Orion's Foot: A dead scientist & the shaman

A dead scientist and a shaman—my latest mystery romance is Orion’s Foot: Myth, Mystery, and Romance in the Amazon  opens with a bang. Read a new excerpt today while you have time on your hands! 

A monster, a murderer, and a mystery lurk deep in the Amazon.

Cryptids! Cryptids in the jungle!

My son had gone to Peru during his junior year in college, and I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t get to travel much anymore when a friend remarked, “Well, why don’t you go visit him?” Aha. I said. I shall set forth. So I hopped a plane and eleven hours later he met me at the Lima airport. Just like Petra Steele, my heroine in Orion’s Foot, we had a whirlwind tour of Lima, the capital city, a flight to Iquitos, a city set in the midst of winding waterways and dense jungle, and a boat ride deeper into that jungle.

Like Petra, I was greeted by a menagerie of exotic creatures, including capybaras, tapirs, pink dolphins, and monkeys—hundreds of monkeys! It was a great adventure. A lot of it is described in Orion’s Foot.

Blurb:

Petra Steele is wallowing in self-pity after being dumped at the altar, when her brother Nick invites her to come to the Peruvian Amazon. Before she even sets her suitcase down, she's confronted with a murder victim. In a research station peopled with a quirky assortment of scientists, she is drawn to Emory Andrews, a gruff, big man with a secret past. That is, until his beautiful ex-wife shows up. More murders, more secrets, more mysteries ensue, all in the deeply romantic, sizzling jungle.

Don Cesar the shaman

Excerpt: The Police Are Coming

“The police!” John glowered at Hector. “Did you call them?”

“No! You said not to. I don’t know what they’re doing here.”

“How close are they?”

“Still half an hour away. My cousin Luis told me they’re coming from the police substation in Nauta.” He faltered. “I…uh…I did send for Don César.”

“Don César?” Aguirre seemed confused. “Who’s he?”

“He’s the local shaman.”

“What!”

“What do we need him for?”

No one seemed happy at this news except Petra, who felt her interest piqued. A shaman! A real native witch doctor…Will he be naked? Or wear a necklace of shrunken heads? Visions of scalp locks and tattoos swirling in her head, she barely heard Nick.

“Perhaps he’ll be able to tell us what caused Lewis’s death.”

Aguirre laughed unpleasantly. “Great, he can chant and burn smelly plants. Maybe dance around the corpse jiggling shrunken heads on a stick.”

Aha, see? It’s not just me. She regarded Aguirre with approval.

Hector coughed. “Our shamans train in the arts of healing for many years. They know the flora and fauna of the rainforest better than anyone alive. Don César is a banco ayahuasquero—a master shaman. He is very skilled.” His mouth set in a prim line. “We here in Peru do not shrink heads. At least, not anymore.”

Ulp.

Aguirre said something under his breath.

Alex piped up. “What about the body? Should we leave it on the bed? Hide it from the police?” He looked toward John.

Emory wrinkled his nose. “He’s already been exposed to the air far too long.” He glanced at Petra. “The police will only have to follow the aroma to discover him.”

John jumped up. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s hide it, at least until we hear what they want.”

Nick ventured, “We could put him in the lab refrigerator.”

Emory nodded, but the others chorused a loud “No!”

Aguirre whined, “I have specimens in there. There’s one flower I think may be a new variety of bromeliad.”

Alex added anxiously, “And I have two caiman eggs cooling. They were almost ready to hatch. I want to see if lowering the temperature at this juncture in the incubation period will have an effect on the sex.”

“And what about my bottle of Stolichnaya?” This last question probably did not have the effect John anticipated. “What? I was going to share it during the celebration.”

Petra surprised everyone by asking, “Celebration? What celebration?”

Aguirre glared at Nick. “I can’t believe you brought her here.”

“I told you—”

Hector interrupted. “Excuse me, but what shall we do about the police? The shaman cannot come until tomorrow.”

Emory rapped the table. “Here’s a crazy idea. We tell them the truth.”

The sound of a motorboat pulling into the pier brought them to their feet.

