Barks and Clues - An Interview, Review, & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Sharon Michaels to Cozy Up With Kathy Today. Sharon writes the  Canine Cozy Mystery series. BARKS AND CLUES is the first book in the series.

Kathy: BARKS AND CLUES introduces three clever and adventurous dogs, Digger, Dash, and Daisy. Are these dogs based on any real dogs, or are they completely fictional?

SM: Digger is a mini-dachshund and, yes, his traits and habits are based on the dachshunds that have been part of my life in the past. I have another series, Oscar the Doxie Detective, that is based solely on our beloved Oscar. Digger has his own distinct personally. Dash and Daisy are completely fictional.

Kathy: The dogs along with retired police detective Maya Thompson and her family get involved in solving a series of break-ins in their quiet town. Would you get involved if something was disrupting your quiet life?

SM: No, that’s why I write about it. I’m living the adventure in my imagination. My real life is much quieter.
 

Kathy: BARKS AND CLUES is described as a "short read" book. Was there a reason for writing a short read rather than a full length novel?

SM: I like to sit down and finish a book within a couple of hours. I do read novels and even plan on writing a novel or two next year, but it seems like I’ve found my niche writing short reads.

Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?

SM: Ellery Adams. My husband and I were on vacation in Portland, Maine, and went into a bookstore to find some fun vacation reading. I’d never really heard of a cozy mystery before, and it sounded interesting. I ended up reading five or six of her books on that trip and have been hooked on the cozy mystery genre ever since.
 

Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?

SM: No, just cozies.


Kathy: Tell us about your series. 

SM: The Canine Cozy Mystery series is a fun, clean whodunit series with twists and turns. It’s about three generations of one family sleuthing together. With the help of their smart canine detectives sniffing out clues, the Thompson family is able to bring the bad guys to justice.

I have six other short read cozy mystery series available. All are a little different and all have smart dogs helping to solve crime.

The first series I wrote was the Oscar the Doxie Detective series back in 2017. I wrote that series to honor our mini dachshund, Oscar. The canine characters in that four-book series are based on actual dogs in our neighborhood. With the Oscar series, my goal was to honor his memory and showcase his feisty doxie personality.

Kathy: Do you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?

SM: In the Canine Cozy Mystery, series my favorite is Digger the mini dachshund. I’m partial to mini dachshunds.

Kathy: Did you have a specific inspiration for your series?

SM: I’d say the inspiration was to showcase the intelligence of our animal friends and the connection between our pets and our lives. I also wanted to highlight three generations of a family working together in a kind, loving, and compatible way.

Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?

SM: That’s a good question. There were stories rolling around in my head I wanted to share. My goal is to give the reader a relaxing escape into a fun book.

Kathy: If you could have a dinner party and invite 4 authors, living or dead, in any genre, who would you invite?

SM: Mildred Wirt Benson (Carolyn Keene), Nora Roberts (JD Robb), Carolyn Brown, and Ellery Adams.

Kathy: What are you currently reading?

SM: Tess Thompson – WHEN STARS FALL AT MIDNIGHT.

Kathy: Will you share any of your hobbies or interests with us?

SM: Reading a couple of hours before bed. Watching Tom Selleck in Blue Bloods – okay, watching anything starring Tom Selleck.

Kathy: Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry.

SM: Pepsi Real Sugar. Pasta. Eggs. Cans of tuna.

Kathy: Do you have plans for future books either in your current series or a new series?

SM: Yes. My Facebook group, Chatting with Sharon, nominated their cats, dogs and pets to be guest characters in the Canine Cozy Mystery series. To include all of them, there will be many more cozy mystery stories released in the future.

Kathy: What's your favorite thing about being an author?

SM: Interacting with my readers in my Facebook group and being able to share the stories living in my imagination. 

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Review

BARKS AND CLUES by Sharon Michaels
The First Canine Cozy Mystery

 

She may be retired from the police department, but Maya Thompson is still inquisitive and ready to solve a crime. After her next door neighbor's house is broken into Maya is annoyed with the surly young police officer who, while spending hours at the house hasn't even processed the scene. Her curiosity is aroused when she discovers her neighborhood has had several break ins recently. Aided by her son and granddaughter, as well as their three dogs, Maya is determined to find out what's going on and bring peace and quiet back to the block. 

