Spiked Punch - A Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Spike to Cozy Up With Kathy today. You can find Spike on the pages of the Maggie Sparks Mystery series. Spiked Punch is the first book in the series and was released last week.

Getting to Know Spike
From Spiked Punch
By Lesley A. Diehl

My name is Spike, and I’m a cat. I’m just purring up a storm to know that you are interested in finding out more about me. I am a major player in the Maddie Sparks mystery Spiked Punch. I share a house with Maddie Sparks who rescued me last summer when she found a dead body in a house in our small village. A relative of the man found dead had taken me to him, because her boyfriend was allergic to cats. If Maddie hadn’t given me a home, I don’t know what would have happened to me because that man was going off on a trip before he was killed and who knows what he could have done with me. Luckily Maddie snatched me out of the arms of one of the sheriff’s officers who wanted to take me to the pound. I didn’t like him. She took me with her and gave me chicken when we got to her house. Chicken. I love chicken!

I can’t tell you anymore about my past because I was so young, I’m not clear about my homes, but I do remember being in a shelter for several months before I was adopted by a young woman (the one who has the allergic boyfriend). That’s the problem with humans sometimes. If her boyfriend was the one who was allergic why didn’t she find another home for him? Why me?

Maddie has never lived with a cat, and she was over seventy years old, so she had a steep learning curve on what to provide for me, her new roomie. But with the help of a friendly and knowledgeable store clerk, she bought the necessary supplies: cat bed (I hate it), dishes, food, litter box and I think I’ve talked her into getting one of those water fountain thingies so I always have fresh water, from a bottle, of course. Like most cats I am very picky about food, toys and beds. I do love the human beds, however, laundry. Very comfy. I find a spot in the sun on Maddie’s desk delightful. And who makes those cat toys? A crumpled-up ball of paper works just fine. I know, I know. I should be more grateful that Maddie tries to buy me objects to stimulate my play, but I’m much too sophisticated to give into some stuffed catnip bird or mouse or fish. You can’t fool me. No real bird, mouse or fish is filled with catnip. I do play with them when she’s not around, but never in her presence. I don’t want her to think I’m easy.

Maddie is a snoopy kind of gal so we are perfect companions. You know what they say about curiosity and the cat. Yeah, well I’m good at feeling out people and their natures. I can tell the good ones from the bad ones. Take Maddie’s companion or lover or whatever humans call someone who hangs around and spends a lot of time touching and kissing a person. Boyfriend? He’s too old to be a boy. He’s almost seventy himself. He’s a retired county sheriff and he’s good at his job. I really admire a human who applies himself but also has a big heart. That’s Zack. He likes me, too, lets me sit in his lap and get cat hair all over his pants. I don’t know where the relationship between the two of them is going, but I hope somewhere. I like having him around the house and I don’t fancy trying to find another human male that I have to train. I hope she keeps him. He’s not allergic.

But back to snoopiness. Maddie, Zack and I are a crime fighting trio. We have each other’s backs. The best part is that neither Maddie nor Zack treat me with other than the most respect. Like Maddie says, “If Spike doesn’t like that person, then there’s something going on there.” I can defend myself was well as humans, maybe better since I can be quiet, reclusive and listen in on conversations. Oh, so you think cats can’t understand what humans are saying. Not so. Cats read body language and tone of voice better than humans. Take the murderer in Spiked Punch. I had the killer’s number from the moment we met. Here’s the story…Oh, oh, Lesley says I can’t say anymore. Since she’s the author, I must listen or she’ll have Maddie feed me that cheap tuna, not the gourmet kind. Yuck! You’ll have to read the book to see how brilliant I was in solving the crime. Remember the name—Spike Sparks, furry yellow crime fighter, armed with teeth and claws and a brain that is just as sharp.

