Aaron Paul Lazar - Betrayal is featured in the HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase

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The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Aaron Paul Lazar's Book: Betrayal

Author Aaron Paul Lazar is the award-winning author of the LEGARDE MYSTERIES, MOORE MYSTERIES and the TALL PINES MYSTERIES.

Betrayal

Tall Pines Mysteries Book 4

Author: Aaron Paul Lazar


AVAILABLE
Amazon


Marcella Hollister realized a lifetime of hopes and dreams when she was given custody of a child. A cousin of her half-Seneca husband, Quinn, the baby’s mother was murdered in a political plot—and Marcella, who’s never been able to have children of her own, formed an instant bond with little Kimi.

Then a distant relative comes forward to claim Kimi—and Quinn, who Marcella thought understood her pain better than anyone, allows them to take the baby without a fight.

Confused and deeply wounded, Marcella takes off for Tall Pines, their secluded Adirondack cabin. She hopes the peace and natural beauty of the mountains will help clear her head and decide whether to forgive Quinn…or leave him.

But the situation at Tall Pines is anything but peaceful. Her high school lover, Sky, arrives to help out—and Marcella discovers her old feelings may not be as distant as she thought. Worse, a serial killer is stalking young women in the area. And when a teen girl whose mother works with Sky goes missing, Marcella and everyone she cares for wind up dead center in the killer’s sights.

Excerpt from Betrayal: A Tall Pines Mystery

Chapter 1

Losing a child is like losing your soul. Only worse. Especially when you’ve waited your whole life for her.

The judge let me keep Kimi for six months, then abruptly decided there was someone more suitable to raise her: her dead father’s sister, who’d come out of nowhere to drop the bomb on us.

I still couldn’t believe it.

Six months of cuddling, nurturing, bathing with tear-free shampoo, washing her tiny outfits with special detergent. Six months of watching her toddle uncertainly toward her favorite black bear teddy, listening to her squeals of delight when Quinn dropped on all fours to play with her.

I pulled the child closer to me, nuzzling her soft curls and holding her chubby hand in mine. She relaxed against me, her dark eyes turned up to mine as if she knew something was wrong.

I held back the sobs.

Six months was not long enough.

With a shaking hand, I reached for my Young Living “Valor” essential oil blend in the roll-on bottle. I uncapped it and rolled it along one wrist, then the other. Legend says the oils used by Roman troops before battle are combined in this blend, and I knew I’d need all the strength I could muster to get through this dark day.

Dak, my Bernese Mountain Dog puppy, lapped my hand. He’d stuck close to me all morning, knowing I was falling apart. I reached down to pat him. “Thanks, Dak. At least you still love me.” His tail thumped the carpet.

I saw the car turn into the driveway and park by the garage. Quinn’s Aunt Paloma and a female officer with a clipboard emerged.

Quinn called from downstairs. “They’re here.”

I bristled, ignoring him.

I’d never forgive him for going along with this.

I traced my fingers gently along the soft cheeks of my baby girl. “Sweet angel. My beautiful little princess.”

She reached for my necklace, tugging. “Mama?”

I almost lost it again, and knew the grief was bubbling up fast. It wouldn’t be long before I was a weeping monster. “Mama loves you, baby girl.”

I loosed a shivery sigh and danced her doll on my knees to distract her.

“There you go. Look at your baby.”

She reached for the doll and giggled. “Bee bee.”

Quinn’s footsteps on the stairs were slow and barely audible, but I heard them. When I sensed his presence in the doorway, I stiffened, still facing out the window with Kimi in my lap.

“Marcella? My aunt’s here.” He approached, touching my shoulder.

I shrugged him off. “I’m coming.”

I couldn’t meet his eyes, those gorgeous turquoise eyes that had deceived and betrayed me. I’d never look at him the same way again, this husband of mine who was supposed to love me, put me first. This man I’d made love to thousands of times. This man I’d cuddled and comforted when he hurt.

I thought back to the day he discovered Kimi’s mother Birdie had been murdered by Paloma’s husband. Oh, he’d needed plenty of comforting. And I’d seen to it. I’d taken good care of my man.

This man. I seethed inside.

This horrible man.

I stood and looked at him. How could I have thought he was so handsome? So gorgeous? Such an endearing Indian brave?

This man—this stranger—was about to let the Seneca Nation steal my child. Take her back after they’d given her to us to raise six short months ago.

So much for promises. Allegiance. He cared more about his roots than me, his own wife.

I stood with Kimi clutched in my arms. I didn’t trust the words that might spill from my mouth, so I pushed past him out to the hall. Dak followed at my heels.

Six months was not enough time to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a mother. But it was more than enough time to fall in love with Kimi. Heck, I’d done that on the first day.

Six months.

Oh. And it was plenty of time to learn to hate my husband.

Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction, Young Adult

Website: Aaron Paul Lazar
Author's Blog: Aaron Paul Lazar
Twitter: @aplazar
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook


Author Description: Aaron Paul Lazar wasn't always a mystery writer. It wasn't until eight members of his family and friends died within five years that the urge to write became overwhelming. "When my father died, I lost it. I needed an outlet, and writing provided the kind of solace I couldn't find elsewhere."

Lazar created the Gus LeGarde mystery series, with the founding novel, DOUBLE FORTÉ (2004), a chilling winter mystery set in the Genesee Valley of upstate New York. Like Lazar's father, protagonist Gus LeGarde is a classical music professor. Gus, a grandfather, gardener, chef, and nature lover, plays Chopin etudes to feed his soul and thinks of himself as a "Renaissance man caught in the 21st century." This book has since be rereleased in 2012 as an "author's preferred edition," via Twilight Times Books.

