Books, Backs and Other Stuff

Oy. July came and went so fast, I have a feeling I missed most of it. However, I didn’t miss the demise of my beloved Daisy, former winner-picking wiener dog, who left this life and crossed the Rainbow Bridge on July 6. Bad start to the month.

Then I had to spend most of the following week in Albuquerque, prepping for various surgeries. On August 15 I’ll have the stupid cataract that developed after surgery to reattach my retina removed. It’ll be a pleasure to be able to see again. Since that blasted retina decided to detach itself last December, my left eye has been totally blurry. Everyone I know who’s had cataract surgery has told me it’s a breeze, so I’m looking forward to having the surgery performed.

On the not-so-breezy side, I’m going to have spinal surgery on September 11 (an ominous date if I’ve ever heard of one). Don’t yet know if it’ll be on my cervical (neck) spine or my lumbar (lower back) spine, but it’ll be one or the other. If it’s cervical surgery, I get to have the lumbar surgery another date. I can’t really say I’m looking forward to either of those surgeries, but if they’ll help take the constant pain away, I’ll be very happy. I also hope to regain one or two of the four inches my blasted spine has crunched from my overall height. Heck, I looked at the video of my daughter’s June wedding, and my noticed that my body’s now shaped a garden gnome! I swear, it didn’t used to look like that.

Better news on the book front. I self-published ANGELS OF MERCY in July! This is the fourth book in the Mercy Allcutt historical cozy mystery series. ANGELS OF MERCY is so darned cozy, you never even see a body, because the dastardly deeds occur off the pages. However, lots of other kinds of mayhem are reported by Mercy, who’s turned her home into a haven for young women working to support themselves in Los Angeles in 1926. She considers she’s performing a public service. Her boss, Ernie Templeton, doesn’t share her Pollyanna attitude. But everything turns out all right in the end. You can check out the first chapter of the book (and even click on links to buy it in either trade paperback or e-book format) on my web site: www.aliceduncan.net

Also, I managed to get HEAVEN SENT, a sugary-sweet historical romance I’d totally overlooked when I was generating e-books from my backlist, up on Kindle, Nook, Sony and whatever. This is actually a good book, and it features my late mother’s late cat, Monster. Again, you can check it out on my web site: www.aliceduncan.net  

And I’ve fostered two dogs! Freckles, an adorable speckled (dappled) dachshund, and Billie Burke, a terrier mix, who was adopted by a New Jersey couple from the Roswell Humane Society (still not entirely sure how that happened). Billie flew to her new home on July 31 (coach class. No cargo for her). Freckles is still with me, and it’ll hurt to let her go. Sigh. I don’t know why I do this to myself. Oh, yeah. I remember. It’s for the dogs.

Hmm. Maybe July wasn’t as boring as I’d originally thought. It was definitely full of mayhem, if not much magic.

LINKS TO BUYING ANGELS OF MERCY!

(Not that I'm pressuring anyone to buy it or anything)

Buy it in trade paperback on Amazon

Buy it in trade paperback on Barnes & Noble

Buy it for your Kindle

Buy it for your Nook, Sony, or any other e-reader

ANGELS OF MERCY - is here!

Okey-dokey, here it is! My first self-published novel, ANGELS OF MERCY, book #4 in my Mercy Allcutt mystery series, is available now. Right this minute! Two murders take place in this book, but there's no blood or gore. In fact, the book's so cozy (sorry to people who dislike that description, but I don't know how else to describe it) that both heinous crimes happen off-stage completely.

I'm holding a special contest for ANGELS OF MERCY this month. From now until July 31, you may enter my contest. I'll be giving away three copies of ANGELS OF MERCY. Just send me your name and home address at alice@aliceduncan.net . Please put ANGELS OF MERCY in the subject line, or you're liable to be entered into my regular contest. Not that my regular contest is a bad thing, but if you win it, you won't be winning ANGELS OF MERCY. Did that make sense? Well, never mind.

This is a total experiment for me. I mean, I'm not Joe Konrath or Stephen King or Nora Roberts or anyone else who has an audience of billions. I have a very small following of loyal, faithful readers whom I love. It would be really keen (that 1920's talk for cool) if I could cadge a few more. In case you feel like helping me fund my upcoming three surgeries (more about them in my August blog), just follow the links below.

Thanks!

Former Boston Brahmin Mercy Allcutt is excited to be renting out suites of rooms to deserving working women in her new home on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. She considers she’s performing an act of good-heartedness, no matter how skeptical her boss, private investigator Ernie Templeton, is about her endeavor.

When her housekeeper’s son is arrested for the murder of a Hollywood big-wig, Mercy presses Ernie to solve the case. She’s positive Calvin Buck is innocent. Ernie tells her he’ll do his best. She’s not entirely convinced he means it, so she does some snooping on her own.

