(Sherlock and Me series)
Cozy mystery
Date Published: March 2019
Super sleuth Lucy James is hired to find the Colt pistol that may have belonged to Billy the Kid. Hampered by dishonest weapon experts, a pawnshop murder and unusual architecture at a downtown casino, her investigation is rocky at best. A massive snowstorm has blanketed Reno leaving Lucy to slog her way to interviews with uncooperative witnesses. Her father’s abrupt firing from his job as the host of a local children’s television show and the impending marriage between her best friend Cindy Floyd and her detective fiancé Skip Callahan grab chunks of Lucy’s fleeting attention. But she is determined to find the missing gun before the next snowstorm even though she on and off relationship with handsome professor Eric Schultz is off again. With sheer tenacity and a pair of thick snow boots, Lucy muscles through to the mystery’s resolution. It isn’t easy but the mystery and murder never are.
Guest Post:
Guest Post:
Write a Review! Please!
It’s wonderful if you buy my book and tell me how good it
is. It’s even better if you tell everyone at your book club that they just have
to read my book and everyone runs out to buy a copy. If you stopped people in
the street to tell them how much you loved my book, I’d be strutting like a
peacock.
While all that is super, I would be eternally grateful and
volunteer to bring in your groceries if you would write me a review.
It generally takes popping back online through whatever
distributor you bought said book (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Nook, Kobo,
smashwords, etc), clicking on the Write a Review option and sitting back to
compose your thoughts. Four or five sentences is all it takes.
What did you like about the
story?
Were the characters believable?
Was the ending satisfying?
Would you recommend it to
your friends? If so, why?
Why are writers so crazy about reviews? It’s not that we
love to peruse reviews to have praise heaped on us, although I must admit it
makes my heart go pitty-pat to read a nice review. Not all reviews are good and
developing a thick skin is not always easy. When you’ve spent months of hard
work and due diligence to produce your baby, a bad review is similar to a punch
in the gut. Even so, I’ve learned more from a review with good constructive
criticism than a gusher about how fabulous a writer I am.
No, it’s all about the Amazon algorithm, the set of
automated rules that determine how a retailer merchandizes and displays titles.
It determines that “also bought” section on the book’s display. If a book has
no or few reviews, neither Amazon nor Facebook will market your book in ad
slots. A local bookseller once told me since I only had five online reviews for
one of my books, it wasn’t worth her while to put it on the shelves. And more
visibility can mean more sales.
Before you ask, let me volunteer that I don’t write my
books just for the money. I’m a storyteller and after twenty-five western
romances and mysteries, I still have lots of plots percolating in my fevered
brain. A writer is who I am and writing is what I do.
However, and this is a biggie, it’s hard in our society
not to equate success with dollars, pounds, yen or euros. Don’t get me wrong; I
love to make money with my books, but what I love more is when you sit down at
your computer and tell me what you liked or didn’t like about my story. Believe
it or not, I’ll take that over a bottle of Chardonnay any time.
Well, maybe…
About the Author
SJ SLAGLE started her writing career as a language arts teacher. Her initial interest was children’s stories, but she moved on to western romance, mysteries, and historical fiction. She has published 24 novels, both independent and contract. SJ contributes regularly to guest blogs and has her own blog called anauthorsworld.com in which she discusses the research involved in the books she writes. SJ has established Twitter and Facebook fan bases, a quarterly author newsletter and a website under her pseudonym: JEANNE HARRELL at jeanneharrell.com.
Her first historical fiction novel, LONDON SPIES, was awarded a B.R.A.G. Medallion in 2018 and Slagle was a finalist in the 2017 UK Independent Book Awards. She was given the Silver Award with the International Independent Film Awards for her screenplay called REDEMPTION. SJ conducts writing/publishing symposiums in her local area. OSLO SPIES, her second historical fiction novel will be published in September. She lives and works in Reno, Nevada.
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