Meet Avery Flynn, Lucy Burdette and Annie Knox

I'm changing it up, y'all!  There are some awesome cozy mysteries out there this month (as there are every month), and we've already given you a good sampling of a few of them.

Soooo, instead of expanding on that list, today I'm giving you exceprts from two of my favorites. I was lucky enough to do a quickie Q&A with the two authors I'm featuring, Wendy Lyn Watson and Roberta Isleib writing as Lucy Burdette

Misa: You have several different writing personas! What makes each of the unique?

Roberta/Lucy: As Roberta Isleib, I wrote both the golf lovers mystery series and the advice column mysteries. And now I'm writing the Key West foodie mysteries as Lucy Burdette. All that to say, I'm a serial monogamist when it comes to writing:). I loved my golfer character--she was young and driven and plagued by a family history that kept her from performing at the level she had the talent for. Rebecca Butterman, my psychologist character, also had a difficult family--but this history helped her understand her patients and be curious and empathetic to the people around her. Hayley Snow has some issues about finding herself, as all folks in their twenties probably do, but basically she's a good-hearted, level-headed young woman who adores her family and friends. (Can you tell I was a clinical psychologist before I became a writer?) And that leads me to the next question...

Misa:  MURDER WITH GANACHE is the 4th Key West food critic mystery. What is your favorite thing about writing your sleuth, Hayley Snow?

Roberta/Lucy: I really enjoy watching Hayley grow in confidence and grow in her relationships. She began the series a little bit self-absorbed, even a little needy (AN APPETITE FOR MURDER), but by this fourth book her work as a food critic is blossoming and her understanding of her stepfamily is growing too. In MURDER WITH GANACHE, Hayle's extended family is descending on the island like a category 3 hurricane for her best friend's wedding. When her stepbrother disappears into the spring break party scene, she must put the baking of cupcakes and other wedding chores on hold in order to search for her brother. The book features Hemingway cats, and cupcakes, and wedding drama, but in the end it's about finding and embracing family in whatever form they come.

Aside from all that, I love writing about the food!

Misa:  What is it about Key West that appeals to you as a location for murder?

Roberta/Lucy: My sweet husband and I visited Key West about seven years ago and fell head over heels for magical, tropical, whimsical, bizarro Key West. The town has so many layers, reaching from the richest of the rich at one end to a significant homeless population on the other. There are folks who were born and raised on the island and lots of others who come to party or who come because they don't quite fit into a traditional lifestyle but feel comfortable here. As I did, and as my character Hayley Snow does, people tend to fall in love with this place. And when you're in love, you'll do anything to keep the feeling going, right? But staying on the island is expensive and competitive...So much opportunity for conflict--and conflict makes for good murder mysteries!

Misa:  What's next for Hayley Snow, and what's next for you?

Roberta/Lucy: I'm working hard on finishing the book that will be out in December 2014. It will be called SEASON'S GRIEVINGS. A new chef in town asks for Hayley's help in identifying who is making mischief in her kitchen, and of course, things spiral out of control. It's set during the magical holiday season on the island.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to chat with you! ~Lucy (Roberta too)

An excerpt from MURDER BY GANACHE, by Lucy Burdette

Faster than a speeding Kitchenaid mixer, I scraped the freshly-squeezed lime juice and zested lime peel into the bowl and beat the batter to a creamy pale green. Inside the oven, the first set of cupcakes rose gracefully, releasing their sweet and sour citrus fragrance into the tiny galley of our houseboat.

Then my cell phone bleated: Jim Snow. AKA Dad.

My father isn't big on phone conversations. My father isn't big on conversations, period. Clients, he has to butter up because he needs something from them. But I could count on the fingers of one hand the times we'd chatted since my near-arrest for murder last fall.

So when his name flashed on the screen, I set down the whisk, abandoning the "do not answer" policy I'd adopted in order to survive the week leading up to my best friend Connie's wedding. Something had to be wrong.

"Hi Dad, what's up?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful, when wary was what I felt.

"Good news, Hayley Catherine Snow!" he said, with the faux heartiness he reserved for business associates. And using my full name, which he reserved for times I'd gotten into trouble. "The whole family's coming to the wedding."

