nashville Banner and received scant attention from anyone. It wasn’t until the next Sunday, when the same thing happened again, that the real estate community sat up and took notice.

The first I heard of this second robbery was at the weekly staff meeting on Monday morning. With Walker in jail, Timothy Briggs had taken over as managing broker of Walker Lamont Realty, and he was the one who brought it up. “Before we talk about holding open houses next weekend,” he said, leaning back in Walker’s leather chair and folding his manicured hands across his flat stomach, “I guess we should discuss what happened yesterday. I assume you’ve all heard the news?”

He looked around the table, his baby-blue eyes bright.

I raised my hand. “I haven’t. What happened yesterday?”

“Oh, Savannah, it was just awful!” Heidi Hoppenfeldt was busy chomping her way through the three dozen donuts Tim had brought in for us to share, and when she spoke, a fine spray of crumbs arched out of her mouth and landed on her ample bosom. She was on the other side of the table from me, so I wasn’t hit, but the people on either side of her leaned away.

“What’s awful?” I said. And added, mentally, “apart from Heidi’s table manners.”

Tim smirked. “Didn’t you catch the news last night, darling? My goodness, you must have had a busy day. It was on the five o’clock, six o’clock, nine o’clock and ten o’clock news!”

“I was in Sweetwater this weekend,” I said. Sweetwater is my hometown, a small place an hour or so south of Nashville. My mother and my two siblings live there, along with their spouses and children, my aunt Regina, and various old friends and acquaintances. “I had dinner with a friend before I drove back, so I didn’t get home until after eleven. And I didn’t listen to the radio in the car.”

Tim smacked his lips appreciatively. “And how is the scrumptious Mr. Collier?”

A few of the girls and the other (gay) guys tittered. Tim has an outspoken and unrequited crush on Rafael Collier, who’s an old acquaintance of mine, also from Sweetwater. Rafe isn’t gay – not by any stretch of the imagination – but Tim likes to dream.

“He’s fine,” I said repressively.

“He certainly is,” Tim agreed, with a saucy grin.

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean. I haven’t seen him for a few days, but he seemed all right on Thursday. And we’re not dating.”

“You were dating last weekend at Fidelio’s,” Tim pointed out. A whisper, like a breath of wind through stiff grass, spread around the table. Fidelio’s is one of the nicest (and most expensive) restaurants in Nashville; the sort of place where country music stars dine and normal people can only afford to go on special occasions. It’s not the kind of place one takes a casual acquaintance, unless one has serious designs on her. Which Rafe does. (He wants to sleep with me. And he hasn’t made any secret of it, so I don’t see why I should.) But if he had thought that wining and dining me at Fidelio’s would make me give in to his predatory charms, he must have been disappointed. He didn’t get so much as a goodnight kiss when he brought me home, although I’d wager that my near-faint when he suggested it may have been almost as gratifying to his undeniable ego.

“It was a business dinner,” I said firmly. “And it’s none of your concern. Yesterday I had dinner with someone else. Someone you haven’t met.”

“You get around, don’t you, darling?” Tim smirked.

I narrowed my eyes. Tim added, “Well, since you missed the news... There was another open house robbery yesterday.”

I blinked. “Like the one last week? When the owners came home and found their Realtor bound and gagged in the kitchen?”

Tim nodded. “Poor Kieran. He’ll never be the same.” He clicked his tongue sympathetically and then brightened. “This time the Realtor was Lila Vaughn, with Worthington Properties.”

I must have made a noise, for he added, “Do you know her?”

I nodded. “I took real estate classes with Lila Vaughn. We got together for lunch less than two weeks ago.” Just after the ordeal with Walker, in fact. She’d wanted to hear the scoop.

“I saw her on the news yesterday,” Heidi mumbled, spraying another shower of crumbs across the table. The donut box was slowly emptying out.

“They interviewed her?” That sounded like Lila. She was an aggressive go-getter, willing to do pretty much whatever it took to get ahead, and she probably considered the news coverage free advertising. I could easily see her pushing through any fear or discomfort she was feeling to get her face on TV. She’d exhorted me to do the same thing last time we spoke, and to take advantage of the media circus surrounding Walker’s arrest.

Heidi nodded. “Black girl, pretty, with long, curly hair.”

“That’s her. What happened?” I looked around the table.

“The same thing as last time,” Tim said. “Just before the open house was over, a group of men showed up. They tied Lila to a chair and spent twenty or thirty minutes carrying everything of value out of the house. Electronics, jewelry, rugs, paintings. The house was full and they got it all.”

