Hallow~ LSBBT Book Blog Tour with Author Interview and Giveaway!
.png)
HALLOW: A FRACTURED FAMILY TALE
A Black Orchid Enterprises Mystery, Book #5
By M.R. Dimond
Mystery / Cozy Mystery / Lawyers & Criminals Humor
Publisher: Rock Rose Press
Pages: 321
Publication Date: May 30, 2024
SYNOPSIS
Family: What you don't know can kill you.
Young Texas attorney JD Thompson enjoys his life in a small Texas town, where he lives with his ABBA tribute band, college roommates, and seventy black cats that his veterinarian partner rescued before Halloween. Probate cases with inheritance squabbles leave him time to help family members, like when his grandfather receives a surprising present from the past. But the squabbles turn deadly, the present isn't a gift, and the lovely woman who captures his heart isn't what she seems. As he stands in ashes with murder on the doorstep, JD races to defend his client, his family, and his home. Can he untangle the dark secrets threatening to destroy everything he holds dear? The walls are already splattered with blood.
Join JD and the quirky Black Orchid Enterprises gang in their fifth Texas mystery as the holiday season rolls in—fall holidays, that is, from High Holy Days to Thanksgiving.
CLICK TO PURCHASE:
BOOK TRAILER
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
1. If you’re a Texan: how has being a Texan influenced your writing?
I arrived in Texas when I was 3 months old, so I’m going to call myself a Texan. I can’t say I’ve spent my whole life here, but I keep coming back. I’m proud to join the ranks of Texas writers. I’d describe Texas as hyperbolic, expansive, contradictory, and all that twisted into a grand mess, like spaghetti wound on a fork. That may describe my writing too.
2. Why did you choose to write in your particular [field, genre, or sub-genre]?
I grew up loving mysteries from my earliest Scholastic book orders. I loved series like Trixie Belden, where a group of friends who live in big houses solve mysteries. Later I loved Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, who lived in big houses with friends and solved mysteries. Now that I write about a group of friends who live in a big house and solve mysteries, I’m sensing a theme.
3. [If this book is a prequel or sequel] What made you decide to write a prequel/sequel? Any unexpected hurdles in doing this?
Hallow was intended to be Book 2 in the series. Since it’s Book 5, we can assume hurdles existed. I kept writing it throughout the other three books, but always turned away to write an “easier” book. Note to self: No book is easier than another. When I was finally ready to grapple with Hallow’s themes and work out its plot, I bit off the whole enchilada and the writing flowed like queso.
4. What do you think most characterizes your writing?
Author P. L. Sullivan described my books as cozy mysteries “with a very sharp edge.” Another reviewer called them “spending time with your best friends whom you’ve just met.” But let’s consult the tRuE aUtHoRiTy, Amazon’s AI-generated review, which says about Book 1: “Customers love the characters and their caring and compassion for each other. They also describe the first book as “a fun set of 2 different stories that introduce the Black Orchid gang.” I hate to give AI any credit, but I’d say that was accurate. One of my gripes with the mystery genre has been that often life stops so everyone can investigate the mystery. That’s fair for police and professional detectives, but amateur sleuths still need to pay the bills, file their taxes, fix dinner, and (because my books take place in the town animal shelter) feed the cats and scoop the litter boxes. My characters’ everyday lives and relationships are in the forefront, right along with the mystery.
5. What are some day jobs that you have held? Have any of them impacted your writing?
How could they not? Life is just grist for the writing mill. I started giving piano lessons and babysitting at age thirteen, the first time anyone gave me money for services rendered. My first salaried job was as receptionist-bookkeeper in a small firm. At nineteen, I won my first position as an orchestral cellist, which included union negotiations too. Music never paid the bills, so I worked as a freelancer or contractor in legal offices, nonprofits, publishing houses, laboratories, accountancy firms, publishing houses (editor, proofreader, book designer), technical firms large and small (writer, editor, designer, trainer). Teaching has been a constant thread in my life—music, dance, theatre, economics, humanities, French, Spanish, software, and probably some subjects I’ve forgotten.
I gained experience and insights from my avocations as a florist, sewist, and gardener, which I loved too much to make them my profession. My volunteer work as a cat rescuer, disaster worker, and church worker has also contributed to my writing. I feel lucky to have all this inspiration.
6. Are there underrepresented groups or ideas featured if your book?
I want everyone to feel seen in my stories. Each of my regular characters represents an underrepresented group, whether by ancestry, sexual orientation, disability, religion, or other characteristic. In one of the Texas towns Beauchamp models, the majority of the population was born outside the U.S., and the University of Texas (where my characters attended college) has a strong international flavor. I strive to convey this kaleidoscope. I may have invented a new mystery subgenre, the “woke cozy.”
7. What projects are you working on at the present?
Book 6, Stealing Saints, the second book my cover designer Mariah Sinclair of www.MariahSinclairDesigns inspired with her premade covers. I’ll be returning to the winter holiday chaos of earlier books, because what better setting is there for crime and misunderstandings?
8. Do you have a mantra for writing and/or for life?
Write at least one sentence a day. For life, that translates as do one small thing for your goals every day. It adds up over time, whereas if you wait for inspiration, time enough, money enough, or all the other roadblocks to magically dissolve, they don’t.
9. What do you want your tombstone to say?
END OF THE STRUGGLE
Spent her life trying to fit in the box. Finally she does.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After stints in professional orchestras, law firms, cat rescue, bookkeeping, and technical communication, M. R. Dimond returned to a childhood dream of writing fiction, which has turned out to be about musicians, lawyers, veterinarians, accountants, and cats. Her Black Orchid Enterprises Mystery series, set in her near-native Texas, currently contains five novels with more soon to come.
She has had short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Dancing USA, and various anthologies (most recently in Dreaming the Goddess; Hook, Line, and Sinker; and Riddles, Resolutions, and Revenge), as well as nonfiction articles in various publications.
She holds an MBA from University of Tulsa and is a veteran of writing workshops, including Clarion, Viable Paradise, Jim Gunn’s Center for Science Fiction, and Taos Toolbox. She lives in the wilderness east of Austin, Texas, with her husband and many foster cats.
ENTER TO WIN!
CLICK TO VISIT THE LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE TOUR PAGE
FOR DIRECT LINKS TO EACH BLOG PARTICIPATING IN THIS TOUR.
.png)
.png)
.png)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMuch appreciated, Kelly. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSo interesting that this book was supposed to be the 2nd in the series and it ended up 5th due to hurdles for the author. So glad she kept on writing. I look forward to starting the series soon (just got book one!).
ReplyDeleteI hope everyone will take this last chance to enter the giveaway before midnight CST. Besides a signed book and a stadium tote, 3 lucky winners will get all this cool stuff my friends and I made:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10223659347024283&set=a.4874652316728
As a gift to all, so you can start reading from the beginning, here's a tOp S3cR3t link to buy an ebook box set of the first 5 Black Orchid Enterprises mysteries at half price: https://dimond.me/product/box-set-1-5
Happy reading!