1st Short Story in the Sailing with Mystery anthology

featuring Isabella Newcombe Tarrant from the Into Death series.

Aboard the Passenger Ship Nomadic

A short story mystery featuring Isabella Newcombe Tarrant from the Into Death series.

Blackmail threatens a young bride when her secret diary is stolen. Her marriage of convenience is threatened if the contents are revealed to her new husband and his autocratic mother.

Can Isabella recover the diary before the bride loses all hope?

Sailing With Mystery ~
Travel presents opportunities to meet new friends and see new places. Isabella also encounters puzzling crimes and dangerous intrigue as she sails from England to India.

The next short story is “Purple Poison”.

Link for Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1YG2J6Q

Link to Wide Distribution ~ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/3yWAAl

In discussing with the covers with Kim, the design project manager at Deranged Doctor Design, we decided to avoid the problem with so few accurate images from 1921. Instead, we chose to emphasize the protagonist Isabella’s art with five watercolor images. Finding similar images became the next design challenge. We hope that the ones we have picked not only represent Isabella’s venture into watercolors but also the atmosphere and settings for the story.

The “Amber Dreams” cover represents the rocky coasts that Isabella would have seen along the French and Spanish coastlines.

The primary cover harks to Isabella standing to one side of the image. The ocean and the railing of the ship evoke where she is while the tumultuous sky echoes the mysteries she encounters while aboard the passenger ship.

Enjoy!

The Into Death series:

Digging into Death ~ Love and murder on an archaeological dig. Has the love of her life beguiled Isabella straight into death?

Christmas with Death ~ An English country manor offers Christmas merriment, miracles, and murder. Will Isabella be the next victim?

Portrait with Death ~ When murder paints with blood, will Isabella and her new friend Flick discover that the murderer? Or will the murderer stop them?

View M.A. Lee’s page on this site (click the link above) for more information about the Into Death series and to find links to the three novels and a bundle of the first three novels.

Spring is bursting forth,

birds are twittering around,

… and allergies have started.

Time for the April Book Birthdays!

photo by Magnus Manske, from Creative Commons

Celebrate! And discover more with one click!

On April 1st ~ Writing Craft!

Discovering Your Writing. Characters. Plot. Branding. Sentence Craft. A ready-reference to build your writing career.

One-click link for the book description, trailer, and purchase.

April 5 ~ Fantasy!

The bundled series Spells of Air. Elemental magic. Dangerous Dark Fae allies. Treacherous shape-shifted. A twisted sorceress.

Find it here.

April 9 ~ Traditional Regency Mystery

The Dangers to Hearts

What can possibly go wrong in an idyll?

Arson uncovers a decade-old murder. Agatha’s vanished fiancé didn’t abandon her; someone murdered him.

Troubles past and present swirl around destructive hatred in this twisty romantic mystery.

Explore here and purchase here.

April 30 ~ Another Traditional Regency Mystery … with a bit of suspense!

The Hazard for Spies ~ Disguised to Spy.

A young constable tracks treacherous traitors. A spinster hopes to find a killer. Will murder destroy their chance for love?

Explore … and purchase!

Conrad and Phinney
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

A Spring Writing Challenge / from 2021 / Offered by The Write Focus Podcast.

Daily entries to inspire you to Write a Book in a Month, by Remi Black.

Daily check-ins include the project stage progressing word count as well as speculations on writing in general and the writing business in particular.

Click this link to visit TheWriteFocus blog.

Criteria for the Challenge ::

1] Daily Word Count

2] Length to Goal

3] Reason for the Goal

 

Each of these daily episodes runs less than 10 minutes. Listen briefly every day or hoard up several episodes for when you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

Lessons for writing happen along the way!

Each episode from April 2021 will conclude with the two quotations from professional writers (Hemingway! Heinlein! Atwood! More!!!) that opened and closed a day’s writing session for Remi Black.

We’re currently in Season 5, in a Defeat Writer’s Block series, on Episode 5:08, so you will have to search to find these entries.

Episodes ::

March 31 :: Introduction and Writing Wonderland. It’s Episode 2:14. :: listen to the audio on Podbean here.

April 1 :: No Fooling / 2:15

April 2 :: Change of Plans / 2:16

April 3 :: Stick with the Plan / 2:17

April 4 :: Nix Distractions / 2:18

April 5 :: Watch for Warnings / 2:19

April 6 :: Life Rolls / 2:20

April 7 :: Win-Lose-Wind / 2:21

April 8 :: Critical vs. Creative / 2:22

April 9 :: Eat the Frog First / 2:23

April 10 :: The Tax Man Cometh / 2:24

April 11 :: Cocoons / 2:25

April 12 :: Six Words Short / 2:26

April 13 :: Wonders Never Cease / 2:27

April 14 :: One Project, Two Project / 2:28

April 15 :: Promotions / 2:29

April 16 :: Covers / 2:30

April 17 :: Frittery Jittery / 2:31

April 18 :: Flipping Out / 2:32

April 19 :: Input / Output / 2:33

April 20 :: Looking Ahead / 2:34

April 21 :: Short Post / 2:35

April 22 :: Biz Monday / 2:36

April 23 :: Master Book / 2:37

April 24 :: Expect the Unexpected / 2:38

April 25 :: Carpe Diem as Writers / 2:39

April 26 :: Nose to the Grindstone / 2:40

April 27 :: Writers’ Groups / 2:41

April 28 :: First Celebration / 2:42

April 29 :: Writers Conferences / 2:43

April 30 :: An End that’s Not an End and Lessons List / 2:44

 May 5th :: Aprés-Draft Update / 2:45

 

Listen on the following sites. 

