Pamela F. Hutchins - Fighting For Anna 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' New Book: Fighting for Anna. 

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

Fighting For Anna

What Doesn't Kill You, #8 - A Michele Romantic Mystery

Author: Pamela Fagan Hutchins


AVAILABLE
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store


Tightly plotted and fast-paced, this romantic head-scratcher dives into 80s pop culture, a reclusive religious community, and high stakes politics.

Michele retreats to the country while her teens are away for the summer, to write the memoirs of her elderly neighbor Gidget—a reclusive former Houston art gallery owner—and learn how to be alone in the wake of her husband’s death. But when Gidget dies unexpectedly, she leaves everything to Michele except a bequest to a daughter no one knew existed. Suddenly, Michele's country quiet is shattered, and half of Texas shows up: some to help, some to contest the will, and others to make sure the mystery daughter is never found alive.

Excerpt from Fighting for Anna

Chapter One

An airborne string mop charged at us, a white curtain of deranged fringe. But of course it wasn’t a mop—it was a dog, and its squatty legs pumped hard, propelling its low, elongated body, with its tummy barely clearing the ground. I smelled it, too—a coppery, foul scent—and I tensed from years of experience with animals in my father’s Seguin veterinary practice. Yet, the dog looked familiar, and I was more respectful than scared.

“Get back.” I put my arms out to either side of me, as if that would protect my teenagers from whatever the terrified little dog brought our way. “A scared animal is a dangerous one.”

I heard the eye-roll in my seventeen-year-old son’s voice. “We’re not babies anymore, Mom.”

I glanced at Sam. He had the Lopez coloring but his father’s height. Over six feet and muscular in a zero-body-fat kind of way. He had on khaki shorts and an Astros T-shirt, and his dark brown hair flopped across his forehead.

The dog panted and darted in front of me, and I caught a glimpse of one eye open wide, its white rounded. “Hey, I know you, don’t I?” I said, as if she would understand me.

I did remember her, from the neighbor’s. Gidget. That was the name of the neighbor. An oddly seventies-sounding name for an oddly endearing woman. The dog’s name also started with G. I ran through possibilities quickly. Gretel. No. Gretchen. No. Gertrude. Yes, that was it. Which was another oddity, like the names for the woman and the dog were reversed. I’d fallen in love with Gertrude last spring, when Gidget invited me over to her little white farmhouse. She’d asked me to help her write her memoirs, since I was an editor and a published author. I’d agreed—charmed by the woman and intrigued by her years as the force behind a hip Houston art gallery—then forgotten about it in the wake of my mother’s death.

Until now. A flush rose toward my face. Ugh, memory problems, on top of hot flashes, fatigue, and allover body pain. But no, my gynecologist insisted it couldn’t be early onset of menopause at forty-one. He’d offered me birth control pills and antidepressants, but no empathy.

Annabelle spoke in the high pitch of a teenage girl, although at eighteen she was rapidly approaching womanhood. “Is it hurt?”

Okay . . . add trouble focusing, like on the crazed dog and my kids, to my list of symptoms.

Sam snorted. “It’s so ugly it hurts. What is it? Some kind of mash-up between a wiener dog and a sheep dog?”

I raised a brow at Sam, but secretly added pug to his list. “She might be hurt, Belle.”

The dog stopped in front of me, yapping frantically, like it was talking directly to me. Something was wrong with her eye, really wrong, but the little canine was whirling in circles by then. Between that and all her hair, I couldn’t get a good look at it. Was the reddish brown in her dreadlocks blood?

“What is it, Gertrude?” I crouched and held my hand toward her, palm up.

She reversed course with her back end turning separately from her front, like an articulated bus.

“Oh my God, did you see her turn?” Sam leaned over, laughing.

“She’s so cuuuute,” Annabelle squeaked, clapping her hands.

Gertrude sprinted into the woods, away from the three of us and the dilapidated summer camp travel trailer dubbed the “Quacker” by Sam because of the brand name Mallard emblazoned on its side. Stopping once, Gertrude looked back at us—one eye wonky—as if to say, “Hurry up, already.”

She tugged at my heart. “I’d better go after her.”

“I’m coming, too,” Sam said.

“You dropped your phone, Michele,” Annabelle said from behind me. “Some guy named Rashidi is texting you. Who’s Rashidi?” she called.

I pretended not to hear her, because I sure wasn’t going to tell her that a gorgeous Virgin Islander I’d met at my friend Emily’s wedding in Amarillo wouldn’t quit texting me. I hadn’t answered him, so I’d hoped he’d stopped. I wasn’t ready. I might never be ready again.

“Aren’t you coming?” Sam yelled back to Annabelle.

I heard her feet start up after us. Breakfast and too much coffee sloshed in my belly. I had a head start on them both, but even though I’d done an Ironman triathlon less than a year before, my conditioning was no match for their youthful athleticism. Sam played elite high school baseball, and Annabelle was headed to the University of Texas on a swim scholarship. And both were about to leave me alone for the summer, as of today—Sam working a summer baseball camp that moved around the country, and Annabelle getting a head start on the fall in Austin. I couldn’t think about it without my eyes leaking, so I forced it away.

