The proof arrived and Murder at Cold Creek College is published! It is available on Amazon (Kindle version and paperback) and through Smashwords if you prefer a different eBook format! You can also get the paperback direct through Createspace Here's an excerpt of the first chapter...
From Chapter 1
“Oh, have you heard what happened at the rec center? I don’t think we
ever had a murder on campus before!” Terra exclaimed. Hearing that, I abandoned
my computer and joined them in the hall.
I am nothing if not curious.
“Murder? I thought there was an accident?” I asked. I wondered if Terra exaggerated the situation
a bit.
“Nope! Joe just called me from the paper, and he’s on his way over to get
some background information for the paper,” Terra stated. Her husband, Joe,
worked for the Cold Creek Gazette and I often wondered if it was just a natural
consequence of his job that Terra seemed to know everything about everybody. It
wasn’t like she was a gossip, but she always seemed to have the scoop on what
was happening. On the other hand, she was very sociable, like Kim.
“Who was murdered? How?” I asked, still not completely convinced. I
thought of the childhood game of telephone when the same sentence was repeated
to a series of people, one after the other, and how different the meaning by
the time it reached the last person.
“Oh, my god, I was there. I could have been murdered too!” Kim exclaimed,
hands to her mouth. She clearly didn’t have any trouble believing what Terra
said. Not knowing the details, I guessed it was a logical leap that she was in
the same place and could have been affected.
“Joe didn’t say who, just that the scene was being treated as a murder
scene. He was assigned to get backfill
for the story that would come out. He said he’d be over to talk to faculty and
staff in a bit. We turned the news on in the office, but so far haven’t heard
anything. They may not be saying yet. You know, maybe they haven’t notified
next of kin or something,” Terra continued with a shrug. Her nonchalance was a
stark contrast to Kim’s response. Ali hadn’t said anything, but shook her head.
Like her name, Terra tended toward being down to earth and that gave some credibility
to the idea of a murder.
“Kim, did you see anything this morning that looked suspicious?” I asked
thinking back to her comments about the questions she’d been asked. The questions and police presence were making
sense if this was a murder.
“Sher, you know me on the treadmill. Headphones on and zoning out for
five miles. I couldn’t even tell you who came and went while I was there. When
the police interrupted us to ask questions, I think there were a few students
and a man. I think I’ve seen him over in
the administration building a few times and at college functions. I don’t
remember his name though,” she related, shaking her head slightly. “Maybe if I
paid more attention I could have stopped it…,” she added as she clapped her
hands to her face again.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Unless it happened in the cardio suite, there’s no
way you could have done anything,” I assured her. “I’m sure you would have done
something if you could have."
Maggie becomes a PI when she inherits her uncle's faltering Miami Beach
P.I. agency. She doesn’t really know
much but completed the coursework and is ready to go with her "office manager"/assistant, Dorothy. With all Maggie's studying and the internet to help her, she starts to think being a PI isn’t so
bad. About then she stumbles on a dead body and then another washes ashore. Maggie just continues to stumble into
trouble and into the line of a bullet, all with Dorothy as her sidekick waiting in the car knitting and shaking her head. Of course, there is also
the hunky cop, Jake, and hints of attraction mixed with Jake’s continued
suggestions that she stick to following cheating husbands and the like. Cute story,
likeable characters, quick read. Looking
forward to the release of Murder is a Beach in December (available on Amazon for pre-order).
