Life is funny that way, don't you think? Sometimes it throws you lemons, but other times it gifts you miracles! I'm going for the miracles. You may have noticed I haven't posted in a while, well, that's because I've been busy. Busy falling in love with Mexico all over again...
It was NanoWriMo 2023, and I was madly cranking out the rough draft of my latest WIP (work in progress) to "win" the 50,000-words-in-November contest (I won). The book, Kickback, wasn't coming easily; I had a lot of research to do on Mexican politics, Mexico City, and Mexican culture on the cusp of COVID. I hadn't visited in years, and after publishing Saints and Skeletons in June, I'd started letting go of memories. The memoir had helped me forgive all the difficult events and relive the wonderful adventure; I'd let the skeletons out of my closet. But I'd come across a good story, and I needed to write it, even if I was forgetting the smell of the air, the taste of street tacos, or the love I'd held for this magical country in all its virtues and errors.
And that's when the miracle manifested. Mexico wasn't letting ME go! First, I received an email from my old boyfriend, Fernando (read all about him in Saints and Skeletons). Thirty years later! And he wanted to make amends for everything that happened. How often does that happen?
We started talking: hashing out the memories, the joy—and the pain—catching up on a lifetime. (Still all in Spanish—another miracle, I'm learning it.) He'd googled me, discovered Saints and Skeletons, and reached out because he has written a book and wants to write more—supenso, thrillers. But he isn't a novelist by his own admission. Three months later, we're working on outlines for three thrillers, with a new idea brewing. Over WhatsApp we talk and brainstorm—just what we did so well through all those hours of traveling the back roads of Mexico in the 90s. We'll outline together. He'll research; I'll write. Suddenly I'm re-emmersed in Mexico—and it feels like coming home.
We don't know exactly how this will turn out, but I'm excited to have a new writing partner. If you like Mexico and crime, look for the first book sometime next year. In the meantime, don't miss the latest JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventure Book 5, Backlash Venom and Vengeance from 'Nam. It was short-listed for the Chanticleer CIBA 2023 Clue Award and won Gold Book from Literary Titan.
Your past will always find you. And it’s going to take everything you love away. Including your life.
Jackman Quint spent years in prison for his crimes during his tour in Vietnam. He’s made a new life: reunited with his daughter JadeAnne, expanded his investigations, and dipped his toe into the dating pool. Life is going his way until Nader shows up in Mexico City. Now, when he has someone to lose, his past finds him. And Nader is out for blood.
You can learn more on March 9th. Join us at Barns and Noble, El Cerrito Plaza from 2:00-4:00. It'll be a crime if you miss it!
"Ana Manwaring does an outstanding job of crafting a story that both stands alone on its psychological and thriller components. Prior readers will appreciate the plot while newcomers won't need an introduction to past relationships to appreciate the characters and actions that represent international relationships and survival efforts.
The tension is nicely built, premises are logical and embedded into the story's action-packed scenarios, and readers receive a high-octane action work well steeped in Mexican affairs.
Libraries and readers seeking thrillers that center around attacks that challenge individual and national interests will find Backlash: Venom and Vengeance from 'Nam seamless in its action and characters and hard to put down." Diane Donovan, Editor, California Bookwatch; Donovan's Literary Recommended Reading
Don't miss Smashwords Read an eBook Week, March 3-9. All my books are Free!
And if you want to get started now the Kindle version of Book 1, Set Up, is currently on discount at Amazon.
