Now Available -- BLACK AND BLUEBERRY DIE (A Fresh Baked Mystery) by Livia J. Washburn

Today would have been my father's 89th birthday.  Paul B. Washburn passed away a little more than a year ago.  It seemed fitting that this book would come out on his birthday.  He was a great inspiration and help. He and my mother helped my husband James Reasoner and I build our first house so we could pursue this crazy writing dream.  We never had to worry about losing our home when a book didn't sell. I will forever be grateful to them both.  Also, growing up in a beauty shop gave me great material for this book.  They owned Paul's Beauty Shop and ran it together until my mother went back to school to get her teaching degree, and Dad went back to building airplanes at General Dynamics, which is what he was doing before he was a hair stylist.

Blurb:

In the latest from the nationally bestselling author of The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer, Phyllis Newsom returns with a blackberry and blueberry pie recipe that’s to die for…

It’s late summer in Weatherford, Texas and Mike Newsom’s childhood friend is sweltering in prison for a crime he claims he didn’t commit, murdering his wife. So instead of asking his mother to please stop investigating a murder, as he usually does, he asks her and Sam to please help his friend.

Danny Jackson, found guilty of beating his wife Roxanne to death at the ritzy hair salon where she works, was sentenced to prison for 30 years. His pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears, so it’s up to Phyllis to find what actually happened. She finds there are a lot of secrets and lies being told, and Roxanne was in the middle of them all.

Though Phyllis doesn’t want to get mixed up in another murder investigation, her son rarely asks for favors, and certainly not favors like this.  She has to untangle the lies and comb out the facts to find what happened that dark night. 

Includes recipes!

Author Q&A—Livia Washburn

1. What inspired you to set the series in Weatherford, Texas?

I grew up just down the road from Weatherford, in a small Texas town.  Weatherford is a major city in comparison.  Weatherford was just the right size where major crimes could reasonably happen, but still have small town attitude.

2. Which of the characters in the Fresh-Baked Mystery series is most like someone you know in real life?

All of them.  My mother was a teacher and this series was written with her and her teacher friends in mind, while using characteristics from some of my daughters’ teachers as well. None of the fictional characters are based on anyone in particular. It's more of a case of blending qualities from all of them. When I created this series my mother was the treasurer of her chapter of the retired teachers organization, and I wrote the first book honoring her.  Sadly dementia claimed her reading ability before the first book, A Peach of a Murder, was published.

3. Phyllis and her friends are avid bakers. Are you a baker in real life? What is your favorite kind of treat to make?

I’m a "by the seat of your pants" baker.  I learned to bake using a dab of this and a spoonful of that.  It was a real eye opener when I had to write down the exact amount I was throwing into the mix. It was very frustrating when I’d painfully measure everything until the last ingredient and realize I’d just tossed it in.  It meant I had to start over, carefully measuring each ingredient.  My favorite treat would be cookies and I especially enjoy the Oatmeal Delight cookies that were in Killer Crab Cakes.

4. Could you share a little with us about your writing process? Do you write from an outline or free form? How do you come up with ideas?

I always have an outline before trying to even write the first chapter. It’s difficult enough to keep up with the clues without trying to do that by the seat of your pants.  Just the opposite of baking.  Ideas come from reading, mixing fiction with non-fiction.  When my youngest daughter saw the poison book I was intensely going through, she informed me that if her daddy died of any mysterious ailment, she was telling the cops about my books. She was just kidding, I think.

5. What kinds of hobbies do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing?

I love to work with wood. When my husband and I first married, we built our home from the ground up.  When I say the ground up, actually it started below ground.  We dug the septic system with a shovel and a jackhammer.  Made the foundation with a small electric cement mixer, carrying the cement in a wheel barrow and buckets.  It’s amazing what you can actually do yourself when you try.

6. Who are some of your favorite authors? Do you have a favorite book or genre that you like reading the most?

I fell in love with food mysteries when I read my first Nero Wolfe mystery, and I enjoy the twists and turns Ellery Queen would put into a story.  Phyllis is a little of Ellery Queen, and Caroline has a bunch of Nero Wolfe in her.  The series I’m currently reading is the humorous Deadwood mysteries by Ann Charles.  I do enjoy the mix of humor, ghosts, and mysteries she put in this series. 