The little dog had wheels, and the distance between her and us grew. We thrashed through the bushes and brush like a herd of stampeding cattle, my snake-proof pink-camouflage cowboy boots adding to our thunder. I tried not to think about snakes. Snakes in the grass, snakes hanging from trees, snakes under bushes. Copperheads, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, and coral snakes, all native to south central Texas, something I’d have to get past if I was going to make it through my summer in the country. Mongoose, mongoose.

Gertrude dashed under the bottom of the barbed-wire strands at the three-way juncture of poles and fences that marked the edge of our property and the two parcels adjoining it. A new metal sign had been affixed to the outside of Gidget’s fence, but facing the next property over from ours. It read FUTURE SITE OF HOU-TO-AUS LONESTAR PIPELINE.

We skidded to a stop, and I put my knee-high boot on the bottom wire and pulled up on the middle one. “Here.”

Annabelle ducked through, using one hand to hold her mass of long, curly blonde hair off her pink tank top and out of her face. Sam followed. They started running again.

“A little help, please?”

Annabelle understood me first. “Yeah, thanks a lot, Sam,” she teased. She mimicked my actions with the barbed wire.

I’d never been past our fence, and only up to it once or twice. When I’d visited Gidget, I’d driven on a dirt road that wound an extra two miles before cutting back to her place. I crouched, my butterfly pendant falling out of the top of my shirt and swinging forward to smack me in the teeth. I lunged under the higher strand into new territory, catching the back of my shirt on a barb. I heard a tiny rip, but I pulled through anyway. A piece of trash on the ground caught my eye, and reflexively I grabbed it and stuck it in my jeans pocket to throw away later.

“You’ve got a hole,” Annabelle informed me.

It was an old Hotter’N Hell Hundred T-shirt from a bicycle race I’d done with Adrian, Annabelle’s father. The ruined shirt was just another piece of him slipping away, a tiny sliver of my heart excised and gone.

Gertrude had stopped, and she was barking at us, her voice a cattle prod.

“Hold on, Lassie, we’re coming,” I said.

Neither kid laughed, my humor a few decades removed from theirs. We ran on through gray-trunked yaupon holly trees that scratched us up as much as the barbed wire, and I wished I had a coat of fur like Gertrude’s to protect me from it. The thick vegetation was pretty from a distance, but up close it gave me the willies. Poison ivy, spiders, and the aforementioned snakes and yaupon. It was dark back there, too, the cedar, mesquite, and oak creating a canopy made denser by thorny vines and bee-attracting honeysuckle.

Sam turned around and ran backwards. “So, where are we—” His words were interrupted when he hit the ground with an “oomph,” butt first, palms next.

“Are you okay?” I extended a hand to him.

He lifted one of his up, and it was covered in something brown and mushy. He waved it back and forth in front of his face, sniffing. “Gross.”

I withdrew my hand.

“What is it?” Annabelle leaned toward him, then backed away quickly. “Ew, poop.”

“Help me,” Sam said, shaking his hands to fling it off.

Gertrude started barking at us again.

“Sorry, son. I’ve got to see about the dog.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Annabelle giggled.

“No fair!”

“Wipe it off on the ground and the leaves.” I laughed, and Annabelle skipped. Literally, she skipped, and it warmed me inside.

Sam caught up with us. The scent of something rotten flooded my nose. At first I thought it was Sam, but it was dead animal stink, not manure stink. A few running paces later it started to recede. I didn’t want to know what it was. There were lots of critters out there, and all lives had an expiration date. We just didn’t have to face it personally in modern society very often. Or at all, most of us. Another thing I’d have to get over to survive my summer.

My breaths were coming in short pants now, and I couldn’t hear anything except the yips and barks of Gertrude. She broke from the tree line, and I saw Gidget’s clapboard house in the clearing. Gertrude scrambled toward it, running full-out. I wanted to stop and put my hands on my knees, but I kept going. Sweat trickled down my temple and onto my cheek. Annabelle was in front of me and Sam a good ten yards in front of her. A gate was ajar in a picket fence that could have used the attention of Tom Sawyer. Gertrude entered with Sam hot on her heels. The dog bounded onto the porch and disappeared.

My stress meter inched up. What had the dog so frantic?

Sam stomped up the wooden steps and came to an abrupt halt. He leaned forward, then stood. “You guys, there’s a broken window with blood on it, and the dog jumped through it and ran inside.”

Annabelle joined Sam, and I caught up with them. The porch sagged under our weight.

My heart was booming, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions that would upset Sam and Annabelle. I knocked but there was no sound from the house, and no one came to the door. “Gidget?” I called.

Nothing.

I took a step to the left and pressed my nose against the intact upper half of the window, my feet crunching the broken pieces on the porch. I shielded my eyes with my hand, trying to see past the glare of high morning sunlight against glass.

"What is it?" Annabelle asked.

I scanned the room. Gertrude suddenly appeared and rushed the window pell-mell, her bark piercing. I jumped back, falling into my stepdaughter. She stumbled a little, and I righted myself.

“I’m not sure,” I said. I braced myself, hands on the window frame, paint coming off in dry flecks on my palms. I brushed them off on my jeans and tried again. This time I was able to follow Gertrude with my eyes, and they led to the right, in front of a coffee table and faded tweed couch. A bundle of worn clothing lay piled on the wood floors, twitching. Hands and feet and a gray-haired head protruded from the bundle, and blood trickled from Gidget’s forehead into a pool beside her.

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

Website: Pamela Fagan Hutchins - Holding Nothing Back
Author's Blog: Pamela Fagan Hutchins
Pamela F. Hutchins - Employee Relations
Twitter: @PamelotH
E-Mail: pamela@pamelahutchins.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Post with Profile + Interview: HBS Author's Spotlight

Amazon Author Profile



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
Hell to Pay - What Doesn't Kill You, #7 - An Emily Romantic Mystery
A pulse-pounder full of humor and heart, the latest in the What Doesn't Kill You romantic mystery series.

Big-haired paralegal and former rodeo queen Emily has her life back on track. Her adoption of Betsy seems like a done deal, her parents have reunited, and she’s engaged to her sexy boss Jack. Then client Phil Escalante’s childhood buddy Dennis drops dead, face first into a penis cake at the adult novelty store Phil owns with his fiancée Nadine, one of Emily’s best friends. The cops charge Phil with murder right on the heels of his acquittal in a trial for burglarizing the Mighty is His Word church offices.

Emily’s nemesis ADA Melinda Stafford claims a witness overheard Phil fighting with Dennis over a woman. Before he can mount a defense, Phil falls into a diabetic coma, leaving Nadine shaken and terrified. Meanwhile Betsy’s ultra-religious foster parents apply to adopt her, and Jack starts acting weird and evasive. Emily feels like a calf out of a chute, pulled between the ropes of the header and the heeler, as she fights to help Phil and Nadine without losing Betsy and Jack.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store



Earth to Emily - What Doesn't Kill You, #6 - An Emily Romantic Mystery
Paralegal and former rodeo queen Emily only wants two little things. The first is to adopt Betsy—the girl who has stolen her heart but could be deported to Mexico at any time. The other is a second chance with her boss, Jack, a smolderingly hot and mysterious criminal defense attorney in Amarillo who runs his family’s horse ranch in New Mexico on the side.

But before Emily can dare to hope for either (or both), the obstacles between them and her mount: two runaway teenagers, an aging exotic dancer, and a dead trucker torpedo a dinner with Jack. She and Jack catch their client—who’s charged with assaulting an officer—selling stolen goods. And to top it all off, Betsy’s zealously religious and overly protective foster parents sic some questionable cops on Emily to destroy her reputation.

Emily just wants to silence all the noise and focus on her priorities: Betsy and Jack. But then the phone rings. It’s the two runaways, with an enormous secret and a desperate plea for help. They convince Emily that she’s the only one they can trust, forcing her into a horrible choice: risking the lives of these two teens, or jeopardizing her own chance at a life with the two people she cares about most.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store
Audible



Heaven to Betsy - Emily #1
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.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store
Audible



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 Store
iTunes Store



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 Store
iTunes Store
Audible



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 Store
iTunes Store



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 Store
iTunes Store
Audible



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 Store
iTunes Store
Audible



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 Store
iTunes Store



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 Store
iTunes Store



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 Store
iTunes Store



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.

Andra Watkins - Hard to Die 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 Andra Watkins' New Book: Hard to Die.

Author Andra Watkins is a NY Times Best Selling Author and public speaker. Andra writes Suspense and Memoir novels.

Hard to Die

Author: Andra Watkins


AVAILABLE
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store


You’ve heard the raves about the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Hamilton. But what happened to ‘Dear Theodosia,’ the fiery daughter Aaron Burr serenades? An inventive new take on the uncharted fate of Theodosia Burr Alston, the fiery daughter of Alexander Hamilton’s murderer. Hard to Die is an engrossing speculative fiction time-warp that combines elements of history, the paranormal, and suspense to breathe fresh air into Theodosia’s forgotten life and story. By the New York Times best-selling author of Not Without My Father: One Woman’s 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace. Hard to Die is the highly-anticipated sequel to To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis.

Excerpt from Hard to Die

The train jettisoned me into a Grand Central corridor a few yards from the man who killed my son.

General Wilkinson steamed toward a bank of stairs, and what mother wouldn’t follow? I hued past glassed-in shops flanked by acres of marble and crashed into fedora-clad, wool-suited travelers, but I never lost him. Whenever someone shot me a disapproving look, I used the manners my father praised. “Pardon me. I’m so sorry. Excuse me.”

The General strolled into the Grand Concourse. Amidst throngs scurrying from place to place to place, he paused and looked up. I followed his lead and gasped. e night sky twinkled on the soaring ceiling, lit by arched windows near the top. I traced the outlines of Orion, Aries, and Gemini, friends from my childhood.

Wilkinson was my godfather before he lost the privilege. He introduced me to the stories of the sky. I hovered outside my father’s study whenever Wilkinson was inside, hoping he’d emerge early enough to trace a new character in the heavens. To study starlight was to travel through reflected time.

I swiped a stray tear before it ruined my mascara. I couldn’t recall when I lost the luxury of weakness. Perhaps it died with my boy.

I twisted the ends of my knitted scarf and awaited the General’s next move. His fat fist grasped a buttery croissant, procured from a passing cart. Flakes clung like dandruff along the front of his coat as he munched his snack and studied the schedule board. It twinkled with places I remembered. Ossining. Cold Spring. Beacon. Poughkeepsie. Towns perched along the glaciated shore of a river that echoed with my son’s laughter.

Until his last summer. He perished before we could head north to escape the heat.

I would confront Wilkinson, even if it meant following him on a haunted tour of every agonizing memory. I would—

Damn. He chewed his last bite of pastry and watched me. My breath pulsed a hurried soundtrack for our stare down. Grand Central was too public for a miscalculated scene. Why didn’t I stop to consider where I was before I rushed after him without a plan? Still, I prepared to knock him senseless with my purse as he closed the space between us. His leer never wavered. “Theodosia Burr Alston. I thought that was you, tiptoeing after me. You’ve grown even more ravishing since I last saw you. I’d know you anywhere.”

“General Wilkinson. You always were short on sincerity.”

“Oh, I think that’s unfair. Why can’t I point out how kind the years have been to you?”

“Too bad they haven’t smiled on you.”

He brushed crumbs from his coat, his smile fading. “I saw you on the platform, hiding behind posts and tripping through doorways. I started to speak to you then, but ignoring clumsiness in others is often the most thoughtful approach.”

“You’re still masking your selfishness with exaggerated charm. Don’t be so predictable.”

“Funny how this place delivers unfortunate gifts to my doorstep. You’re like a spray of flowers. Only desiccated and dead.”

I pretended to kiss the air around his head. “I’ll remember how much you like rotted bouquets when I order one to mark your grave.”

“Please, dear Theo. Hysterical, murderous threats are unbecoming to a lady.”

“When one of your many enemies finally kills you, nobody’ll call it murder.”

“As much as I’d love to watch them fail, I don’t have time for fantasy. Let me give you a little advice since you haven’t seen me in a while.”

“You think I’ll follow your advice? Come on, General. Your advice cost me my son.”

“I had nothing to do with your son’s death. My condolences, by the way.”

“Too late. I won’t accept insincere sentiments from the architect of my son’s death. And my father almost died because of your misguided counsel.”

“Misguided? Really? He’s the one who failed. The man ran for president and almost won. Anybody who can get that far ought to know how to assemble a team to carry out a simple plan. We needed a few thousand men to defeat our enemies. I knew how many men they had, remember? But he botched it. He barely found fifty.”

“Because you wouldn’t give a written guarantee of what they were promised.”

“Smart people never put anything of consequence in writing. Besides, he was big-headed enough to believe he could recruit others to the cause.”

“You testified against him in a trial for his life.”

“Pointing out his misdeeds was my patriotic duty.”

“I waited for lightning to incinerate the courtroom when you touched the Bible and swore to tell the whole truth.”

“And in the end, the truth didn’t matter, did it? Your father walked free.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t challenge you to a private meeting of honor.”

“You mean a duel?” He moved closer. “I wouldn’t mention such things here if I were you. People don’t resolve grievances that way anymore.”

“Someone needs to make you suffer.”

“Oh, I suffer. You have no idea.”

“Then why are you still alive?”

“I know this disappoints you, but I’ve found it hard to die.”

“I’m certain hell is ready to admit you anytime.”

The General’s eyes bored into me. “You don’t understand where you are, do you?”

When I attacked, my purse’s brass clasp raked a bloody gash along his hairline, but it wasn’t enough to fell my father’s arch enemy. Wilkinson always outmaneuvered his foes, especially those with the last name Burr. He seized my arm and steered me through an arched doorway. A subterranean labyrinth harbored a jumbled series of tracks. Pain broiled through my shoulder in my fight to remain upright.

“Don’t worry, Theo. Dying doesn’t hurt much when you’re already dead.”

“I’m not dead yet.”

He dragged me to the far end of an abandoned platform. “It’s 1950, Theo. You’ve been gone for 137 years. Don’t you remember what happened on the ship?” He heaved me into the path of an oncoming train and shouted, “You disappeared. You’re dead. And so am I.”

Author Genre: Suspense, Memoir

Website: Andra Watkins
Author's Blog: Andra Watkins
Instagram
Twitter: @andrawatkins
E-Mail: readme(at)andrawatkins(dot)com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Google+: Check Out Google+
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Post with Profile + Interview: HBS Author's Spotlight

Amazon Author Profile



Author Description: New York Times Best Selling Author Andra Watkins lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace, her memoir chronicling her walk and dysfunctional family adventure, was nominated for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. She is one of the only living persons to walk the 10,000-year-old road.

