Blog Tour: WITHOUT A HEAD by M. Glenda Rosen

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. M. Glenda Rosen will be awarding a $30 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Jenna Preston is used to investigating cheating spouses, fraud, and even a murder or two in her role as a private investigator. But she’s never consulted on a case quite like the one at Darcy’s Salon in East Hampton. A killer has struck and left behind a woman’s head in the upscale salon’s shampoo sink.

As Jenna struggles to make sense of the what’s happened, she comes up against entitled and badly behaved beach dwellers, greedy parties with motives all their own, and the billion dollar beauty industry. With her loyal dog Watson at her side, Jenna pieces together clues and tracks down a killer who claims victims that are dying to be beautiful.

 

 

 

Read an Excerpt

As a Private Investigator, Jenna Preston had been hired to help solve murders, insurance fraud, cheating spouses and more. This was a new one for her.

She received what could only be described as a hysterical call from Darcy Monroe, owner of a popular, upscale hair salon in The Hamptons.

A head without its body was rolling around in one of her shampoo basins.

Almost five-feet, five-inches tall, always looking taller in her two or three-inch heels, Jenna had long red hair, blue eyes and was often seen driving around the East End in a white jeep, and in recent years, with her Irish Setter sitting next to her.

As a well-respected private investigator in the area, she told the salon owner, “I’ll be right there, and don’t touch anything until the police arrive.”

Jenna knew they needed to secure the business as a crime scene and Coroner Doc Bishop and Head of Forensics Lara Stern had to be brought in as well.

“Troy, someone left a head, without the body, in a shampoo bowl at Darcy’s Salon. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

”Damn it, Jenna, I nearly spilled my coffee listening to this bizarre message. I’ll be there within the half hour. Meantime, I’ll ask Lara to get over there to check the crime scene for prints and other possible evidence and for Doc to arrange to bring the head to the morgue. We’ll want to look at it there, after he’s had a chance to determine how it was cut off and anything else he might find.”

About the Author:

Marcia Rosen (aka M. Glenda Rosen) is author of ten books including The Senior Sleuths and Dying To Be Beautiful Mystery Series and The Gourmet Gangster, Mysteries and Menus (with her son Jory Rosen). She is also author of The Woman’s Business Therapist and award-winning My Memoir Workbook. Marcia was owner of a successful national marketing and public relations agency, received numerous awards for her work on behalf of business and professional women and has given many presentations, now as Zoom Events, such as: Encouraging the Writer Within You, Writing A Mystery...Not A Mystery, Book Marketing with Zoom and Podcasts, Writing From Your Soul, Memoir Writing and The Senior Sleuths & Dying To Be Beautiful Mysteries. Member of Sisters In Crime, Southwest Writers, Central Coast Writers and Public Safety Writers Association. Board Member, 2021, National Association of Independent Writers and Editors.

Sample of Scheduled Zoom Programs: The National Steinbeck Center (6 week program on About Being an Author), Shelter Island Library, an hour marketing presentation. Public Safety Writer's Association Encouraging the Writer Within You, Central Coast Writers “About Being an Author,” Podcast Marketing for Southwest Writers, Murder on The Beach bookstore, Memoir Writing Sessions, Shelter Island and Westhampton Beach Library, “Writing Mysteries…Not A Mystery,” and other venues and topics for 2021.

http://www.theseniorsleuths.com
http://www.creativebookconcepts.com
https://www.amazon.com/M.-Glenda-Rosen/e/B06W51M2YH
https://www.facebook.com/MarciaGRosen
https://twitter.com/WriterMysteries
https://www.instagram.com/mglendarosen/
https://www.pinterest.com/marciaglendarosen/

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08Q4FWFKF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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Q&A with Glen Welch, author of TO WALK THE DOG

 

Available Now on Amazon

THANKS SO MUCH FOR COMING HERE. FOR STARTERS, TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.

