Award Nominee: Daybreak on Raven Island by Fleur Bradley

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Fleur Bradley’s scary mystery for kids Daybreak on Raven Island (Viking/PRH) is nominated for the Anthony Award in the Best Children’s/YA category! Awards will be announced at Bouchercon 2023 in San Diego. Congratulations Fleur!

Tori, Marvin, and Noah would rather be anywhere else than on the seventh grade class field trip to Raven Island prison. Tori would rather be on the soccer field, but her bad grades have benched her until further notice; Marvin would rather be at the first day of a film festival with his best friend, Kevin; and Noah isn’t looking forward to having to make small talk with his classmates at this new school.

But when the three of them stumble upon a dead body in the woods, miss the last ferry back home, and then have to spend the night on Raven Island, they find that they need each other now more than ever. They must work together to uncover a killer, outrun a motley ghost-hunting crew, and expose the age-old secrets of the island all before daybreak.

www.fleurbradley.com

New Release: Plotted by Becky Clark

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Plotted (Sugar Mill Marketplace Mysteries Book Two) releases today, May 18th, 2023.

A public argument. A disappearance. Another cliff-hanger for Thrice Sold Tales?

After a bumpy start for the Sugar Mill Marketplace, Dena Russo finally thinks she has the ABCs of bookstore ownership under her belt. All is well until the man from whom she bought Thrice Sold Tales returns, accusing her of not fulfilling her contract and demanding the store be returned to him. When he is reported missing after their loud and very public argument, all eyes—and the full force of the internet—turn toward Dena. She’s even accused of stealing his dog!

Dena tries everything to find him, but only manages to find mysterious footprints in her snowy backyard, some financial headaches, and just how unhealthy a viral video can be. With a boycott called against her bookstore, and the internet trolls out for blood, Dena expects the worst. But she has no idea the worst also includes a dead body in her yard.

Can Dena file this deadly chapter away before she’s forced to file for bankruptcy?

PLOTTED is the second book in the Sugar Mill Marketplace Mystery series. These books are best read in order. If you enjoy laugh-filled cozy mysteries with complex and quirky characters, lots of twists, and pages you can’t stop turning, then you’ll love Becky Clark’s fun, fast fiction. Start with the prequel novella RAT RACE, then BOOKED, then PLOTTED.

Treat yourself today!

Amazon: www.amazon.com/Plotted-Sugar-Mill-Marketplace-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0BYBHPNNS

Upcoming Release: The Mysteries of Tarot: A Work of the Imagination by Kirsten Weiss

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Sisters in Crime-CO member, Kirsten Weiss is pleased to announce the upcoming release of The Mysteries of Tarot: A Work of the Imagination. The seventh Tea and Tarot Mystery releases May 31st.

How to Read the Cards for Transformation

When Tarot reader Hyperion Night sent his manuscript, The Mysteries of Tarot, to a friend to edit, it was a simple guide to reading Tarot. Hyperion couldn’t anticipate that his editor’s notes would evolve into a murder mystery, or that his friend would go missing. Shockingly, the annotated manuscript eventually made its way back to Hyperion, who forwarded it to the authorities.

Now this astonishing Tarot guide is available as a book. The Tarot guidebook features:

·       Tarot basics―How to manage different interpretations of cards in a spread, how to read court cards, and a clear and simple method for dealing with reversals.

·       Detailed card breakdowns― Keywords, flash non-fiction narratives, and a deep dive into the symbols of each of the 78 cards of the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana.

·       Questions to apply to the cards for transforming your life―Insightful questions for each card to help you dig deeper into your Tarot reading practice.

Bonus feature: the guidebook also includes his editor’s comments on the more esoteric and philosophical interpretations of the Tarot, as well as his notes on the baffling mystery that engulfed him.

Gain deep insight from the cards, transform yourself, and solve The Mysteries of Tarot with this work of experimental fiction that’s part Tarot guidebook, part murder mystery. Buy it now! 