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 Spiked Punch (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series) by Lesley A Diehl

About Spiked Punch

Spiked Punch (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series)
Cozy Mystery 1st in Series
Setting - Upstate New York
Camel Press (November 14, 2023)
Paperback: ‎ 248 pages

On the other side of seventy, Maddie Sparks decides to spice up her life by changing her writing interests from cozy mysteries to romance. She also determines her appearance should reflect this transformation in her writing career. A sassy new haircut and more fashionable clothes complete the newer Maddie Sparks. Before she can begin this new chapter in her life, a stabbing death in the quiet country village she has made her home shocks the town's residents.

When her son is accused of the murder, Maddie and the acting county sheriff come together to find the real killer. Their relationship soon blooms into more than one of shared determination to solve the murder. As they enjoy a hike in a nearby park, someone shoots the sheriff, barely missing Maddie. Another killer could be loose in the area, and the person may be closer to Maddie than she realizes. Maddie discovers parts of herself she didn't know existed: real life romance with the sheriff, a talent for sleuthing and room in her life for a fuzzy, orange cat named "Spike." This recent lease on life may be more exciting and more dangerous than Maddie expects.

About Lesley A. Diehl

Cows, Lesley learned growing up on a farm, have a twisted sense of humor. They chased her when she went to the field to herd them in for milking, and one ate the lovely red mitten her grandmother knitted for her. Determining that agriculture wasn’t a good career choice, instead she uses her country roots and her training as a psychologist to concoct stories designed to make people laugh in the face of murder. “A good chuckle,” says Lesley,” keeps us emotionally well-oiled long into our old age.” She is the author of the Eve Appel mysteries from Camel Press as well as several cozy mystery series and numerous short stories. Go to her webpage to find out more: www.lesleyadiehl.com.

Author Links: 

Website www.lesleyadiehl.com  

Blog www.lesleyadiehl.com/blog 

 Facebook www.facebook.com/lesley.diehl.1  

GoodReads www.goodreads.com/3414925.Lesley_A_Diehl  

Amazon www.amazon.com/author/lesleydiehl  

Purchase Links - Amazon - B&N - Kobo -  

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A Mud Bog Interview & Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome Lesley A. Diehl to the blog today. Lesley writes the Eve Appel mystery series. Mud Bog Murder, the fourth book in the series, was released September 1.

Kathy: In Mud Bog Murder Sabal Bay, Florida is overrun with Monster Truck fans for its Mud Bog races. Are you a fan of Monster Trucks?

LAD: I am not a fan. If you’ve never seen these trucks, you can’t imagine how their gigantic wheels make them so high you can’t possibly see around them if you are parked next to them in a parking area or drive behind them on a road. I’ve never seen one of them clean, although I’m certain they must be clean at some point, but I’ve always encountered them covered with mud fresh from their bogging events. However, I also understand for such an economically depressed county as I live in, a mud bog event brings fans into the area and is temporarily a boon for the towns nearby. The tearing up of what is considered wasted land destroys natural habitat and interrupts breeding places for Florida’s wildlife. Although there is nothing I consider particularly pretty about alligators, they are part of the landscape and need wet areas in which to breed and live. Fill in the swamps and use boggy areas for bogging events and you disrupt the natural balance. But then, that’s what has been happening ever since Florida became the land of runaway development.


Kathy: Environmental activists have also come to town. What do you think are some of the biggest threats to our environment?

LAD: There are three big ones: air pollution, water pollution and destruction of wildlife habitat. In all cases, Florida is one of the states that ranks high in these areas. The three areas are also inextricably intertwined. Greater numbers of people mean the use of more cars and the development of more housing. That means land is cleared and wildlife habitat is destroyed. Building of roads in rural Florida impedes water flow from the North. Sugarcane fields and ranching/farming creates run off into Lake Okeechobee which in turn releases this run off into the canals that carry water to the East coast and pollutes the estuaries there. Polluted estuaries destroys the coral reefs offshore. And we go on and on in a vicious cycle. The answer is cooperation among the various water, environmental protection, development and other agencies, something that has yet to happen, not just in Florida, but in many areas.


Kathy: If you were to protest something, what would it be?