Backlash Book 5 Published on November 15th, 2023
Here's a little something to sip while you catch up with JadeAnne and Pepper
XOCOLATL
1 cup milk, soy milk, almond milk, or water
1 package/disc Taza Chocolate Discs (any flavor)
Salt to taste
TO PREPARE:
1. Roughly chop or grate one disc of any flavor and set aside.
2. Heat one cup of milk or water in a small saucepan over medium heat to just below a simmer.
3. Remove the milk from heat and add a pinch of salt.
4. Slowly mix in the chocolate, stirring frequently until dissolved.
5. When the chocolate is dissolved, return the mixture to the stove and re-warm over low heat.
6. While the chocolate is warming, use a whisk or molinillo to froth the chocolate.
7. When the chocolate is hot and frothy, remove from heat and serve.
Thanks for reading! Find me and my books through https://linktr.ee/anamanwaring and my website, www.anamanwaring.com
Celebrate the season with my latest award winning books, Backlash, a JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventure #5 and my memoir of living in Mexico, Saints and Skeletons, available for a promotional price at @Smashwords as part of their 2023 End of Year Sale! Find my books, and many more, at https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/promos/ through January 1! #SmashwordsEoYSale #Smashwords. You can easily find the books through the search function under my name.
Okay, now that you have your book, let's get down to celebrating the season. Tonight I'm going to trim my tree to a good eggnog (with spiced rum), homemade cookies, and a sappy holiday romcom. Then I'll start my round of entertaining. Here's what I'm serving. JadeAnne's grandmother served one at table every Christmas Eve, but it's dramatic with any holiday feast!
Gaga's Persimmon Pudding
Ingredients
Preparation
To flame: fill a small pitcher with brandy or rum , pour a good amount over the pudding and into the. plate. Light a match and watch the blue flames! With a spoon, keep the flames going by dipping alcohol from the plate over the pudding. Don’t worry if the spoonfuls are flaming. It burns at a low temp and burns out fast, but while it lasts, it makes an impressive display. Be sure to dim the dining room lights and flame with fanfare!
Rum Butter
Cream together ½ c. brown sugar, ½ stick butter, 1 tsp nutmeg. Slowly add 2 Tbls. dark rum, 1 tsp cream sherry and whip until fluffy.
@anamanwaring
Your past will always find you. And it’s going to take everything you love away. Including your life.
“I graduated from college in 1971 with degrees in engineering and computer science. I was young; I believed in my country. The government.” Jackman Quint grimaced. “I believed in democracy and freedom—that the government had the citizens’ backs. It was my duty to preserve these ideals. I joined the ROTC. When I graduated I enlisted in the Army knowing I’d be deployed to Vietnam; I was going to be a hero.”
But everything changed when NSA spook, Chuck Nader got hold of him.
“I did some shitty things during that war. The whole thing was a lie. Vietnam was hell. I let Nader blackmail me into drugs and moving Vietcong opium through his network to the States. Got caught. Did time. But there was more. Secrets. I can’t say how or what, but my gut is telling me they’re connected.”
Now, thirty-two years later, just as Quint has reunited with his daughter JadeAnne, lost to him in the evacuation of Saigon, and found a woman he can love, Chuck Nader has shown up in Mexico City, and he's out for blood.
Grab your copy in Kindle, e-pub and paperback at your favorite on-line retailer.
Please leave a review wherever you buy the book. And reach out to me—I love to hear from readers!
To sign up for Writing on the Wall, a monthly newsletter of news, appearance dates, recipes and fun go to: www. anamanwaring.com
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Okay, I don't usually toot my own horn, but I'm thrilled to share my
for Saints and Skeletons A Memoir of Living in Mexico.
Not convinced? Read the review! Five stars from Literary Titan
"Saints and Skeletons by Ann Manwaring offers a poignant and introspective narrative that delves into a life shaped by personal triumphs, struggles, and the unwavering quest for self-discovery. With eloquent prose and candid storytelling, Manwaring invites readers to immerse themselves in the depths of her experiences, bearing witness to the transformative power of vulnerability and resilience. "
Pages: 298 | ASIN: B0C4QLYLC8 Available on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords
Please join me and memoirist, Aletheia Morden, author of The Last Indentured Servant A Hollywood Memoir at Sonoma's Vintage House on Friday, July 21st at one o'clock for a reading from our recent books and discuss the lure of travel, relocation and the personal growth that accompanies living abroad. Moderated by Susan Savage.
HALF PRICE!
The JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventures
Monday, July 24th at 9:40 a.m. Marcia Macomber will interview me for her program, Mondays on the Morning Show at KSVY 91.3 FM and streaming at www.KSVY.org.
