Ciao, amici! It’s been a while, and I’m sorry for my absence. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you understand. (And if you don’t, why not? Just kidding. But if you’d like to, you can subscribe here.)
I have been busy, but I couldn’t let this opportunity pass by. My friend Vera Day (you may know her from our collaborative Christian book review site, The Well Read Fish) has released a new book. Her publisher surprised her and dropped it early, so she doesn’t even have her promo in place yet. That kind of surprise is always a bit stressful for the author, but it’s good for us because we get access to it earlier than expected.
And here it is!
Southern humor, faith, and murder intersect in the tiny town of Tulip, Texas.
Betty Bell is a famous poet, or at least a local celebrity, in the tiny town of Tulip, Texas. Gossip runs amok when a Goth teenager, Sylvia Smith, and her elderly grandfather arrive. Even worse, they’ve moved into the creepy, old Sanchez place on the outskirts of town.
Betty volunteers to teach a summer poetry class to restless Tulip teens. Soon, the kids are expressing themselves in stellar stanzas and heart-rending rhymes. But what was supposed to be a summer of ministering to the teens becomes a season of sleuthing when one of Betty’s students, the spooky Sylvia, goes missing.
When Sylvia turns up dead, suspicions point to Sylvia’s reclusive grandfather. Deputy Miller is a good man and excellent investigator, but after a second death shakes the small town, Betty is convinced the deputy is after the wrong suspect. Betty, her left-brained husband Larry, and her quirky friend Flora must use haunting haikus, couplet clues, and lots of prayer to track down the real killer.
About Vera:
After decades coasting along as a lukewarm Christian, and after a few more years of writing in a secular genre (under a different pen name), Vera experienced a series of events that can only be described as epiphanic. She wishes she had always known to keep her eyes and ears open to God’s messages. Now she’ writing in a new genre: faith-inspired cozy mysteries. She finds it a little daunting to start over with a new genre and a new pen name but thinks it’s all very exciting, too.
Vera has been an engineering physicist and a swim team coach, both wonderful professions, but what she really wants to do is write. She shares a home in the Northern Plains of Texas with her two-legged and four-legged family members.
You can connect with Vera on Twitter (@VeraDayAuthor).
If you’re a fan of cozy Christian mysteries, this is the story for you.
I hope you’ll share Vera’s announcement with your friends. Because she is indisposed today, I am closing comments. I don’t want her to worry about answering congratulatory messages when she can’t be online. But I know she appreciates your kind wishes. Before you go, I invite you to click on some of the links, most especially the purchase link for When Did We Lose Sylvia? Grazie!
Staci Troilo 
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