LAD: I wonder if there is a group who might like to get together and protest mendacity which seems to be at the heart of a lot of issues?

I did my share of protesting when I was younger, for peace, civil rights and women’s rights. Now my role is informing people about injustices, so I do it in the best way I can—by writing mysteries with a message.


Kathy: Partly because I live in WNY and partly because I'm interested in the paranormal your 1874 cottage in the Butternut River Valley intrigues me. Have you considered setting a story here?

LAD: I have set a stand alone mystery and two mystery series in Upstate New York, but never used my house as a specific setting. I’ve written on my blog and on other blogs about my ghost Fred who, by the way, has been very quiet this summer. We assume he’s visiting relatives across the stream from us in the cemetery because we have upset everything in the house by renovating our bedroom. I don’t blame him for leaving. I wanted to pack my bags and follow him. I don’t think I can stand another construction project, but when you own a house as old as ours, you renovate endlessly.
I don’t write paranormal fiction but I’d be glad to have you use my house as a setting if you do. I have read some of Heather Graham’s work and met her on several occasions at conferences. What a nice lady.


Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?

LAD: Like many my age, I read Nancy Drew as a girl, then graduated to Agatha Christie and went on to read other mysteries, but I loved the cozy mysteries. I always felt they came closest to the kind of lives we lead daily and are the perfect vehicle for inserting the issues we encounter in our lives. I also love to laugh and consider it the most inexpensive, but effective therapy for our woes. So my cozy mysteries are humorous.

Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?

LAD: I write short stories, but most of them are cozy mysteries. My brewing mystery series is a cozy mystery but not a humorous one. I have two uncompleted mysteries on my computer. One is a kind of noir cozy, the other a more traditional mystery. I used to write bad poetry.


Kathy: Tell us about your series.

LAD: In Eve Appel mysteries transplant Connecticut native Eve Appel sets up a consignment shop in rural Florida to bring high end fashion to the area and finds there’s more to selling designer clothes than a good eye. There are also cowboys, cattle, horses, alligators, swamps and …murder. When you’re as snoopy as Eve, you get involved in solving these crimes, and you drag everyone you know into the case while making new friends along the way.

My other series include:

The Big Lake Murder Mysteries, soon to be rereleased (Dumpster Dying and Grilled, Chilled and Killed: Emily Rhodes is a retired preschool teacher and a winter visitor to rural Florida. She’s also prone to stumbling over dead bodies. A local police detective and a cantankerous bass fisherman vie for her attention romantically while Emily inserts herself in the murder investigations and runs afoul of killers intent upon keeping long standing family secrets.

Laura Murphy Mysteries: (Murder Is Academic and Failure Is Fatal) Psychology Professor Laura Murphy has her position at the college and a new man in her life, but her friend who is a detective on the local police force needs her help when college colleagues and students pile up as suspects in local murders.

Microbrewing Mysteries: (A Deadly Draught and Poisoned Pairings) Money is always an issue for Hera Knightsbridge, owner of a microbrewery in Upstate New York, but drought, hydraulic fracturing and murder invade the valley and force Hera to join forces with an old rival to find the killers and restore tranquility to her community..


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

LAD: I’m kind of crazy about Eve Appel. She is everything I am not: courageous, tall, skinny, impulsive, unafraid to take chances, and she drives the same kind of car I do.


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

LAD: Living in rural Florida among the cowboys—yes, real cowboys with hats, spurs, chaps and boots—is almost inspiration enough, but reading articles about young men diving into an alligator infested slough and losing an arm to a gator or someone discovering a seventeen foot constrictor is almost too much inspiration. It’s hard to top the real stories with ones an author can make up, but there’s certainly a lot of raw material everywhere you look. I’m a winter visitor, one of those snowbirds who come to Florida for the warm weather during the frigid months in the North, so I liked the idea of creating a character who had the same status, an Yankee outsider finding her way in business in a rural Florida community. Eve’s appearance shouts “I’m not one of you!” and her resistance to playing by their set of rules makes her transition into the community less than smooth. Perhaps her best friend, Madeleine, petite and ladylike can help Eve adjust.


Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?

LAD: I think every writer writes for two audiences, herself and others. How else to get my work out to others if not through publication? I’ve had other mystery series published before the Eve Appel mysteries, so I understood the process and was a member of several mystery writing organizations such as Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America


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

LAD: I’ll assume I can mix up the living and the dead. I’d invite Robert Parker because I admire his lean but effective approach to dialogue, Mark Twain for his irreverent take on human nature, Elizabeth George for her ability to write the psychology of human relationships, and Alexander McCall Smith because he seems to find the good in every character he creates.


Kathy: What are you currently reading?

LAD: I read something every night. Right now I’m finishing Alexander McCall Smith’s A Right Attitude to Rain.


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

LAD: I garden, hike, cook, and love to shop for secondhand items at yard sales or consignment shops. Today I purchased a wrought iron plant stand at a yard sale. It’s always a mystery what you’ll find when digging through items for sale in a garage or secondhand store. I like the challenge of getting a bargain.


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

LAD: Greek yogurt, lettuce, eggs and multigrain bread.


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

LAD: The fifth book in the Eve Appel mysteries is entitled Old Bones Never Die. Camel Press will release it sometime next year.

Here’s a blurb for it: Sammy Egret, Eve’s Miccosukee Indian friend, thinks he has discovered in bones uncovered at a construction site the story behind his father’s disappearance over 30 years ago. While Eve and Sammy fight to uncover the facts behind the burial, another Miccosukee family is equally determined to make sure the secrets buried with the bones stay hidden.


Kathy: What's your favorite thing about being an author?
LAD: I get to create a world in which good always triumphs over bad.


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An Interview with Lesley A. Diehl

I'd like to welcome Lesley A. Diehl to the blog today. Murder is Academic is the first book in a new series and was just released at the end of March.

Kathy: I live in WNY and enjoy reading books set in my locale. What made you decide on upstate New York for your series?

LD: I’ve lived in upstate New York on and off since 1970, but relocated here permanently for the summers after 2000. I spend my winters in rural Florida, so I enjoy country life year round.


Kathy: Having worked on a college campus for many years, I know the intrigue and drama that can be found there. Have you had similar experiences and did they influence Murder is Academic.

LD: I began writing Murder is Academic soon after I retired from classroom teaching in 1997. I worked in higher education as a professor and as an administrator for over 25 years, so I experienced both sides of college and university life. The politics are so intense in academe that they shouted for me to use them as the backdrop for a murder mystery since faculty often rage at administrators’ lack of understanding of the classroom, and administrators think faculty are naïve about finances and pressures from outside the institution. Since I sat in both chairs, I thought I could bring some clarity and sanity to the ruckus…as well as a little humor.


Kathy: Laura Murphy likes donuts and coffee. Do you have a favorite type of donut?

LD: My favorite donuts were the ones my mother made. She fried them in peanut oil, a very costly enterprise for us since we had little money when I was a kid on the farm, so she made them only once each year. We sure looked forward to those donuts! They were cake donuts, spicy and soft in the middle and crispy on the outside. I looked all over the house for her recipe and never found it. I discovered a bakery in Cooperstown, NY, near us, that makes similar cake donuts, so I can always take a drive over the hill to buy some. I try not to do that too often.


Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?

LD: I knew I had to write an amateur sleuth, not only because I didn’t know enough about police procedures and private detective work to allow me to write them, but I also I got hooked on Nancy Drew as a kid and then on Agatha Christie. My cozy mysteries include humor because I like a good laugh both when I’m writing and when I read.

Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?

LD: I’ve written and had published a number of short stories that might be considered a bit noir, where the humor is dark. I also have written some poetry. I think I’m now in a transition period, thinking of moving into mysteries that have a noir edge to the humor. My microbrewing mystery series is a traditional mystery, not a cozy mystery.

Kathy: Tell us about your series.