Amazon: Mysteries of Tarot: Work of the Imagination

Book Chat: Peg Brantley and Sandra Murphy

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

On May 25th, 11:30AM-1:45PM at the University of Denver’s Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging, Professor Emerita Dr. Barbara Kreisman chats with Sisters in Crime – CO author Peg Brantley about her book Trafficked. The audiobook narrator, fellow Sisters in Crime – CO member Sandra Murphy, will also be there.

For full details on the event, click the link here.

Three young women, girls really. Your neighbor? Your daughter? You?

It happens here, not just “over there.”

Caught up in a cruel system fueled by lust and money, all three must find the courage within themselves to survive. And Mex Anderson must come to terms with his own loss and face his own demons head on—or he might not have the strength to save them.

Award winning author Peg Brantley brings us another story that inspires thought and conversation. Asked to comment on TRAFFICKED, Peg says it’s her hope that one day this novel will go from the contemporary thriller category to historical.

At the back of the book is a resource section for those who need it, and for those who wish to make a difference.

Event: May 2023 Book Club

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

You are cordially invited to attend Sisters in Crime-Colorado Book Club. We meet once a month via Zoom. Come ready to chat with the author and other readers! If you don’t have a chance to read the book, that’s quite all right. We discuss craft, publishing and other subjects too. Everyone is welcome! Book club is free and open to the public. For specific dates please see the schedule at sistersincrimecolorado.org/book-club

PLEASE NOTE:  Sisters in Crime-Colorado members can get the link to the Zoom meeting on the chapter groups.io listserv. Non-members may request the meeting link by emailing  

sistersincrimecolorado(at)gmail(dot)com

May 17th, 10 am

May’s selection is Charred: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery by G.P. Gottlieb

Alene Baron is dealing with frustrated employees, closed schools, and a homeless man who harasses customers outside the door of her café. Then, two dead bodies turn up in the burned remains of buildings owned by the husband of Alene’s best friend and pastry chef, Ruthie. Both bodies are wearing jackets that once belonged to Ruthie and crumbled in the pockets are the café’s distinctive wrappers. At the same time, Alene’s uncle, a convicted felon, has resurfaced after disappearing for 22 years. It’s all too much for the owner of the Whipped and Sipped Café.

www.gpgottlieb.com

Chapter Meeting: Great Characterization: more than description & Murder in the Kitchen

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Quarterly Chapter Meeting/Event: June 3, 2023

Lone Tree Library, 10055 Library Way, Lone Tree, Colorado 80124 (303-791-READ)

Also Via Zoom; (Information on how to join the presentation will be posted in the Sisters in Crime-Colorado Groups.io members listserv.)

Please note: Chapter meetings are a member only benefit. You can learn more about us and our chapter here: https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/join/

To request more information, please use our contact form: https://sistersincrimecolorado.org/connect/

PROGRAM/SCHEDULE

9:30 am – 10:00 am   Welcome, Announcements

10:00 am – 12:00 pm   Great Characterization: more than description by Ann Dominguez

We’ve all read a book where the writer’s introduction of a character takes our breath away. We’ve also all sat at our computers, wondering how to say “She had gray hair. She was as tough as nails and didn’t care how many balls she busted before breakfast,” in a more engaging way.

You already have the world’s most fascinating character in your head, but we’re going to figure out how to make the reader sit up and say, “Wow! How did she do that?”

12:00pm – 1:00 pm   Lunch (brown bag or visit nearby restaurants)

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm   Murder in the Kitchen by Fran Gleason and Dr. Gleason

Whether you’re a cozy writer or a thriller-writer, we all need ways to bump off that unsuspecting victim or bad guy. Believe it or not, your chef’s knife is not the only way. Toxins abound in some everyday foods around you that our speaker, Chef Fran Gleason, will expose, which could become a dastardly way to off your character. Her son, Dr. Gleason will address side effects and add his own thoughts to Murder in the Kitchen.

RVSP on our Meet-Up Page or through our Groups.IO Listserv

The Zoom login information will be posted in the chapter’s groups.io listserv.

