Six Mysteries. Six Authors Read.
Meet six cool Canadian authors and hear about their new releases, replenish your TBR pile, be entertained!
Recently Sisters in Crime -Canada West showcased six authors and their new releases.
To view, click HERE.
Meet six cool Canadian authors and hear about their new releases, replenish your TBR pile, be entertained!
Recently Sisters in Crime -Canada West showcased six authors and their new releases.
To view, click HERE.
Check out the Podcast HERE.
They stalk our myths and hunt our past—dragons—humankind’s greatest and oldest foe. Good, bad, legendary and deadly. Dare you enter the dragon’s lair?
Thirteen tales of dragons, their friends and their foes. I’m happy to report that my short story Like at Loch Ness is included among other wonderful tales of things that slither—big things.
Interested?
To see more, click HERE.
Until March 31, After Yekaterina is available at a pre-release price of $1.99. After release the book will return to the regular price of $4.99.
What if Catherine the Great never fulfilled her destiny and the Ottoman Empire destroyed Holy Mother Russia?
In an alternate modern Russia surrounded by the still-powerful Ottoman Empire and the Chinese Empire of the Sun, a dead girl in a pink sweater draws disillusioned Detektiv Alexander Kazakov into an investigation that even the girl’s mother wants him to abandon.
Driven by the truth and a slowly rising body count, Kazakov must traverse a landscape of snow and brothels, and a civilization frozen by history to catch a killer no one suspects.
After Yekaterina is the first in the Yekaterina Alternate History series set in the fictional Central Asian Country of Fergana.
Interested?
Click HERE
It has been a while since I’ve posted anything, but there is exciting news to share. After many delays due to life getting in the way, the third Detektiv Kazakov mystery is ready to roll. The novel is called The Tsarina’s Mask. The book takes place a few weeks after the events of book 2 and finds Kazakov sent on assignment to the rugged southern mountains of Fergana to investigate the murder of an old tribal healer.
Here’s the blurb:
When Detektiv Kazakov finds himself assigned to a murder investigation deep in the winter-bound mountains of Fergana, it’s a chance to reacquaint himself with a part of the country he once loved. Instead of a welcome, however, he finds a tribal community overrun with Russian tourists and a groundswell of festering resentment among the mountain people.
No one wants to deal with a Russian detective from the city, regardless of his tribal connections, and that includes the local police. With too few suspects for the murder of a well-respected tribal healer, Kazakov must reach deep to build connections. The situation only worsens when his nemesis appears on the scene. A mounting body count sends Kazakov deep into the inhospitable mountains, but nothing prepares him for the secrets and betrayals he discovers bound up in the murders
The book is now scheduled for publication in mid March 2019. In the meantime, I will be seeking reader input from my advance team. So if you’d like to read this book before it hits the shelves (and hopefully leave me a review, too!) sign up for my newsletter Here (scroll down and fill out the form) to receive free books and the opportunity to become a member of my advance reader team.
I seem to be having trouble with novel covers these days. I’ve struggled over a romance series that will be getting a rebranding this Spring (after going through the same thing last Spring—I’m still not happy.) Now I’m working on the cover for the first in a new alternate history mystery series. The first novel, After Yekaterina, is in for copy editing and I’m about 45% of the way through the first draft of the second novel, so I thought I’d get started with planning covers.
The books are noir police procedurals that take place in an alternate world where the Ottoman Empire defeated Catherine the Great of Russia. As a result the Ottomans kept their hold on central Asia—until they bumped up against the Chinese Empire of the Sun. In this world, the rag-tag remains of Russian Moscow have built a new motherland, Fergana, with New Moscow as their capital. Caught like the gristle in a joint between the two superpowers, Fergana provides fertile ground for a new Asian Great Game of spies and subterfuge. It takes lone wolf Detektiv Alexander Kazakov to deal with the bodies left behind.
I have two cover options below. One represents the loner working alone, while the other focuses on place and tone. What do you think? Which one best represents the concept I’ve laid out?
Hi everyone, I’ve come to the conclusion that a set of covers may not be working properly for a series of novels of mine. The series is set in a beach resort town in the summer. It involves a romance. Sounds like a contemporary romance, right? The challenge is that the story also has paranormal elements and a building suspense. The level of darkness and suspense builds throughout the series, though I’ve kept the summer feel of the place. So I’m going to show you two covers for the first book in the series as well as the two blurbs and I’d really appreciate feedback on which better conveys the idea of the story I’ve described above.
Current Cover and Blurb:
When Kylee Jensen returns from Africa, she leaves behind her fiancé and brings back a badly broken heart. To heal, she seeks out her best friend in the idyllic lakeside town of Peachland, where she meets bad boy vintner Brett Main. Meeting Kylee might just be the incentive Brett needs to change his ways, but Kylee’s barely mended heart can’t take a man like Brett. Then a mysterious death disturbs the peace that Kylee desperately needs, and only Brett can keep her from being next on the killer’s hit list. A killer on the prowl, a peculiar bracelet that won’t come off, and a man she can’t handle… Africa is starting to look a lot safer than Peachland.
Karen L. Abrahamson creates a cast of wonderful characters in this, the first book of the Bracelet contemporary romance series. The book takes readers to the sun-soaked Okanagan Valley where orchards and vineyards cover the hills and sometimes magic raises its head, like the ancient Okanagan Lake monster.
Possible New Cover and Blurb: (note that the cover is still in draft form so it still has shutter stock on the images)
In this supernatural romance, Kylee Jensen had worked hard to turn a string of bad luck into a life that every woman dreams of. She’d met the love of her life, they’d both quit their jobs, and she and her fiancee were on a romantic round-the-world tour together…until things fell apart.
Returning to North America with nothing but the realization that she’s a disaster at relationships, Kylee seeks the help of her childhood best friend who co-owns a new-age jewelry store with three other women in the small beach side town of Peachland. Drawn into the shelter of the group of friends Kylee finds herself the focus of their efforts to help her heal. All seems well…until Kylee tries on a mysterious magical bracelet linked to a recent murder.
Brett Main is the typical beach-bum, bad boy—at least he used to be. With his blonde good looks, and his half ownership of Elkhart Winery, a long line of women litter his past. But then he meets Kylee. The petite blonde may be everything Brett ever wanted, even if she has vowed not to become involved with anyone.
When supernatural forces threaten Kylee, Brett realizes that he’s in danger of losing her. Kylee and Brett will have to come together with their circle of friends to defeat a ghostly, entity that can turn any man into a killer.
Fans of steamy sex scenes, suspense and the paranormal will enjoy this story of evil infiltrating a summer beach town.
Release date December 1, 2015
A dynamic collection of stories that explore the mystery, awe and dread that we may have felt as children when encountering a special toy. But it goes further, to the edges of space, where games are for keeps and where the mind plays its own games. We enter a world where the magic may not have been lost, where a toy plays for keeps or computers and gods vie for the upper hand. Dolls, stuffed animals, wooden games of skill, ancient artifacts misinterpreted, and items that seek a life or even revenge; these lost toys and games bring tales of companionship, loss, revenge, hope, murder, cunning, and love, to be unearthed in the sandbox.
The Playground of Lost Toys contains, With One Shoe, by Karen L. Abrahamson.
It must be the season but I’ve found myself writing romances and family stories over the past month. As a result a number of new Karen L. McKee stories have gone up on line.
In addition, Karen L. Abrahamson published two stories set in the far east. One involves romance gone wrong and the other focuses on growing up and family–in a not so nice situation.
Happy reading!