Barnes and Noble Mystery Discussion Group

What was the June selection for the Barnes and Noble Mystery Discussion Group? It was my novel Frankly My Dear I'm Dead. Mystery Reader posted a little about it here.

Drawing for Free Books

Frankly, My Dear, I’m Dead, by Livia J. Washburn. An amateur sleuth and travel agent leads a tour of Atlanta sites connected to Margaret Mitchell and GONE WITH THE WIND, but her group really gets an eyeful when the Rhett Butler impersonator ends up dead.

The mass market paperback edition will be coming out October 6, 2009. I will be giving away 3 signed copies. Email me before the publication date to enter the drawing. washburn@flash.net

Good Luck!

Published Mistakes

It is always embarrassing when you make a mistake in a novel that gets published. A fan recently pointed out that Margaret Mitchell's husband was John Marsh, not John Walsh, as was in my book Frankly My Dear, I’m Dead. Yes, I know his name is Marsh. I do not know how I changed it to Walsh. I went over that book three times and still missed that one. I’m not even sure where the name Walsh came from. I have had problems with switching letters around in the past. I misspelled the word the in an entire manuscript before I had spell check. Fortunately I had find and replace and was able to make a quick fix. This little glitch in my brain is the reason I have to check, double check, and then triple check everything. It sure does slow down writing, and it's frustrating that mistakes still get through.

Kirkus Reviews Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead

Rhett Butler is murdered, and the suspects naturally include Scarlett O'Hara.

Sassy southern divorcée Delilah Dickinson has just started up a literary-tour business. Her maiden voyage involves Gone With the Wind—and is nearly gone with the wind itself. Delilah, her son-in-law, Luke, and her teen twin nieces, Amelia and Augusta, are shepherding the tour group around the Margaret Mitchell home and Movie Museum when one of her charges, a German tourist, accuses another, Elliott Riley, of trying to steal his camera. After Delilah smooths things over, the group buses out to Fontenoy Hall, a plantation that provides food, a ball, overnight accommodations and characters from Gone With the Wind in period costume. The group is charmed until Riley finds the corpse of Rhett Butler, aka Steven Kelley, in the garden. When the police arrive and hold both tourists and actors for questioning, Delilah decides to turn sleuth and salvage her tour. Steven, head of the drama department at a nearby college who supplied the student actors and costumes, enjoyed quite a reputation with coeds despite a wife who played Scarlett to his Rhett. Although frozen out by the police, Delilah keeps hunting for clues and finds enough to put her life in danger.

The first in a Literary Tour Mystery series from Washburn (The Christmas Cookie Killer, 2008, etc.) is a promising addition to the ranks of cozies featuring strong Southern women.

ISBN: 0758225660
ISBN-13: 9780758225665
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Pub. Date: November 01, 2008

Publisher Weekly Review

Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead Livia J. Washburn. Kensington, $22 (224p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2566-5

Gone with the Wind provides the inspiration for Washburn's fun Literary Tour mystery, the first in a new cozy series. Divorcée Delilah Dickinson, who owns an Atlanta travel agency, has high hopes for her new tour to sites associated with Margaret Mitchell and her landmark novel. Unfortunately, by the time the group reaches “Tara” for a dinner dance, which includes local actors portraying the famous characters, nothing's running smoothly. Then Steven Kelley, the actor playing Rhett Butler, turns up dead in the mansion's garden. In classic Agatha Christie fashion, a sheriff's department investigator tries to catch the killer by keeping the group at Tara overnight—with Delilah's unasked for assistance, of course. Much like the charismatic Rhett, Steven had an eye for the ladies, but otherwise lacked any Clark Gable charm. Washburn (Murder by the Slice) supplies an amusing, breathlessly quick resolution to what proves a featherlight crime of passion. (Nov.)