The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Jinx Schwartz's Book: Just Different Devils
Today our blog puts the Spotlight on Award-Winning Author Jinx Schwartz. She is the author of the Hetta Coffey series.
Just Different Devils
Hetta Coffey Series Book 7
Author: Jinx Schwartz
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Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's not afraid to use it—most of the time. She's an intrepid cruiser, but wild rumors of marauding gangs of flesh-shredding giant Humboldt squid on a rampage in the Sea of Cortez could keep even Hetta tied to an expensive dock. However, when the opportunity for an intriguing and highly lucrative charter arises she talks her best friend, Jan, into signing on for a mysterious cruise. Damn the calamari! Full bank account ahead!
Excerpt from Just Different Devils Something went bump in the night.
At least I think so, because both Po Thang and I were startled awake—he evidently a nanosecond ahead of me. While I was fighting off the dumbness of a disrupted deep sleep, he was already stiff legged and growling.
I instinctively groped for my Springfield XDM 9mm, found nothing on my built-in bedside table but a Kindle: a jolting reminder I'm on my boat in Mexico, and don't have no stinkin' gun. Rats!
Po Thang's menacing rumble grew louder as he pounced from his two-thirds of my queen-sized bed. Pushing myself upright, I was all ears, taking heed of his familiar route. Toenails scrambled up three teak steps leading to the main cabin, the muffled galloping paws pounded the carpet, then up another five wooden steps. His doggie door whopped as he dove through and claws scraped the fiberglass deck above my cabin in an effort to gain purchase. Then, a second of silence as he went airborne before executing a four-pawed, ten-point plant into my skiff tied alongside the aft swim platform. A small tsunami of displaced water swayed my yacht.
I kicked aside tangled sheets and flipped on a wall switch controlling the deck floodlights, then another for the underwater LEDs mounted on my boat's hull. Peering anxiously out a porthole next to the bed, all I saw was turquoise Sea of Cortez water glimmering, jewel-like, in that eerie glow-in-the-dark effect of a night lit swimming pool.
Within seconds, the lights—an irresistible visual lure—attracted everything from tiny tropical fish to larger predators, their splashes and dashes sending Po Thang into a barking, snapping frenzy. If it was some kind of threat that woke us, all that darting sea life quickly obliterated any recollection of it from my dog's fickle little golden-retriever brain.
Higher cognitive processing is not his strong suit.
Seeing nothing scary out there, I convinced myself all was well. Hell, it isn't that unusual to get whacked upside the hull by a fish, or an entire school of them, during the night. Many a morning I've found some feckless flee-er had miscalculated and, instead of escaping becoming a midnight meal for something higher on the food chain, ended up just as dead in my dinghy.
Trudging out on deck in my panties and oversized tee shirt sleep gear, I hissed, "Put a lid on it, dawg," hoping he hadn't woken the entire anchorage. An almost full moon shone on the other residents at Isla San Francisco: five sail boats, two power boats a little smaller than my forty-five-foot Californian motor yacht, Raymond Johnson, and a Mexican booze-cruise megayacht on the far north end. The hundred-and-seventy-five footer was still ablaze with lights and alive with laughter in these wee hours. At least they wouldn't be annoyed by our lights and barks. I hit outdoor switches and snuffed all the lights on my own boat, instantly putting the kibosh on Po Thang's merriment, as well.
Fully awake now, I grabbed a bottle of water from my outdoor fridge and climbed to the flying bridge to stargaze. Even in the brilliant moonlight, the Milky Way shimmered in an indigo sky like nighttime traffic on a Houston freeway. On the horizon, a dim halo marked the city of La Paz, Baja California Sur, about forty-five miles to the south.
My boat was snuggly anchored in only twelve feet of water in the sandy hook at the southwestern anchorage of this tiny island. Even without underwater lights, the white sand bottom around us glowed, mottled by moonlit streaks. In the clear water I identified garden eels, their tails buried in sand homes, swaying gracefully with an incoming tide.
Po Thang joined me on the bridge, vaulted effortlessly into the second mate's chair, and whined.
No way, Sailor Dawg. No walk now. So, avast yer snivelin' ye scurvy mongrel, and get ye to thy pee pad."
He hates that pee pad, which is actually a piece of artificial turf tied to a rail with a piece of line, and easily tossed overboard for a rinse when needed. With all his bad habits, one would think fastidiousness in Po Thang's privy habits might be on the lax list, but this is the one area of his training that actually took. Taking a leak, much less a dump, on the boat deck evidently goes against his personal dogma.
He woofed and looked so distraught that I led him onto the foredeck and took a sympathy squat on the pad. Guilt assuaged, he followed my lead.
The things you do for your dog.
Since I knew there was no way I'd get back to sleep anytime soon, I made a cup of coffee, pulled on lightweight sweat pants, and went back to the bridge. A gentle southwesterly breeze swung us bow-to the incoming tide and a slight swell, saving the boat from rolling on its longitudinal axis, which is boat speak for getting whacked broadside by enough water to roll the boat from side to side and make us toss our cookies.
The refreshing zephyr also kept bugs at bay. If the wind shifted, we'd have to beat feet out of Dodge, because San Francisco Island, in the southern part of the Sea, is famous for no-see-ums wafting out from the island's interior salt flats to make life miserable for woman and dog alike. I am highly allergic to the dastardly little sand flea's bite and actually spike a fever in reaction. The chomp sites itch and ooze for days and leave marks for months. I've tried every anti-bug potion known to exist, but they nail me right through it. For at least another month, until the first norther of the fall whoops down from California and chills the air and sea, I have to be on the alert.
I turned the subsurface lights back on because I enjoy the almost glass-bottomed-boat-like effect. Po Thang immediately headed back for the dinghy as roiling fish returned and he went back to Bonkerland mode, his head snapping back and forth as he kvetched in frustration at the excess of visual riches.
My smile at his antics froze and my heart submarined into my stomach when a large dark shape in the water caught my peripheral vision. It had emerged from under the boat, then quickly disappeared underneath us again. Luckily Po Thang missed seeing it, but I spilled what was left of my coffee in my haste to turn on the fishfinder/depthsounder. It took a minute to spool up and when it did an alarm went off because I had it set at fifteen feet while anchoring a couple of days earlier. Once anchored, I turn it off, relying on my GPS alarm to alert me of a shift in location in case we dragged.
The fishfinder/depthsounder monitor screen was a blur of red, as if we were hard aground, which I knew we were not. Something was blocking the image. Something large that went bump in the night?
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
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Amazon Author Profile
Author Description: Jinx Schwartz is the author of nine books, including the award-winning Hetta Coffey series. Hetta is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's 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 Needs Killin'
- Hetta Coffey Series Book 6Hetta 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'.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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!"
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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
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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.
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Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
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Thanks, James, for featuring me!
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