7. Is writing your dream job? Have you ever considered any other careers and if so, what are they?

Well of course it’s my dream job.  How many jobs can you do in your pajamas while daydreaming?  I enjoyed building houses.  I’ve helped family with their homes, too.  But unfortunately that can’t be done in your pajamas with a pair of Chihuahua/Min Pins curled up in your lap.  Who am I to deny the ankle biters a human bed?  I also enjoy helping other authors get published.  I started a small press business with a friend, Cheryl Pierson, and that has grown like a wildfire.  We just celebrated our 3rd year at Prairie Rose Publications and have had over 250 new releases. Below are a couple of my co-workers, Nora on the left, and Nicki on the right. They keep the UPS driver in fear for his life. (At least in their dreams.)

BUY LINKS   Barnes and Noble    Smashwords    Kobo    iTunes

        

Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh Baked Mystery)

Will be available in trade paperback and ebook on September 2nd.

You cannot pre-order the trade paperback, but you can the ebook.

Trick or Deadly Treat Now Available

As far back as I can remember, I've loved dogs. Most pets, actually. (Don't get me started on snakes.) So as I've been writing the Fresh Baked Mysteries the past few years, it occurred to me that the characters didn't have any pets, and that seemed like something I should remedy. Sam Fletcher struck me as the most likely to want a dog, so the most recent book in the series opens with him and Phyllis visiting the local animal shelter to find one Sam can adopt.

They settle on Buck, a lovable Dalmatian who needs some medical attention from a nearby veterinarian. Since it's almost Halloween, Phyllis and Carolyn wind up making trick-or-treat snacks for both humans and dogs. Of course, the characters in these books can't go on for very long without murder cropping up, and this time it involves the vet who takes care of Buck. Before it's over, Phyllis and Sam are up to their necks in crime-solving, and once they're on the track of a killer, they may find themselves in danger as well...

DOBIE SINGING

MAX

This has been a hard year for our household, having lost two beloved old dogs who had been with us for what seemed like forever, 20-year-old Dobie and 14-year-old Max. Even though they were still around when this book was written, I'd like to add a special dedication to their memory. They're greatly missed and always will be.

BLURB

It’s Halloween in Weatherford, Texas—which means Phyllis Newsom is baking up a storm of yummy seasonal treats...but she’s about to get even busier unmasking a killer.

While Phyllis and her friend Carolyn are preparing for a baking contest, her housemate Sam adopts Buck, an adorable Dalmatian who was hit by a car. To thank local veterinarian Hank Baxter for helping the dog, Phyllis and Carolyn bake a batch of doggie treats for his other four-legged patients.

But when they arrive at the clinic, the vet is in the process of being arrested—for the murder of his wife! Convinced that the police are barking up the wrong tree and that someone’s been burying evidence, Sam begs Phyllis to help find the real killer. Joined by Buck, the friends engage in a dogged pursuit of the murderer, who will stop at nothing to muzzle them…permanently.


Includes Recipes

Here's the opening of TRICK OR DEADLY TREAT:

Phyllis Newsom put her hands over her ears and said, “Oh, my goodness!”

“Yeah, they’re kinda loud, aren’t they?” Sam Fletcher said with a grin. “And enthusiastic, to boot.”

They stood in a cement-floored runway between rows of metal cages filled with dogs of all shapes, sizes, breeds, and mixtures of breeds. The air inside the cinder-block building contained an assortment of smells, all of them pungent and none particularly pleasant, but Sam didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he looked as happy as Phyllis had seen him in a while.

Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all, she thought.

When he had first told her that he wanted to get a dog, her immediate impulse had been to say no. A flat, nonnegotiable no. And since the big, old two-story house on a tree-shaded street in Weatherford, Texas, belonged to her and Sam only rented a room there, it was Phyllis’s decision to make.

The problem was, Sam wasn’t just a boarder, subject to his landlady’s rules and decisions. The four retired teachers who lived in the house—Phyllis, Sam, Carolyn Wilbarger, and Eve Turner—had become more like family over the years. They were best friends as well, and in Sam’s case, Phyllis had to admit that the two of them were more than just friends. She couldn’t just dismiss what he wanted out of hand.

