Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells Blog Hop

Welcome to my little corner of cyberspace. If you are looking for the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop post, please click HERE. Before you do, however, why not enjoy an excerpt from FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL below? 

Thank you Smoky Zeidel and Patricia Damery for taking time from your busy schedules to organize this event and keeping such cool heads! The theme for the blog hop is inspiration, but sometimes the stress of the holiday season is enough to frazzle anyone’s nerves.

Real or fictional.

Take for instance, FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL. Book one of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries is set the week before Christmas. Tensions are high and growing by the minute. When a friend begs her to team up with her sexy high school nemesis now a private investigator to find a missing woman, she wants no part of it. But Muriel (like so many of us!) has a problem with saying no.

Forced to deal with an embezzler, kidnapper, and femme fatale is bad enough, but add Muriel’s zany yet loveable family to the mix and their desire to win the coveted D-DAY (Death Defying Act of the Year) Award, and the situation can only get worse. This cozy, comedic mystery is recipient of the prestigious 2011 Holt Medallion Award of Merit.

Here’s an excerpt of FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL:

My cell phone blared from the confines of my purse. I dug to retrieve it, and then picked up. “Hello?”

“Muriel,” Aunt Val said. “Come home. Quick. I think I accidentally killed someone.”

“What do you mean ‘accidentally’?” Frankie accelerated, steering the Envoy into the outside lane of highway 290 and zooming past everything in sight. Including a police cruiser.

“How should I know?” I said. “Val hung up before I could ask for specifics.”

“She’s at your house?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

I checked the rearview mirror for flashing lights. “Slow down. You’ll get a ticket.”

“You’re more worried about a traffic violation than the fact you’re aunt just killed somebody?”

“She thinks she killed someone. Big difference.”

“Right.”

Ten minutes later, we arrived in my driveway. The Christmas lights I’d put up that morning stretched the full length of the front of the house and twinkled on the snow-covered shrubbery with wild abandon. I might have been impressed with my handiwork if not for Val and Big Boy standing guard beside the garage. In the shadows, I saw a body at their feet.

I climbed out of the Envoy and dashed to their assistance. Problem was I had no idea what to do. Dead bodies were new to me. As were missing persons, kidnappers and ransom demands. But I was learning. Fast.

“Are you okay?” I asked, as Frankie joined me.

“I’m fine.” Reigning Big Boy in by his collar, Val toed the body that lay face down in the snow. “Don’t know about him, though.” 

“What happened?”

“I took Big Boy out for his evening constitutional. Got as far as your driveway, noticed you’d put up some lights and stopped to admire them. Then, I spotted someone crouching by the side of the garage. I figured he was a burglar, so I let Big Boy loose and, well, one thing led to another.”

“Such as?” Frankie knelt down to examine the body.

“Big Boy lunged at him. I thought he’d tear the guy to pieces. Turns out all he wanted to do was sniff his crotch. You know how dogs are.”

Yeah. We knew.

“Anyway, this guy wasn’t all that obliging. He tried to push Big Boy away. Big Boy pushed back. Then the guy fell backwards into that drift and I think he hit his head on Muriel’s gnome. See?” She pointed to a mound of snow. “It’s right there. You can see the top of its head. It’s the ugliest gnome I’ve ever seen.”

Frankie looked up at me. “You’ve got a gnome?”

“Gargoyle. And it’s supposed to be ugly. To ward off evil spirits.”

“Doesn’t ward off thieves or burglars,” Val pointed out.

Frankie placed his middle finger on the man’s throat. “He’s alive.”

.......

May you find the inspiration to cherish and enjoy the holiday season, regardless of how stressful and hectic it gets...Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad and Merry Christmas! 


Readers can visit me online at my website. I’m also on Facebook and I’ll be forever grateful if you’d like my Facebook fan page! I’m also on Twitter.

To continue on the Sleigh Bells and Ink Well Blog hop, click HERE, and say hello to Elizabeth Clark-Stern for me! 

If you missed any of the Sleigh Bells and Ink Well Blog Hop authors and posts, you’ll find them here: Smoky Zeidel, Patricia Damery, Debra Brenegan, Malcolm R. Campbell, T.K. Thorne, Collin Kelley, Sharon Heath, Melinda Clayton, Ramey Channell, and Leah Shelleda.       

Happy holidays and of course, happy reading!

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