Bookmark your favorite to come back daily.

Podbean: The Write Focus (podbean.com)

Apple podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=0GFku2PbShWXiDhRp7JaDQ

YouTube Channel Writers Ink Books – YouTube

Join us!

 

Resources 

Amazon links are given because it’s easy, and for no other reason.

Purchase Write a Book in a Month at Amazon here.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0848MWXGD

Also mentioned in the first 10 episodes (March 31 to April 5) ~

Patty Jansen’s Self Publishing Unboxed Amazon.com: Self-publishing Unboxed (The Three–year, No-bestseller Plan For Making a Sustainable Living From Your Fiction Book 1) eBook: Jansen, Patty: Kindle Store

Purchase Think/Pro at Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Think-like-Pro-Advent-Writers/dp/1983248266/

The Think/Pro planner for writers can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Think-Pro-Planner-M-Lee/dp/1983248673/

Dwight V. Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer https://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Selling-Writer-Dwight-Swain/dp/0806111917/  

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Gifts from the Sea https://www.amazon.com/Gift-50th-Anniversary-Anne-Morrow-Lindbergh/dp/0679732411/

Marie Kondo The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/B00RC3ZGN4/ 

 

 

The third Fantasy in an Alternate medieval World,

part of the Seasons in Sansward

Winter Sorcery

Book 3 in the Seasons in Sansward Quarternary

When a Gitane WitchMaster pursues two Frenc spies who stole a sphere of power, can a half-trained mage and a simple temple cleric help them escape?

Just as their cover is blown, the spies Rolf and Catal stumble upon a greater secret:  the Kaerrefiorne, a blood-fed globe that will connect every Gitane Witch.  They steal this orb that will complete the witches’ connection and escape into snow-smothered Arlas.

When Catal is severely wounded, two clerics at a Protectorate temple outpost become the Frenc spies only hope.  Legeeta and Niijai, a Green mage with unschooled powers, do not know they harbor Frenc spies.

Rolf takes the orb to the border to keep it safe from the pursuing Watrani.  He is not an hour from the temple when the troop arrives.

With the Watrani is Keipven, a WitchMaster.  He recognizes Niijai’s magic as a potent replacement for the orb.

If he can bend her power to his will, his own puissance increases.  If he can twist her to sorcery, the Gitane Witches become that much stronger against the Mages.  If he can neither control her nor twist her, then he will kill her.

Will Catal be discovered and killed as a spy?

Will Rolf stumble into the Watrani when he returns?

And will Niijai be destroyed by Keipven, alive and enslaved to his plans or bloody and dead on the snowy fields of Arlas?

Available Here.

The Danger for Spies brings back the character of Toby Kennitt from A Game of Spies. 

The Dangers for Spies

Released March 10, 2017

Past actions cause present dangers.

The French spy, a double Agent

Eugenie DesChamps thinks she is safe, hidden in the English village of Little Houghton.  She paints landscapes to supplement her income.  She embarks on a flirtation with Charles Audley.  To her the world seems radiant, so very different from eight years ago.

No one knows that she once was a toast of Paris, a pretense she used to acquire information to pass on to English spies.  Eugenie hated the corrupt French government that had caused the deaths of her family.  Then a French agent discovered her double game.  She barely escaped with her life.

The English Spy, Undercover

Eight years ago, Tobias Kennit worked with Eugenie, stealing information about Napoleon’s troop movements.  Then their operation crashed.  He fled, believing that Eugenie was executed as a traitor to her home country.  Toby abandoned his undercover spying and became a gamester and a rake.

Yet now the English spycatcher Roger Nazenby has approached Toby once more.  He wants him to protect a cryptographer living in the village of Little Houghton.  French spies have infiltrated England to capture Charles Audley and return with him to France.  Toby agrees to the assignment only because the woman he wants to marry (Melly Ratcliffe) lives in that village.

The Master Cryptographer

Charles Audley returned to his home village for peace and quiet after stressful years in London developing a series of ciphers for English agents.  His latest ciphers led to English victories in the Peninsular War. 

In Little Houghton, he is charmed by Eugenie DesChamps, a mysterious French artist.  Their flirtation distracts him from his cryptography, but he feels no guilt whenever he is in her company.

Lives Collide

When Toby sees Eugenie, he is shocked.  Eugenie is not dead, and he wants answers from a woman he thought was a double agent.  Is she in Little Houghton to help kidnap the cryptographer?  She convinces him that she is not—but who is the threat to Charles Audley?  And can they protect Audley when they do not know when or where the attack will strike?

And Danger Returns

French agent Didier Poulaine has spent eight years weaving together the snippets of threads to help him locate the only two spies who ever escaped him:  Eugenie de la Croix and an Englishman masquerading as a French military officer.  He tracks them to Little Houghton, the location of the cryptographer he came to England to kidnap—or kill.

Poulaine’s threads have woven together.  Three lives intersect again and involve a fourth.  Blood will be shed before the past is purged.  Whose blood?

Investigate more: Click here.

The Dangers for Spies is a romantic historical suspense set in Regency England, part of the Hearts in Hazard series.  While this novel and The Game of Spies have interconnected characters, D4Spies is a complete work on its own.  However, readers will have a richer experience if they have also read The Game of Spies

View the Trailer: