Showing posts with label book cover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book cover. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

New release "Mishandled Conviction" by J. S. Marlo

 




A few years ago, my friends and I were looking for a place to go on our girls’ night out when someone suggested an escape room.


None of us had ever attempted to escape a theme room in sixty minutes or less, and I don’t think any of us expected to succeed, but we figured we should give it a try. Well, fifty-nine minutes and three clues later, we solved the last puzzle and escaped. It was a blast.

At the time, I had just started writing "Misguided Honor", but it occurred to me that an escape room would make a great setting for my next time travel mystery.

Two years later, I'm pleased to present you my new release: 

"Mishandled Conviction"

 

While Violette remodels an escape room, the lines between illusion and reality blur. The escape room is based on the legend of a dead inmate who haunts a condemned penitentiary, but the fake prison cell she recreates transports her into the past.

As she relives the tumultuous events surrounding her life and the inmate’s death, Violette glimpses clues regarding the disappearance of her son-in-law and loss of her precious heirloom.

The past and the present collide, threatening the lives of Violette’s loved ones and unleashing conflicting emotions toward the men haunting her heart. Can she unravel the truth and save her family without losing her future?

 At 95,000 words, it's the longest story I've published so far and it's available in paperback and ebook. List of online retailers -> https://books2read.com/Mishandled-Conviction

It would make a great stocking stuffer for Christmas...just saying...

Here's an excerpt:

Something snapped behind her, jolting Violette. As she spun on her heel, the front door opened and her daughter barged in.

“Mom, where have you been?” Garbed in Elliot’s oversized t-shirt, Sophie kicked off her yellow flip-flops. One landed on the floor mat and the other under the bench on which they sat in the winter to put their boots on. “I was worried.”

Welcome to Worryland, sweetheart. Once you enter, you never leave. “I was—” Upon seeing Joe stepping in with only pajama pants on, the remaining words caught in Violette’s throat.

“Did something happen?” Bare chested, Joe looked more athletic and in better shape than most men half his age, including Elliot who patronized a gym three days a week. “You didn’t spend half the night in my escape room, did you?”

She heard him, but the question didn’t register until she tore her gaze away from his formidable physique. “No...not your escape room...not exactly...”

“Then where were you, Mom?” An arm draped around Violette’s shoulders, Sophie led her into the kitchen. “I tried calling you. When you didn’t answer, I knocked on Joe’s door. He was mounting a rescue when he saw your car pull into the driveway.”

“My phone was—” The meaning behind their nightclothes, and the realization that they had followed her inside, dawned on Violette. “You were on your way to rescue me? In pajamas?” That would have been a great idea—four hours ago. “I think I need a cup of coffee.”

“At this hour?” A frown etched on his forehead, Joe pulled up a chair for her. “You won’t be able to sleep a wink.”

Trust me, I won’t sleep whether I drink or not. “You’re right. After the eventful evening I just spent, I need something stronger. I’ll have a beer.”

Her daughter exchanged a dubious look with Joe, a look that her grandson might as well get used to early in life, but then Sophie gestured for Joe to sit at the table. “I’ll get Mom a beer. Would you like one too?”

“No thank you, Sneaky Pie.”

The nickname drew a smile on Violette’s face. On so many levels, Joe was the father that her daughter would have deserved but that Violette could never give her. “I suppose I owe you both the long version, don’t I?”

“We were worried, Mom.” From the fridge, Sophie fetched a beer from the six-pack that Elliot concealed behind the milk. “We’re just glad you’re safe, but an explanation would be nice, if you feel like sharing.”

Sharing her unbelievable ordeal sounded like a bad idea—an idea that might tempt them to send her to the loony bin—but to receive answers to her questions, she somehow needed to share her incredible tale. “I...I drove to the Ottawa Royal Penitentiary to visit Phantom’s cell.”

“You drove where?” Joe’s policeman mask fell right off his face and hit the table with a silent thump.

I stumbled onto an enchanted passageway that transported me from your mock courtyard to the real courtyard, slid into a coal room, broke all my nails. The grime of her escape was embedded into every pore of her skin, while the hopelessness of the prison cast a shadow on her soul. I searched Phantom’s cell, found a dog tag, walked up and down a deserted road hoping to get a signal on my phone only to realize that it had died since I’d left the prison. Then I felt giddy and scared when I spotted lights in the distance. I almost gave a heart attack to the poor truck driver when I waved at him from the ditch, but he was kind enough to give me a ride to your escape room. From there, I jumped in my car and drove home.

“I drove to the prison.” Mustering her best poker face, Violette held his darkening gaze. “How else would I get there?”


 
The holiday season is fast approaching. Don't forget to give the gift of reading.
 
Wrapped a book for each of your loved ones or get them a library membership.
 
Happy Reading & Stay Safe!
Many hugs!
JS


 

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Can you tell a book by its cover?...by Sheila Claydon

Once, long ago, I wrote under the pen name Anne Beverley, and Golden Girl was my first published book. Then I wrote more books, still as Anne Beverley, until my family eventually persuaded me to stop hiding behind a pseudonym and write under my real name. That earlier book was still out there though, and to say the cover looks dated is an understatement!


Original cover

Then, many books later, the publishing house that owned it closed and the publishing rights returned to me. I sold it on to another publisher on the proviso that it would now be published under my real name. But in the field of publishing things are not always straightforward, so in the end I had to agree to Sheila Claydon writing as Anne Beverley, as well as a new cover. One that was certainly an improvement on the first.


Second edition cover

Then, a few years later, the same thing happened all over again. Another publisher, this time Books We Love, another cover and, finally, Golden Girl published under my own name. By then this book had been out there for a long time, so now it is a vintage romance with characters behaving a little differently than we expect them to in the twenty-first century. The heroine is still feisty though. It just takes her a little longer to get there!


Third edition cover

Now, thankfully, all my books bar one are with BWL Publishing, and I am very happy indeed about that.

In my next blog I will introduce another of those early books together with the covers they have had over the years. In the meantime, if you would like to have a taster of Golden Girl, then go to the Book Snippets page on my Website and let it take you back to what it was like to be a secretary in a large company in London and Paris in 1964. Manual typewriters, desk phones connected to a central switchboard, no screens, hardback dictionaries, shorthand dictation, blotting paper...I could go on. It was a different world except for one thing...people still liked to read romances. And if you would like to let me know which of these is your favourite cover, I'd love to know.



















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