 

BARKS AND CLUES  is a cute little mystery. I liked the whip smart protagonist as well as her son and granddaughter. After the fright of an intruder in the night I appreciate how Martha, her elderly neighbor, took control of her life and enjoyed hunting down the bad guys. And, of course, I loved Digger, Dash, and Daisy.

If you're in the mood for a family friendly quick read with some smart dogs BARKS AND CLUES could be just what you're looking for.

 

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 Barks and Clues: A Canine Cozy Mystery by Sharon Michaels

About Barks and Clues 

Barks and Clues: A Canine Cozy Mystery
Cozy Mystery 1st in Series
Setting - Small Town USA
Publisher: ‎ Independently published (May 22, 2024)
Paperback: ‎ 105 pages

If you like a cozy mystery that has… A fun, clean whodunit with twists and turns. Three generations of one family sleuthing together. Dog detectives sniffing out clues and bad guys. A small town with hidden secrets. A close-knit community coming together to solve crime. … then this is the short read book for you.

Retired police detective Maya Thompson is living a quiet life in the small town of Sunridge Junction with her son, Ethan, and her granddaughter, Lily. When their peaceful neighborhood is hit by a string of break-ins, Maya suspects there might be more to these crimes than meets the eye. Together, Maya, Ethan, Lily and their three clever and adventurous dogs, Digger, Dash, and Daisy, begin investigating the burglaries.

The dogs follow their noses, and the humans follow the dogs to an old fishing shack and a mysterious inventor. The man claims his innocence and insists he is being framed for the break-ins. The reclusive inventor explains that someone is trying to sabotage him and steal his inventions. He pleads with the crime-solvers to help prove his innocence and bring the true culprits to justice. Maya reluctantly agrees, finding it difficult to let go of her desire for justice.

With its quirky characters, fun plot twists, and a sprinkling of canine charm, this book is a must-read for fans of cozy mysteries and anyone who believes that heroism has no age limit.

About Sharon Michaels

Bestselling author Sharon Michaels writes sweet, clean, and fun cozy mystery short reads about mature, smart women and men who know how to enjoy life. Small towns, close friends, a hint of romance, and a fur-baby or two makes solving mysteries fun and exciting.

Today I happily write in the cactus filled desert of the southwest United States. My extremely supportive husband and I love exploring the beauty of our country. As I travel, I write fun and interesting things in my notebook so I can share these memories with you in stories and books.

* Short, Sweet Cozy Mysteries * Keeps You Guessing Stories * Smart, Mature, Believable Characters  

Author Links: 

Website: https://SharonMichaelsAuthor.com  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSharonMichaels/  

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/sharon-michaels  

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2691207.Sharon_Michaels  

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sharon_michaels_author/  

Links to Purchase:  

A Canine Cozy Mystery Series Series Links Amazon U.S. Link Amazon Universal Link  

Barks and Clues Amazon U.S. Link Amazon Universal Link 

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Bad Boy - A Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Winona Kent back to Cozy Up With Kathy. Winona writes the Jason Davey Mystery series. Bad Boy is the fifth book in the series and was released last week.

Razzle Dazzle
By Winona Kent

I love incorporating things I remember from my past into my Jason Davey mysteries. Sometimes I give those memories, people and events to Jason, and I let him tell you all about how they’ve influenced and affected his life. Sometimes I just throw them into the plot, and you never know whether they’re real, or if they’re simply a product of my very fertile imagination.

In Bad Boy, Jason has to solve a series of puzzles, brain-teasers and quizzes in order to track down a stolen collection of musical manuscripts by the famed English composer Sir Edward Elgar.

Elgar was also very fond of codes and puzzles, and that’s probably why having him at the heart of the story appealed to me so much.

One of the puzzles Jason has to solve involves a Secret Decoder Wheel—three paper discs with numbers and letters printed around their edges, that you can rotate to create—and decipher—cryptic messages.

