Pamela Fagan Hutchins - Heaven to Betsy is featured in the HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Pamela Fagan Hutchins's Book: Heaven to Betsy.

Author Pamela Fagan Hutchins is an award-winning and best-selling romantic mystery/suspense and hilarious nonfiction writer.

Heaven to Betsy

Emily #1

Author: Pamela Fagan Hutchins


AVAILABLE
Amazon


When a dead body swan-dives from a balcony into the pool at a wedding, gossip comes to a halt about disgraced paralegal and former rodeo queen Emily—whose husband left her for a woman who turns out to be a man. Enter Jack, a secretive attorney and sexy mix of cowboy and Indian. She refuses to work for him, until she learns about the disappearance of the six-year old daughter of his notorious client Sofia, the wedding shooter, who is also an illegal immigrant. Emily feels a strange affinity with the girl and launches a desperate search for her. Bodies pile up in her wake across Texas and New Mexico as the walls around her own secrets begin to crumble, and the authorities question whether the child is anything but a figment of her imagination.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

I wedged myself up to the bar between an urban cowboy and a sequined octogenarian with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Is that a gun in your holster or are you just glad to see me? I shied away from Little Joe Cartwright or Brett Maverick or whoever the heck he thought he was while also trying to avoid the business end of Grandma’s cancer stick. I looked up at myself in the mirror behind the premium liquor bottles, a head shorter than the cowboy and a head taller than the little old lady—and a damn sight more harried looking than either of them.

Why did everything have to be so hard? All I wanted was one teensy-tiny little drink.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. I also wanted as far away from my mother as I could get. Siberia-far, or maybe even Pluto-far. Oklahoma City-far would do in a pinch. Across the lobby from her in a hotel—which now called itself a Wyndham but which everyone in Amarillo would forever know as the Ambassador—wasn’t nearly far enough.

Especially since we were there for the wedding reception of my high school boyfriend, Scott, to his third wife—who was nineteen and pregnant.

I raised a finger and leaned across the wooden bar, trying to catch the attention of the bartender. Too late, I felt the wetness. I looked down. I’d plopped my breasts into someone else’s spilled drink. Great. Just then, the bartender’s blue-shadowed eyes swept over me.

“Virgin mojito, please,” I said.

All I got was the back of her orange hair, teased so high it looked like cotton candy, Halloween-style. I grabbed a fistful of napkins from a dispenser and mopped up Lake Titicaca—the bar top and the underside of my rack. At least I’d worn a simple black dress tonight, so it wouldn’t show. Much.

“Need some help, Blondie?” Little Joe asked. His voice had a rumbly drawl to it—not quite Texan but close—which I might have found pleasant if he hadn’t called me by my hair color.

I studied him. He was tall, well over six feet—at least with his boots on—and a good ten years older than me, judging by his crow’s feet. Age, or was it weathering? My eyes slipped down to his boots. The leather was worn, but cared-for, with a few dark lines of oil tracking scratch marks and scuffs. I flicked my eyes quickly back up, but not so fast that they didn’t take in his narrow hips circled by a brown leather belt and his flat stomach behind the silver and turquoise buckle, the deep chest, and the wide set of his shoulders. His upper lip looked lighter than the rest of his face, like he normally wore a mustache and had just recently shaved it off, and whatever had weathered his face didn’t hide his great cheekbones or the lone dimple to the left of his half-smiling mouth. Maybe

Little Joe wasn’t a city slicker after all.

Willie Nelson crooned in the background. He was a regular artist on the soundtrack to my life—my heroes have always been cowboys. Yeah, Willie, mine too, until they weren’t. Back in another life, I’d had a weakness for Little Joe’s type. I couldn’t help it, really. I was the daughter of a steer-wrestling father. And now it wasn’t just cowboys that had let me down, but the male species in general. So, did I need some help, from this cowboy?

“I don’t think—”

“What’re ya drinkin’, sir?” the bartender asked.

Steam whistled from my ears like I was some fancy-schmancy espresso machine. Oh sure, ignore the woman and bring the guy another round. I wheeled toward the cowboy, ready to let fly a string of invectives about him and the barmaid and my whole miserable life in general, but I saw no drinks in front of him. Maybe it wasn’t another round. I clamped down on my ire.

He looked me in the eye for a split second—long enough for an unwelcome frisson of pure animal response to unleash itself in my lady parts—then turned back to her.

“Bourbon neat. And a virgin mojito.”

Spit in a well bucket, as my father used to say, before he left us for the circuit rodeos one year and never came back. Hell, maybe he was still saying it, somewhere else, wherever it was he’d gotten off to.