Orion’s Foot: Myth, Mystery, and Romance in the Amazon

M. S. Spencer

Wild Rose Press, October 30, 2019; 442 p; 101,000 words

Buy Links:

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The Penhallow Train Incident at the Spring Break Bookapalooza

The fantastic N. N. Light is putting on the Spring Break Bookapalooza all the month of April! Your spring break doesn’t have to be all jigsaw puzzle and Twister—it can be finding great new books! 

Today my mystery/romantic suspense The Penhallow Train Incident is featured.

In the sleepy coastal Maine town of Penhallow, a stranger dies on a train, drawing Historical Society Director, Rachel Tinker, and curmudgeonly retired professor, Griffin Tate, into a spider’s web of archaeological obsession and greed. With the help of the victim’s rival, they set out to locate the Queen of Sheba’s tomb. Their plans are stymied when a tug of war erupts between the sheriff and a state police detective who want to arrest the same man for different crimes. It’s up to Rachel to solve a mystery that includes two more murders, if she wants to unlock the soft heart that beats under Griffin’s hard crust.

Come by and see me! 

https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/post/the-penhallow-train-incident-sbb  

https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/the-penhallow-train-incident

Hope Springs! A hopeful excerpt from Flotsam & Jetsam

Fifth Installment Day! Today I’m offering a sweet, hopeful excerpt from my cozy mystery Flotsam & Jetsam: the Amelia Island Affair.

Pirates, smugglers, patriots? Who’s responsible for the three corpses found on the sand? Two State Park rangers look for answers & find both romance and murder.

Today’s excerpt is Hope Springs, in which our hero begins to wonder if maybe, just maybe…

Blurb:

Who's littering the park with corpses?

State Park Rangers Simon Ribault and Ellie Ironstone are used to dealing with messy campers and ravaging raccoons, but when three bodies wash up on the beach, they mobilize all their powers of deduction. Who are they and how did they get to the shore of Amelia Island? Are they connected to the secretive League of the Green Cross? Or linked to a mysterious Jamaican drug ring?

Ellie, new to Amelia Island, must penetrate a close-knit community if she wants to find answers to the mystery, all while deciding between two rivals for her affection: Thad, the handsome local idol, and Simon, the clever, quirky bookworm.

Simon, for his part, will have to call on his not-so-well-honed romantic prowess to lure Ellie away from Thad and at the same time use his wide-ranging research skills to solve the case.

Simon has been mooning over Ellie for six months, with little to show for it. It takes three corpses—plus a bit of goosing from his best friend Georgia—to  bring them together.

Amelia Rivee

Excerpt: Hope Springs

As they crossed the street, a fire-engine red Miata barely missed them. It skidded to a stop, and a woman who would put Christie Brinkley to shame leapt out of the car. Simon, accustomed to the sight of her waist-length black hair and eyes a remarkable malachite green, didn’t notice Ellie’s slack jaw. He called, “Hey, Georgia, how’s Santa’s garage? You didn’t unwrap any presents, did you?”

She ran over to them, her short skirt making the long, Tina Turner legs seem even longer. She kissed Simon’s cheek and smiled at Ellie. “You must be Simon’s new partner. Does he treat you as badly as he treats his other colleagues?”

Ellie made a garbled sound in her throat.

She turned to Simon. “Dollink, I’m only down for a few days, and I need to talk to you. Can you come to dinner tonight?”

Simon started to make a joke about checking his social calendar but caught sight of Ellie’s face. She looked pained. What the—?

“Well?” Georgia tugged at his arm.

“Oh, um, sure. What do you want me to bring?”

“Some of that fabulous Italian bubbly you brought the last time. It gave me such a buzz.” She winked at

Ellie, who blinked. “Seven?”

“Okay.”

Georgia turned on her heel and ran back to her car, starting up just as the two drivers behind her had stopped admiring her attributes and begun to fret. She roared off.

“Who…who was that?”

Simon turned surprised eyes on her. “I’m sorry. I should have introduced you. Georgia Petrie.”

