Janis Patterson Mysteries

My goodness, where has the time gone? I’ve been remiss (again) in posting here, but with good reason – sold two – yes, two! – mystery novels in December. (For those of you keeping count, that makes 6 sales in 2011!)

BEADED TO DEATH, a lighthearted cozy from Carina Press, is about a middle-aged widow who makes her living going to art and craft fairs where she sells beaded jewelry and bead bouquets. When she returns home from a sales trip, she unlocks the front door, turns off the alarm, notices that the house is brutally cold in spite of it being high summer… and there is a dead man whom she has never seen before lying on her living room rug. From there on she gets involved with drug smuggling, murder, a dangerous FBI agent who may or may not be rogue and a 7’3” nephew on the run from an unwanted basketball scholarship. It was great fun to write!

EXERCISE IS MURDER, a darker and much more complex cozy from 5Star, is about murder in the health salon of a very posh condominium building. Rebecca Cloudwebb is a former police detective invalided out of the force after being crippled in a shoot-out set up by her dirty-cop lover, who may or may not have known she was going to be there. Flora Melkiot, wealthy widow of a jeweler, is in her 70s and can be most charitably described as the dark side of Miss Marple. Convinced she can do anything if she really wants to, she blackmails Rebecca into helping her solve the case. They grapple with politics, big money, extortion, adultery and illegal gambling and in doing so finding that almost every suspect has reason to kill almost every other suspect, except that no one had a reason to kill the victim.

Note to self – never sell two 80,000+ word books to two different publishers in the same month. Each wants the same things (edits, revisions) at the same time and it’s exhausting!

It doesn’t seem like it’s over a year since I spent a magical Christmas and New Year’s in Germany with The Husband. Of course, it’s better now that he’s retired from the military (yea!) and home to stay, but that was a spectacular trip. One thing I remember especially was that everyone and all the signs said ‘Merry Christmas’ – there was none of this dratted PC ‘Happy Holidays’ rubbish. It was wonderful. Funny thing – last year was called the Storm of the Century and there was snow up to my hips. (Snow is something we don’t see much of in my part of Texas.) This year they’ve only had quickly vanishing one or two inch dustings. Glad I was there to see the beautiful snow. Also very glad I don’t have to contend with that sort of snow in my everyday life!

Have just finished the first round of edits on both these stories and gotten them off to my wonderful editors. Now just one more deadline is breathing down the back of my neck. After many fits and starts, I hope to get the final copy of A FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS MUSEUMS off to the publisher. It’s been very labor intensive and I’m astonished at how many museums regard a request for simple information (most of which can be found on-line anyway) for a free listing as some kind of a con or sales-snare. Our world has become so cynical and distrustful that anything offered free is without question regarded as dishonest, and I find that sad.

When FIELD GUIDE goes to the publisher, I can finally get back to writing. THE CURSE OF THE EXILE, a traditional gothic mystery a la Phyllis A. Whitney and Victoria Holt, only lacks 25,000 words or so to be complete. It’s set in 1850s Scotland and has a ghost, and a curse, and a murder, and that unnatural creature (for the time!) a female librarian. Oh, and an absolutely delicious Scottish laird. After that’s done I’ll pick up THE EGYPTIAN FILE, a romantic suspense about antiquities smuggling and a lost tomb and an absolutely delicious professor of Egyptology. This one is about one-quarter done and great fun.

INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS (originally titled Dark Sun), my modern gothic from Carina is out next month, and I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone says about it. It is also going to be an audio release from Audible! I feel sorry for the poor reader, who has to pronounce all the words and names from the fantasy world of my heroine’s late father’s books – a world that may or may not be totally imaginary.

And one late tidbit for those who missed it – THE HOLLOW HOUSE, a cozy mystery set in 1919 in Denver, was released in mid-November and three days after its release was marked as a Top Pick by RT! I’m proud of that…

Now I must go back and finish the museum book, because there are two books to be finished, and so many ideas swarming in my head for others that I fear I shall not live long enough to write a fraction of them.

November, 2011
Today is the 14th, and it’s release day for THE HOLLOW HOUSE. Yea!