“That’s really not necessary,” I said.

Little Joe flexed his jaw and his lips twitched. “You looked like you had your hands full.”

I wanted to tell him to keep his eyes further north, but thought better of it. Instead, I ignored his words and retrieved five dollars from my clutch. Holding one end of the bill, I wafted it toward him.

“Thank you for ordering my drink,” I said in my most saccharine voice.

He nodded and took the money. As he straightened it and slid it into his battered, brown leather wallet, he said, “Name’s Jack. Jack Holden.”

“Emily Bernal.” I scrubbed the dry bar with my pile of napkins until the bartender handed me my mojito. No fresh mint, so basically just a lemonade. I sighed. “Well, thanks again, and have a nice night.”

He touched the brim of his gray felt cowboy hat.

Before I’d turned away from Jack, my mother’s voice trilled in my ear like three-inch acrylic nails scratching across a chalkboard.

“There you are, Emily.”

I tried to hide my shudder. “Yes, but I was just headed to the ladies’ room.”

She beamed at me, reflecting a vision of what I would look like in twenty-five years, if genetics trumped will: Indecently long legs made even longer by stilettos, better-than-medium height, round blue eyes, and dewy, Mary Kay-slathered skin going crepe-y at the edges. She’d fit her trim body—thicker through the middle—in a snug dress slightly less long than was proper for her age, and was wearing the best blonde that money could buy from the shelves of Walmart. Trailer park meets the Southern church lady—that was my mother.

She opened her mouth to torture me. “I was just telling Doug Munroe what a wonderful paralegal you are,” she said, “and he wants to meet you. His law firm is really the best in town, and—”

“I’m not even sure if I’m staying,” I said. “And I have a job.” And the beginnings of a killer headache, I thought.

“A job in Dallas. If Rich isn’t going to do conversion therapy, then you’ve really got to—”

I pushed back from the bar and flashed her a megawatt smile. Before I could answer, though, Jack’s voice interrupted. “Agatha Phelps, always good to see you.”

My mother took notice of Jack, tilting her head to the side, and shaking it.

“Oh my, if it isn’t the infamous Jack Holden,” she said. “What trouble are you causing tonight?”

He wiped a smile from his face. “I have a question for you.”

She twinkled. “What is it?”

Jack’s voice dropped lower, and Mother leaned in. I tried not to. “What’s the difference between erotic and kinky?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” She raised her brows. “And I can’t think why any decent man should.” She leaned closer, twinkled brighter.

“Erotic uses a feather and kinky uses the whole chicken.” He smiled on the dimpled side of his face only. “And you know it’s only part of my job.”

My mother giggled like a tween girl. “That’s the only reason I’ll forgive your manners.”

I shook my head. “I’ll come find you later, Mother.” They both looked at me, my mother’s eyes wide like she’d forgotten I was there.

Author Genre: Mystery, Romance, Humor And Comedy, Non-fiction

Website: Pamela Fagan Hutchins - Holding Nothing Back
Author's Blog: Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Blog: Pamela F. Hutchins - Employee Relations
Twitter: @PamelotH
E-Mail: pamela@pamelahutchins.com
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Author Description: Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes award-winning and bestselling romantic mysteries and hilarious nonfiction, and moonlights as a workplace investigator and employment attorney. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound, if she gets a good running start.


Author's Book List
Going for Kona
When her husband is killed in a hit-and-run bicycling accident, it takes all of Michele Lopez Hanson’s strength not to burrow into their bed for the rest of her life. But their kids need her, and she promised herself she’d do the Kona Ironman Triathlon in Adrian’s honor, and someone seems to be stalking her family, so she slogs through the pain to keep herself on track. Her dangerously delirious training sessions become a link between her and Adrian, and she discovers that if she keeps moving fast enough to fly, she can hold onto her husband—even as she loses her grip on herself and faces her biggest danger yet.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Finding Harmony - Book #3 in Katie & Annalise Series
Finding Harmony takes you on a high stakes dash through the islands, with laughs and voodoo balancing out the mix.