I am a retired Army Master Sergeant, retired civil servant, and full-time American. Like the protagonist, I hate government waste. Taxes are one thing, waste is quite another. Patriotic, Christian, and service-oriented – that pretty much sums up who and what I am.

 

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WRITING AND WHY DID YOU START?

I’ve been writing for publication for the past 22 years. Previously, my writings were academic history. I have been writing less serious formats for the past five years. I realized that historians only write for other historians and much of what they learn is lost to the average reader. I hope I have been able to provide truth and fact in a far more readable way!

 

TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEW BOOK, TO WALK THE DOG.

Joe is forced into retirement from the Army, virtually the only world he knows. It is one of patriotism, service, and selflessness. He enters the civil service and finds it to be a world of selfishness and lack of service. He tries to moderate that negative influence and almost gets gobbled up by the critters of the swamp. Given a chance to clean out a section of the swamp, he becomes almost swamp-like himself. Faced with the loss of soul, not to mention the love of his life, he is finally relieved by the President – did I mention colorful(?) – and finally gets to walk his dog. It is punctuated with descriptions of real and imaginary swamp critters, humor, patriotism, revenge, homelessness, and more twists and turns than a mountain road. A message from God – yes this is part of the factual part – completes the panorama.

 

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE TITLE FOR THIS BOOK?

I didn’t. I was going to call it Joseph and the Resilient Swamp, since the protagonist shares something in common with Joseph of the Bible – he is wrongly accused. However, one editor who saw it recommended the change since a theme of the book was the desire of the protagonist to retire and spend his days walking the dog. I hope you like this title better!

WHAT CRITERIA DID YOU USE WHEN SELECTING THE COVER FOR YOUR BOOK?

The overarching theme is the swamp. My favorite artist, Ms. Weezie Jones, helped me to develop the concept. The old soldier entering the swamp and facing who-knows-what suggests the great unknowns in the swamp. I wanted to show a swamp, but also the protagonist bravely leaving what he knows and venturing into the unknown, largely for the benefit of people he will never meet.

 

WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT SCENE YOU HAD TO WRITE IN THIS BOOK AND WHY?

Joe, the protagonist, becomes an alternative point to the swamp, and just as harmful. Transformed from the hunted, he becomes the hunter and looks for excuses to remove critters, both harmful and even not-so-bad. As a patriot, I want to provide the positive point of view, not show a patriot in the extreme.

 

WAS THERE A MESSAGE IN YOUR BOOK THAT YOU WERE TRYING TO CONVEY?

Why write, if you have no message, no “moral to the story? I considered that as I developed the story concept. The underlying theme is that if government is wasteful, its because we like it that way. We can complain, but if that’s all we do, while we are demanding ever more services, then WE are the problem.

 

 

WHAT IS THE HARDEST LESSON YOU HAD TO LEARN AS A WRITER?

Advertise. A writer can write the best book and get great reviews, but if nobody knows about the book, it cannot be considered successful since it has not impacted anyone. If anyone is going to write, he/she will have to embrace the world of the magical advertised word.

 

 

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR NEW WRITERS?

Don’t give up. If you need to take ten years to produce a great product, then take those ten years. Get input from people you trust. Edit, edit, and edit again. Bad, unintentional grammar mistakes are like a firehose on a flame.

 

 

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?

Yes! My next book is (currently) called Amelia. It is a nonfiction story about a young girl immigrant who experiences becoming an orphan, a labor-filled childhood, gunfights, sickness, rustlers, the flu epidemic of 1918, prohibition, a son arrested for bootlegging, and finally death of her husband and one of her sons. It is also about the love story she experiences, climbing each mountain that life gives her and emerging triumphantly. Overall, the love story is what rings in the years of her life.

 

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG OR WEBSITE READERS CAN VISIT FOR UPDATES, EVENTS AND SPECIAL OFFERS?

https://www.amazon.com/Glen-F-Welch/e/B08GSTJDLH?ref_=dbs_p_ebk_r00_abau_000000

 

 

           

Excerpt: SISI'S ALPINE CHRISTMAS by Soleil

 

 

When she entered the Mirror Hall, he was already waiting for her. He was leaning by the fireplace, in a tuxedo cut to the waist. A cummerbund made his casually crossed legs appear even longer in the black polished evening shoes. She had never seen a man so elegant before.