I Look forward to seeing you!
Find me at: www.anamanwaring.com and https://linktr.ee/anamanwaring
This action-packed memoir/travelogue formed the real-life backdrop to what later became the successful JadeAnne Stone thriller series. Starting in the summer of 1991, Saints and Skeletons takes you through the back roads of Mexico, Belize, and the Peten region of northern Guatemala, where I camped out in ruins, sampled exotic foods, smoked loco weed atop pyramids, drank mescal out of the still, skinny dipped in the Pacific at Zipolite, found lost cities, and learned to make a killer margarita. In the process, I also experienced love, betrayal and loneliness. As doors opened and walls crumbled in my heart, skeletons tumbled out and, occasionally, saints appeared just when I needed them most.
"In Manwaring’s immersive memoir, Saints and Skeletons, she deftly takes her reader on a pilgrimage to Mexico. Rendered with heart and vulnerability, we observe her inner life through the risky choices she regrets, the love she desires, the sublime beauty she discovers. Don’t miss this multi-sensory adventure of a lifetime." JC Miller, Amazon #1 author of Vacation, Believing in Bigfoot, Heliotrope and Larkspur (2023)
Preorder your digital format now and pick up your paperback on June 21st. Available from most digital retailers.
We've made it to summer. While coronavirus remains a threat, the weather is warm and, until fire season, we have a great opportunity to read (and drink!) So pull your lounge chair into the shade, mix a martini, and sink into a good read.
The Paris Package by A.W. Harton, set in pre-WW2 Europe. A young American couple on honeymoon in Vienna take possession of a book the Nazis don't want to surface, and they must get the book to its rightful owner in Paris. The SS knows they've got it and are on their trail. I'm trying the Kindle/audiobook sync on this one. Too exciting to put down! I can listen while I make dinner.
The Blue Period by Luke Jerod Kummer about the young Picasso's "blue period" as he bounced between Barcelona and Paris. Kindle.
Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon—seven Outlander universe short stories to tide us through the season break! Audiobook.
Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart all about the sordid lives of plants behaving badly. Want to kill, maim, intoxicate or possibly drive someone mad? Do it nature's way. Paperback.
No Bad Deed the debut thriller by Heather Chavez turns my home county into a menacing backdrop to a terrifying game of cat and mouse. Hardbound.
Not for everyone on the list, Steven James, Story Trumps Structure. How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules is jam-packed with great information. It was recommended by my favorite writer of mysteries set in Paris, Cara Black. She's written 19 books. I've read them all. Start with the first book: Murder in the Marais and finish with the latest, Three Hours in Paris.
Finally, the drinking part! A Drinkable Feast. A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris by Philip Greene. Did you ever wonder what the Lost Generation drank and where they drank it? A Drinkable Feast not only offers the recipes, but tells the stories behind the drinks and the artists, writers, and celebrities who drank them. My favorite so far? The Bailey created by Gerald and Sara Murphy, wealthy American ex-pats—the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's protagonists in Tender is the Night.
The Bailey
2 oz. Hendricks gin
1/2 oz. fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
1-2 tsp. simple syrup
2 sprigs of mint
Tear up the mint leaves into a shaker, add the gin and steep for a couple of minutes, add the grapefruit then lime juices. Shake with ice and don't allow it to dilute. Strain into a wine or cocktail glass and garnish with a sprig of mint. Enjoy!
Drinking and literature—a time honored pairing!
And if you haven't already, pop open a Victoria and try out the JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventures. Lawn chair travel—next best thing to being there! These will offer you plenty of suspense and muy rico meals. Book three, Nothing Comes After Z is scheduled for release late this year.