“Was Lila hurt?”

Tim shrugged. “The news didn’t say. The owners found her when they came home later.”

“Gosh,” I said, “she must have been terrified.”

We all thought about Lila’s ordeal and – I’m sure – thanked God it had happened to her and not to us.

“In light of all this,” Tim broke the silence, “those of you with open houses scheduled for this weekend may want to take some extra precautions. Get a friend to come with you so you don’t have to be alone. Keep the doors locked between visitors, or stay on the porch or outside in the yard where people can see you. Arrange to call a friend every fifteen minutes. You know, all the usual things.”

“The same things my daddy told me when I was sixteen and started dating,” one of the women said with a grin.

Tim nodded. “And that reminds me... Savannah, I can usually count on you to host an open house for me, but if you’d rather not, under the circumstances...” He let the sentence trail off suggestively. I grimaced. At the last open house I hosted, someone had tried to kill me, which didn’t make me particularly eager to try again. Until the open house robbers were caught, I’d just as soon not tempt fate.

However, I couldn’t in good conscience say no. Tim was, for all intents and purposes, my boss, now that Walker was languishing in jail, and although he couldn’t really order me to do anything – like all Realtors, I’m an independent contractor and responsible only to myself – I didn’t think it would go over very well to refuse. In my roughly eight weeks on the job, I hadn’t brought in so much as a dime in commissions.

“Sure. I’m happy to help.” I don’t think I sounded happy, but I got the words out.

“Excellent.” Tim showed all his capped teeth in a blinding smile. The conversation went on to the houses he and the others wanted to hold open next weekend, and I tuned out while I let my mind wander.

Poor Lila, what a horrible thing to have happen. She wasn’t the most delicate of women, bless her heart – not by a long shot – but still, surely something like this would be enough to put the wind up anyone. I’d had to deal with some scary stuff myself in the past few weeks, and I was becoming quite an expert on heart-stopping terror. I should definitely give her a call to commiserate, once the meeting was over. IfI scraped the bottom of my purse, I could come up with enough change to pay for lunch.

“Does that sound OK, Savannah?” Tim’s voice said. I nodded vaguely. “I’ll put you down for that, then. Thank you.”

“No problem.” I had no idea what I’d just agreed to do, but I wasn’t willing to admit I hadn’t been paying attention by asking him to repeat it. I’d figure it out later.

Tim giggled. “If you’re worried, maybe you should ask Mr. Collier to keep you company. He looks like he’d be able to handle any number of robbers.”

Rafe would be more likely to be aiding and abetting them, but I didn’t say so. “I’ll keep the suggestion in mind,” I said instead, cooly.

“Do that, darling. And if you don’t, maybe I’ll ask him to guard my body instead.” Tim tittered.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be surprised if you find yourself tied to a chair, in that case.”

“Darling!” Tim bleated, seemingly overcome with emotion. He fanned himself with a limp hand as the rest of the room laughed. I blushed.

# # #

 

Look for Hot Property at an e-book retailer near you in the next few days. It should be available on Amazon, B&N and Smashwords around the 1st of June.  

#SampleSunday - A Cutthroat Business

Last year sometime, I went to a book club meeting with a bunch of ladies from Hillwood Presbyterian Church, who had been reading A Cutthroat Business for their selection that month. (Thanks again, Carmen!) One of them, a sweet little blue-hair in her sixties, made me mark this section of her book and autograph it, since she thought the sexual tension in this certain paragraph (below) was the best part of the entire story. Enjoy!


Rafe shrugged. “Can’t fault a man for looking.”

“I can,” I said.

He grinned. “That why you’re wearing those clothes? So I wouldn’t look?”

I opened my mouth, but before I could deny that such a thought had crossed my mind, the waiter appeared. He whisked Rafe’s plate away. I gave him mine, too. I’d eaten as much as I decently could without looking like a glutton.

“Would sir and madam like some dessert?”

He looked from one to the other of us. Rafe turned to me, questioningly. I shook my head. “None for me, thanks. Though you may want to try the chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Todd had it yesterday, and it looked good.”

He nodded. “One of them, then.”

I added, “And some coffee, please. Black.”

The waiter took himself and our used plates off, and Rafe returned his attention to me. An arched brow invited me to pick up where I’d left off. I said, reluctantly, “As a matter of fact, Todd asked me not to wear anything revealing.”

“You told him about tonight? Afraid you wouldn’t make it back home again?”