He took her breath away and her lips trembled, but she straightened her shoulders. Smiling mysteriously, she walked towards him in a slow, sinuous way. His relaxed smile with which he had greeted her disappeared. He looked at her intensely and swallowed hard. “Principessa, you look like a goddess. A goddess who rises from the sea.” He was silent while she smiled up at him.

But then, completely unabashed, he started to check her out from top to bottom, without embarrassment. He said, “The dress is as if it was made for you. I imagined it to be beautiful, but in reality it's even more stunning.” He kept his hand in his jacket pocket. Then he pulled it out with a small, wrapped present. He gave it to her. “Merry Christmas, Sisi!” he beamed.

“But Niccolò, I haven’t anything for you,” she said with a frown.

“You are my gift tonight,” and because that shouldn’t be misunderstood, he corrected himself, “I mean that you are here and we are celebrating together, that is my gift!” This time it was he who blushed.

She pretended not to have heard him and inspected the box than had been wrapped in crooked brown kitchen packing paper.

“Open it already! What are you waiting for?” he growled. She obeyed and opened the paper, then opened the old-fashioned leather case.

Inside on black velvet lay long earrings with drops of dark green cut gemstones, surrounded by diamonds.

“Niccolò, you're raving mad,” she exclaimed, “but they're not real ...”

“Emeralds from Colombia,” he said, “Yes, they are. From my great-grandmother. She gave them to my mother for her wedding.”

“Niccolò, I can't accept that! It's not possible! You must understand that!!”

Niccolò took an earring out of the case, which, dangling from his slender fingers, immediately sparkled and glistened. “Come here,” he said imperiously, and when she offered her neck, he put the earring through her earlobe. “Turn your head!” and when she complied, the second jewel followed. He looked at her expertly and couldn't suppress a smile. “Go, look at yourself,” he said with a husky, smug voice. Sisi went to the nearest mirror and examined her face. She tried to look grown up and elegant and not to grin from ear to ear like a hippopotamus.

The large, dark green stones made her skin appear even paler, more ethereal, and conjured up dark, blue-green lights in her blue eyes. Combined with the flowing, sea-colored silk dress and the pale gold, shimmering waves of her hair, they made her look like a siren. She felt as if she was floating. She turned and came up to him with an ominous glint in her eyes and renewed confidence. She stood up in front of him and stretched her neck towards him, then shook her head so that the earrings rocked around her face. “Oh, they're so beautiful, but I can't keep them.”

He looked at her like he wanted to devour her. Without taking his eyes off her, he said, “Don’t be absurd, Sisi, your name is written on these earrings. No other woman will ever wear them. And no one else could ever wear them like you do tonight. You don't even need to say a word, no discussion. Basta.”

She looked into his eyes and wondered how he always found words that would give her goose bumps. She came closer. In front of him, she stood on her tiptoe and kissed him on his cheek, which was rough despite the fresh shave. He smelled intoxicating. “Thank you, Niccolò, thank you. They’re gorgeous,” she whispered.

Niccolò returned her glance, and she had the feeling that they were together in a dream bubble. They floated in eternity, floated between times, and between worlds. Everything was unreal, and still hyper-real, like a heightened, more intense reality. She wanted this moment to never end, wanted to float on forever, to float in his gaze.

This time it was he who turned away and opened a bottle of champagne and filled the glasses. They clinked glasses, and he said, “To life!”

Sisi felt crystal clear, floating, and shivering in the huge ballroom, which was still cool despite the crackling fire in the fireplace he had lit that afternoon. She drank the drink that tingled her throat and tasted like lust and eternity, and she felt cocky. She looked at him, mischief in her eyes, “What now, Master of Ceremonies?”