Author: Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Publication News: Promophobia edited by Diane Vallere

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

AUTHOR OVERBOARD
Publishing a book can be scary. Figuring out how to promote it can be straight-up frightening. When the seas of book promo make you feel adrift in unfriendly tides, keeping your head above water can be difficult. Enter PROMOPHOBIA, a collection of essays that just might save the life of your book.

SINK OR SWIM
Divided into categories: Identifying Your Niche, Book Community, Social Media, Online Promo, Publicity, Connecting With Readers, Going On Your Own or Participating with a Group, Events, and Thinking Outside the Box, PROMOPHOBIA will open your eyes to the opportunities around you. The contributing authors share their personal experiences about what’s worked for them (and in a few humorous cases, what didn’t) to provide a beacon. You’re no longer in the dark. You’re not swimming alone.

If you’ve ever wondered if you could have done more for your latest book launch, then this book is for you. If you’re tired of relying on the same old strategies release after release, then this book is for you. If you want to readjust your sails and angle for a fresh gust of wind to carry you farther on your writing journey, then this book is for you.

A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS
This is not a how-to book. It’s an anecdotal anthology of essays about seeing possibilities, building connections, believing in our work, making mistakes, totally f*ing up, and trying something new. It is a collection of stories told over smoothies at the gym or drinks at the bar, shared with the same spirit of community that infuses Sisters in Crime.

The next time you find yourself swimming in dark promotional waters, read an essay or two from PROMOPHOBIA. Instead of drowning in fear, you’ll find yourself saying, “I’m going to need a bigger book.”

ABOUT SISTERS IN CRIME:
Sisters in Crime is the premier crime writing association focused on equity and inclusion in our community and in publishing. Founded in 1986 to represent and advocate for women crime writers, we celebrate and honor this history with our name while we continue to work for all who share our commitment to and love for a vibrant, inclusive community. Our 4,500+ members enjoy access to tools to help them learn, grow, improve, thrive, and reinvent if necessary. They also gain a community of supportive fellow writers and readers, both peers to share the peaks and valleys of writing, and mentors to model the way forward.

Amazon

Apple

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Kobo

On Sale: Black Pearl, a Cold Case Suspense by Donnell Ann Bell

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Donnell Bell’s award-winning book Black Pearl, a Cold Case Suspense is on sale for $0.99 January 16-31 at all digital outlets.

A cold case heats up when a 9-1-1 call puts police at a Denver murder scene, pointing investigators to the abduction of a Colorado teenager fourteen years earlier. A calling card—a single black pearl—is found on the newest victim. Is the murder a copycat? Or has a twisted serial killer, thought dead or in prison, returned to strike again?

Soon, the hunt for a multi-state killer is on and brings together an unexpected team: a Denver Major Crimes police lieutenant; an FBI special agent who investigated the previous murders; a rookie FBI agent with a specialty in psychology; and the only living victim of the Black Pearl Killer, who is now a cop.

For Special Agent Brian DiPietro, the case is an opportunity to find answers. For Officer Allison Shannon, the case will force her to face down the town that blamed her for surviving when another did not. And for both DiPietro and Shannon, it’s a chance for both to find closure to questions that have tormented them for years.


“Suspense, romance, high-tension, pitch-perfect pacing. Donnell Ann Bell is simply a terrific storyteller.” —Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

Publication News: Chasing Karma by Terry Shepherd

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Happy Book Birthday to Sisters in Crime – CO member, Terry Shepherd! His book Chasing Karma (The Jessica Ramirez Thrillers Book 3) releases today, January 10th.

The most dangerous adversary has nothing left to lose. Jessica Ramirez returns with a target on her back, the same supporting cast we’ve come to love and more twists than Chubby Checker could ever imagine. From the opening stand-off until the last sentence of the last chapter, Terry’s cinematic thrills never stop. Need a cardiovascular escape from reality? Let Jess raise your heart rate.