I whooshed out a breath of relief--he was just lagging a beat and a half behind his wife. "I know. Allison RSVP'd weeks ago. You're all set with a corner suite at the Casa Marina. You'll love everything but the bill." My stepmother Allison was organized to a fault. She had to be, as a chemist. Though why that didn't translate into an ability to follow a simple recipe was beyond me. Hopeless in the kitchen, my mom always said, when she couldn't restrain herself from an edgy comment.

The oven timer began to ding. I donned a red silicone mitten, pulled the cupcakes out, and slid them onto the stovetop.

"The whole family," my father repeated. "Rory's coming too."

"Rory's coming?"

My fifteen-year-old stepbrother. To be honest, I was already stressed about the upcoming week, visualizing how I might handle the family dynamics between my mother and her new boyfriend, whom I hadn't met except on Skype, and my father and stepmother. Not to mention juggling a high-strung bride while baking two hundred cupcakes for her wedding reception. Not to mention her husband-to-be's first-ever art reception.

Rory had been adorable as a toddler. As a teen? Not so much.

A surly, pimply adolescent boy would not, no way, be an asset.

"I was hoping you could find him a place to sleep," my dad continued. "Otherwise he'll end up on the couch in our sitting room." His voice rolled out ominously like the music from Jaws. I was pretty certain he didn't care much for Rory in his current iteration either--only he didn't have the luxury of saying so.

"I don't think I can, Dad. You guys are arriving today. It's spring break. The hotels in Key West have been sold out for months. I might be able to get a bead on a bunk in a youth hostel. But between us, I think that's asking for trouble. You don't know what kind of roommates he'd get or what they might be in to."

He cleared his throat. "Might there be room on your houseboat? I know he'd love to have some special time with you."

"No can do," I said briskly. Rory and I hadn't lived together enough to bond quite like sister and brother. After my parents' divorce, I spent only alternate weekends and Wednesdays with Dad. And the weekends dwindled further once he remarried and moved two towns away. We'd never shared a room, or a tent, or for that matter, a mother.

"Think Airstream trailer on the high seas. The smallest model. Between me, Miss Gloria, two cats, wedding favors, and hundreds of cupcakes, we don't have room to spit." Was I being uncharitable? I looked around at the common spaces of our tiny houseboat, the counters in the galley covered with cupcakes, cupcake batter, zested limes, dirty pots and pans, and Evinrude, my gray tiger cat, eying it all from a stool beside the stove.

My father fell silent, which made me feel awful.

"What about Eric Altman? Didn't your mother stay in his guest room in January?"

I groaned. How did he even know this? When I moved down to Key West from New Jersey last fall, I'd assured my old friend Eric I would only ask this kind of favor in case of emergency. He'd insisted on hosting mom, because she'd been so kind to him when he was a troubled teen. It wasn't fair to foist Rory on him.

But then I pictured messy, grumpy Rory camped out on our single couch not five feet from the room where I'd be desperate to sleep. This was definitely an emergency.

At exactly that moment, I heard a burst of excited yapping outside on the dock. A black blur tore across our deck into the living area and through the galley, followed by a barking gray schnauzer. Miss Gloria's black kitten, Sparky, launched himself up onto the stool beside the stove, chasing Evinrude onto the counter. The slavering dog yipped at the cats who were now safely out of reach. The animal leaped higher, nipping at their paws. They sprinted across the two trays of pale green cupcakes that were waiting for icing, tipping them up perpendicular to the counter. The cupcakes crashed onto the floor and splattered into a million pieces. 

"Shoo!" I shrieked.

I waved my arm at the schnauzer, knocking into the bowl of green batter, which rocked and then tilted, dumping its contents down the front of the stove.

"Gotta go right now," I said to my father. "I'll ask Eric."

I hung up the phone and lunged for the cats. Evinrude slipped through my fingers and vanished down the hall after Sparky.

"Et tu, Brute?" I yelled after him.

And now, on to PAWS FOR MURDER, a debut by Annie Knox, who some of you may also know as Wendy Lyn Watson, author of the Ice Cream a la Mode Mysteries.

Misa: Tell us about PAWS FOR MURDER.

Annie: The Pet Boutique Mysteries feature Izzy McHale, a would-be fashion designer who's carved a niche for herself by designing dashing duds for pets of all kinds in the tourist town of Merryville, Minnesota. In PAWS FOR MURDER, Izzy's launching her new boutique, Trendy Tails. Unfortunately, Sherry Harper, the local trust fund baby and activist, has set her sights on Trendy Tails and plans to picket the grand opening. By the time the party is over, Sherry is dead in the alley behind the store and Izzy's best friend Rena is the prime suspect in her murder. Izzy and her friends and family have to track down the real killer before Rena ends up in the hoosegow.