If you want to create your own (or see exactly what I had in mind when I describe what Jason has to download, print, cut out and manipulate in order to retrieve his next clue), you can find it here:

https://dabblesandbabbles.com/printable-secret-decoder-wheel/

The decoder wheel in Bad Boy is attributed to a kids’ tv series called Lollygobble that Jason recalls from his childhood.

When I was a kid in the early 1960s, I owned a Secret Decoder Wheel that was pretty much identical to this one. I got it from a Canadian TV show that was extremely popular with the after-school crowd. It was called Razzle Dazzle, and it featured human hosts Al Hamel and Michele Finney—yes, the same Alan Hamel who went on to fame and fortune as the manager and spouse of Suzanne Somers—and Howard the Turtle, a joke-telling puppet with a droll sense of humour, who was, hands-down, the show’s absolute star.

Razzle Dazzle had a fan club, and, of course, I immediately signed up. I was beside my seven-year-old self when the large brown envelope arrived in the mail. Inside were a welcome letter, a newspaper, a fan club button, and that Razzle Dazzle Secret Decoder Wheel, which you had to cut out and assemble. At the end of every show, a coded message was transmitted to us kids, which we had to use the wheel to decipher. I can honestly tell you that this caused me to embark on a very intense period of research into codes and code-breaking, down at the public library. And the results of that have stayed with me to this day.

If you’re curious, you can read more about Razzle Dazzle here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razzle_Dazzle

And you can see actual clips of Al Hamel and Howard the Turtle and even a secret message being sent out here, on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/howardtheturtl

Wow, that takes me back….

And now, you know where Lollygobble came from. Not just any random razzle dazzling! 

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 Bad Boy: A Jason Davey Mystery by Winona Kent

About Bad Boy

Bad Boy: A Jason Davey Mystery
Musical Mystery 5th in Series
Setting - UK: London and Derbyshire
Publisher: ‎ Winona Kent / Blue Devil Books (September 26, 2024)
Print length: ‎ 278 pages

Fresh from a 34-day, 18-city tour of England, professional musician and amateur sleuth Jason Davey accepts an invitation from a fan, Marcus Merritt, to meet at Level 72 of The Shard to sign one of his band's programs. Marcus hands him the booklet, then leaps to his death from the open viewing platform. Thus begins a week-long quest, during which Jason is tasked with retrieving a stolen collection of scores by England’s most famous composer, Sir Edward Elgar.

Marcus shared Elgar's love of eccentric puzzles and games, and the challenging clues he's assembled for Jason seem to mirror the 14 themes in Elgar's renowned Enigma Variations. Jason's journey takes him to Derbyshire and then back to London, and a four-hour walking tour of Soho's lost music venues where, in Denmark Street, he faces a life-threatening battle with two adversaries: a treacherous Russian gangster who is also hunting for the stolen collection, and Marcus's sister—who holds the key to a decades-old mystery involving a notorious London crime lord's missing daughter.

Bad Boy is the fifth book in Winona Kent's mystery series featuring jazz musician-turned-amateur sleuth Jason Davey.

About Winona Kent

Winona Kent is an award-winning author who was born in London, England and grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, where she completed her BA in English at the University of Regina. After moving to Vancouver, she graduated from UBC with an MFA in Creative Writing and a diploma in Writing for Screen and TV from Vancouver Film School.