I shook my head. “It was yesterday. Last night, after you left. He said he didn’t like the way you looked at me, and would I please not wear anything provocative in front of you again.“

“You think he’d approve of that getup?” His eyes wandered over me, what he could see above the table.

“It’s not provocative,” I said.

He grinned. “That depends, darlin’.”

“On what?” What was provocative about a long sleeved, primly buttoned blouse and a chignon so severe my eyebrows were elevated, for goodness’ sake?

“I s’pose on what’s underneath. And what it’d take for someone to get to it.”

He smiled, but the eyes that met mine were intent. I opened my mouth, but found I had no words. Rafe didn’t speak, either. Leisurely, his gaze snagged on my lips for a moment before moving south. As the seconds ticked by, the curve of his mouth softened and his eyes turned hot. I had a hard time catching my breath. I felt the way you do when you jump into cool lakewater and all the air gets slammed out of your lungs. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, and for the life of me, I couldn’t look away. The sounds around me receded, until all I could hear was a faint buzzing, as if from a bumblebee trapped in a jam-jar. The drumming of my own heartbeat sounded uncomfortably loud in my ears.

The return of the waiter broke the spell, and I accepted my cup of coffee with hands that weren’t entirely steady. My voice wasn’t, either. “I don’t know why I ordered this. Could I have a glass of water, please? With ice?”

The waiter didn’t react, but of course Rafe did. “Have the cheesecake, too, darlin’. You look hungry.”

A choking noise came from the table next to us, and one of the women buried her face in her napkin. I opened my mouth to protest, but the waiter was already lowering the plate, and I didn’t want to argue in front of him. I waited until he was out of earshot before I hissed, “I told you I didn’t want any dessert.”

“That was before,” Rafe said.

“Before what?”

“Before I got you so hot and bothered you ordered ice water to cool down.”

“I am not hot and bothered!” I denied. “And I don’t want any cheesecake.” I pushed the plate away. For what might have been the first time in my life, cheesecake held absolutely no appeal.

# # #

 

So there you have it. A #SampleSunday excerpt from A Cutthroat Business. How did you like the super-sexy paragraph? (If that guy was looking at me, I might feel the need for a little ice water myself. Just sayin'...)

 

Check back next week for another #SampleSunday snippet. I think I might throw up a little teaser for Hot Property, Cutthroat Business Mystery #2, coming soon to a Kindle (or Nook) near you!

Houses, Hunks, and Whodunit - Part 2

Since I talked about houses last time - specifically, Aunt Inga's house, or more accurately, the Second Empire Victorian - I guess it's time for hunks. Or more specifically, one hunk. This one:

I know. Yum, right?

His name is O.T. Fagbenle - also known as OT or O-T - and he's a British-Nigerian actor. In addition to acting, he sings, and he also writes music. And did I mention yummy?

Anyway, he can do an American accent. I saw him in Masterpiece Theatre's Miss Marple, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, and he played an American GI. And I have decided that if anyone ever - or in the next two years or so, before he gets too old - decides to make a movie out of A Cutthroat Business, he's who I want to play Rafe. Just check it out:

It took me four minutes longer than the fifteen I had promised before I could pull my pale-blue Volvo — the safest car on the road — to a stop behind the sleek, black Harley-Davidson waiting in the circular driveway. The man straddling the seat matched the motorcycle: dark, muscular, and more than a little dangerous. The T-shirt might as well have been painted on for all that it left to the imagination, and the tattoo peeking from under the left sleeve looked like the tail end of a viper curled around his bicep.

I hesitated before I opened the car door. Real estate can be a scary business on occasion. Those of us who are involved in it advertise our faces and phone numbers all over town, then agree to meet total strangers who call, claiming to want to see an empty house somewhere. Often in an area that isn’t the best, like the one I found myself in now. Sometimes — rarely, but it happens — one of us gets attacked. And there was something about this man that suggested that I ought to step carefully. So I did, both because it seemed prudent and because the gravel was difficult to navigate on three inch heels. “Sorry I’m late. I’m Savannah Martin..."

And then I stopped — dead, if you’ll pardon the pun — when he removed the mirrored sunglasses and I met his eyes.

They were as dark as those on a Jersey cow, and surrounded by long, thick, curving eyelashes. There’s nothing wrong with my lashes — nothing a liberal application of make-up can’t correct, at any rate — but I would have sold my soul to possess his. He could hawk mascara for Maybelline with those lashes. Not that that was the reason I was staring.

“Struck speechless by my good looks, darlin’?” His voice was amused.

“Sorry,” I managed, fighting back a blush. How mortifying, to be caught staring! “For a second there you looked familiar, but...”