I’ve been so excited about this book, and to know that it is now available to readers makes me want to dance with joy. THE HOLLOW HOUSE is a very special book and I hope you enjoy it.

Saturday was a special day for me – The Husband arranged for us to attend a BMW driving school with a mini-gymkhana/​slalom track set up on a giant parking lot. Haven’t driven a performance car over a high-speed track like that since my racing days (mumblemumblemumble) years ago. It was exhilarating! Unfortunately, it only lasted half the day, so we spent the afternoon at a dinosaur dig out in the country. Sponsored by a local university, it allowed visitors this one day as it is the last day of the dig season.

We even got to poke around a bit with a trowel. One man found a nice piece of a scapula from a Protohadros. I found mud. Not even a rock. Just mud. Still, it was neat and we’re in discussions about coming back in the spring as official volunteers. If I can’t dig for pharaohs in Egypt, I guess I can dig for dinosaurs in Texas!

The day was an incredible amount of fun, but Sunday wasn’t. I was so sore I hurt in places I didn’t even know I had, and could barely totter in to the computer to work on the copy edits for DARK SUN, which is now titled INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS. This is a classic gothic mystery and will be released from Carina in the spring under my Janis Susan May name.

So – that’s about it for now. I’m working on a couple of new ideas – and on the final edits for INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS and TIMELESS INNOCENT, my scary new horror novella – and applying the muscle-pain-removing cream liberally.

Please remember that THE HOLLOW HOUSE is available, starting today!

October, 2011
At last it seems fall has arrived here in Texas – that means the temperature has dropped below 100F, which means Christmas can’t be that far away! It’s still dry, though – the lakes are so very far down and there are all kinds of water restrictions. Old native trees are dying from heat stress as much as lack of water. Keeping my 40 year old lavender tree alive has been a job in itself.

I don’t know the farmers and animals are surviving. It’s heartbreaking. On our back patio we have a small ornamental fountain and as it takes a gallon of water a day to keep it at level I thought about just turning it off, but then I noticed how many wild creatures came for water. We’re in the middle of a huge city, the fountain is under a pergola and less than two feet from the house wall, yet there were wild birds and raccoons and possums and squirrels coming for a drink – and those were just the creatures I saw! Needless to say, the fountain has stayed on and full.

I am proud to announce that I sold another book to Carina Press. This makes four so far this year, and I am just bustin’ my buttons! This one is another horror novella entitled TIMELESS INNOCENT. It’s about a young lawyer who must take over her father’s cases when he is nearly fatally injured and the administration of his best friend’s estate. At first she thinks the estate is just a bother; she is much more interesting in staying away from a controlling, abusive boyfriend. The more she digs into the estate though, she realizes that she is responsible for a collection of tiny figurines which might not be what they appear to be. Then one writes her a note and people start to disappear…

It was a lot of fun to write.
Even if I did have to sleep with the lights on until The Husband came back home.

I long to get back to writing. I’m frustrated because I can’t write. I’ve been too busy doing revisions. Since the middle of June I’ve been slammed with revisions on three books – THE HOLLOW HOUSE, TIMELESS INNOCENT and DARK SUN – one right after the other and occasionally with overlapping deadlines. As each book goes through at least two revision processes, it gets complicated. Thank goodness both my editors are wonderful and understanding women and as all the books were for Carina we were able to schedule things so I could work on one at a time. Even if they are my stories, I get confused sometimes.

LURE OF THE MUMMY released in August to very good reviews. I’m delighted, because that was always a special story to me. Of course, all my stories are special to me.
Now that the revision cycle is pretty much over (I hope, I hope) I’m going to take a couple of days off and see to things I’ve been neglecting – like laundry, and weeding…. Then it’s back to work, hopefully to finish another traditional Gothic called (for the moment) THE CURSE OF THE EXILE. It’s set in Scotland in the 1850s and concerns a female librarian, an ancient curse, a murder, a ghostly revenant and lots of other fun things. Of course there is a dishy, suave hero – two of them, in fact – and a proud strong heroine. There’s an assortment of villains, too, each with their own axe to grind. Most of the action takes place in a crumbling Highland castle, which is physically based on a lovely old place I was fortunate enough to visit some years ago. Just the layout, though – this place was inhabited by a lovely family and not a ghost in sight!

