It's That Time of Year

It's that time of year. Christmas decorations have been in some stores since September! Now, with Thanksgiving fast approaching, many of us are thinking about presents for friends and relatives. Books are one gift that lasts for a long time, whether an Ebook or paperback.  And it is so easy! I presently have four books on Amazon for you to chose for your friend or relative. You can order my books on Amazon and have them sent to the reader. Ebooks are very easy to give as a gift. All you need is your friend or relative’s email address and they either must have a Kindle reader, or the Kindle reading program for their computer, table or smartphone. It’s that easy. Give them a wonderful gift that they’ll enjoy.

Like My Pages on Amazon

 I don't think anyone truly understands how Amazon uses "likes" on my Author Central page or on my individual pages for my books. I do know that it is important because the more likes I have on a page, the better chance I have that my books will be higher in a search. So, I am asking that you go to one or more of my book pages in Amazon and click on “Like”. I would appreciate the effort.

Also, if you’ve read one of my books from Amazon, write a short review. A review doesn’t have to be long and involved. Many reviews are just two or three sentences. One of my favorite reviews for The Possessor has the title: “Mac is my hero”.

The review was very simple. “I enjoyed this book. I became "attached" to the characters. I cared about them! I wish it might have ended differently, but it was fitting. I will surely check out this author's other books.”

The reviewer didn’t dissect the book, but her emotional involvement with the novel is evident. 

I appreciate all that you do to help me.

David

Looking For An Honest Man

My latest book, Looking For An Honest Man, is now available as an eBook on Amazon and ready to purchase. This has been a long time coming, but I believe this is my best effort yet. This is the first of a series of books featuring Olivia Kennedy Kimsey, amateur sleuth, with a new found psychic ability that looks to the past and not the future. Her daughter Samantha, and Samantha’s best friend Wally, joins Olivia in her endeavors to solve the mysterious disappearance of five women who were members of the cougar web site Fish In The Sea. Here is the blurb from the back of the book cover.

Olivia Kennedy Kimsey is in her late fifties, recently divorced, nearly broke and attempting to deal with single life and a nonconformist daughter. Self-hypnosis had brought some calm to her life and a restful night's sleep when the visions began—Olivia prefers to call them dreams—from a young murdered woman named Vickie Taylor. The dreams lead Olivia to uncover the unsolved murders of four women who had belonged to the cougar website: Fish In The Sea. Each woman’s profile stated that they were looking for an honest man, and that simple statement set them up for murder. Enlisting the help of her daughter Samantha and Samantha’s friend Wally, Olivia is drawn into a dangerous financial scam of lonely, older women. It becomes personal when Olivia’s childhood friend Gretchen shares her own surprise: she is a member of Fish In The Sea, and she’s found exactly what she’s been looking for: an honest man.

I hope that you enjoy Looking For An Honest Man as much as I did writing it. Many people have been asking me over the past three years if I’d thought about writing a series of mystery books. There are so many series out there, and I wanted to write something that was different. In fact, this didn’t start out as a series, but once I started writing, I realized that I’d found my protagonist that I thought could carry a series. Most series, except for Agatha Christie’s famous sleuths, concern a younger generation. I wanted to write about an older generation, but I wasn’t sure people would like it. What sealed the deal was the inclusion of Samantha and Wally. The counter-balance between the two generations has brought a life to the series that I never imagined.  My readers, both young and…mature have been enthusiastic about the book, and I want to thank them for their valuable input in writing Looking For An Honest Man.

Download a free sample of the book from Amazon.com and see whether you don’t agree.

New Cover For The Possessor

For a long time, I have wanted to change the cover on The Possessor. Not that I didn't like the old cover, but it didn't reflect the story as well as the new one. My daughter did a fantastic job!

Cover-Honest Man

Here is the final cover for Looking For An Honest Man. We are now in the formatting phase of publication at it should be out in paperback and ebook no later than the middle of August. The cover was designed by DesignCatStudio.

The Possessor and the Good Old Days

A friend of mine who read The Possessor, which is set in the 1950’s, asked me if I didn’t miss the good old days when kids were polite and everyone wasn’t on welfare. I told him no because if it weren’t for modern medicine, I’d be dead.  Some like to call the 1950’s a time of innocence, but I think of it as a time of ignorance. We were insulated from the world. I may write about the good old days of my childhood, but the real good old days are today. To say you wish you could go back is saying you want to stop the world and get off.  I want to ride this baby for as long as I’m healthy. I want to  look to tomorrow because yesterday is nothing more than a fond memory.

My Newest Character

Olivia Kennedy Kimsey is someone we all know: our mothers. A mother's premonitions amaze me. I remember as a young man my mother calling me late at night because she thought something was wrong. I was very sick and had been thinking about going home because I didn't think I could take care of myself. Similar situations took place until the day she died. Another mother told me that she awakened in the middle of the night because she felt her son had died; she learned the next day he'd died in Vietnam. We have all heard similar stories. We don't consider these mothers psychics, but it is obvious that they have a special connection whether to family or friends.

Olivia is not a psychic, but certain events trigger a psychic experience. Olivia prefers to call them dreams. She doesn't understand why she has these dreams, only that they began after she started self-hypnosis to help her sleep. In Looking for an Honest Man, a young murdered woman seeks Olivia's help, and in the end Olivia doesn't know whether the young woman is reaching out for help, or is Olivia reaching out to the young woman to help solve her murder. Where a psychic has several premonitions, Olivia's dreams focus only on the young woman who was murdered. Once Olivia solves the young woman's murder, the dreams stop, but the reader is left with the possibility Olivia's dreams are not over. 

Looking For An Honest Man

My latest novel will be out in June.  

In her late fifties and recently divorced, Olivia Kennedy Kimsey is confronted with no money, a rebellious daughter and reoccurring dreams from a recently murdered young woman named Vickie Taylor. As she investigates Vickie's death, she discovers four other women who have disappeared after joining the cougar dating web site Fish in the Sea. All the women are single, successful and upper income management. After digging further, it is revealed that all the women were unsuccessful on other dating web sites.  Their profiles on Fish in the Sea state that they are "looking for an honest man" with no games. With the help of Vickie and family, Olivia begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding their disappearance and discovers each had met a younger man who introduced them to Hogue Investments.  It becomes personal for Olivia when her childhood friend, Gretchen, tells her that she has joined the dating site Fish in the Sea and has just met a nice young man named Michael who wants to tell her about Hogue Investments. 

Point of view

A friend recently asked me why my last two novels were from the viewpoint of a teenager.  I planned it that way for The Possessor because it was Mac's story. Mac had to tell it. Tell Her Goodbye came as an afterthought. I wrote four or five beginnings for Tell Her Goodbye and realized it had to be told from a Ruth Ann's point of view. Why? Many times teenagers look at life as black and white. They can be brutally honest and laugh at adult's mistakes. It was also the best way to handle the relationship between Rooney and Rebecca. While the two adults carried baggage as they slowly slipped into a relationship, Ruth Ann looked at the relationship stripped away the baggage and saw it differently. Determining the point of view in a novel is deciding who best can tell this particular story.