Here’s what best selling authors wrote about Chasing Karma:

Jessica Ramirez’s past catches up with her in Chasing Karma. A deadly assassin is on her trail and everyone she cares about is a target. There’s only one way to save them—Jessica must die.  Shepherd ramps up the tension as the chase ensues and not even Jessica’s closest friends know if she can survive. She risks it all. These are characters you want to spend time with, just don’t get Jessica’s bad side. Fans of Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher will enjoy this kick-ass heroine.  — James L’Etoile, author of Dead Drop, Black label, and the Detective Penley series

“Fast paced and fun! Caused my heart to pound. Unputdownable.” —  S.M. Freedman, author of The Day She Died and Faithful

www.terryshepherd.com

Amazon

Event: January 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

January’s selection is The Lava Witch by Debra Bokur.

In a remote, mountainous area of a Maui forest near Haleakala volcano, the naked body of a young woman is found hanging from a tree. The devil is in the details: the woman’s nostrils, mouth, and lungs are packed with lava sand. Her hands are bound in twine. Her feet are charred and blackened, suggesting a fire-walking ceremony. Detective Kali Māhoe’s suspicions are immediately aroused. It has all the signs of a ritual torture and murder.

But Kali’s investigation soon leads her down a winding trail of seemingly unconnected clues and diverging paths—from the hanging tree itself, a rare rainbow eucalyptus, to rumors of a witch haunting the high areas of the forest, to the legend of the ancient Hawaiian sorceress Pahulu, goddess of nightmares. Casting a shadow over it all—the possibility of a Sitting God, a spirit said to invade and possess the soul.

Aided by her uncle Police Captain Walter Alaka’i, Officer David Hara, and the victim’s brother, Kali embarks down the darkest road of all. One that is leading to the truth of the mountain’s deadly core and a dark side of the island for which even Kali is unprepared.

www.debrabokur.com

Cover Reveal: Standing Dead (A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery Book 8) by Margaret Mizushima

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Sisters in Crime – CO member, Margaret Mizushima is thrilled to reveal the cover of her latest Timber Creek K-9 Mystery, Standing Dead. The book releases March 7th. Available for preorder now.

Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother, but when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country.
 
The sheriff’s department springs into action and sends a team to the mountains, where Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, makes a grisly discovery—a body tied to a dead pine tree. Mattie is shocked when she realizes she knows the dead man. And then another note arrives, warning that Mattie’s mother is in desperate straits. In a last-ditch gambit, Mattie must go deep undercover into a killer’s lair to save her mother—or die trying.

New Cover Reveals: Annie Collins Mysteries by Helen Starbuck

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Sisters in Crime – CO member, Helen Starbuck is pleased to reveal the new covers of her award-winning Annie Collins Mystery Series.

The Mad Hatter’s Son (Book 1)

Friends change, love betrays, and the end results are never what you anticipate.

Reluctantly cajoled into helping an old friend find the cause of her puzzling symptoms, Operating Room Nurse Annie Collins, is drawn into the chaos of a life that has derailed. Libby Matheisen’s doctors and her husband Edward think her symptoms are the result of a miscarriage. Libby is sure they aren’t and wants Annie’s help to discover what’s wrong. As the situation becomes more dire and her suspicions grow, Annie begins to wonder if Libby is really ill or if there is more to the story. Annie’s search for the truth doesn’t come without a heavy price.

Decisions, like rocks thrown into a lake, can ripple far and alter lives forever. A gripping story of how far one woman will go for an old friend, and the first installment in the National Indie Excellence award-winning and critically acclaimed, Annie Collins Mystery Series.

www.helenstarbuck.com

Parker Book Club: The Code by Ann Dominguez

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Join us on Wednesday, December 21st at 7 pm on Zoom to talk about Ann Dominguez’s book The Code (Book Three of the Kate Deming Suspense Series).

Dr. Kate Deming has spent four brutal years working in a Chicago ER, swinging back and forth from tragedy at work to guilt for what she’s missing at home. The prescription is a new job that will allow more time with her growing daughters: an eight-year-old pirate wannabe planning to run away to the high seas, and a twelve-year old expert in eye-rolling and sarcasm who is the star of her middle school’s new Code Breaking team.