Now I must get on with my chores. Hope your autumn is simply splendid!


July, 2011
I confess.

I have done it again. Sometimes time just slips away, especially when you’re busy and things have been happening, and other things – like writing a column for the website – just slip away.
And have things been happening!
Most exciting, I have made two trips to Europe in the last six months. Now I know that some of you get to travel a lot and that’s not such a big thing, but I haven’t even been on a vacation in the last five years, so it’s a really big thing to me.

Last summer The Husband was called back to active duty and sent to Germany. I wasn’t particularly happy about his being called up again, but as his two deployments before that were to Iraq, I wasn’t going to complain. At least they weren’t shooting at him in Germany!

I went over late in December so we could spend Christmas and New Year’s together – arriving right in the middle of the ‘hundred year storm’ that closed Frankfurt Airport for a day! Germany was a snowy fairyland and felt almost like being in a Christmas card. Then, as we had our tenth wedding anniversary in April, he decided to celebrate by taking me to Paris. We spent a magical six days in the City of Light and another five days in Germany, seeing some of the things we missed earlier because of the snow.

As magical as these trips were, though, they weren’t the only wonderful things that happened. In December I got a call from Angela James at Carina Press wanting to buy my books. Yes, that’s right – books. Two of ‘em. That’s pretty remarkable in itself, but what makes it truly astounding is that I submitted two books of two different lengths (novella and novel) in two different genres (horror and cozy historical mystery) under two different names (Janis Susan May and Janis Patterson) in two different months (August and September) – and both were bought in the same call. If that isn’t some kind of record, I’ll be surprised.

LURE OF THE MUMMY, the horror story set in my beloved Cairo, is about a man who gets trapped in the spell of a cat mummy that may be more than just an ancient votive offering. Sometimes you just can’t trust your mummy. It comes out 29 August.

THE HOLLOW HOUSE is set in Denver in 1919. It’s a cozy murder mystery. The teaser pretty much says it all – When a murder is committed in her employer’s home, Geraldine Brunton knows she must solve the crime to hide that she herself is a killer. HOLLOW HOUSE will be released on 14 November.
Plus, I received another piece of good news after returning from Paris – Carina accepted a third book! DARK SUN (a working title that will be changed) is a traditional Gothic romance – an hommage to the style of classic Gothic mistresses Phyllis A Whitney and Victoria Holt. It’s the story of a young woman who must not only deal with the ghosts of her own past, she must discover whether the mystical world her late father created in his books is truly imaginary.

Well, that’s pretty much caught you up with what I’ve been doing. I’m still working on the non-fiction A FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS MUSEUMS and have just submitted another horror novella to Carina with the working title of TIMELESS INNOCENT. It is one of the few things I have written in my life that has scared me into having to sleep with the lights on! And I’m a grown-up – in years, at least.
I promise I’ll be better about posting here. Hope all is well in your world!

Welcome to my new website!

Many of you know me as Janis Susan May, a writer of romances. Now that I am also writing mysteries I thought it best to have a different name and a different website for spotlighting my more criminal side. (If you want to learn more about my romances, go to www.JanisSusanMay.com)

I’m very proud to be a part of MURDER TO MIL-SPEC, a crime anthology from Wolfmont Publications. Every year Wolfmont does a crime anthology with stories and publishing expertise donated and all proceeds donated to a specific charity. For the last few years this has been Toys For Tots, but this year the beneficiary is Homes For Our Troops. This is a wonderful organization that remodels/​builds homes for catastrophically injured troops returning from the war. As a Navy wife, this charity is especially dear to my heart.

It’s gratifying to see that MURDER TO MIL-SPEC hit #96 on the Amazon list just a couple of days ago! So – may I suggest that you do yourself and our troops a big favor and buy a copy? You get a very good read and the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve helped a serviceman who has given so much for our country.

That’s about all for now – though I do hope to have some good news on the mystery front for you before long!