Her acclaimed debut novel To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis was published by Word Hermit Press in 2014 and planted her desire to walk the ancient Trace.

Natchez Trace: Tracks in Time is a book of photography, shot during her 15-mile daily hikes on the Natchez Trace.

In addition to her books, Andra's writing has been published on recognized sites including Scary Mommy and Minerva Rising, and she has been featured on news outlets including The Huffington Post, The Tennessean, and ABC News.

Follow her writing adventures at andrawatkins.com.





Author's Book List
Natchez Trace - Tracks in Time
From March 1 to April 3, 2014, Andra Watkins walked the Natchez Trace, all 444-miles. How does a person fill the time when walking alongside a highway fifteen miles a day for thirty-four days? To stave off boredom and deflect pain, she took pictures. Of highway and sky. Of garbage. Of spring flowers. Of migrating birds. Of trees and fields and signs. Wheels grease the path for the traveller, blurring the details of a landscape. Honoring when Life moved at the speed of footsteps, she documented the minutiae of forgotten traces of Time. Whether one drives or cycles the Trace today, these images will ease a traveller into a deliberate pace. This photographic collection is a gift from the Natchez Trace.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble



Not Without My Father - One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace
Can an epic adventure succeed without a hero? Andra Watkins needed a wingman to help her become one of the only living persons to walk the historic 444-mile Natchez Trace as the pioneers did. She planned to walk fifteen miles a day. For thirty-four days. After striking-out with everyone in her life, she was left with her disinterested eighty-year-old father. And his gas. The sleep apnea machine and self-scratching. Sharing a bathroom with a man whose gut obliterated his aim. As Watkins trudged America's forgotten highway, she lost herself in despair and pain. Nothing happened according to plan, and her tenuous connection to her father started to unravel. Through arguments and laughter, tears and fried chicken, they fought to rebuild their relationship before it was too late. In Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace, Watkins invites readers to join her dysfunctional family adventure in a humorous and heartbreaking memoir that asks if one can really turn 'I wish I had' into 'I'm glad I did.'


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store
Audible



To Live Forever - An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis
Explorer Meriwether Lewis has been stuck in Nowhere since his mysterious death nearly two centuries ago. His last hope for redemption is helping nine-year-old Emmaline Cagney flee her madame mother in New Orleans and find her father in Nashville. To get there, Merry must cross his own grave along the Natchez Trace, where he duels the corrupt Judge, an old foe who has his own despicable plans for Em.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
iTunes Store



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.

Joanne Lessner - OFFED STAGE LEFT 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 Joanne Lessner's New Book: OFFED STAGE LEFT.

Author Joanne Sydney Lessner writes Mystery & Thrillers including the Isobel Spice Series. Also, she is a singer, actress, writer and mom.

Offed Stage Left

An Isobel Spice Mystery Book 4

Author: Joanne Sydney Lessner


AVAILABLE
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store


There’s one role you don’t want a callback for: Prime Suspect.

Aspiring actress Isobel Spice lands her first regional theater job, playing a supporting role and understudying the lead in "Sousacal: The Life and Times of John Philip Sousa." A series of minor backstage accidents culminates in the suspicious death of the leading lady on opening night. When Isobel takes over the role, her mastery of the material makes her more suspect than savior, and she realizes the only way to clear her name is to discover the identity of the murderer—before he or she strikes again.

Excerpt from Offed Stage Left

Chapter 1

“BE KIND TO YOUR WEB-FOOTED FRIENDS, for a duck could be somebody’s mooo-ther,” Sunil Kapany sang under his breath to the tune of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

“Shhh!” Isobel Spice elbowed him. “There’s a rehearsal going on, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“You have to admit, it’s better than the lame words we’re being forced to sing,” Sunil grumbled. He sank further into his cushioned seat in Livingston Stage Company’s darkened theater, drawing up his knees against the scratched donor nameplate on the seatback in front of him. “Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to write lyrics to Sousa marches?”

“I don’t see how you can have a musical about the March King without using his music,” Isobel said. She shifted the bustle of her pale-blue and white muslin gown, her act one costume for Sousacal: The Life and Times of John Philip Sousa.

“Easy,” Sunil replied. “You hire a composer with a sense of the period to write the book songs, and use Sousa’s marches for the gazintas and gazoutas.”

Isobel frowned. “The what?”

“The underscoring that goes into one scene and goes out of another. Gazintas and gazoutas.” He looked askance at her. “Have you never done a musical before?”

“Plenty.” She bristled. “And I’ve never heard anyone use those words. You are totally making that up.”

“I am not,” Sunil said, affronted. “Hey, Kelly!”

Several rows in front of them, Kelly Jonas, the stage manager, held court behind a large wooden plank balanced across the seats, which served as a makeshift control center for tech rehearsals. She looked up from her prompt book, a three-inch binder stuffed with script pages and scenic renderings, fastidiously divided by brightly colored tabs. Pushing aside a long strand of graying hair, Kelly squinted at Sunil through her wire-rimmed glasses.

