Royal Valentine is out today!

BUY NOW!

Jenn McKinlay: Well, this is thrilling! My first novella is out today. It's an ebook romcom set on Museum Mile in New York City in a fictional Museum of Literature. It features a Jane Austen exhibit and a surprise trip to Bath all set around Valentine's Day -- what's not to love? 

     I talked a little bit about how this novella came to be on my last What We're Writing post, you can read the explanation and snippet here: https://www.jungleredwriters.com/2021/11/what-were-writing-spite-by-jenn-mckinlay.html but the short version is that I wrote this ebook out of spite because while the audio book publisher who was looking for original content loved the ideas, they didn't love my existing audio book sales numbers. Huh. Well, I decided I would write the novellas anyway and see what happened. 

     What unexpectedly occurred was that I discovered I really liked having what I have come to think of as a research and development arm in my writing life. The novellas give me a chance to try out new plot lines, points of view, tropes, and other assorted writing mechanics that a publisher might not be on board with in the proposal stage. It is frightening, exhilarating, and challenging, and I love it. In fact, I have an idea that was germinated in this very book that I think might develop into my best series to date which never would have happened if I hadn't decided to play around with novella writing. So, I guess rejection really can pay some dividends.

     Speaking of dividends, I have an update. The audio rights for the novellas (there will be three this year) went to AUCTION! Four audio publishers were in the fray and by the end of it, we had an amazing deal! Needless to say, I am THRILLED since the whole point of writing these novellas (aside from being obsessed with the ideas) was to prove that first publisher wrong. Yeah, I know they couldn't care less but it was important to me. 

    So, here are some thank yous for the people who helped facilitate my bullheadedness. First, to author Jennifer Ashley for sharing her amazing copyeditor and fellow mystery author Traci Hall with me. Traci certainly put the manuscript under a microscope for which I am ever grateful. Additional thanks to author Lori Wilde, who recommended Llewellen Designs for the cover art. They crushed it! And lastly, my agent Christina Hogrebe and her team, particularly Hannah Rody-Wright, at JRA, for gamely taking on the selling of the audio rights. Let me tell you, I feel pretty darn lucky to have so much talent at my disposal.

Royal Valentine should be available wherever ebooks are sold, but Kindle might be the lone holdout on making it accessible. Amazon being Amazon, they like to keep self-pubbed authors exclusive but this was never about money for me so I decided to distribute it wide. Be sure to check out the alternative vendors like Nook, Kobo, etc., and HAPPY READING!

Here's a longer description of the novella for those who are interested: 

Molly Graham doesn't believe in love at first sight or fairy tales. She's been burned too many times before. When her best friend, Brianna Cho, challenges her to aim high and go for men who are out of her league, Molly can't imagine a worse way to spend Valentine's Day. When she stumbles across a very handsome British professor, Albert George, seeking refuge in her office during the Museum of Literature's Valentine's Day gala for the opening of their Austen exhibit, Molly can't help but be drawn to the fellow introverted academic. Together they ghost out of the event and embark upon a month long love affair. Molly is rethinking her stance on happily ever afters and plans to tell Al how she feels, but he disappears. Afraid something bad has happened, Molly searches for him only to discover there is no Albert George affiliated with the university. She's been played for a fool!

Molly is devastated. As registrar for the Museum of Literature, she is tasked with a trip to England to return the Jane Austen exhibition materials on loan from the Whitmore Estate in Bath. It's the only thing she has to look forward to and even this dream trip is a struggle. When she and Brianna arrive at Whitmore Manor, they are introduced to Earl Whitmore and his grandson Lord Insley, or as Molly knows him Albert George. She is shocked and dismayed to discover she has fallen in love with a viscount in line to be an earl. James Albert George Insley Whitmore, called Jamie by his friends and family, arranged for Molly to bring the materials back. He had to leave her unexpectedly, but he hasn't been able to forget her and he wants to win her back. Molly isn't having it. She refuses to be taken in twice. Jamie will have to channel his inner Fitzwilliam Darcy to prove to her that love conquers all and win her heart for good. 

Now what about you, Reds and Readers, have you ever surprised yourself by trying something new? What was it? And how did it go?

     

 

DEADLY ADVICE #advicecolumn #mystery #ebook

LUCY BURDETTE: I have often wondered whether the mystery series I wrote before the food critic mysteries might have gotten more traction if it had been published in the era of ebooks and social media. No way to tell, of course, but the happy news is that the first book in the series, DEADLY ADVICE (written as Roberta Isleib), is now available for Kindle. 
 
The book stars Dr. Rebecca Butterman, a clinical psychologist and advice columnist living in Connecticut. She works out of an office in New Haven (in the same building where I had my private practice,) and she explores many of the places on the Connecticut shoreline that I've grown to know and love.

Although this series is a little edgier than the food critic mysteries, the books are close to my heart because they draw so much from my previous career as a psychologist. In a poignant coincidence, given the terrible news two weeks ago about Robin Williams, DEADLY ADVICE opens with the mysterious suicide of Dr. Butterman's neighbor. She feels doubly troubled about this death, thinking she should have noticed something was wrong--both as a professional and as a neighbor.

In addition to my sleuth’s background, that opening scene is also rooted in my graduate school days. During my final year, newly separated, I lived in an anonymous apartment complex with only a nodding acquaintance of the other residents. Each morning, my taciturn next-door neighbor left for work at 7:30, returning by six. Some nights she’d cook one hamburger on the grill outside her door. Medium well, I’d think, considering the time it sat on the coals. How sad, I’d think. Is that me? I’d wonder next.

One evening, I came home from the library and noticed a small U-Haul parked in front of her apartment. An older couple was loading the contents of her place into the van. Over coffee the next morning, I skimmed the newspaper as usual, and noticed a small article near the bottom of an interior page. Based on this paragraph, I realized that my neighbor had shot herself several days earlier. Her body had lain in the apartment next to mine for over forty-eight hours before someone found her.

I felt shocked and sad. Isn’t this every single woman’s worst nightmare—dead two days and no one even notices you’re gone? As you can imagine, this incident has always haunted me.

Years later, that’s where DEADLY ADVICE began. When Dr. Rebecca Butterman returns home to find her neighbor an apparent suicide, she's wracked with guilt.  As a psychologist and advice columnist, she’s an expert! She should have been able to help the young woman. But the neighbor’s mother suspects foul play, and soon persuades Rebecca to investigate the possibility of murder. 

When Rebecca Butterman is troubled, she cooks. Like Hayley Snow in the Key West mysteries, she loves to cook, to eat, and to share meals with her best women friends. But she doesn't think so much about the meaning of food the way food critic Hayley does. She's too busy puzzling over what makes people tick...

In honor of the launch of DEADLY ADVICE as e-book, I'm happy to share one of Dr. Butterman's favorite recipes, beef carbonnade. She would tell you to start the dish the day before you plan to eat it so it can sit in the refrigerator overnight, allowing the flavors to blend. She would also tell you that serving this meal to sad people might make their world a tiny bit brighter.

We hope you enjoy the book and the stew!