by Sunny Frazier

Details on how to enter to win a copy of a House of Dads by June Gillam, featured in a past column, at the end of this post!

If you’re going to the convention, don’t miss out on the Spice Up Your Crafts panel. If you can’t make it, take a look at some of the “crafty” reads by these terrific authors!

Our protag is a computer programmer with a passion for tole painting (I had to look it up. It’s folk art from 18th century New England where people paint on wood, coffee pots, utensils and other stuff). Aurora didn’t expect to find a corpse in her garden and a detective on her doorstep—at least, not in Vista Beach, a quiet California beach community. Fatal Brushstrokes is the first in the Aurora Anderson Mysteries penned by Sybil Johnson.

From tole painting to stained glass…Georgia Kelly left the big city, a banking scandal and her fiancé for the small town of Wenwood, NY. But the close-knit community is up in arms over their beloved brickworks being turned into a marina to attract tourists. When one of the detractors is bludgeoned with a brick, the main suspect is his staunch enemy and Georgia’s grandfather. Ill-Gotten Panes is the first in the series by Jennifer McAndrews.

Archer’s Rest has only one pizzeria and the owner is bad-tempered. When locked up overnight for disorderly conduct, he’s found dead in the cell the next day. Nell’s chief of police boyfriend Jesse left his most trusted officer in charge. A Streak of Lightening is the second E-Novella based on Clare O’Donohue’s Someday Quilts Mysteries.

Prolific (under several AKA’s) Camille Minichino has the start of a new series with Killer in the Cloister. Set in 1965, Sister Francesca leaves her small upstate NY convent to go to the Bronx to study theology. Suddenly she finds herself caught up in the controversies posed by Vatican II. She’s also pulled into the mysterious death of her new Mother Superior. As Sister Francesca investigates she faces a challenge to both her faith and her vows. And don’t miss Camille’s Bcon workshop on how to make miniatures for gifts!

I must mention a book that just hit the shelves: CATastrophic Connections by Joyce Ann Brown. This is the first in the Psycho Cat and the Landlady series. When Beth’s niece disappears the police believe she embezzled money from a Kansas City construction company. Clues lead Beth to the Virgin Islands where she convinces her niece to leave paradise to clear her name. But the woman goes from embezzlement charges to a murder suspect when the bookkeeper is found dead. Beware a landlady and a Psycho Cat when they are on the trail of a killer!

To enter to win a copy of House of Dads by June Gillam, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “Dads,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 25, 2014. U.S. residents only.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & short stories in our mystery section. Check back every month for Coming Attractions!

Click on this link to purchase any of these books & a portion goes to help support KRL!

Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.