“Yeah?”

“What are gazintas and gazoutas?” Sunil asked.

“The play-ons and play-offs before or after a scene,” she answered distractedly. A movement onstage caught her attention. “Are we ready to move on?”

Sunil turned triumphantly to Isobel. “See?”

Isobel sighed. “This is going to be a long day.”

“They don’t call it a ten-out-of-twelve for nothing.”

“Is there anything more tedious than spending ten hours waiting around while they set lighting and sound cues?” Isobel whined.

“Um, yes. Doing the actual show.”

As much as Isobel hated to admit it, Sunil was right. From day one, it had been clear that Sousacal was a dog. There had been a buzz of anticipatory excitement in the air when the company assembled for the first read-through in the third-floor rehearsal studio of the sleek, state-of-the-art performing arts complex in downtown Albany. In addition to hosting the century-old Livingston Stage Company, relocated from its charmingly dilapidated (some said haunted) prior home in an old vaudeville house, the building had a black box theater and a café that served light meals before and after performances. Everything about her surroundings made Isobel feel like a working theater professional.

Everything, that is, except the material. Sunil had politely informed her after the read-through that his shin was black and blue from her kicking it under the table. But having taken out her frustration on his tibia, she resolved to relish her first regional theater job rather than let the disappointing quality of the show get her down. Since moving to New York a year and a half ago, when she’d met Sunil at her very first audition, Isobel had learned that most acting work was to be found in summer stock or regional theaters. Isobel had resigned herself to the conundrum of living in New York in order to get work out of town, which was the best way for a young performer who was not yet a member of Actors’ Equity Association to build her resume. Despite Sunil’s increasingly steady stream of snarky comments, she had thrown herself enthusiastically into her small role as John Philip Sousa’s first love, Emma Swallow, while assiduously preparing the larger role she was understudying: Jennie Sousa, the composer’s wife.

Isobel sighed again and flipped open her script to a scene between Jennie and Sousa, running her finger down the neon pink highlights. “I may as well use my downtime to memorize lines.”

Sunil jerked a thumb at the stage. “You really think Arden is going to miss a performance?”

Isobel followed his gaze. Arden Claire was stalking the proscenium like a tiger that hadn’t had its morning coffee. A statuesque, auburn-haired beauty, Arden had once represented New York in the Miss America pageant and was hailed as a minor celebrity, even though she hadn’t made it past the swimsuit competition. So far, her portrayal of Jennie Sousa was not living up to expectations. Throughout the three-week rehearsal period, Ezra Bernard, the director, had pushed Arden to suppress her natural hauteur and find Jennie’s quiet strength and self-deprecating humor. Their struggles swallowed up rehearsal hours, and the more Ezra tried to mold Arden’s characterization, the more fiercely she clung to the glamour that had guaranteed her past successes, which didn’t exactly endear her to the rest of the company.

Chris Marshall, the charismatic, square-jawed actor playing Sousa, found her completely intolerable. All Arden’s scenes were with him, which meant her epic ego flashes impacted him more than anyone else. Initially, Chris had struck Isobel as the sort of galvanizing personality who stepped up to lead the company, but after three weeks of Arden, he had withdrawn into sullen, stormy silence. Lately he had stopped addressing his leading lady directly and had taken to routing all his communication through Ezra, a gently bearish man who was growing increasingly frazzled as opening night approached. Isobel was surprised now to see Chris saunter onstage and whisper something in Arden’s ear, prompting her to glower at him and retreat to the wings.

“Even divas get sick,” Isobel remarked. “Better safe than sorry.”

Sunil gave Isobel an appraising look. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d warn that girl to watch her back.”

Isobel flicked her eyes toward him. “Are you being purposely obnoxious today?”

“I assure you, it’s completely accidental.”

“Ha ha.”

“Trust me, you’re better off playing Emma.”

“Jennie is the lead. She’s Sousa’s wife. Emma is a passing fancy. I’m only in act one,” Isobel griped.

Sunil raised an eyebrow. “Let me get this straight: you think the show is a piece of crap, but you’re complaining your part isn’t big enough?”

Isobel crossed her arms defiantly. “What if I am?”

He laughed. “You are so predictable! Look, Jennie is your typical ingénue. Emma has, if you’ll pardon the expression, spice.” Isobel glared at him, but he went on. “Plus, you get to come back at the end as the hotel maid who finds him dead.”

“I have two lines and a scream,” she said. “About what you have in act two as the Indian chief who makes Sousa an honorary chieftain.”

“I don’t scream—I chant.” Sunil twirled the walking stick that rested horizontally across his knee. “Isn’t it time someone told Felicity she hired the wrong kind of Indian? I’m pretty sure the Pawnee Nation doesn’t have a Delhi tribe.”