When a sophisticated ransomware attack paralyzes the hospital’s electronic medical record, the hospital pinpoints Kate’s computer as the cyber gateway. She thinks it’s a misdiagnosis until the FBI raids their apartment and arrests her husband, whose home tech support now appears all but benign.

Meanwhile, her twelve year-old daughter’s classmate overdoses to get away from a sextortion scheme that her daughter knows too much about.

Can Kate crack the code before another child gets hurt?

Award Winner: Dark Obsessions by Marie Sutro

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Dark Obsessions by Sisters in Crime – CO member, Marie Sutro won Best Suspense Novel for Authors on the Air 2022 Book of the Year award. Congratulations, Marie!

A GRUESOME MURDER IN THE WOODS
IS ONE OF MANY TERRORS TO BE UNCOVERED
Reeling from the trauma of her last case, SFPD Detective Kate Barnes heads to the Olympic Peninsula hoping to heal the present by resolving the past. When the ravaged corpse of an unidentified teen is discovered, her search for personal peace takes a back seat to the quest for justice.

…IN A DEADLY WORLD OF DARK OBSESSIONS
As Kate digs deeper, she discovers the victim was not the only one who had been taken against her will. Racing against the clock to rescue the remaining girls, she uncovers a complex series of ever-increasing horrors. In the darkest corners of Washington state, Kate Barnes will come face-to-face with an adversary so ruthless and powerful that it will take everything she has to save herself, let alone the girls.

www.mariesutro.com

Cover Reveal: Hunting the Truth by Kathleen Donnelly

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Kathleen Donnelly is excited to reveal the cover of the second book in her National Forest K-9 series, Hunting The Truth.

Coming from Carina Press September 26, 2023

“Hide, Maya. Don’t let the bad people find you.”

Those are the last words Forest Service law enforcement officer and K-9 handler Maya Thompson ever heard her mother say.

Returning to the Colorado mountains, ex-soldier Maya is no longer a scared little girl. She’s here to investigate her mother’s cold case, but fear creeps in when it comes to her personal life—things are getting serious with sheriff deputy Josh Colten.

After new DNA evidence surfaces, both her beloved grandfather and Josh warn her away from the case, suspecting that she could be the next victim. But Maya doesn’t listen.

Instead, Maya and her K-9 partner, Juniper, track a suspect deep into the forest and directly into grave danger…

Pre-order today from your favorite bookseller:  E-book  Paperback 

For more information and to sign up for Kathleen’s author newsletter, please visit: kathleendonnelly.com

Award Winner: Murder at Buckskin Joe by JvL Bell

/ Sisters in Crime-Colorado

Murder at Buckskin Joe, written by Sisters in Crime-CO member, JvL Bell, won a gold medallion at the Will Rogers Medallion Awards in the Western Humor category. Congratulations!

www.willrogersmedallionaward.net/2022-wrma-finalists

Territory of Colorado, 1865

Millie knows the raucous mining town of Buckskin Joe is no place for children, but when Dom’s Uncle George shows up needing help, the whole family reluctantly heads to South Park. George has been accused of murdering his mining partner, Wandering Will, and although Millie questions his innocence, she finds there are many suspects who wanted Will dead.

There’s fancy-girl Queeny, Will’s ex-wife, and dancehall-girl Kate, who wanted to be Will’s next wife—until he dumped her. Mountain man Kootenay despised Will enough to have dispatched him and the Odd Fellows have seized George and Will’s mine, claiming the gold inside for themselves.

Millie’s investigation heats up when Dom volunteers to visit the local saloon for some hands-on investigating of Queeny and Kate. Interruptions from hostile Utes, the children’s devilment, and the local schoolmistress chasing after Dom make this Millie’s most difficult investigation—especially when the killer decides she is getting too close.

Murder at Buckskin Joe weaves a cozy murder mystery with fascinating South Park mining history and lovable, unforgettable historic characters.