The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Jinx Schwartz's New Book: Just Needs Killin'
She is the Award-Winning Author of the Hetta Coffey series.
Just Needs Killin'
Hetta Coffey Series Book 6
Author: Jinx Schwartz
AVAILABLE
Amazon
Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and she's not afraid to use it!
After several months of cruising Mexico's hauntingly beautiful Sea of Cortez, Hetta's in Puerto Escondido, a place once described by author John Steinbeck as "a magic harbor." Anchored out, swaying on the hook at the whim of breeze and tide, surrounded by magnificent views and turquoise water can be magical. Stuck at anchor alone? Not so much.
So when her best friend, Jan, gets them an invite to a party at a nearby luxury resort hosted by a Japanese businessman—all expenses paid—Hetta figures, why not? Why turn down an evening of free food and booze? And besides, what could possibly go wrong?
With Hetta involved? Plenty.
Not only are she and Jan soon up to their necks in hot sake, a succession of unsavory intruders sends Hetta scurrying for a safe harbor, but not before she reaches the conclusion that some folks just need killin'.
Excerpt from Just Needs Killin'
Jan tugged on my hand, grunted, and pointed to our left. A school of dolphin attacked the sardine ball, cutting through and herding them. Then cormorants began diving, rocketing straight down into the melee, and further panicking the sardines. I'd seen these bait boils on the surface many times, but watching it from below was both exhilarating and a little scary. I also knew the commotion up there had to be sending Po Thang into a frenzy.
Sure enough, another burst of bubbles and red fur near the surface announced Po Thang's entry into the kerfuffle. I heard what was probably a giggle from Jan and we headed up.
Po Thang was dog paddling madly toward one sea gull, then another, barking to beat the band. When he saw us, he headed for me and I prepared to fend him off. Being hugged in the water by a large dog is not the best thing for someone trying to stay afloat. I moved the raft between us and he launched himself on it, torn between snagging a bird that sat there, and climbing onto my head.
Jan was already in the panga when I used my last bit of strength to pull myself in and remove my dive mask. We were right in the middle of the boil now, with frenzied sardines actually launching themselves into the panga. Po Thang managed to snag one in midair, then got the funniest look on his face when he realized he had a mouthful of slimy, wiggling, fish.
As he spit out the sardine, we collapsed into a giggle-fit bordering on hysteria, a combination of fatigue, stress, and excitement. It was then that I saw the large fin headed for Po Thang's flimsy, rocking raft.
"Oh, crap! Jan, look!"
She turned and shrieked, getting Po Thang's attention. He cocked his head, then launched himself from the raft into the panga just as a sailfish the size of a taxi cab broke the surface in pursuit of lunch.
The huge fish went airborne, snagged a sardine, and dove, sending a wall of water over us.
Po Thang yelped and dove under my legs, Jan yelped as well as the big fish's wake rocked the boat. We held on tight as the panga, always seaworthy, settled out. It was then I felt a tug on my wrist. I checked to make sure the line to our vase was still attached.
The sailfish suddenly reversed direction, and came straight at us again in pursuit of more sardines. This time, when he breeched, I saw piece of yellow polypropylene line trailing from his mouth.
"Jan, that big mother has our vase!"
"Holy crap, what are—"
She froze in mid-sentence as her eyes widened and dropped to my wrist.
The wrist I'd wrapped several times with yellow polypropylene line.
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult/tweens, Historical/Western, Humor, Chicklit
Website: Jinx Schwartz
Author's Blog: Jinx Schwartz's Water Writes
Twitter: @jinxschwartz
E-Mail: jinxschwartz@yahoo.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Pinterest: Check Out Pinterest
Author Description: Award-winning author, Jinx Schwartz, spends time between Arizona and Mexico. Her Hetta Coffey mystery series won the EPPIE award for Best Mystery (Just Add Water) and was a finalist for Best Mystery (Just Add Trouble).
Jinx Schwartz is the author of eight books, including the award-winning Hetta Coffey series. Hetta is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and not afraid to use it!
A ninth-generation Texan, Jinx has lived and worked all over the globe, and much like the protagonist in her Hetta Coffey mystery series, she's a woman with a yacht and not afraid to use it.
Author's Book List
Just The Pits
- Hetta Coffey Series (Book 5)Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's not afraid to use it!
As a self-employed engineering consultant with a penchant for oddball—read: shady—projects, Hetta Coffey has a history of inviting trouble. But now that she's been hired for a legitimate mining project in Mexico's Baja, it looks like smooth sailing ahead...until she discovers that people and pesos are disappearing faster than you can say, "This job is the pits!" And Hetta Coffey as sleuth? Goodness knows she's nosy enough, but her detective skills leave a lot to be desired. Luckily for her she gets help from her best friend, Jan, and a mysterious Velveeta thief.
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Hetta Coffey Collection
- Boxed Set Books 1-4 Hetta Coffey SeriesBoxed Set Includes Four Full-Length Novels including:
Just Add Water
Just Add Salt
Just Add Trouble
Just Deserts
Order the Book From: Amazon
Troubled Sea
Hetta and Jenks Jenkins live a life many only dream of aboard their 42-foot boat in Mexico's hauntingly beautiful Sea of Cortez. But their chosen sea has a serpent: Mexico's out-of-control drug trade.
After witnessing a drug-deal gone wrong, they set off a deadly chain of events that lands them in a sea of intrigue involving a best friend, the Mexican Federal Police, the DEA, US Coast Guard, the INS, and a nasty drug cartel.