Isobel resisted the urge to look several rows behind her, where Felicity Hamilton, artistic director of Livingston Stage, was sitting. Felicity was in her late fifties, short and stocky with impeccably coiffed black hair, a deceptively warm smile, and a calculating gaze. She had never married, but despite an apparent absence of maternal warmth, she treated her nephew and godchild Jethro like a son. It was Jethro Hamilton, a self-described Sousa fanatic, who had written the book and lyrics to Sousacal. The musical was Jethro’s baby, and, in his way, Jethro was Felicity’s.

“She thinks she’s getting points for non-traditional casting,” Isobel said. “Don’t kill the dream.”

“Where she’s really getting them is casting a brown person to play Philadelphia gentleman and man of the church Benjamin Swallow, your…gulp…stepfather.”

Isobel knew that Sunil, an Indian Jew, was perennially frustrated by the inability of directors to see past his ethnicity and hire him for the beautiful tenor he had inherited from his cantor father.

She patted his hand. “It’s utility casting. They had to give us small parts because we’re covering the leads.” She eyed him curiously. “You are looking over Sousa’s stuff, right?”

Sunil pulled his hand away. “I’ve glanced at it.”

“Glanced…?” Isobel’s jaw fell open. “It’s huge! Sousa carries the show.”

“Eh, it’s pretty much sunk in by osmosis. Besides, you know actors. They’ll drag themselves onstage coughing and hacking rather than turn their creation over to a scheming understudy. You know, I’m not even the—”

“What if something serious happened to Chris? And what if there were a Broadway producer in the audience and you had to go on?”

Sunil snorted. “As if Broadway cares a hoot about what happens in the boonies.”

“Last I checked, Albany was the state capital.”

“Like I said, the boonies. Theatrically and politically,” Sunil cracked.

“Plenty of Tony winners are launched in regional theaters like Livingston,” she reminded him.

Sunil unbent his long legs and stretched them out under the seat in front of him. “Let’s review all the reasons that’s never going to happen with Sousacal. Number one: the show sucks. Number two: the show sucks. And number three: it’s not very good.”

Isobel turned a page with a dainty finger. “Then you won’t be interested in what I heard from Thomas in the costume shop.”

“Probably not.” Sunil yawned ostentatiously and tipped his straw boater over his face.

“Arden, back onstage, please.” Kelly’s voice echoed over the God mic. “We’ll finish the duet and move on to the wedding without stopping. Ensemble, please be ready for your entrance.”

Isobel set her script on the seat next to her and nudged Sunil. “Come on. Time to make the donuts.”

He righted his hat with a groan and led her down the aisle. They skirted the orchestra pit via a set of narrow utility stairs and took their places offstage left.

“So, what did you hear in the costume shop?” Sunil asked casually.

“I thought you weren’t interested,” Isobel teased.

“I’m not. I’m bored.”

Isobel’s eyes darted around the wings. Three chorus women, locals whom Isobel didn’t know well, were fussing with their costumes, which they were all wearing for the first time. One of the ensemble men was trying to draw out the shy little boy who played young Sousa, while two others were engaged in a quiet but intense conversation. Satisfied that nobody was listening, Isobel returned her attention to Sunil.

“Someone from the Donnelly Group is coming opening night.”

“The Broadway producers?” Sunil waved her off. “I don’t believe it.”

“Thomas says all they have in the pipeline is revivals, and they’re scouting for something new,” Isobel insisted. “And you know as well as I do, if you want to know what’s going on, ask the costume shop.”

“Still don’t believe it.”

“And…continue,” Kelly called.

Chris and Arden picked up, rather mechanically, in the middle of act one, scene seven. Isobel watched them intently, mouthing Jennie’s lines while Sunil eyed her in amusement.

“You’re really taking this seriously,” he whispered.

She ignored him and continued, but stopped abruptly when Arden veered from the script.

“I can’t sit on the gazebo bench if that spotlight is right in my eyes,” Arden announced.

“We’ll adjust it on the break,” Kelly said. “If you stand on six, you should be in the clear.”

Arden shuffled over a few inches. “Now I’m in the dark.”

“Those are your choices right now. We’ll fix the cue later,” Kelly said.

Chris reached for Arden. “Oh, Jennie, you’ve made me the happiest man on earth. Please? Not just a tiny kiss?”

Arden stepped forward and shaded her eyes from the bright stage lights. “Ezra, I need a fan for this scene. It’s summer and she would have one.”

“Jesus Christ,” Chris muttered.

“We’ll get you a fan,” Ezra boomed from the back of the house. “Go on.”

Chris repeated his line. “Not just a tiny kiss?”

“Not until I have a fan,” Arden said.

“Something I’ll never be,” Chris retorted.

“Ooh, snap,” breathed Sunil.

Arden shot Chris a murderous look.

“I will get you one for tomorrow’s dress,” Ezra shouted. “Finish the goddamn scene!”

Arden turned to Chris and batted her eyelashes unconvincingly. “Not until we’re married,” she said with a tight-lipped smile.