Misa: What makes your sleuth special?

Annie:  Izzy's brave, but she's also a little fragile. She and her high school boyfriend were together for years, carefully nurturing their life plan, and just on the cusp of it blooming, he left her for another woman. She doesn't always trust her own instincts because she's been so wrong before.

Misa: Who's Packer?

Annie:  Packer is Izzy's rambunctious pug/bulldog mix. He's a bit of a goofball, but he keeps Izzy happy and occasionally helps find a clue or two.

Misa: What do you love about writing mysteries?

Annie:  I love the intellectual puzzle of mysteries. I tend to inject my stories with a lot of emotion and meaningful relationships, but the thread of the puzzle ties everything together. My goal is always to keep 'em guessing!

And now an excerpt from the opening of PAWS FOR MURDER!

Sherry Harper blew into Trendy Tails like a late summer tornado.

"It's just plain wrong, Izzy."

She'd marched up the steps of 801 Maple Avenue like Joan of Arc charging the English, righteous fire in her eyes . . . and a baby sling strung across her chest. As she shifted her weight to better stare me down, her guinea pig, Gandhi, poked his quivering nose out of the sling to get a look around. Like all guinea pigs, he had a perpetually startled expression on his face, an effect heightened by the forward tilt of his auburn ears and the ring of pale blond fur around his button eyes.

Little guy would be adorable in one of my hand-knit sweaters. A-dorable.

"Animals aren't meant to wear clothes," Sherry continued. "It isn't natural."

I didn't bother pointing out that guinea pigs didn't "naturally" travel in canvas slings. Or live in Minnesota, for that matter.

Sherry Harper, trust-fund baby and Merryville's resident reactionary, didn't trade in logic or reason. The woman flitted from cause to cause, most of them half-baked. If she wasn't picketing city hall over the deplorable conditions of the town park benches, she was writing a letter to the editor of the Merryville Gazette about how city hall spent too much on frivolous things . . . like park benches. True story.

No, now that Sherry had set her sights on my brand-new pet boutique, logic wouldn't dissuade her.

"I get where you're coming from. Really, I do. But people are going to dress up their pets. They buy ridiculous and demeaning costumes from those big box stores. Those things are made overseas out of who-knows-what. I'm offering them a local, nontoxic alternative."

Sherry opened her mouth to answer, but then froze, her face twitching as she fought a sneeze. With her thick auburn hair, freckled nose, and wide dark brown eyes, she bore a striking resemblance to her furry friend . . . especially when her nose quivered.

I reached behind the counter and pulled out a box of tissues, quickly handing one to her.

The sneeze arrived with enough bluster to set the tiny brass bells around her neck tinkling. She emitted a barely audible squeak as she sucked in air, and another sneeze nearly shook her out of her custom-cobbled earth shoes.

Packer, my pug-bulldog mix, whined pitifully from his fleece-lined dog bed and buried his nose beneath his paws.

"God bless," I muttered.

Sherry honked into the tissue and, seemingly without thought, stuffed it into the baby sling.

Poor Gandhi.

Finally, I'd like to introduce the fabulous Avery Flynn, a debut author of the sexy and hilarious HIGH-HEELED WONDER, a Killer Style novel. You will love, Love, LOVE Sylvie and her antics as she works to solve a murder and gets protected by a man named Tony.

"The investigator from the other side of the tracks is the olive oil to her Evian water and aggravates her to no end, but it's not just her temper he's inciting..."

A few questions with Avery:

Misa: This is your debut mystery novel, congratulations! Tell us where your inspiration came from.

Avery:  It is my first mystery with Entangled (AWESOME!), but I already have a smexy romantic suspense series out based in my home state, Nebraska (the Layton family series). The inspiration for HIGH-HEELED WONDER came down to needing an excuse to write off my addiction to fashion magazines, shoes, clothes and all things fabulous. When I can lose a day playing on fashion blogs and it's totally work related, then it's all good. :) So I knew I wanted to write a fashion-based romantic suspense series. Then, I read an online advice column about a bridesmaid who threw up on the bride right before the wedding started. Everything clicked immediately. I knew exactly how I wanted to start HIGH-HEELED WONDER.

Misa:  Who are the Flynnbots?