In the meantime, Mercy not only takes driving lessons from Ernie, but she discovers there’s more to being a landlady than meets the eye. Is one of her “Angels of Mercy” not what she appears to be? Only time, and perhaps Mercy and Ernie, will tell…

Read an Excerpt

Buy ANGELS OF MERCY in trade paperback

Buy ANGELS OF MERCY for your Kindle

Buy ANGELS OF MERCY for your Nook, Sony, or any other e-reader

THE JOYS OF JUNE!

June was a mega-fun month, mainly because I got to visit California, go to my daughter’s wedding, and then house- and dog-sit for her and her new hubby while they went on their honeymoon. Not only that, but I got to see all my old California buddies. Well, not quite all of them, but as many as I could fit in during the daylight hours, since I can’t drive at night, thanks to the huge honking cataract in my left eye, the result of detached-retina surgery. I’m hoping like heck the cataract will be gone by the end of July or early August. It’ll be really nice to be able to see again. Here are some pictures of the bride and groom, Robin and Gilbert:

 I also decided to Kindle-ize (and Nook-ize and Sony-ize) a book I’d totally forgotten about when I was putting my back list in digital format. HEAVEN SENT is a sugary-sweet historical romance novel set in the late 1800s in Northern California. It even has my mother’s old cat, Monster, in it. Neither Mom nor Monster are with us anymore, but the book’s still around. A very dear friend, Norah Wilson, in New Brunswick, Canada, scanned it for me. She’s a total sweetheart. She scanned a whole bunch of my old books for which I no longer had usable disks or whatever. Now all I have to do is go through the manuscript and put back in the formatting, paragraphs, etc., since scanning removes EVERYTHING. Boring, but I’ll get it done. Then I went to Melissa Alvarez’s cover design site (bookcoversgalore.com) and found a beautiful cover for the book:

ANGELS OF MERCY, Mercy Allcutt’s fourth adventure tackling crime in the big city of Los Angeles in 1926, will be released in July. It’ll be available in trade paperback, Kindle, Nook and all other e-book formats. I’ll post a special announcement when the book is available.

And I got a new foster dachshunds a few days ago. She’s an adorable five-year-old beauty named Freckles (because she’s dappled). Here’s Freckles. Please send good wishes that we can find her a wonderful Forever Home!

During July, all I have to do is work and go to doctor appointments in Albuquerque. Wheee! Life is so darned fun sometimes, I can hardly stand it.

ALL MY E-BOOKS ARE 99 CENTS IN JUNE!

Oh, boy! It’s June, and all my e-books are on sale at Kindle and Smashwords for 99-cents each! Here are the links. Kindle: http://aliceduncan.net/page5.html and Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/aduncanzianet

Not only that, but I get to go to California, where I’m originally from. In California I’ll get to see all my old California buds, and I’ll also (and this is the most important part) get to attend my daughter Robin’s wedding to Gilbert Polozzi, which should be mega-fun. So what if I won’t be able to see yet? I can enjoy the pictures afterwards.

Speaking of not being able to see yet, most of the eye doctors in Roswell have given up performing cataract surgery (I learned the hard way that when you have surgery to correct a detached retina, you always get a cataract as you’re healing. It’s kind of a two-for-one deal). Ergo, I get to go to Albuquerque to have my cataract assessed (one trip) and then removed (another trip). 400 miles round trip. Overnight stay. I know my semi-cousin hates it when I say this, but Roswell is a STUPID place to live!

I also had an MRI in May, the results of which have prompted my doctor here in Roswell to get in touch with a neurosurgeon in (where else?) Albuquerque. With luck, the neurosurgeon will be able to scrape away the calcium deposits on my lumbar spine, stick spacers between the squashed discs, glue ‘em in there, and then put some sort of shield around the surgery spot so my spine doesn’t have the opportunity to crumble again. I’m not exactly looking forward to an operation on my spine, but if it works, I might possibly not be in constant pain any longer. Heck, I might even regain an inch or two of the three I’ve shrunk. I’m sure my muscles will protest, but to heck with them.

Naturally, this will also be a two-trip ordeal, one for the assessment and another for the surgery. After the surgery, God knows what will happen, but I suspect I’ll have to spend time in the rehab center here in Roswell (at least we have one of those), and two of my dogs will have to be looked after by others because I won’t be able to pick them up. Fortunately, Giblett, the heaviest (and cowardliest) of my wiener dogs comes complete with a handle. He has a genetic malformation that makes him walk like a duck, or Charlie Chaplin, so I keep a harness on him all the time for easy pick-up. Also fortunately, through my work with New Mexico Dachshund Rescue, I have someone willing to keep him during my ordeal. My darling, WONDERFUL neighbors, the Laskys, will take care of my other wieners until I can resume looking after them myself.

Gee, for a person who’d never had surgery in her life until last December, it looks as if by this coming December, I’ll have had three of ‘em. Getting old is so much fun. Not.

