Maggie Pill Mysteries

 Cats and Crimes is a labor of love in that the cats in the book are animals I remember from a lifetime of being a cat lover. While I never had a one-eyed cat, I had friends who did, so I shamelessly borrowed him for the book. The protagonist, Lorilee Riley, adopts cats that others won't take, since she doesn't mind adapting to their disabilities. In the story, Mayson is a kitten (his mother is May, get it?) who's deaf and has only one eye. He makes life interesting by making up his own rules, as kittens tend to do. Mayson wants to be outside, but like many youngsters, he doesn't think very far ahead, so if and when he gets his way, he find reality more difficult than expected. Like Tigger in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, he's lovable but sometimes exasperating. In case I haven't mentioned it often enough, here's the link to pre-order Cats and Crimes, which releases in print and e-book Tuesday, November 15, 2022. https://books2read.com/u/3LVEz7

  Cat lovers love their cats, but sometimes we have to admit that they aren't all Einsteins. A relative adopted a stray who came to her door, a beautiful short-haired gray. It soon became obvious that he was either developmentally disabled or had had a traumatic head injury. The unkind would say that he was dumb, like Lorilee's Special Ed. The cat, which she called Dickie, could not learn and did not have an apparent thought process. He existed in the Now, and the Now was hungry and unhappy with where he was. If he was inside, Dickie wanted to be out. If he was outside, he wailed to come in, only to turn around and sit by the door, asking to go out again. Dickie liked his food cheap and smelly, and any time his hostess entered the kitchen, he became convinced he was starving. He'd go in and out between her feet until she gave him something--or pretended to. He'd follow her to the food dish, watch her mime dropping something into it, and look eagerly into the bowl when s...

 Being two people is tough, and lately, Maggie took a back seat while Peg worked on her upcoming release. Yesterday, I went back to being Maggie and took up the 3rd Trailer Park Tales book, Third Crime's the Charm . I had done a rough draft and then set it aside, which I find is very helpful, though sometimes scary: "What? I actually wrote this? What was I thinking?" In addition to Peg's book, Maggie got ahead of herself when her idea for Cutest Little Killer came along. I try to finish one series before starting another one, but sometimes the muse does what the muse wants. CLK was lots of fun to write, and from the readers' response, I expect there will be more of those. NOTE: This is why I will never be a household-name type writer. I can't write endless stories with the same characters, even if I like them a lot. So. Yesterday I went back to the rough draft of Third Crime's the Charm , and I was happy to find that, yes, I still like it, and surprise! I...

Working Cover Files If you keep up with my adventures, you know I was conflicted about a sixth Sleuth Sisters book. I do NOT want to be the author who stretches a series beyond logic, and I feel strongly that if I'm not interested in the plot, my readers won't be either. That was reinforced this past week as I read a book by one of my favorite authors, who has a long-running series I've always liked. The new story was beyond belief, with the detective getting naked in front of a crowd of people to force a confrontation that made very little sense and wasn't believable, at least for me. I never want the Maggie Pill name attached to a book just to have a new one out there. With that said, I found myself interested in the sisters again somewhere in August, and the questions began. What if Barb is caught, or almost caught, doing her Grammar Nazi thing? What if it's because there's a murder nearby, so the Nazi is a suspect? That was the germ of the idea for Boo...

If you've ever wondered      *Can chickens take part in crime-solving?      *Does the Oxford comma divide families?      *Can Barb's heart be captured by a stray?      *Will Faye ever see the value of dressing for success?      *Has Retta figured out what she wants in a man? Answers are coming. I just received final edits for SLEUTHING AT SWEET SPRINGS, so the next week should get me over the top. I'll be looking for beta readers, so let me know (maggie.pill@yahoo.com) if you'd like to get an early look! Here's the pre-order link for Kindle : https://www.amazon.com/Sleuthing-Springs-Sleuth-Sisters-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01F7B6L4K

MURDER IN THE BOONIES has been climbing the Amazon rankings, and watching it is a little addictive. Many authors admit to checking stats several times a day, and I do when a new book is released or a new giveaway is scheduled. The 3rd Sleuth Sisters is in the top 50 for cozies right now. It's just so cool to be loved! Today's the last day for 3 SLEUTHS, 2 DOGS, 1 MURDER on Kindle for free, so if you haven't snapped that up, you've been warned. I didn't know how a giveaway of the middle book of a series would go, but it sailed to #1 in free contemporary fiction (it's at #3 today) and over 50,000 readers have downloaded it, so I guess I'll call it a success. The theory is, of course, that if you like the one you get for free, you'll buy the others. So far it's working! Other than that, I don't have much of a sales strategy. Other authors tell how they adjust the price of a book for so many hours and watch their rankings to see if it helps. Or the...

I'm working through the final edits of Sleuth Sisters Mystery #3 (MURDER IN THE BOONIES). I enjoy writing the series, and people have been really nice about letting me know they're waiting for the next one. Writing a popular series means I have characters I already know (which makes them a little easier to write), a guaranteed audience (which translates to income, so I'm not writing solely for my own enjoyment), and a following that spreads the word about the books much farther than I could do on my own. The down side comes with promotion, and while it isn't a big deal, it's interesting. Selling a series means you start with Book #1. Very few people want to start reading a series in the middle. While it's possible to jump in midstream at times, it's usually best to get to know the characters from the first. So when I go to events like author fairs and book signings, I sell a ton of THE SLEUTH SISTERS (and usually run out) but fewer of 3 SLEUTHS, 2 DOGS,...