About the Presenters:

Ann Dominguez is a writer and practicing physician.  Her medical adventures have taken her from Chicago to Haiti, Guatemala, and Thailand.  The Code, the third book in her Kate Deming Suspense series, was released in October 2022.  Her writing has appeared in JAMA, Venn Magazine, Medical Economics, and The Well. She writes about medicine, mothering, and the liminal spaces where what we know has been stripped away.  Someday she hopes to finish a cup of tea before it gets cold.

Fran Gleason holds an Associate of Applied Science Culinary Arts degree from the Art Institute of Colorado, Denver, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2007 at the age of 50. She owned Mealtime Matters, LLC, a Personal Chef business in Colorado Springs from 2007-2013, where she provided weekly meals for her clients.

Fran started volunteering as a Chef Educator for Share Our Strength Cooking Matters Program in 2007 and continues that volunteer position today. She was given a Leadership Award and was inducted into the No Kid Hungry/Share Our Strength Hall of Fame in 2013.

Joining Fran in her talk and PowerPoint presentation is her son, Dr. Gleason, who is the Director of Mercy Medical Center’s Emergency Department in Durango.

New Release: Booked by Becky Clark

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Sisters in Crime – CO member Becky Clark’s new book Booked (Sugar Mill Marketplace Mystery #1) releases today!

A despised landlord. A bookstore owner turned accidental sleuth. Can she inventory her books and the suspects in time?

Dena Russo is starting a new chapter of her life in Sugar Springs, Colorado—sinking all her money and energy into launching a bookstore during the Grand Opening of the Sugar Mill Marketplace. She’s near the end of her trope, however, as she attempts to turn her novel idea into reality, especially when faced with the ultimate plot twist. Sure, everyone despises the Marketplace landlord, but nobody expected he’d turn up dead!

Dena uncovers dark secrets and lies, perhaps spelling the end of everything she wanted from her move to Sugar Springs and destroying the Marketplace before it even opens. With unanswered questions and accusations threatening to close the book forever on the Marketplace and perhaps the entire town of Sugar Springs, Dena attempts to decipher who hated enough to murder. Can Dena get the killer booked before the entire Sugar Mill Marketplace gets shelved?

Booked is the first book in the Sugar Mill Marketplace Mystery series. If you enjoy laugh-filled cozy mysteries with complex and quirky characters, lots of twists and turns, and pages you can’t stop turning, then you’ll love Becky Clark’s fun, fast fiction. Be sure to read the prequel novella Rat Race first, as it sets the stage for the first few books in the series.

Amazon: www.amazon.com/Booked-Sugar-Mill-Marketplace-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0BYBCVBN7

Upcoming Release: The Bantam Menace by Kirsten Weiss

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Sisters in Crime-CO member Kirsten Weiss has a new upcoming release. The Bantam Menace releases April 25th.

Break in wedding shoes ✓

Walk through venue ✓

Solve murder.

Reformed control-freak Susan has organized the perfect rustic mountain wedding with the love of her life, Arsen Holiday. But when an early arriving guest is found dead, Susan doesn’t have a contingency plan for murder.

Susan will have to tread carefully to avoid provoking her soon-to-be in-laws as she unravels the mysteries in Arsen’s past. And she’ll have to move faster than a bridesmaid after the bouquet. Because a cunning killer seems determined to stop the wedding. At any cost.

If you love quirky heroines, twisty mysteries, and laugh-out-loud humor, you’ll love The Bantam Menace, book eight in the Wits’ End cozy mystery novels. Buy The Bantam Menace and start this hilarious caper today!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xOOI8b

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3m7f0zG

Nook: http://bit.ly/3INks3I

Google Play: http://bit.ly/3kqB7km

Kobo: http://bit.ly/3lYLa0q

Publication News: Short Stories by Kerry Hammond

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Sisters in Crime-CO member, Kerry Hammond has two short stories released. “Strangers on a Train” was originally published in the Malice Domestic Anthology: Mystery Most Diabolical and was chosen to be included this year in Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Press’s The Best Mystery Stories of the Year (Amor Towles is the guest editor).

“Dinner For Six” was chosen for this year’s Malice Domestic Anthology: Mystery Most Traditional. That will be out at the Malice conference in April.

Congratulations, Kerry!