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(and if poetry is your thing, check out Nature Girl. All available on Amazon)
In 1973, I hauled my duffel bag stuffed with bikinis (yes, itsy bitsy bikinis), towels, sleeping bag, mess kit, and summer reading on a greyhound from San Rafael to meet my then boyfriend Kirby in Elko, Nevada. Kirby came from Ketchum, Idaho in his beater VW bug—the Spud Mobile. We were headed south to Old Mexico, but first we had to stop at Kirby’s grandmother’s winter home—she was a snowbird—in Sun City, Arizona “to check on things.” Actually to borrow her pickup with a camper shell on the back.
We were vampires, sleeping in the air-conditioning all day, only appearing outside after dark when the temperature cooled off to 95. We saw a lot of the late night golf course, a popular hang-out for the over sixty and after ten o’clock set. I didn’t see much more of Sun City other than the grocery store and gas station, but we managed to outfit our expedition and get underway in about five days. Seriously under-capitalized and under-prepared.
We crossed the Nogales border at dawn on August 8, and made Kino Bay by the full heat of the day. We pitched camp perched on an empty bluff over a beach where gulls circled and called and took inventory of our equipment and supplies. Folding chairs. Check. Camp stove and fuel. Check. Tarps and nylon rope. Check. Flipflops. Check. Pancack mix, eggs, beer, watermelon. Check. Reading material: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth, The Abortion: An Historical Romance by Richard Brautigan and Tom Robbins’s Another Roadside Attracton. Check. I sat down in one of the folding chairs and got to work on Jonathan Livinston Seagull. Kirby popped a cold one.
The next time I looked up (the book engaged me) we’d made Mazatlán. We found a palm shaded trailer park outside of town right on the beach and sank roots. The place was half filled with characters from The States. One hippie woman, living in her school bus with her small, naked children, kept a pet coatimundi, a south American cousin to the raccoon, that thrived on rum and coke and liked to sleep in a hammock with me. Old Tom told us stories about anything and everything, mostly his exploits in the war. We bought fresh fruits, vegetables and marijuana from Raul who drove his horse drawn cart to the trailer park every other day. We paid him $20 for a medio kilo. I cut out a lid of the best buds then sold the rest to the surfer dudes who arrived a few days later for $20 and a bottle of rum. Everyone was happy, especially Kirby and the coatimundi, who did not smoke pot.
For a month we swam, snorkled, ate fresh fish, saw the sights and finished our summer reading in the hammock. We went to the disco, took a boat ride to the island, and ate at the Shrimp Bucket. Until we ran low on money.
Time to head home.
Kirby drove straight up to the border, and I dumped the baggie of pot out the window before we crossed. We spent all but a few dollars on gas in Nogales, AZ to get us to Sun City. The desert, so fragrant and wide open with limitless possibility on the way down had turned inhospitable—an endless dun-colored landscape, dangerous and foreboding. 
But we were kids, and when we’d spent all but our last dollar at the breakfast counter in The Silver Dollar Casino in who-knows-where Nevada, I invested it in the giant dollar slot machine and won fifty silver dollars.
In 1973 it was enough to get home.
In 1991 I drove to Mexico to research a novel. I bought a 1969 VW pop-top camper and tricked it out with everything I thought I'd need for a six-month stay: no-see-um netting, a generator to run my desk lamp and a pre-laptop portable Toshiba computer and printer, solar fans to suck the heat out of the cabin and air shocks to smooth out the bumpy, pot-holed back roads of Mexico. My eleven-year-old German shepherd, Parsley, co-piloted from her red leather seat salvaged from a Cadillac, the twin to mine.
California had taken an economic nose dive around the same time we bombed Iraq and I'd gone from a thriving bookkeeping and tax preparation business with little in my savings, to a bulging portfolio and clients who couldn't pay me anymore. The universe pointed south. It had been my dream to learn Spanish and delve into the mesoamerican cultures while exploring Mexico, and overnight, the dream became reality. I made a plan, custom-built my bus's interior, packed my bags and headed out.
Three years later I hadn't written the planned book, but I'd lived an amazing array of experiences, starting with being threatened by armed narco-thugs on a lonely stretch of the Pan American Highway in the State of Michoacán—just like JadeAnne Stone, the heroine of the books I did write. It may have been a long time coming, but it was a Set Up from the start!