Avery:  The Flynnbots are my amazing street team. They are readers from all over the globe who are total smartasses, love to chat books and are as goofily gah-gah for reading as I am. They are so much fun to hang out with - even if it's only online.

Misa:  I hear you're having a FB party to celebrate the release of HIGH-HEELED WONDER. Tell us more!

Avery:  Oh it is going to be a complete blast! Break out your favorite shoes and join me and my friends: Tracy Brogan, Jerrie Alexander, Adrienne Giordano, Smexy Book's Mandi Schreiner, Larissa Reinhart, Ruth Cardello, Robin Covington, Kimberly Kincaid, Amanda Baker Usen, Angi Morgan, Sonali Dev, Emma Shortt, Carlene Love Flores, Kelsey Browning, Jenna Bennett, Nina Bruhns, Carly Phillips and more! Giggles, Giveaways, Cool Shoe and Hot Guys. What more could you ask for? Facebook

Misa:  What is your favorite thing about Sylvie?

Avery:  She's a fighter and she's not afraid to go after what she wants. She may be fashion royalty now, but she spent her formative years as a foster kid intent on protecting her sister and hoping to get adopted. It wasn't easy for her, but she made a great life for herself. I guess that's why it's so frustrating that a stalker wants to take what she's earned through hard work and dedication.

Misa:  How fun was it to mix murder and fashion?

Avery:  On a scale of one to ten? About a billion. The fashion world is perfect for romantic suspense because the competition is so fierce and the egos are so overblown. Killer Style is a series that I hope gets to play in all of the different fashion realms from bloggers to designers to make up artists to photographers to agents to .... see what I mean? The fashion world is ripe for the romantic suspense pickings.

And you're in for a treat! Here's an excerpt from HIGH-HEELED WONDER:

At least the man had the common decency to look uncomfortable. Sylvie didn't even bother trying to hide her smirk. Served him right.

"I'll need to have our computer expert check out your laptop. We can drop it off at the office on the way back to my place." Tony glanced at his watch. "How long will it take you to pack a bag?"

"Why would I pack a bag?" Between the Internet troll, her fathers, and Daniel, she'd had more than enough of men pushing and pulling her in the direction of their choosing, never bothering to ask if that's where she wanted to go. Hackles raised, she dug in for a fight.

"Because this place is not safe." He shrugged out of his biker jacket and pushed his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, revealing thick, muscled forearms. Banding his arms over his chest made his biceps bulge under the gray, ribbed material.

Oh mama, that was so not fighting fair.

"You already said there aren't any bugs."

"Two of your neighbors offered to let me in while I waited at the security door. A five-year-old with a broken leg could climb the fire escape outside your living room window. You don't even have a security system installed."

"That's why I have three badass deadbolts on the door, double-paned windows with pin locks"—she smiled—"And you." She crossed her arms, knowing full well how that would emphasize her own endowments. Two could play at the distracting game.

Tony's eyes dilated, and he choked out, "Your dads—"

"Are not paying the bills. I am." She whipped out her checkbook from among the flotsam in the junk drawer. "And I say we stay here, with you being my rebound boyfriend. Trust me, the fashion world isn't going to say anything of value to a private investigator. However, if they think a little gossip with my boy toy will get them extra dirt about my breakup with Daniel, they'll leak like a sieve."

A vein throbbed on his temple.

"You know I'm right."

He tipped his face up to her ceiling as if praying for guidance. The only helpful information he'd get from that direction was how to clean grout with a deadly-smelling mix of bleach and lemon juice, from Mrs. Razinsky upstairs in 4A.

"Fine. We'll stay here for tonight."

Damn, she loved winning. "Glad you're seeing reason."

"It sure looks like crazy from this side of the room." He shoved his fingers through his black hair. "Okay, so tell me about the threats. All of them."

Happy Reading!!

~Misa

About Misa Ramirez

Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, gave up teaching middle and high school kids in Northern California to write full-time amidst horses and Longhorns in North Texas. She fantasizes about spending summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship with yoga and chocolate, is devoted to her family, and can't believe she's lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams. She is the Executive Marketing and Publicity Director with Entangled Publishing.  In her spare time, she writes.  She is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series with St. Martin's Minotaur and Entangled Publishing, and A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series with NAL. She also has two romantic suspense novels and writes the occasional romance. Learn more about Misa at her website. Join her on social media: Facebook and Twitter at @misaramirez or @melissabourbon