“You ain’t never forgotten me?” He grinned. White teeth flashed against golden skin, and a ghostly memory stirred, like an alligator in a swamp, but it subsided without breaking the surface.

“Um...” I said, distracted. The grin widened wickedly.

When a few seconds passed while I didn’t say anything else, he added, “Been back to Sweetwater lately?”

So he was from back home. Well, it made sense. The drawl, slow as molasses, was pure South, and he wasn’t someone I had met recently, or I would have remembered.

“A few weeks ago,” I said slowly, running mental mug shots past my inner eye. “You?”

“That’d be telling.” Another grin curved his lips and the alligator stirred again. I concentrated, and almost had it, but just as I was about to reach out and grasp it, it slipped through my fingers once more.

You couldn’t give me a hint, could you?”

I smiled hopefully. He contemplated me in silence for a few seconds before he said accommodatingly, “Sure. Columbia High.”

I nodded. Of course. He was someone I had gone to high school with. That explained it. Long enough ago that I wouldn’t necessarily remember him right off; not so long ago that I had forgotten entirely. But there had been hundreds of students in my high school, from all over Maury County and beyond. How in the world did he expect me to recognize him after all this time...?

And then the brick dropped, or the alligator reared, or whatever. I jumped back. “Oh, my God! Rafael Collier. You’re...”

“Guilty as charged.” He made a little mocking half-bow. His voice was pleasant, but his eyes were anything but. They had turned as black as the motorcycle he’d been riding, and approximately twice as hard. I swallowed and opened my mouth. And put my foot in it.

“I thought you went to prison.”

He lifted an eyebrow. Just one; the other didn’t move so much as a fraction of an inch. “That was twelve years ago, darlin’. I got out.”

Obviously. I swallowed again and took another step back.

# # #

 

So what do you think? Does he look like Rafe or not? And if you don't think so, who do you think would do a better job? 

Giveaway!

I've just uploaded a post on ITW's The Neverending Book Giveaway, with a chance to win one of five free downloads of A Cutthroat Business.

If you have an e-reader and you'd like to try the book - or you don't have an e-reader, but you have a computer and you might consider downloading a Kindle for PC/Mac or a Nook for PC/Mac to read e-books that way - hie yourself over to The Neverending Book Giveaway and leave a comment on the post to be entered in the drawing.

Ends May 15th.

Book for Sale!

It's official: the electronic version of A Cutthroat Business is available for sale and download, with a new cover and a new name.

This is the book about which Library Journal said that the "hilarious dialogue and tension between Savannah and Rafe will delight fans of chick-lit mysteries and romantic suspense," while the Nashville Scene called it a "frothy girl-drink of houses, hunks, and whodunit, narrated in a breezy first person."

Here's what would be the back cover blurb, if e-books had back covers:

Everyone has warned new-minted realtor Savannah Martin that real estate is a cutthroat business.

But Savannah doesn’t think she’s supposed to take the warning literally ... until an early morning phone call sends her to an empty house on the ‘bad’ side of town, where she finds herself standing over the butchered body of a competitor, face to face with the boy her mother always warned her about.

Rafe Collier is six feet three inches of testosterone and trouble; tall, dark, and dangerous, with a murky past and no future — not the kind of guy a perfect Southern Belle should want to tangle with. In any sense of the word. But wherever Savannah goes, there he is, and making no bones about what he wants from her.

Now Savannah must figure out who killed real estate queen Brenda Puckett, make a success of her new career, and avoid getting killed — or kissed — by Rafe, all before the money in her savings account runs out and she has to go back to selling make-up at the mall.

If I had to describe it, I'd probably call it a sexy romantic mystery in the vein of Janet Evanovich or Gemma Halliday, "with a dose of southern charm and a bad boy you won't want to forget," (Tasha Alexander, bestselling author of Dangerous to Know, who also said A Cutthroat Business has "enough wit and sexual chemistry to rival Janet Evanovich") and that it "hooks you in the first page and doesn't let go until the last!" (Lynda Coker, Between the Pages)

A Cutthroat Business is listed for $3.99, is roughly 88,000 words, and includes an excerpt from Hot Property, book 2 in the Savannah Martin mystery series, which will be available in digital format in June.

Check it out. I think you'll like it!

Amazon is dragging their heels, and haven't gotten the book up for sale yet, but you can find it on Barnes & Noble, for Nook, HERE, and on Smashwords, for Nook, Kindle, iStuff, Sony, Kobo, or PDF format, HERE.