Because of that, she found herself in this big, smelly, noisy room full of barking dogs.

The young woman who worked as a volunteer at the animal shelter wore a plastic name tag that read JULIE on her shirt. She smiled, waved a hand at the cages, and said, “Feel free to look around all you want, folks. I’m sure you’ll find just the right dog for you.”

“Thanks, Julie,” Sam said. He went over to the closest cage, which held a German shepherd, and put his hand close to the bars so the dog could sniff it.

According to the paperwork in a clear plastic envelope attached to the cage, the dog’s name was Daisy and she was three years old, no health problems, good with children. That wasn’t really a consideration since no children lived in Phyllis’s house. Her grandson, Bobby, visited sometimes, though, so actually it was important that whatever dog Sam picked was well behaved and safe to be around children, she thought.

“Howdy, Daisy,” Sam said as he scratched the dog’s muzzle. “How ya doin’, girl?”

Phyllis smiled. The affection Sam felt for this dog, for all dogs, really, was obvious. He was a genuinely good man, and she was glad she had gotten to know him, even this late in their lives.

Daisy licked Sam’s fingers. Phyllis could tell that he didn’t want to move on to the next cage, but he had to take a look at the rest of the dogs. Phyllis stayed with him as he made his way slowly along the runway.

She saw beagles, schnauzers, Chihuahuas, and lots of mutts. Big dogs, small dogs, shorthairs, longhairs. Most were eager and friendly, as if they knew that the humans who came to see them held their fate in their hands.A few seemed sullen, and Phyllis wondered if they had been mistreated and no longer trusted anybody who went on two legs.

What was that famous line from Animal Farm? “Four legs good, two legs bad”? Something like that, she decided. Unfortunately, all too often that was true. Her own experiences over the past few years with the uglier side of life had taught her that.

Animals killed, certainly, but only humans were capable of murder.

Sam broke into her thoughts by looking at her, shaking his head, and saying, “Well, coming here turned out to be a bad mistake.”

“How so?”

“I want to take all of ’em home with me. I don’t reckon there’s room for that, though.”

“I have a pretty big backyard,” Phyllis said, “but not that big.”

Sam sighed and said, “All right. I reckon I’m gonna have to—”

He stopped as the metal door at the end of the runway, between the kennel area and the office, swung open and a male volunteer came through carrying a dog. The animal was wrapped in a blanket and whimpering in pain.

“Lonny, what happened?” Julie asked as she hurried toward the newcomer.

“Aw, somebody hit this poor fella out on the road. I saw it happen just now as I was coming in. Looks like maybe his front leg is busted.”

“Do you think he belongs to somebody around here?”

Lonny shook his head and said, “I dunno. He doesn’t have a collar and he’s pretty skinny, so I’ve got a hunch he’s a stray.”

Sam walked up to the volunteers with Phyllis trailing behind him. He said, “That’s a Dalmatian, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Lonny said. “Full grown, but not too old, I’d say.”

“I always wanted a Dalmatian when I was a kid. Are you folks going to adopt him out?”

“Mister, he hasn’t been processed in. You can have him right now if you want him. You’re gonna have to give me your word that you’ll take care of him, though. He needs medical attention.”

“Where’s the nearest vet?” Sam asked.

Lonny and Julie looked at each other, and Julie said, “That would be Dr. Baxter, about a mile back up the road toward town.”

“Then that’s where I’m takin’ him right now,” Sam said. “You can follow me if you want, to make sure that’s what I do.”

“I don’t guess that’s necessary,” Lonny said. “You got a car outside?”

“My pickup,” Sam told him.

“I’ll put him in the back for you.”

Sam shook his head.“I’ll hold him. My friend here can drive.”

Sam’s decision to take the injured dog seemed awfully impulsive to Phyllis. She said, “Sam, are you sure you want to do this?”

He answered by reaching out and gently taking the blanket-wrapped Dalmatian out of Lonny’s arms. Sam was tall and lanky, but he was also strong enough to hold the medium-sized dog.

“Be careful,” Julie told him. “Injured dogs sometimes bite.”

“This fella’s not gonna bite me,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “I can tell we’re gonna get along just fine.”

LINKS    
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