Winona's writing breakthrough came many years ago when she won First Prize in the Flare Magazine Fiction Contest with her short story about an all-night radio newsman, “Tower of Power”. Her debut novel Skywatcher was a finalist in the Seal Books First Novel Award and was published by Bantam Books in 1989. This was followed by a sequel, The Cilla Rose Affair, and her first mystery, Cold Play, set aboard a cruise ship in Alaska. After three time-travel romances (Persistence of Memory, In Loving Memory and Marianne's Memory), Winona returned to mysteries with Disturbing the Peace, a novella, in 2017 and the novel Notes on a Missing G-String in 2019, both featuring the character she first introduced in Cold Play, professional jazz musician / amateur sleuth Jason Davey. The third and fourth books in Winona's Jason Davey Mystery series, Lost Time and Ticket to Ride, were published in 2020 and 2022. Her fifth Jason Davey Mystery, Bad Boy, was published in 2024. Winona also writes short fiction. Her story “Salty Dog Blues” appeared in Sisters in Crime-Canada West's anthology Crime Wave in October 2020 and was nominated as a finalist in Crime Writers of Canada's Awards of Excellence for Best Crime Novella in April 2021. “Blue Devil Blues” was one of the four entries in the anthology Last Shot, published in June 2021, and “Terminal Lucidity” appeared in the Sisters in Crime-Canada West anthology, Women of a Certain Age (October 2022). “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog”, will appear in the upcoming Sisters in Crime-Canada West anthology, Dangerous Games (October 2024). A collection of Winona’s short stories, Ten Stories That Worried My Mother, was published in 2023. Winona has been a temporary secretary, a travel agent , a screenwriter and the Managing Editor of a literary magazine. She's currently the national Chair and the BC/YT rep for the Crime Writers of Canada and is also an active member of Sisters in Crime – Canada West. 

Author Links: 

Website: www.winonakent.com  

Facebook: @Winonakentauthor  

Twitter/X: @winonakent  

Instagram: @winonakent  

Purchase Link - Amazon US Amazon UK

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A late night attempt to help her teenaged employee leads Anne McCormack to the home of Lino and Renee Pardini. While looking for fire violations for a school project they find cash and jewels stashed in a wall. Quickly leaving after glares from Lino, Anne feels that's the end of it. Especially when Lino dies a few days later. But it's soon discovered that Lino was running a Ponzi scheme and had bilked his investors for millions. His natural death suddenly doesn't seem so natural...especially since a prior wife disappeared without a trace and was later found murdered. With her uncle chomping at the bit to get involved it seems Anne may be dusting off her badge once more.

Murder Among the Pyramids - A Book Blast!

 

Murder Among the Pyramids (1920s Lady Traveler in Egypt) by Sara Rosett

About Murder Among the Pyramids

Murder Among the Pyramids (1920s Lady Traveler in Egypt)
Historical Mystery 1st in Series
Setting - Egypt
Publisher: ‎ McGuffin Ink (October 1, 2024)
Paperback: ‎ 318 pages

Escape on an Egyptian Excursion to the Land of the Pyramids! Tour highlights include: Hieroglyphics and high tea in the desert, followed by murder after sunset . . . It’s 1924 and Blix Windway has made a career out of her wanderlust, giving lectures to ladies’ groups about everything from the flora of the American desert to the beauty of the Swiss Alps, but she needs new material for her talks. She strikes what seems to be an ideal agreement with an eccentric older lady. Blix will be her travel companion during a journey to Egypt, helping to smooth the way through customs and coordinate sightseeing tours. The arrangement will provide Blix with the perfect opportunity to photograph the pyramids and gather material for her next lecture series. But they’ve barely left England before the trouble begins—rough seas and an attempted robbery. Then a murder occurs during a tour of the pyramids. Despite the attempts of the British officials to sweep the death under the rug, Blix becomes increasingly convinced that one of their tour party is a murderer. Blix’s search for the truth takes her from the posh sporting clubs and lavish gardens of Cairo to the narrow, twisting lanes of the city’s centuries-old bazaar and the vast desert around the Giza Plateau. Can Blix unearth the truth before the killer makes this journey her last? Join Blix on this classic murder mystery from Sara Rosett, author of the beloved High Society Lady Detective series.

About Sara Rosett

The author of over 30 novels, Sara Rosett is a USA Today bestselling author who writes mysteries that are the bee's knees with delightful settings and perplexing puzzles. Sara loves Golden Age mysteries, getting new stamps in her passport, as well as watching foreign-language crime shows, Jane Austen adaptations, and Kdramas. Find out more at SaraRosett.com.

Author Links: 

Website: http://www.SaraRosettBooks.com  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sararosett/  

X: https://www.x.com/sararosett  

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/srosett/  

GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/256977.Sara_Rosett  

Purchase Links Buy direct from Sara: https://sararosettbooks.com/collections/lady-traveler 

Retailer links: https://books2read.com/MurderAmongThePyramids