On sale during October - Kindle
Amateur sleuth Laura is being accused of murdering her mentor and becoming the beneficiary. She will have time clear her name but also deal with a toxic relationship while being an awesome and successful independent woman. She is a great character. The author creates vivid scenes with detailed descriptions appealing to all senses, although it helps to visualize it can also slow down the reading when we are wanting to read fast but the images do stay in our mind like photographs. Overall, a good mystery full of twists.
From Amazon):
A manipulator.
A fatal plan for revenge.
Award-winning author of the Annalisse series, Marlene M. Bell, brings distant friends together in the rural South only to have one of them become the victim of a brutal crime of passion.
Once celebrated for her show-stopping pastries and irresistible desserts, former celebrity chef Laura Harris is now making headlines for a far darker reason.
Laura has been accused of murder.
How could this petite chef have brutally smothered the beloved small-town matriarch, World War II ferry pilot veteran, Hattie Stenburg? Hattie wasn't just a pillar of the community; she was Laura's confidant and mentor. The shocking twist? Hattie’s will contained recent changes, bypassing next-of kin and leaving her entire fortune and historic estate to Laura.
As Laura scrambles to clear her name, she uncovers sinister secrets lurking beneath the town’s idyllic surface. The real murderer is always one step ahead, leaving taunting clues and threatening Laura to leave Texas—or face deadly consequences. With time not a luxury, Laura must untangle the web of deceit before the killer makes her the next victim.
In A Hush at Midnight, Marlene M. Bell twists an amateur sleuth crime mystery into a race against the clock to solve her mentor's murder.
Author bio:
Marlene M. Bell has never met a sheep she didn’t like. As a personal touch for her readers, they often find these wooly creatures visiting her international romantic mysteries and children’s books as characters or subject matter. Marlene is an accomplished artist and photographer who takes pride in entertaining fans on multiple levels of her creativity.
Her award-winning Annalisse series boasts Best Mystery honors for all installments including these: IP Best Regional Australia/New Zealand, Global Award Best Mystery, and Chanticleer’s International Mystery and Mayhem shortlist for Copper Waters, the fourth mystery in the series.
Marlene also writes children's books. Her picture book, Mia and Nattie: One Great Team is based on true events with a bottle lamb. It's a touching story of compassion and love between a little girl and her lamb, suitable for ages three through seven years.
She shares her life with her husband and a few dreadfully spoiled horned Dorset sheep: a large Maremma guard dog named Tia, and cats, Hollywood, Leo, and Squeaks. The animals and nature are the cornerstone for Marlene's books.
Website: https://www.marlenembell.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marlenembell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marlenemysteries/
Author Marketing Experts tags for social media:
Twitter: @Bookgal
Instagram: @therealbookgal
Amazon: https://amzn.to/4e7Pm4i
Read An Excerpt here.
Author's Expertise:
"How to Write: Outline or Fly by the Seat of Your Pants?"
A HUSH AT MIDNIGHT
"As I worked through my first attempt at publishing a romance novel, I had zero organizational skills—the book’s chapters fell together in a roundabout, rickety way. Far from pretty. My frustration level was high, and several times I nearly gave up on the project. What I understood about being a wordsmith back in 2009 came from watching movies. Many were screenplays based on novels but none portrayed the images and characterization a descriptive novel requires as a backbone. Backdrops and dialog are as important as the characters themselves. Details on the screen were snippets in time, as if taking a brisk walk through each scene and onto the next. To make matters worse, I continued to watch movies and tossed out the idea of reading romances altogether. What a mistake to make! It was a lengthy and difficult way to suffer through the first four drafts that ended up as nine in total before publishing book one, Stolen Obsession. Being a natural visual artist as a young girl hadn’t helped as much as I’d hoped it would. I had to dig deeper to allow my mind to create the visuals painted in my head and match them with prose.
I flew by the seat of my pants because I didn’t know another way. I hadn’t bothered with how-to books on writing. There were and still are many great tutorials for beginning writers that frankly, I ignored. The fear of plagiarizing another author’s published work weighed so heavily on my mind, I stopped myself from picking up novels to read how bestselling authors put their sentences together. It wasn’t like I’d planned to cut and paste their words verbatim; I wanted to stay away from inadvertently picking up their language and style. In practice, if a writer isn’t reading both before and during the writing process, his/her body of work will suffer.
A superb developmental editor who also writes screenplays saw my difficulties immediately and showed me the easiest way to draft, complete the book with ease, and control wandering subplots from confusing the main theme. The day I began to outline using 3x5 cards changed everything. I’m a structured person by nature and this process came easily. Keeping track of each scene on a separate card can direct the story straight ahead to completion.
By the time I had the fifth draft done on my first book, the story had taken on a new life and had become a crossover of two genres. The five or six different subplots I’d managed to acquire during the early years were set aside for next novel series installments. (I’m still using them.) I totally recommend outlining a novel first. Start a new journal with each book and keep the 3x5s with general information with it. For extra details, add those to the journal as well as any new ideas that come to mind. Journal pages can include character names, who they are in the book, and their personality traits. Jot down a list of loglines or taglines for the new title, too. Short summaries come in handy later on—one or two lines that intrigue and explain what the book is about. The outline approach directs the plot away from minor character’s antics who should stay along the sidelines until needed."