From the orchestra pit, the piano launched into the intro to Sousa’s famous march, “The Washington Post.” Chris dropped to one knee, flung his arms wide, and sang in a lusty bari-tenor:

I’ll probably die if you don’t kiss me,
Yes, that’s what I most want you to do,
You simply have got to see it through! …

Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers, Playwriter

Website: Joanne Lessner
Twitter: @joannelessner
E-Mail: joannelessner@gmail.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook

Post with Profile + Interview: HBS Author's Spotlight

Amazon Author Profile



Author Description: Writer, singer, and actor Joanne Sydney Lessner draws on her own experiences pursuing a performing career in New York City for her acclaimed Isobel Spice Mysteries: THE TEMPORARY DETECTIVE, BAD PUBLICITY, AND JUSTICE FOR SOME, and OFFED STAGE LEFT. With humor and a bit of romance, Isobel juggles auditions and temp jobs, solving murders along the way, while Joanne’s inside knowledge provides a window into the realities of breaking into show business (as well as a forum to share every humiliating audition experience she and her friends ever had.)

Joanne’s debut novel, PANDORA’S BOTTLE, was inspired by the true story of the world's most expensive bottle of wine and was named one of the top five books of 2010 by Paperback Dolls. With her husband, composer/conductor Joshua Rosenblum, she has co-authored several musicals, including the cult hit FERMAT'S LAST TANGO and EINSTEIN'S DREAMS, based on the celebrated novel by Alan Lightman. Her play, CRITICAL MASS, received its Off Broadway premiere in October 2010. Joanne is also a regular contributor to OPERA NEWS and a graduate of Yale University.





Author's Book List
And Justice for Some - An Isobel Spice Mystery Book 3
Dinner theater can be a death sentence.

Actress Isobel Spice and her best friend Delphi Kramer are thrilled to finally have an opportunity to perform together, even if it’s just a cheesy interactive murder mystery at a judge’s lifetime achievement dinner. But when Isobel’s dramatic death scene is upstaged by a real murder and Delphi is left holding the still-smoking gun, Isobel drops the role of victim and assumes the role of detective. With the help of her precocious brother Percival and her reluctant temp agent James Cooke, Isobel peels back layers of deception to reveal a shocking abuse of power—and no shortage of suspects eager to deliver justice to a man who denied it to so many.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store



Bad Publicity - An Isobel Spice Mystery Book 2
In the world of PR, there's only one crime worse than killing a deal--killing a client.

Aspiring actress and office temp Isobel Spice finds a warm welcome at Dove & Flight Public Relations, thanks to her old school friend Katrina Campbell. However, the atmosphere chills considerably when Isobel unwittingly serves an important client a deadly dose of poisoned coffee. Her stalwart temp agent, James Cooke, rushes to her aid, but balks when he learns that the victim was the fraternity brother who got him expelled from college. News that Dove & Flight is being acquired by an international conglomerate quickly supplants the murder as the hot topic of office gossip, but Isobel is convinced the two events are related. When all roads of inquiry lead back to Katrina, Isobel is forced to consider the possibility that her friend's killer instincts go beyond public relations.

Please note: this is a cozy mystery with an edge; contains some adult language.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store



The Temporary Detective - An Isobel Spice Mystery Book 1
Phones, light typing...and murder.

Think breaking into show business is hard? Try landing a temp job without office skills. That's the challenge facing aspiring actress Isobel Spice when she arrives in New York City, fresh out of college and deficient in PowerPoint. After being rejected by seven temp agencies for her lack of experience, Isobel sweet-talks recruiter James Cooke into letting her cover a last-minute vacancy at a bank. New to his own job, and recently sober, James takes a chance on Isobel, despite his suspicion that she's a trouble-magnet. His misgivings are borne out by lunchtime, when she stumbles across a dead secretary in a bathroom stall. With her fingerprints on the murder weapon, Isobel sets out to prove her innocence by investigating the crime herself. While learning to juggle phone lines and auditions, she discovers an untapped talent for detective work--a qualification few other office temps, let alone actresses, can claim.

Please note: this is a cozy mystery with an edge; contains some adult language and situations.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store



Pandora's Bottle
What happens when you pin all your hopes on a single event and it all goes terribly wrong? When that event is the uncorking of a fabled bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite once owned by Thomas Jefferson, the repercussions are emotional, financial, theatrical and, in every way, unexpected. In this tale of hubris and redemption, aspiration and perseverance, Joanne Sydney Lessner provides a provocative glimpse into the world of fine wine, from the whirl of New York City haute cuisine to the historic vineyards of the Hudson Valley. When Sy Hampton purchases this legendary bottle which, through a quirk of preservation, may yet be drinkable he shocks the wine community by choosing to uncork it privately with a female companion, rather than at a special public event. Sy intends the evening to be a quiet reassertion of his virility in the throes of middle age, but for ambitious restaurateur Annette Lecocq, the event offers an irresistible opportunity for much-needed publicity. Their competing agendas are not the only things to collide on the fateful night. Caught in the crossfire are Tripp Macgregor, a waiter on the verge of his long-awaited Broadway debut, and Valentina D Ambrosio, the beautiful but unworldly working girl from Brooklyn Sy hopes to impress.


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.