LD: Murder is Academic is the first book in cozy mystery series featuring Laura Murphy, an opinionated, brilliant and snoopy professor of psychology, the best person to find out who killed the college president because she knows all the campus secrets. And, oh yeah, she finds true love in the process.

My other cozy mystery series feature protagonists who, like Laura, can’t resist sticking their noses into murder. From Emily Rhodes (Dumpster Dying, Grilled, Chilled and Killed), retired preschool teacher turned bartender who stumbles onto dead bodies (literally!) to Eve Appel (A Secondhand Murder, Dead in the Water) Connecticut fashionista turned consignment shop owner in rural Florida, whose adjustment to life among cowboys, gators and cattle is anything but smooth, these gals are pretty unstoppable when it comes to chasing down bad guys.

For fans liking more traditional mysteries, I have also published a microbrewing series (A Deadly Draught, Poisoned Pairings). In this series Hera Knightsbridge operates a small brewery in the Butternut Valley of upstate New York. Her brewery operates on a shoe string so Hera juggles keeping her brewery open with the murder of her closest competitor, the killing of a student in her brewery, drought followed by floods, and the looming threat of hydraulic fracturing.


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

LD: It’s a tossup between Laura Murphy because she is a psychologist and professor as I was and Eve Appel who loves bargains. They represent the two sides of me, the academic and the shopper. Not a bad mix, huh? My favorite bad guy is Toby Sands, a fat, tobacco chewing dirty cop in the series set in Big Lake Country in rural Florida. He makes appearances in Dumpster Dying and Grilled, Chilled and Killed, and I’m planning to have him in the third one of that series also. He just won’t leave my protagonist, Emily Rhodes, alone!


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

LD: I divide my time between rural upstate New York and rural Florida. Things are always happening in the country. Spend your time listening to people in my village talk about their neighbors’ lives and you’ll have the inspiration for a lifetime of books.


Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?

LD: It’s really simple. I laughed at what I wrote and enjoyed crafting the work. I thought other people might find it entertaining also.


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

LD: Elizabeth George because I love the attention she pays to developing her characters. They are so complex, so multi-layered. I like people like that, so it’s no surprise I’d like characters who share that complexity.

Robert Parker because I think he was the king of saying more in one short sentence than others manage in several pages. I think he was an awfully irreverent person, and I like that for spicing up the party.

Mark Twain, the most irreverent writer I can think of. He and Parker might like to tussle with one another, and wouldn’t it be fun to listen to that and George’s take on it?

Nevada Barr, who writes the park ranger Anna Pigeon. Anna must be more scarred from her physical injuries than any other female protagonist I’ve read. Imagine how she, Jesse Stone, Spencer, Lynley, and Barbara Havers might entertain each other and make Twain laugh with their take on contemporary life.


Kathy: What are you currently reading?

LD: I just finished a book I’ve wanted to read for years, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. I’m amazed at how compassionately she weaves the story of fiction with the reality of the Congo experience. It’s a masterpiece.


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

LD: I garden when I’m at the cottage in upstate New York. We have small raised beds of vegetables and a large perennial flower garden. Last year we canned jam, dill pickles and applesauce. I’m returning to the life I had growing up on the farm. We have no animals, but we love growing our own vegetables. We also work on our 1874 cottage. This year we’re renovating our front porch. Both my husband and I love to cook, and eat, of course. When we have time we like hiking in the state parks near us. We are contemplating a river cruise in Europe this fall as we both like to travel, but because both of us are writers, we don’t find the time to do as much as we’d like.


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

LD: Homemade pickles, regular, kosher and spicy sour dough starter, butter, yogurt, many kinds


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

LD: I intend to do a third book in all my series.

In my Eve Appel mystery series, the third book is already written.

For the microbrewing series and the one with Emily Rhodes, I only have two books out and will do a third one.

For Laura Murphy, the second book is already written. For the third book, I only have an idea for it.


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

LD: I get to write. It’s the way I entertain myself. I also like being with other writers and readers.