CHARACTER Laura INTERVIEW
An interview with Laura Harris – A Hush at Midnight: Secrets, Scandals and a Recipe for Murder
"Laura, you've spent your adult life as a pastry chef and suddenly you're unraveling mysteries. Looking back, do you see any hints that your life would evolve like this? Did you love reading mysteries growing up?
Solving murders or unraveling a heinous crime never entered my thoughts on any level. Fate can drop things in our path, both good and bad. I’m a chef with a dream to attain the coveted Mechlin[1] Star for my own restaurant one day. Being part of my family’s winery, tasting room, and restaurant was the avenue to accomplish this until the feud with my sister, DeeDee made it feel more like a wild fantasy.
The closest I get to reading in earnest would have to be non-fiction cookbooks. My formal training is in French pastry but I love cooking in general. As a matter of fact, I’m in the process of publishing my first cookbook in a few months. I do love a good mystery, though. Except when it involves someone close to home and as special to me as Hattie Stenburg was. I can’t move forward in my career plans until I find the monster who killed my friend.
You moved back to Texas to help your family out but what do you miss most about California?
California is a beautiful state with everything for everyone; the Pacific Ocean’s pristine beaches, majestic blue foothills and craggy mountains, tall redwood forests and big city life, as well as quaint valley towns with a rich heritage. The overall weather in California can’t be beaten, in my opinion. Its mild temperatures hardly vary from winter to the summer months unless you’re in snow country.
My favorite place in the world is found at the 6,225-foot elevation in the high Sierra Mountains. Meeks Bay Resort near Tahoma, CA on Lake Tahoe. The cabins sit just off of the main highway that encircles the lake on the west side. I spent many family vacations there with aunts, uncles, and cousins, bunking in rustic cabins around the July 4th holiday. The aroma of native trees such as aspens and live oaks and numerous varieties of pines populate the landscape and surround that cold, clear lake. The freshest air imaginable enters the senses at high elevations. The most peaceful place on the planet! I learned to waterski in Tahoe’s freezing water. A sixty-degree mountain lake made from snow melt requires a wetsuit to swim the middle even in July. Novice skiers learn to pop out of the water quickly in an environment like that. I sure did!
What about Texas? What's the one thing about home that you can never get enough of?
We actually see the changing seasons in East Texas. Fall color is unbelievable in the Woodlands. A plus is living in a wilderness with nature so close to our houses where we’re home to many creatures not seen in California such as the little excavators we call, nine-banded armadillos. They’re truly prehistoric-looking with their claws on each foot and armor covering them from their pointed snouts to the tip of their tails. Their armored plates have the look of metal, too. Armadillos have terrible eyesight, so if you’re lucky enough to come across one, you can photograph them until they smell your approach. I’ve learned to stay downwind for best results. White-tailed deer enter our properties by the hundreds and a host of skunks and foxes, including the nighttime prowlers; coyotes and the occasional mountain lion share the scenic grounds. In short, the wildlife is breathtaking and plentiful. It’s a plus when they’re near enough to get great photos.
You worked at your family's restaurant, a friend's bakery as well as many other places during your training as a chef. Do you have a favorite dish/sweet treat you like to make?
My personal favorite are French profiteroles like those I brought to Hattie before she, uh…was taken from us. Little puffs of heaven I like to call them. Luscious cream-filled puff pastries drizzled with the finest Belgian chocolate. When I want to liven things up, I sometimes fill them with the most delectable vanilla custard and add whisps of raspberries on top before serving. Of course, whiskey replaced the vanilla flavoring for Hattie. How I’ll miss making her special desserts and the decades of letters we wrote to each other.
Texans are partial to sheet cakes, I found out. Place a sheet cake on one end of the table and offer a tempting dish of handcrafted desserts at the other end to Texas guests—and when the party is over, the fancy plate will hardly be touched. The sheet cake will be gone with only crumbs remaining. It’s taken me a while to get used to the simple desserts locals prefer, like fried pies, banana pudding, and peach cobbler. Chocolate sheet cakes are the winner I always keep in the freezer. My bakery partner, Duska Novak can plow through an entire 13x9 cake she’s made herself, and it’s gone in two days!
Laura, I'm sure you know I love to read! So, tell us what you like to read. Please tell me it isn't just cookbooks (although they can be fun).
Since you’ve taken cookbooks off the list, a close second are novels by new authors or independent writers. Writing books is arduous (as I’ve learned,) and anyone who has the time, money, and stomach to publish books on their own without a publisher’s backing deserves a chance at new readers. I’ve recently picked up an author who has written several books in an international series that spans Europe as well as countries down under. You might have heard of her; Marlene M. Bell. A Texas sheep breeder turned novelist. She has a new book out called, A Hush at Midnight. It’s not from her Annalisse series, but I’m curious to see how she describes Texas in this latest novel. I hear she has a main character with the same name as mine who is also a chef. Isn’t that interesting? I can’t wait to read her slant on Texas!
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to your readers!
She may have changed the name for her book."
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