Friday, March 22, 2019

An Au Pair to Remember - An Interview & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Stephen Kaminski back to Cozy Up With Kathy. Stephen starts a new series with AN AU PAIR TO REMEMBER. This first book in the Male Housekeeper Mystery series was released earlier this year.


Kathy: You start a new series with AN AU PAIR TO REMEMBER. Was there a specific inspiration for this series?

Yes, I wanted to have the series take place in a village modeled on the small town I grew up in—Romeo, MI. So description of the town of Rusted Bonnet is heavily influenced by my fond hometown memories.


Kathy: Cam Reddick takes the helm of his mother’s housekeeping business upon his return to his childhood home of Rusted Bonnet, Michigan. Do you enjoy cleaning? Would you ever consider doing it professionally?

SK: Ha—no! That said, I am very tidy and like having things in place. I was seeking a profession where my protagonist could have access to places he might not regularly enter. A housekeeping business is perfect for that. And Cam’s ex-wife is the Deputy Chief of Police so he’s privy to additional information through her. I also liked showing that I am all for gender equality in professional endeavors.


Kathy: While Cam is struggling with his personal life, he does have a pet to confide in. How did you decide on a pet fish named Bait to be his companion?

SK: Cam’s personal struggles are significant and I expect it to be an undercurrent that weaves its way through all books I write in this series. It’s funny, because as a rescue cat owner, you’d think I’d gravitate toward a feline. But a rescue cat is fairly cliché, so I thought, what better confidant than a rescue fish named Bait, who was saved from being bait himself.


Kathy: Your other series features Dabbling Detective Damon Lassard. How similar or different are your two protagonists?

SK: They are similar in certain external attributes—e.g., age and proclivity toward amateur sleuthing. But their backstories are quite different; Cam has deeper internal struggles, and in this series, I plan to involve even more side plots revolving around clever cons.


Kathy: Are you able to share any future plans for Cam and will you share any other upcoming books?

SK: I’m actively writing the second book in the series with a plan to have it hit the shelves in January 2020. The crux of the story will take place in a funeral home.

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AN AU PAIR TO REMEMBER: A Male Housekeeper Mystery by Stephen Kaminski

About the Book

 
Cozy Mystery 1st in Series 
Cozy Cat Press (January 27, 2019)  
Paperback: 260 pages
From the author of the award-winning Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective series comes the Male Housekeeper Mysteries, focusing on charming characters, snappy dialogue, eclectic murders, and cunning confidence schemes. To his mind, Cam Reddick has failed—as a husband, as a father, and as a professional. After recognizing that his vanilla credentials didn’t stack up in a big city brimming with overachievers and toiling in drudgery for half of a decade, an emotionally raw Cam returns to his childhood hometown—the quaint and quirky village of Rusted Bonnet, Michigan. He’s determined to resuscitate relationships marred by youthful immaturity, most importantly those with his ex-wife Kacey Gingerfield (who doubles as the village’s Deputy Chief of Police) and their first grader, Emma. Armed with striking looks and an endearing proclivity for mixing metaphors, but saddled by “momma’s boy” tendencies, Cam takes the helm of his mother’s housekeeping business—Peachy Kleen. Access to homes across the village facilitates Cam’s penchant for amateur sleuthing as Kacey’s aide-de-camp. Surrounded by Kacey, his sophisticated mother Darby, garrulous senior housekeeper Samantha, and recuse fish cum confidant Bait, Cam’s circuitous journeys to solving murders and unravelling complex cons hasten his struggle down the path of self-healing to self-respect. And there’s hope that—just maybe—he can rekindle the romance he once had with Kacey.
In An Au Pair to Remember, Cam’s plan for a quiet return to Rusted Bonnet is dashed when a beautiful German au pair, Greta Astor, is found dead in Dutch McRae’s foyer with all signs pointing to a hastily disassembled trip wire at the top of the stairs. When Kacey learns that Cam was cleaning the McRae home the previous afternoon, she confides to him that Chief Bernie Leftwich is set on arresting Dutch for the murder—either alone or in tandem with Greta’s bartender boyfriend. But she worries that Bernie’s been duped. And later, when his mother Darby becomes a suspect, Cam inserts himself into the investigation and stumbles through a series of ostensible incongruities—a thief swallowing a cache of stolen diamonds, a snack food distributor laundering money, and a Cash-for-Gold scam. Meanwhile, Peachy Kleen’s young African housekeeper has disappeared with one of the company vans. All the while, Cam finds himself flirting with his new neighbor and struggling with his complicated feelings for Kacey.

About the Author


Stephen Kaminski is the author of An Au Pair to Remember, the first installment of the Male Housekeeper Mystery series. He also writes the award-winning Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective books. Stephen is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School and serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the trade association representing the United States’ poison control system and its fifty-five centers. He lives with his daughter and rescue kitty in the Washington, DC area.

Author Links:

GoodReads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43834065-an-au-pair-to-remember  
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DamonLassard/  

Purchase Links: Amazon Kindle - Amazon Paperback 

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

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