Posts Tagged ‘MARX BROS’

Why a Parrot?

I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait for the answer to that question!

My guest today is bestselling author LOIS WINSTON. Among other credits, she’s the brains & marketing brawn behind 2 boxed sets that I’m happy to be part of: SLEUTHING WOMEN, 10 first in series mysteries, and SLEUTHING WOMEN II, 10 mystery novellas.

WELCOME, LOIS!

Book 6 in Lois Winston's Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries

“Why a Duck?” is a famous Marx Brothers routine from their 1929 movie Cocoanuts. Some readers who have read my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries have wondered, why a parrot, especially a Shakespeare-quoting one. To them I answer, “Why not?”

I write humorous amateur sleuth mysteries. I want my readers to laugh while trying to figure out whodunit. For that reason I have populated my books with a variety of comical characters. For instance, Anastasia’s mother and mother-in-law both live with her. Her mother is a former social secretary of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She claims to descend from Russian nobility. Her mother-in-law is a card-carrying communist and leader of the Daughters of the October Revolution. The two women are forced to share a bedroom. Conflicts abound.

But why stop with human absurdist humor? Why not toss in a few furry and feathered housemates? So Anastasia’s mother-in-law comes with Manifesto, the dog (named for the communist treatise), and her mother has a cat named Catherine the Great. The two animals get along as well as their human mistresses.

Did I stop there? Of course not! Overseeing the constant household shenanigans is Ralph, an African Grey parrot with an uncanny knack for squawking situation-appropriate quotes from the Bard. Ralph popped into my head one day as I was fleshing out Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series. I had recently seen a news story about a parrot with a huge vocabulary. The bird basically could carry on conversations with his owner. Why Shakespeare? Again, why not? You have to admit, it’s totally absurd, and that’s what I was going for.

I developed the Anastasia Pollack Mysteries after September 11th. I had previously written dark romantic suspense, but I no longer wanted to write dark. There was enough dark in the real world. I needed an escape from reality, and I figured others probably did as well. With everything going on in the world today, I still need that escape. If you do, too, I have just the prescription for you—Anastasia and her zany household.

Scrapbook of Murder

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

Crafts and murder don’t normally go hand-in-hand, but normal deserted craft editor Anastasia Pollack’s world nearly a year ago. Now, tripping over dead bodies seems to be the “new normal” for this reluctant amateur sleuth.

When the daughter of a murdered neighbor asks Anastasia to create a family scrapbook from old photographs and memorabilia discovered in a battered suitcase, she agrees—not only out of friendship but also from a sense of guilt over the older woman’s death. However, as Anastasia begins sorting through the contents of the suitcase, she discovers a letter revealing a fifty-year-old secret, one that unearths a long-buried scandal and unleashes a killer. Suddenly Anastasia is back in sleuthing mode as she races to prevent a suitcase full of trouble from leading to more deaths.

Buy Links:

Kindle http://amzn.to/2ffIMgy

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/scrapbook-of-murder

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/scrapbook-of-murder/id1286758416?mt=11

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/scrapbook-of-murder-lois-winston/1127145157?ean=2940158851896

Paperback http://amzn.to/2y2Omhl

LOIS WINSTON

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Website: www.loiswinston.com

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Twitter at https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

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