Now available Amazon B & N Kobo
If you enjoy the book, please take a moment to go to your retailer and leave an honest review. It won't take long, and it will enable me to write more of JadeAnne's adventures for you.
Thanks for being part of the journey.
~Ana
Last October I attended an event of the San Francisco Chapter WNBA, Women’s National Book Association. Member authors presented their lately published books, and I was captured by Lily Iona MacKenzie and her 2015 release, Fling! I ran right to the signing table after the presentations and bought a copy, although later I received an audio version, which I listened to on trains crossing Spain (no plain, no rain.) 
Delighted, I wiled away the hours lost in the scenery and MacKenzie’s imaginative and wacky story of mothers and daughters, fulfilling one’s dreams and the magic that comes when you live life to the edge and possibly over. I felt like I was on my own quest, living my Spanish vacation to its maximum, experiencing the magic of discovery and expansion that comes with travel to new places. Everything thrummed with excitement, including my book—Fling! Life couldn’t have been better.
Several days later, the book finished, and watching the lights coming on from our balcony overlooking La Sagrada Familia, I ruminated on Fling!. 
Set between three generations of women and four countries, much of the story takes place in Mexico. I know Mexico well and thought about what I’d learned by visiting the “parent” country, Spain. The mysterious twisting cobbled streets of the medieval cities, the ubiquitous artistic expression, the grand churches, the tile work, the crowds promenading through tapas bars in the evenings, the sense of happy self-actualization of the Spaniards—the foundation of the Mexican culture. I even found the magical realism: on the strains of symphonic music wafting through Granada’s cathedral, the phantasms flitting in the gardens of Generalife, the rain-bowed light streaming through the glass of La Sagrada Familia, the voices of antiquity whispering from somber portraits in the Prado Museum, the sensual buildings of the Modernista, a cathedral in the middle of the Mesquita! 
Then it was November 9th and only the unreal remained. We’ve had almost a year lacking magic. I say it’s time to look away from the devastation of the environment and our rude and hateful world of racism, deportations, killing sprees, and the crumbling of our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s time to find life’s fountain of youth and wonder again. Fling! is full of it.
Like any compelling saga, the story is told in multiple points of view across a span of three lifetimes. It opens with Malcolm MacGregor’s story of how his granddaughter Bubbles, née Heather, “had danced right off one of his paintings, landing in the family potato patch. . . .” in 1906 on the Isle of Skye, where “unpredictable things happen.” Her hippie daughter, Feather, has also inherited the Scottish sensibility of unpredictability, which shows up as “Manannán Mac Lirs’s underworld” in her paintings.
Bubbles has convinced Feather to come home to Calgary, Canada from San Francisco to celebrate her 90th birthday, but she has another motive. Bubbles has received a notice from the dead letter office in Mexico City, asking her to pick up her mother’s ashes, left seventy years earlier, in the late 1920s. Heather had left her family to go to Mexico with a married man. Bubble wants Feather to take her to Mexico so she can recover the ashes and give her mother a proper burial.
The story of their odyssey is woven together with the stories of their colorful Scottish ancestors, creating a family tapestry. The two women travel south from Canada to San Francisco and then in Mexico over six months. In magical Mexico, Feather learns much about her mother. She hasn’t fully believed her mother’s story, but when Bubbles’ long-dead mother, grandmother, and grandfather turn up, she begins to understand the depth of her and her mother’s magic. Feather, who’s been seeking “The Goddess” for years, helped by Indian villagers mistaking Bubbles for a well-known rain goddess and praying for her to bring rain so their land will thrive again, realizes she’s overlooked her own mother.
Bubbles’ quest and a new man in her life has increased her zest for life. A life-long entrepreneur, she’s convinced she’s found the fountain of youth at a mineral spring outside San Miguel de Allende and she’s determined to bottle the water and sell it. A natural risk taker and believing she’s immortal, Bubbles lives life to the fullest in every way. Feather learns from Bubbles’ youthful spirit that it’s never too late to realize your dreams. Both have found the fountain of youth and they know that they will see everyone again, “if not in the flesh, then their souls hovering as a hummingbird, or fluttering as a butterfly, or floating above the earth as clouds.”