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. A bestselling Kindle author of 22 books, including three addictive mystery series, writing books, and a new love story, Aaron enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his website at http://www.lazarbooks.com and watch for his upcoming release, UNDER THE ICE. Aaron has won over 18 book awards for his novels and finds writing to be his form of "cheap therapy." Feel free to connect with him on Facebook or his website; he loves to connect with readers!


Author's Book List
Devil's Lake
After two years of brutal captivity, Portia Lamont has escaped and returned to her family’s Vermont horse farm—only to find her parents gone to New York to try an experimental treatment for her mother’s cancer, and her childhood friend Boone Hawke running the farm.

Like the rest of her family, Boone has never given up hope that Portia would return. But when she turns up battered, skinny as a twelve-year-old boy, afraid of everything and unable to talk about what happened, he does the only thing he can—try to help her heal. He summons the town doctor and Portia’s parents, and sets out to put this beautiful, broken woman back together again.

Through her family's love and Boone's gentle affection, Portia gradually comes back to herself, and starts to fall for her old friend in a whole new way. But one thing threatens her fragile hope for recovery: The man who took her promised that if she ever escaped, he'd kill her. Slowly. And someone is definitely watching her…waiting to make his next deadly move.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
The Liar's Gallery - LeGarde Mysteries Book 7
The last place Gus LeGarde expects to find his old friend Byron Cunningham is in a plane that crashes in a field near his farmhouse. But that’s just the first surprise in a series of shocking events beginning with the discovery of a Monet painting crammed into the plane’s fuselage. Is it real? Or fake? The trail leads Gus into a twisting trio of dangerous art world conspiracies.

Gus fends off some very pushy collectors and soon realizes he may have crossed paths with treacherous criminals, putting his family at risk. As if that isn’t enough, he must also contend with a problem that’s close to his heart: his daughter, Shelby, is growing up too fast. She’s determined to sing professionally and is now under the spell of a wolf in tenor’s clothing, handsome Greek student, Dmitri. When she vanishes with the family car, her frantic parents desperately chase the fading trail.

A slew of Facebook messages on Shelby’s computer lead them to The Eastman School of Music, where both Shelby’s new flame and Gus’s old friend have been hiding secrets linked to the art scandal. There’s a real Monet out there somewhere, and nothing—including murder—will stop the desperate man who wants it.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
Spirit Me Away - A Gus LeGarde Mystery, Book 8
Boston, Massachusetts: It’s the summer of ’69—the parks are flooded with flower children and a hot new band called Led Zeppelin is set to appear at the Boston Tea Party. But for one newlywed couple just beginning their lives together, there will be no peace.

In the cradle of sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, Gus and Elsbeth LeGarde are music students attending the New England Conservatory of Music, after a wedding kept secret from their families. When they discover a bruised and sobbing teenage girl on the Boston Commons who can’t remember who she is, or how she got there, the couple decides to “adopt” her to help find her identity.

But Gus and Elsbeth aren’t prepared to be plunged into a violent world of rape, abuse, and a ring of white slave traders who’ll stop at nothing to take back their property—or to acquire new flesh in the form of Gus’s beautiful young bride.

At times nostalgic, heart-stopping, and breathlessly dramatic, Spirit Me Away is a thrilling romantic mystery set against the colorful backdrop of the sixties—with an unforgettable conclusion at the greatest rock festival of all time.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
Lady Blues: forget-me-not - LeGarde Mysteries Book 10
Past and present collide when an Alzheimer’s patient’s fragile memory holds the key to solving mysteries dating back to World War II—including a long lost secret love affair.

Music professor Gus LeGarde is just doing a favor for a friend when he agrees to play piano for church services at a local nursing home. He doesn’t expect to be drawn into a new friendship with an elderly Alzheimer’s patient dubbed “the music man” or to stumble across a decades-old mystery locked inside the man’s mind.

Octogenarian Kip Sterling doesn’t know his own name—but he speaks Gus’s language, spouting jazz terms like “cadence” and “interlude” and “riff.” He’s also obsessed with “his Bella,” but nobody knows who she is.

When Kip is given a new drug called Memorphyl, he starts to remember bits and pieces of his life. Gus learns Bella was Kip’s first and only love, but their relationship was shrouded in scandal. Intrigued, Gus agrees to help search for her. Could she still be alive?

Horrified when the miracle drug suddenly stops working and patients begin to backslide, Gus panics. Can he help Kip find his beloved Bella before all the memories disappear?


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
Don't Let the Wind Catch You
When young Gus LeGarde befriends Tully, a cranky old hermit in the woods who speaks to an Indian spirit, he wonders if the man is nuts. But when the spirit rattles tin cups, draws on dusty mirrors, and flips book pages, pestering him to find evidence to avenge her past, things change fast. What Gus doesn’t understand is why his mother hates Tully and forbids him to see the old man. What could Tully have possibly done to earn this distrust?

Faced with long-buried family secrets and danger, Gus summons courage beyond his years in this poignant and powerful telling of the sultry summer of 1965.


Order the Book From: Amazon
For Keeps - Sam Moore Mystery
When retired family doctor Sam Moore gets a call from the coroner to come to The Twin Sisters Inn to consult on a murder victim, he's puzzled. Why would Lou call him? He's retired now, and just wants to spend time with his beloved Rachel, his grandsons, and to work in his gardens.

Within days, the body count increases and Sam is a prime suspect, so he calls on a peculiar talisman—his brother Billy's glowing green marble—to whisk him back in time in search of clues before the killer strikes again. Book 3 in the Moore mystery series.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble
Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
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eBook Author’s Corner
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