Katie’s already on edge when a dead guy shows up at Annalise and shady locals claim there are slave remains in the foundation, but when Nick doesn’t come home to her and the kids, she’s ready to lose it. A frantic Katie launches a Caribbean-wide manhunt, calling on Kurt, her stoic, steady father-in-law, and Collin, her badass big brother, to help her search air, land, and sea for her husband, who may be in very big trouble indeed.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too? - Writing & Publishing
Who knew indie publishing could be this much fun? Whether you have published before or are contemplating your first book, Pamela Fagan Hutchins makes an overwhelming field manageable by presenting tried and true how-tos and a myriad of resources, including the marketing plan that got her debut novel national distribution - all with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Leaving Annalise - Katie & Annalise
One unexpected and hotly fought-over little boy, two dead bodies, and a series of home vandalisms throw Texas attorney turned island chanteuse Katie Connell into a tizzy. Juggling all of this, Bloody Mary cravings, baggage, and the bad guys too, she waffles between the jumbie house that brought her back from the brink and the man she believes is the love of her life.


Book Trailer: Leaving Annalise

Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Saving Grace - Katie & Annalise Series
Katie Connell is a high-strung attorney whose sloppy drinking habits and stunted love life collide hilariously during a doomed celebrity case in Dallas. She flees Texas for the Caribbean and escapes professional humiliation, a broken heart, and a wicked Bloody Mary habit, but ends up trading one set of problems for another when she begins to investigate the suspicious deaths of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. She’s bewitched by the voodoo spirit of an abandoned house in the rainforest and discovers that she’s as much a danger to herself as the island’s bad guys are.

Most people prefer my personal Saving Grace “trailer” which was just me being silly.


Book Trailer: Saving Grace

Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
The Clark Kent Chronicles - ADHD & Aspergers
A Mother's Tale Of Life With Her ADHD And Asperger's Son

They’re the parents who other people secretly believe must be doing a crappy job, the ones whose children don lacrosse gloves to weed the flowerbed, won’t turn in their homework, and throw age-inappropriate tantrums in public. They’re the parents one frayed nerve short of a breakdown as they scrub off the giant perceived “L” for Loser from their foreheads, turning for help to every source they can think of, because their kids just don’t respond like other kids, because their kids aren’t like other kids. The very brains of their children are wired differently, and the disciplines, motivators, and strategies that are supposed to work on them, according to conventional wisdom, don’t.

These are the parents of children on the ADHD Spectrum, and most of them have used up their Phone a Friend Lifeline and just want a little understanding and the hope of shared knowledge from someone else who has survived a life like theirs. They are parents like Pamela Fagan Hutchins, whose son, dubbed “Clark Kent the WonderKid,” has ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.

Pamela takes readers on a heart-wrenching and hilarious road trip from toddler to adulthood with Clark Kent and his family, sharing their collective wisdom and empathy along the way.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
How To Screw Up Your Kids - Divorce and Stepparenting
Blended Families, Blendered Style

Married couples with children divorce 40% of the time. In less than three years after that divorce, chances are both mom and dad are remarried, and probably each to someone who has kids of their own. The single most explosive and divisive issue in those marriages? Stepparenting.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all lived in a bubble gum and sugar plum world where, without a ripple on Lake Placid, kids embraced stepparents and appreciated their contributions? Where stepsiblings didn't compete for attention and argue over favorites and fairness? Well, we don't.

So what we need when stepparenting is a good plan. A plan for blending, or blendering if you will, the disparate stepchildren and their parents into a chunky smoothie of stepfamily goodness. How To Screw Up Your Kids helps the parents everyone predicts will fail prove all the naysayers wrong. Through the use of practical human relations principles and the author's achingly honest and often hilarious stories, readers will learn to envision and instill a unique set of family values and culture into their new household, and by God, have fun doing it


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
Hot Flashes And Half Ironmans - Women's Health and Triathlon
Middle-aged Endurance Athletics Meets The Hormonally Challenged

Women get older, dammit, and sometimes it sucks, especially for women who pride themselves on athleticism and an adventurous spirit. Hot flashes. Weight gain. Sleepless nights. Yes, it can be hard, but middle age doesn’t have to be a flashing red stop light. It’s perfectly acceptable for women of a certain age, a certain level of hormonal imbalance, and a certain amount of cellulite to don spandex and even enter the rarefied sport of endurance triathlon.

In fact, there’s a huge advantage to aging: much of the potential competition drops out in favor of the couch and a remote control. And the endurance high? The elation of dietary purity and discovering you can have arms like Madonna? The Zen of goal attainment? Better than a good Shiraz buzz. Once you get past the ugly mood swings, chafing on your girly parts, and a “kill your own mother” craving for sleep and a hot Cinnabon, that is.

Pamela Fagan Hutchins has been there and done that, with lessons learned and sense of humor (usually) intact. She completed her first triathlon at 39 and her first Half Ironman at 40. She has her eye on an M-dot tattoo in 2014.


Order the Book From: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - KOBO
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.