Mackenzie has created two strong characters who are hilarious and endearing. Bubbles is a zany gypsy who takes after her mother, the ashes left at the dead letter office. She’s tough and tender and wants to reconcile with both the mother who left her and the daughter she left. At 90, she’s finally come of age and found the love of a good man. Feather, née Heather, at 57 is a San Francisco artist who desperately wants to break free of the male dominated world. She loves her mother but can’t quite connect to her as Bubbles lives inside a bubble that Feather feels has never burst. Feather grew up in her mother’s shadow, “. . .a moon, orbiting a planet.” and has worked hard to become her own person. Pragmatic, fearful and a worrier, she’s not much of a risk taker except in her art. She longs to be in charge of her own life. For all Bubbles exuberance, Feather is equally reserved, although she’s got a sharp eye and makes funny observations. She’s Bubbles’ touchstone and Bubbles is Feather’s catalyst to relax and enjoy life.
The story is told in both past and present tenses. Mackenzie’s skill in sliding in and out of tenses and in and out of voices is superb. Chapter headings clue readers into time periods and goddess images separate scenes. In the audio version I listened to in Spain, Anna Crow, the reader, modulated her voice sufficiently to follow the changes and determine the speaker. I had no problem keeping up with her reading.
Mackenzie’s language is straightforward and sensory. Her descriptions are vivid and progress to surprising comparisons and existential observations throughout the book. For example, On the plane to Mexico City they encounter a storm: “Lighting rips open the night sky, ragged edges illuminating patches of earth below. She [Bubbles] tries to ignore the severe turbulence. It reminds her of riding horses on the farm. . . . She could be going along, enjoying the ride, when suddenly all hell would break loose. . . . But then, life is like that. Everything seems fine. Then suddenly, it isn’t.” It’s these observations that are the real charm of the book. It’s like living inside the characters’ minds. And of course, these characters think the wildest things!
In part, the collision of their Celtic roots and lore with the rich blend of Spanish colonial and indigenous Mexican characteristics and culture they encounter in Mexico is what makes this all work. Of course, magic happens! The dead come to visit, old ladies are mistaken for long awaited goddesses, and people change while finding their dreams. Ultimately, it’s the joy of life, la alegría de la vida that is the Fling! fountain of youth and it can be found or re-found at any age. Rereading passages of Fling! as I write this review has lifted me above my profound sadness for the most recent gun violence in our country. I’m feeling kinder toward our leadership. I feel like dancing, in fact. Maybe a Mexican Hat Dance? Fling! is a perfect book for now. As renowned author Lewis Buzbee puts it, Fling! is both hilarious and touching. Every page is a surprise, and the characters! I especially loved Bubbles, one of the most endearing mothers in recent fiction. A scintillating read.” ~Lewis Buzbee, award-winning author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshopg review and faculty at University of San Francisco MFA program.
Although I planned my own Wine Country destination wedding: our front yard, I do hold a smidgen of destination wedding experience. I’ve attended two weddings in Mexico. The first was held in a crumbling monastery tricked out to resemble a wedding fairyland with an inch deep path of white roses leading to the altar arranged and tented atop a ruin with forested green mountains as a backdrop.
At the second, held at Mexico’s largest rancho, which historically extended from central Mexico east and west to both coasts, guests arrived by helicopter (a president, perhaps?) to dine, drink and dance all night in the courtyard after Mariachi 2000, played a private concert following the ceremony. What I remember best at both was the free-flowing tequila—until the tequila donkey ran dry, that is. The rumor in town the next day claimed Valle de Bravo to have run dry after father of the bride grabbed the donkey and made a midnight tequila ride.
I don’t remember what other disasters occurred, but I’m certain no one died, (even if a few guests did snore under tables) everyone had a grand time and Chris’s and Alejandra’s wedding planners went home with excellent recommendations and cell phone numbers of prospective clients.