“Oh. Your friend from law school.”

“Uh huh.” He gazed at the cloud of dust, the only sign of her passing. “We grew up together.” Ellie muttered something.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you ask if Georgia had seen me naked?”

“Me? That’s absurd.” Ellie plopped into the driver’s seat and waved angrily at Simon. “Get in.”

Simon did as he was told. On the drive back to the station, they were both quiet. Simon rubbed a meditative finger over his lips, wondering. What set Ellie off anyway? A thought intruded. No, couldn’t be.

He checked her profile. Nah. But his mouth formed a hopeful smile, and he leaned back, humming his favorite tune.

Fernandina Beach downtown

Flotsam and Jetsam: the Amelia Island Affair

Wild Rose Press, December 17, 2018

Imprint: Mainstream Mystery
Rating: Spicy (PG13)
Paper 430 p.; Ebook 97,578 words 

Buy Links:

TWRP  Amazon   Barnes and Noble   ITunes

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Spring Bookapalooza Giveaway

The incomparable N. N. Light is putting on the Spring Book Bookapalooza the entire month of April. My books The Penhallow Train Incident and The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel, are featured.

Come by for lots of new books and authors—and a Giveaway! Enter to win five gift cards for Amazon and Barnes and Noble!

https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/spring-break-bookapalooza 

Enter on April 7 with the spotlight on The Penhallow Train Incident.

Or on April 23 with the spotlight on The Pit & the Passion. 

Who is Elian Really? Lapses of Memory ~ Blue-Penciled by Elian

Today in my fifth installment,  I’m talking about the genesis of my romantic suspense Lapses of Memory.  The excerpt “Blue-Penciled by Elian,” introduces the hero and a mystery—is he indeed the great Lothario of the journalism world…or is his reputation an illusion?

A rush of emotion dropped a veil over all but the tiny world of the two people in seats 11A and 11B, in a jet plane floating somewhere over the Atlantic, in a still moment in time.

Usually a story starts with a kernel of memory, or an anecdote, or even an image flashing across the inside of your eyes. Lots of things can trigger it—a news headline or a paragraph tucked away in the obituaries, a throw-away line from a conversation, or even a publisher’s idea. In the case of my new release, Lapses of Memory, it was the latter. A former publisher tossed out the idea of a series based on “love in the air.” Unfortunately, the high-pitched squeal I emitted sounded enough like “yes” to commit me to the project.

Now, rather than starting with a plot of my own devising, I had to come up with one related to someone else’s theme. Here’s the part where an image flashing across your brain comes in. Sitting quietly in what I euphemistically call my lotus position, I mulled. “Planes,” I said to myself. “Love in the air…snakes on a plane (nah, overdone)…old planes…my first trip on a plane…” Eureka (or aha, whichever you prefer)!  I saw before me an enormous, bulbous silver bird with EASTERN written in red across the side. I’d recently seen it at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and remembered because seeing it there made me feel old, since the plane was, in fact, the very first plane I’d flown on at age four. A Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, one of the first to make the transatlantic voyage a regular event, it allowed—with its sleeping berths and formal dining—for luxurious air travel in the 1950s.

Boeing 377 Stratocruiser

My heroine, Sydney, would take that plane. And so would the hero Elian. Everything was going swimmingly, until I realized that, this being a contemporary romance, Sydney and Elian would be too young in 1958 to fall in love. So I was forced to make them suffer through an intermittent romance as they (and airplane design) matured.

Blurb

Sydney Bellek first meets Elian Davies in the 1950s on a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser when she is five and he is seven. They run into each other every few years after that, but while he knows from the start that she is his true love, she does not. Later, as rival journalists, they vie for scoops on international crises from the Iranian revolution to the Lebanese civil war. The handsome and intrepid Elian beats her out at every turn, even while keeping his love for her secret.

Only after years of separation does she finally realize they are meant to be together, but this time, in a twist of fate, it is Elian whose memory of her is gone. Will he remember her before she loses heart or will their new love be enough to replace the old one?

