Today kicks off the Blogger Book Fair, a five-day event of meeting different authors, discovering new books, and getting a ton of bargain ebooks and even many free ebooks. First up, I'd like to you to meet Maryann Miller. Please check out her work and take advantage of this week's specials by her!
The following excerpt is from Open Season by Maryann Miller. It is the first book in the Seasons
Mystery Series that was first published in hardcover by Five Star Cengage/Gale,
and it is now available as an e-book. The series continues with Stalking Season, just released by Five Star, and both books have received rave reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal. Sometimes described as "Lethal Weapon" set in Dallas with female leads, the series features Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson as unwilling partners thrown together by the brass. When not playing on stage, the author is busy working on the third book in the series.
Prologue Excerpt
Sarah took a deep breath and faced Quinlin in the stuffy cubbyhole of an office. The room was hot and musty. Dust motes floated in the slivers of sunshine that had penetrated the haze of accumulated grime on the windows of the old building. The scent of his cologne hung heavily in the still air. Chaps. Rich, masculine, and too easily a distraction.
Dressed in a dark, somber suit, Quinlin didn’t speak. He watched her with the careful scrutiny of a snake considering a field mouse. A trickle of perspiration ran down Sarah’s back and dampened her white T-shirt. Shifting in the wooden chair, she contemplated the wisdom of taking off her jacket, then decided against it. He would interpret it as a sign of weakness.
She thought she was prepared for this. She’d rehearsed it a million times, remembering the images, nailing down the sequence, readying herself for his opener, “Detective Kingsly, tell me what happened that night.”
She recalled the moon playing tag with a few heavy clouds,
casting weird, disorientating shadows on the crumbling buildings. She
remembered wishing the clouds would give way to rain, anything to relieve the
oppressive heat that had pounded the city relentlessly for weeks. She
remembered thinking the heat made people do crazy things.
Maybe that’s why it had happened.
The rest of it flashed through her mind like a sequence of
freeze frames.
Franco and the boy
turn.
A glint of metal in
the moonlight.
John pushes her away,
reaching for the gun tucked in his waistband.
The clasp on her purse
sticks.
A flash of gunfire.
The sharp report of
return fire.
Struggling to get her
gun.
Franco is down.
The kid swings his gun
toward John.
She fires the same
time the kid does.
The coppery smell of
warm blood.
Hers?
No.
Goddam it, John, get up!
Why is everything so
quiet?
Where is the kid?
There’s a big gaping
hole in the cheap sequined evening bag.
Every time Sarah played the scene in her mind, she hoped for
a different ending. It never came. Her purse always had the hole in it. John
was always dead. And so was the kid.
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Maryann Miller is an award-winning author and freelance
editor. You can find out more about her books at her Website and Blog and
connect with her on Facebook and Twitter If you visit her blog during the Blogger
Book Fair and leave a comment, you will be entered into a drawing for an
advance copy of Stalking Season, or
an e-book of your choice.
Buy Link for Open
Season http://www.amazon.com/Open-Season-ebook/dp/B008D37B58/
Buy Link for Stalking
Season http://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Season-Five-Star-Mystery/dp/1432825984/