That’s how it should have been for San Francisco based wedding planner, Kelsey McKenna who has created a perfect wedding for Nicole Abernathy and Vince Moreno in the two hundred year old chapel in the Mexican colonial town of San Miguel Allende. But as Father Villareal pronounces the couple “husband and wife” bridesmaid Dana, collapses into a floral arrangement at the altar, stealing the couple’s thunder—truly a wedding faux pas.
Kelsey handles the disaster with grace and professionalism as she ushers the crowd toward the tequila donkey, but soon discovers that Dana hasn’t passed-out from too much fun at the bachelorette party. She’s dead. Kelsey has a responsibility to her client to deal with the problem, but the difficult mother of the bride, Mrs. Abernathy, insists she cover it up so Nicole and Vince’s big day isn’t ruined: she paid for a wedding after all, not a funeral. That is, until Mexican police arrest Nicole’s sister, Zoe, and “mom-zilla” declares the situation falls under the “dreadful, unforeseen situations,” clause of Kelsey’s contract. With help from her friend, wedding photographer Brody Marx, she reluctantly takes on the police’s job of finding the killer, sifting through a line-up of potential suspects—Dana has treated everyone in the wedding party poorly, including trying to trick her ex-boyfriend, attending with his new date, into marrying her
Dana’s room has been tossed, and police claim Dana was poisoned and Zoe is guilty. Brody hacks Dana’s records found wrapped as a wedding gift and finds financial information pointing to new suspects. She’s threatened, convincing her of Zoe’s innocence, and with the help of her old boyfriend, now a resident of San Miguel, she goes on a fact-finding mission back to the states. All she wants is to get back to San Francisco and her work, but problem–solving is Kelsey’s forte and she can’t leave Zoe in a Mexican jail with the killer running free. Or face the career-destroying wrath of Mrs. Abernathy if she fails.
Funny, smart and on trend, Marla Cooper’s debut novel, Terror in Taffeta, is a winner. Cooper’s quirky characters, twisting plot and delightful, competent wedding planner-turned-sleuth would be enough fun for any cozy mystery reader. But this novel is a precisely crafted example of the genre, oozing humor, realistic finger-snapping dialog, an intricate and believable plot, and a sharp heroine we instantly like and trust. It may be the wedding from hell, but Kelsey McKenna demonstrates true professionalism and determination. If your attendant keeled over at the altar would your planner have stuck around to solve the murder? Kelsey proves herself to be empathetic and brimming with integrity. She’s a quick thinker and no quitter. Besides, she knows how to throw a great party.
I love Cooper’s fresh, modern prose, her well-balanced action and that she surprised me at the end with motives and a murderer I never saw coming. Jerrilyn Farmer, author of the Madeline Bean series says it all, “Like a perfect margarita, Marla Cooper has blended up a tart and delicious Mexican-set bridal mystery for her wacky and charming cozy debut, Terror in Taffeta.”
Terror in Taffeta may not be the first writing from Cooper. She says she “was astonished when she realized people could actually get paid to write things. So she switched her major from business to advertising—much to the relief of her accounting professor—and began her career as an advertising copywriter. After moving to San Francisco, she became a freelancer so she could take advantage of perks like working in her pajamas.” She’s written everything from advertising copy to travel guides; in fact, she found her inspiration for Terror in Taffeta while ghostwriting another book on destination weddings. And this first novel proves Cooper is one to watch—and I bet we haven’t seen the last of Kelsey McKenna. I don’t know what the next destination will be, but I’m sure Cooper will treat us to another roller-coaster ride through clues and suspects served up with elegantly catered red-herrings and tequila shots. (I’m still thinking about that tequila donkey.)
But don’t take my word for it; Janet Cantrell, bestselling author of the Fat Cat Mystery series has the best advice: “Drop your plans and read this new series starring Kelsey McKenna, witty and resourceful wedding planner extraordinaire. This wedding planner will win you over!”
Congratulations—it's publishing day!
March 22, 2016
