Word Search

This week I'm posting a word search from the book coming out later this year from Lyrical Press, Revenge Is Sweet. Have fun!

Revenge Is Sweet

A G I X L N Q G N M M A V V X N P E W F A O F Y R Y L S I P D M C N P F R R O Z E L Q O S R P O F E M P E L Y T E V L M E C L R T O C D A L E N H E Y A Z E N C O S E N L B E J T Q B Q H N T N F R D A V G C T C T A A L I P L I A T W D T A A E O O G T I B C W B Q U T Y L X H E C O E B K O M V F U V L A L I P L N U S I T J G B L E S T U L F O Q B Y O U T A P R F S A B T K F U I F O R L M O M P G N D Y M R U F G J I F D X K G L W X R G J Q C C E O I

TALLY
FUDGE
MOONPIE
YOLANDA
COLE
BALI
FREDERICKSBURG
TEXAS
DORELLA
HOLT
BELLA
VIOLETTA
ALLEN
ANDREA
GENE

NIGEL

SQUEEE, as they say

I can finally announce this. OK, I could have announced it earlier, but I’m superstitious about not telling people about things until they’re all set up. On Monday I received the counter-signed contract from Kensington for a new three-book series!!! I’m VERY excited about this.

It will kind of replace the Fat Cat series that got dropped by Berkley Prime Crime when they mostly got out of the cozy mystery business last year. I had worked on this proposal off and on, but put it away when I got the Fat Cat series. That lasted for three books and gained me national best-seller status and a whole bunch of cozy/cat fans. I’m hoping for carry over to the new series.

My agent, Kim Lionetti at BookEnds, liked my idea of setting it in Fredericksburg TX. It’s a cute German tourist town in the Hill Country. It has lots of wineries in the countryside around there, very cute shops that draw shoppers, diners, and just plain tourists. There’s also an intriguing natural formation outside town, Enchanted Rock, which I intend to make use of.

Here’s a little personal story about the town. One Thanksgiving, it happened that all of our kids were due to spend the holiday at the inlaws’ places. Hubby and I were on our own! We decided to make a break for it and head out to do something we had been thinking of—a wine tour. We booked a B&B, drove from Dallas (where we lived at the time) stopping at wineries along the way. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a wonderful German restaurant and I did a bunch of Christmas shopping. I fell in love with the place and am so happy to be writing about it.

I had proposed a cupcake/candy shop set there, but Kim and Jessica Faust felt there were enough cupcake cozies either out or coming out, so they suggest Vintage Candy. Meanwhile, we moved to Austin and I dropped in on an actual vintage candy shop to acquaint myself with the stuff. It was wonderful—Clark Bars, Zero candy bars, all kinds of things I hadn’t had in years.

So I morphed the project into a vintage sweets themed series, rewrote the proposal, and Kim sent it out.

The upshot is that REVENGE IS SWEET will be the first book. I’m about 1/3 done with it, so I have a lot of work left to do.

One more thing—I’m going to give my main character, Tally Holt, a Maine coon. I hope all the cozy/cat lovers will like the new series. I’m having great fun writing it!

Maine coon photo from morguefile by katmystiry