On the book front, FALLEN ANGELS is now available as an e-book on Kindle, Nook, Sony, or whatever other e-reader you have. And if you don’t have an e-reader and don’t mind reading books on your computer, you can download a free Kindle application from Amazon.com.

Also (this is the scary part), I aim to publish the next Mercy Allcutt book, ANGELS OF MERCY, by myself via CreateSpace. This is a total experiment. When the book is published, it will be available as a trade-size paperback and via Kindle, Nook, Sony and the rest of the e-publisher venues. This is both exciting and frightening. I mean, I’m no Nora Roberts with a ten-million-person fan base. I’m just little old me, who writes books some people like to read, but most folks have never heard of. This is the cover art the talented and overall wonderful Melissa Alvarez did for ANGELS OF MERCY:

Anyhow, please wish me luck on all fronts. Heck, you can even buy my books if you’re feeling particularly generous. And don't forget that every single one of my e-books will be on sale for NINETY-NINE CENTS EACH during the month of June! Wow, Whatta deal!

The Joys and Travails of April

Springtime in New Mexico, unlike springtime in other, more civilized parts of the world, is windy. Really, really, really windy, complete with dust storms and accompanying ickiness. Heck, I even wrote a book about the wind once (Cooking Up Trouble, available for a miserly $2.99 on Kindle and Smashwords). As we’re in the second year of a ghastly drought, this April’s winds have been particularly heinous. Parts of the state have also been overrun with moths. Go figure. If I were a moth, I wouldn’t want to live in a dry, windy state like ours. Heck, I’m a human, and I don’t much want to live here. Ah, well.

The month did bring a bit of magic, however, beginning with the simply smashing e-book cover for the third of my Mercy Allcutt books, Fallen Angels. Mercy Allcutt is a rebellious Boston Brahmin, who has come to the wicked city of Los Angeles, where her sister Chloe lives with her wealthy movie-mogul husband. Mercy has secured a job (gasps of horror echo from her mother in Boston) as secretary to private investigator, Ernie Templeton. In this outing, one Persephone Chalmers is foully done to death, and Ernie ends up the prime suspect. Mercy isn’t about to let Ernie burn (California used the electric chair in 1926, when the book is set) so she investigates on her own. Her investigations lead her many places, including the Angelica Gospel Hall, run by the charismatic Adelaide Burkhard Emmanuel. I shamelessly borrowed both the Hall and Sister Emmanuel from the Foursquare Church of God founded by Aimee Semple McPherson, in case anyone cares. Here’s the cover, created by the multi-talented Melissa Alvarez (www.bookcoversgalore.com):

You can now buy FALLEN ANGELS for your Kindle or your Nook or whatever else you want to read it on. 

Here's the link for Kindle: Click Here

Here's the link for Smashwords: Click Here

And then Bella the Pekinese came into my life. Of course, she never would have except that I’d been fretting about finding a suitable outfit to wear to my daughter Robin’s wedding in June. Trust me when I tell you Roswell, New Mexico, isn’t a shopping Mecca. Heck, it isn’t even a Meccette. Therefore, when I got word that a four-month-old Pekinese puppy needed to be picked up in Artesia (approximately 45 miles southish from Roswell) and then driven to Santa Fe (approximately 200 miles northish from Roswell), I thought to myself, “Santa Fe! They actually have stores in Santa Fe!”

So I picked up Bella in Artesia and took her to my house in Roswell. I worried that Giblett, my bully wiener dog, would try to murder her. Needn’t have spared the matter a thought. I guess Pekinese used to be guard dogs in Chinese temples, and Bella clearly takes her background seriously, because when Giblett growled at her, she took off after him, screaming doggie obscenities (I was shocked a dog her age knew so many of them), and scared him into my office and into his crate, from which he didn’t emerge for a full hour. When he did come out again, he tried to recoup his dignity, but Bella would have none of it, and they hollered at each other for what seemed like hours and hours. And hours. Lord. Bella had my entire herd trembling in its boots—or she would have, if they’d been wearing boots.

Anyhow, as much as I love Bella because she’s sweet and cuddly and as adorable as a puppy can be (except when faced with a Giblett), I wasn’t sorry when I loaded her in my car the following morning and drove the 200 miles to Santa Fe, where I dropped her off in the wonderful care of Marguerite Wood, who operates Santa Fe Small Dog Rescue. According to Marguerite when I checked on the 25^th of March, Bella is doing extremely well, gets along fine with the other dogs in her care (none of whom are bullies like Giblett) and will eventually be placed in an excellent home.

What’s more, I actually found an outfit to wear to Robin’s wedding in Santa Fe! Mind you, since my spine had squashed three whole inches from my frame, I’m not shaped like I used to be, and it’s difficult to find clothes that fit right, but I think this outfit will work. I’m not going to show it on this blog, because I loathe having my picture taken, but it’s pretty.

Whew! Overall, except for the weather and a few doggie growling matches, I do believe April contained more magic than mayhem, which makes for a pretty darned good month!