Maggie Pill Mysteries

  Any series that includes dogs is likely to touch on puppy mills at some point. It's a hard topic to deal with in a cozy mystery, because it's such a horrible, sad subject, but the reality is that people need to recognize that such places exist and that they play on animal lovers' naive beliefs. As I write books that include pets, I find myself visiting humane societies all over my area. The people who work there are amazing, from the volunteers who play with the kittens to the managers who puzzle out how they're going to afford to feed the animals in a given month. After seeing the bare bones operation at some places, I joined my local humane society and support their work by getting the word out when I can.    One of the hardest times a local humane society faces is when a site is discovered where animals are abused, such as a puppy mill. They have to rescue and care for animals that are often in bad shape. They have to find homes for them (once the court says the ow...

Judy Blue, who reads Retta I received the files for PERIL, PLOTS, and PUPPIES from Audible on Friday. Since I had an event on Saturday, I couldn't start listening until Sunday morning. I plan to do about 2 hours/day until it's done, so I'm currently on Chapter 30. I thought I'd tell you how it goes. Once a book is released in e-book and/or print, the author or publisher can contract for audio. Generally you can pay up front or share revenue, and costs for narrators run a large gamut. You submit the book for auditions and choose from those you receive. You make an offer, and if you're lucky, the narrator accepts. The studio in Chicago that does the Sleuth Sisters books hires three actors to read the three parts: Barb, Faye, and Retta. They've been the same for the first five books, but on this one they replaced Faye. I listened to the audition and agreed they'd found a good voice for her. Once that was done they went ahead and read, each woman readin...

The 6th Sleuth Sisters Mystery, PERIL, PLOTS, and PUPPIES, just went live as an e-book on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and all other major e-book distributors. Still waiting on news from the studio in Chicago about the audio version. I know it's in production, I just don't know what phase.