This fast-paced adventure is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of cutting the lines and shoving off to adventure.
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Just Deserts
- Hetta Coffey Series (Book 4)Hetta Coffey is a woman with a yacht, and she's not afraid to use it. As a self employed engineering consultant with a penchant of oddball-read: shady- projects, she has a way of attracting trouble.
With her floating home drydocked for repairs in Mexico, Hetta needs a place to live and a job to pay the boatyard. Landing a project at a mining operation not far from her boat, Hetta finds herself on the tumultuous Arizona/Mexico border, where all hell is breaking loose even before she gets there.
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Just Add Trouble
- Hetta Coffey Series (Book 3)Hetta Coffey is a woman with a yacht and she's not afraid to use it.
A globe-trotting engineer with adventure in her soul, Hetta is determined to solidify her relationship with her long-distance boyfriend, Jenks jenkins. What better place for a romantic interlude than aboard a yacht in Mexico's hauntingly beautiful and solitary Sea of Cortez?
But where Hetta goes, trouble follows, and chaos is sure to ensue. After a run-in with a couple of sea serpents that threaten to rock the boat, she nevertheless decides to take on a project in the port city of Guaymas. After all, Jenks is headed back to Kuwait, so why not cash in on the best of both worlds by making some dough while living aboard her boat in Mexico?
Once again Hetta's indomitablespirit, stubborn independence and penchant for deceit will keep the reader in stitches as she launches herself and her best friend, Jan, into a sea of trouble. A pesky parrot, a drunken aunt, and a shadowy figure who is handsome in a "criminal sort of way" lead to murder, mayhem, kidnapping, and run-ins with several federal agencies on both sides of the border.
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Just Add Salt
- Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 2)Hetta Coffey is a woman with a yacht, and she's not afraid to use it!
Hetta, a globe-trotting engineer with attitude, a penchant for trouble, and a yacht, is back, and this time she s steering us into hot Mexican waters.
Miffed that vacation plans with her chronically absent boyfriend Jenks Jenkins have gone awry, she accepts a job in Baja. So what if she and her friend Jan are spectacularly unqualified to take her yacht on a thousand mile cruise in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the middle of hurricane season? Hiring a handsome, if somewhat fishy captain for the trip might keep them off the rocks, but probably won t do the same for her future with Jenks. Meanwhile, a little eye candy on board can t be all bad.
Hetta s unmanageable independence impels her to tackle the very profitable, if environmentally and politically incorrect project south of the border. True to form, her irreverent nature and disregard for danger soon swamps her in a sea of inconvenient bodies, illegal aliens, a pesky whale, and a menacing Mexican machinator. And without her usual arsenal of firepower.
Set sail for Baja Mexico s Magdalena Bay as Hetta Coffey leads us once more into a morass of intrigue that will keep you laughing, breathless, and wanting more.
To quote Lord Byron, Hetta would "much rather sink beneath the shock than moulder piecemeal on the rock."
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Just Add Water
- Hetta Coffey Series (Book 1)Winner: International EPPIE Award for Best Mystery.
Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht and and she's not afraid to use it.
She's a globe-trotting civil engineer with swath of failed multi-national affairs in her jet stream.
Plying the San Francisco waterfront, trolling for triceps, her attention is snagged by a parade of passing yachts--especially their predominantly male skippers--and experiences a champagne-induced epiphany: If she had a boat, she could get a man.
In spite of a spectacular ignorance of all things nautical, Hetta buys her dream boat, but shadowy stalker, an inconvenient body, and Hetta's own self-destructive foibles, give a whole new meaning to the phrase "sink or swim!"
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Land Of Mountains
A ten-year-old's new home on an exotic Caribbean island proves so fascinating she quickly forgets she didn't want to leave Texas. After all, where better than a jungle world teeming with voodoo, mystery, and a really pesky zombie, to indulge her favorite pastime: snooping.
In this humorous mystery, award-winning author Jinx Schwartz transports the reader to another time and place where rivers, and little girls, ran wild and free.
Book Trailer: Land Of Mountains
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
The Texicans
NOT another story about Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston and the boys.
Decades before Crockett, Bowie or Houston even set foot in Texas, Frederick Stockman was already there. Author Jinx Schwartz, a ninth-generation Texan, has delved deep into her ancestral roots to create this moving story of the Frederick Stockman familys' courageous determination to make Texas their home during the turbulent period between 1806 and 1836.
The Texicans was inspired by a Texas history book calling her ancestral clan a "congenial society for evil"--rogues "skilled in many forms of villainy" for their role in the tumultuous years of first Spanish, the Mexican rule. Frederick Stockman and his family immigrate to Spanish Texas in 1806 to ranch, but soon find themselves inexorably drawn into the bitter conflict between Mexico and Spain. They join forces with a dashing young Spanish deserter, Miguel Gonzales, in his successful campaign to liberate Mexico and Texas from Spanish rule. Their ties are further cemented when Gonzales marries into the family.
As Heroes of Mexico, the Texicans--staunch supporters of Mexican rule for Texas--find themselves vilified by North American settlers illegally flocking across the unprotected border. These newcomers, calling themselves Texians, view Mexico, Mexicans and Texicans as the enemy. Targets of bigotry, the Texicans themselves are torn along cultural lines as their hero-turned-despot, General Santa Anna, propels them towards a deadly showdown.
Order the Book From: Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
eBook Author’s Corner
Mystery Reader’s Circle
Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.
Her books are the BEST! I'm 3/4 through Just Needs Killin' and as usual, am having the time of my life.
ReplyDelete