Crazy Cozy Blogfest and Book Release!!!

I guess a girl only gets one FIRST book release and this is my big day. I'm so excited to be sharing it with Elizabeth Spann Craig, who launches a new series today, and who some of you may know (or will, if you read my book dedication) I credit with helping me a TON through this cozy mystery learning curve!

We wanted our launch to be really FUN, so that's what we hope we've managed. We asked people to sign up to pitch a zany cozy mystery idea—it seemed a nice mix of involvement and entertainment. The link to all the participants is at the bottom and I encourage all of you to check out everyone—it isn't a huge list, so you ought to be able to get through them.


Crazy Cozy Entry

Zelda Zambini is the Human Pretzel in the StarTarts Traveling Circus. They roam from town to town, and each place they land, some new, horrible malady (or murder!) awaits them, and it seems they ALWAYS get blamed. Zelda has long been in love with the Strong Man and relies on the support of Madam Estrea, the Fortune Teller (who is notoriously BAD at reading Zelda's fortune, but nevermind) to help her prove her Circus-mates are not the culprits to these crimes.

First Installments include:

Lying with Lions in Laramie
Mirror Mayhem in Minneapolis and
No Net in Nebraska


So go check out everyone else's entries!

Prizes: (yes, I said prizes! erm...not extravagant, but we wanted to give you something) Each Elizabeth and I will choose our favorite and BOTH winners will get BOTH books (signed).

We'd love help promoting the blogfest, as well. Feel free to take the button and banner and/or share the Linky Tool below. And I'm sure you will be hearing more about this over the next two months.

Quilt or Innocence
Beatrice has a lot of gossip to catch up on—especially with the Patchwork Cottage quilt shop about to close. It seems that Judith, the landlord everyone loves to hate, wants to raise the rent, despite being a quilter herself… But when Judith is found dead, the harmless gossip becomes an intricate patchwork of mischievous motives. And it’s up to Beatrice’s expert eye to decipher the pattern and catch the killer, before her life gets sewn up for good.

Elizabeth Spann Craig: Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque series for Penguin/Berkley (as Riley Adams), the Southern Quilting mysteries (2012) for Penguin/NAL, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink. She blogs daily at Mystery Writing is Murder, which was named by Writer's Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010 and 2011.

As the mother of two, Elizabeth writes on the run as she juggles duties as Girl Scout leader, referees play dates, drives carpools, and is dragged along as a hostage/chaperone on field trips.

Links:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Indie Bound
Mystery Writing is Murder

The Azalea Assault
Cam Harris loves her job as public relations manager for the Roanoke Garden Society. It allows her to combine her three loves, spinning the press, showing off her favorite town, and promoting her favorite activity. She's just achieved a huge coup by enlisting Garden Delights, the country's premiere gardening magazine, to feature the exquisite garden of RGS founder, Neil Patrick. She's even managed to enlist world-famous photographer Jean-Jacques Georges. Unfortunately, Jean-Jacques is a first-rate cad—insulting the RGS members and gardening, goosing every woman in the room, and drinking like a lush. It is hardly a surprise when he turns up dead. But when Cam's brother-in-law is accused and her sister begs her to solve the crime, that is when things really get prickly.

Alyse Carlson: Alyse Carlson is the pen name for Hart Johnson who writes books from her bathtub. By day she is an academic researcher at a large midwestern university. She lives with her husband, two teenage children and two fur balls. The dust bunnies don't count. This will be her first published book.


Links:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Indie Bound
Confessions of a Watery Tart