Excerpt (G): Blue-Penciled by Elian

Sydney pulled out her crossword puzzle, mints, pen, glasses, embroidery, and tissues and set them on the other seat before stealthily slipping the miniature bottle of Jack Daniels into the magazine pocket. She checked her ticket once again. They’d be in Rome tomorrow morning and from there the flight to Beirut should be less than five hours. As she searched for her seat belt, a husky voice behind her ear said, “Excuse me. I believe I have the window seat?”

The scent of licorice filled her nostrils. She looked up into a pair of deep indigo eyes, half-obscured by a tangle of hair the color of cordovan. He used his angular chin, cloaked in reddish brown stubble, to indicate his seat. She looked him up and down without moving and pronounced, “Elian Davies.”

He drew back, an expression of mock surprise on his face. “Sydney Bellek? Could it be you after all these years? My, how you’ve aged…I mean matured.”

Whatever joy she’d felt at seeing him faded. “You.”

He scooted around her knees, grabbed her stuff, dropped it in her lap, and sat down. “Me.”

She opened her crossword puzzle and pretended to work on it. He pointed a tanned finger at a spot on the page. “Eleven down is Oslo.”

“Duh.”

The stewardess came by. “Please buckle your seat belt, sir. We’ll be taking off in five minutes.”

“Oh, Miss…” He peered at her name plate. “Petula? What a lovely old-fashioned name!” He beamed at her. “Would you mind bringing me a glass of ice before we begin to taxi?”

The stewardess opened her mouth, then opened her eyes wide. “Why, you’re Elian Davies, the famous photojournalist, aren’t you?”

“At your service, Petula.” He bent in a graceful half bow.

“Right away, sir. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She tore down the aisle, knocking into passengers’ elbows and knees along the way. Holding a glass high, she ran back like a bartender in a Bastille Day race, and proudly plunked it and a packet of peanuts on Elian’s knee.

When she’d gone, he took a furtive look around and pulled a miniature bottle from his pocket. Sydney’s annoyance dissolved in giggles. “You too?” She pulled her own small whiskey out.

“Oh good, we’ll share this first one, shall we?”

She couldn’t say no, and besides, sipping kept her busy. Elian. She’d spent the last four years trying to hate him. It should have been easy. His reputation as an ace reporter and first-class scoop jockey had only grown since Tehran. Too many of her colleagues told stories of him racing across the tarmac just ahead of them to catch the final words of an escaping dictator, or jumping into a helicopter for a one-on-one interview with said dictator upon his triumphant return. Along with his derring-do came the even more infamous reputation as an inveterate ladies’ man, which the recent episode with Petula only confirmed.

She studied his left hand as it popped a peanut in his mouth—steady, strong, tanned. It looked familiar. Oh yes, I watched it unbutton my blouse in a supply room in Tehran. She turned away to hide the blush. When her cheeks had sufficiently cooled, she turned back only to have him glance away quickly.

Staring out the window, he inquired in a casual voice, “So how’s your boyfriend holding up while you’re off on these wasted efforts to follow in my footsteps?”

Her momentary affection melted away. Old Blue-Pencil Davies at it again. Prick. “They’re all moping of course, poor babies. And yours?”

“Me? I don’t hold with leading women on.”

“That’s not what your adoring public thinks.”

He swung around on her, the customary smirk on his lips gone. “They’re wrong, Sydney.”

The remark—and his deadly serious face—threw her. To cover her confusion, she sipped her drink. After a minute, he turned back to the window. As she watched his shoulders gradually relax, she reviewed the stories about him. From what she’d heard, women who crossed paths with him considered a one-night stand the standard reward. Could he be telling the truth? Just then Petula passed, slowing as she neared their row and heaving a soulful sigh. Sydney remembered the lovelorn look on her secretary’s face. He may not lead women on, but he sure draws them in.

Lapses of Memory

Wild Rose Press, 3/15/2017, Imprint: Champagne Rose

Contemporary romantic suspense/Action Adventure; M/F; 2 flames

Ebook (70,560); Print: 296 pp.

Wild Rose Press

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