A Painting to Die For

Book 3 Jenna Scali Mystery Series

Jenna’s quiet weekend turns upside down when her house is ransacked and a body is found with her name and number in its possession. Meanwhile her long-lost cousins show up with stories about international art theft dating back to World War II.

While Jenna questions the motives of her dead father in his connection to stolen art, the police find a second body with Jenna’s name in its possession and she becomes the primary link in two murder inquiries. Sidestepping the police and dodging the mob, she and her best friend, Quentin, embark on their own investigation to save themselves and Jenna’s cousins from untimely deaths.

 

Offset by the quiet university town where faculty and students mill about, minding their own business, Jenna is kidnapped and held at gunpoint while her double-crossing, lying cousins chase after the missing painting worth millions.

 

A Painting to Die For forms a web of deceit that leaves Jenna doubting everything she believes about her father and his Italian heritage.

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Dr. Joan Curtis is an award winning writer who has published 8 books and numerous stories.

The e-Murderer: Book 1 Jenna Scali mystery series won the GOLD in the Global eBook Awards for 2016 for Mystery.

The Clock Strikes Midnight has won three major awards. FINALIST in the prestigious Eric Hoffer Book Awards 2016, FIRST PLACE Royal Palm Literary Award for mainstream/literary 2015 and the Silver in the Global eBook Awards for 2015 for Fiction/Suspense

Murder on Moonshine Hill won the SILVER in the Global eBook Awards for 2017 Mystery and the BRONZE 2017 for Southern fiction Reader’s Favorite.

Interview –

Try to describe your book in one sentence.

A Painting to Die For forms a web of deceit that leaves Jenna doubting everything she believes about her father and his Italian heritage

Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world?

I would live in Italy. It’s one of my favorite places to visit. Over the last few years I’ve learned the language. I had hoped that Jenna and Quentin would make a trip to Italy in A Painting to Die For, but alas, they didn’t. That will have to happen in another book!

State a random fact about yourself that would surprise your readers.

I’m a very open person. Most of my readers know a lot about me after reading my books. One random, possibly unknown fact about me relates to my crazy Italian, father (who drives Jenna nuts in my latest release). He married my mom secretly—divorcing his first wife by putting an ad in the NY Times. He proceeded to pretend to still be married by going to special events and birthdays. He kept up the pretense for most of his life. No wonder he died of a heart attack in his fifties!

If you wouldn’t be a writer, what you would be?

If I wasn’t a writer, I’d love to be an actor. The thrill of creating different personalities is something I enjoy in writing and my guess is I’d enjoy on the stage. But, I’ll save that dream for another life.

Who is your favorite character in your new release?

My favorite character continues to be Quentin. He has such pizazz. He comes up with the coolest things to say. At some point I’m going to write a story from his point-of-view. That’s next on my agenda.

Are you a plotter or a pantzer?

I’m clearly a pantser writer. I tried to outline but characters appeared, story lines emerged, and the outline became superfluous. Writing as a pantser makes editing a nightmare, but I’d rather experience that nightmare than restrict myself to an outline. BTW, I did use outlines while writing the 4 nonfiction, business books I published. But, that’s a very different kind of writing. Fiction writing for me has to be free.

Did you do any research before start or during of the writing of the books?

I researched the life of Caravaggio before writing this book. I also researched the looting that happened during World War II in Italy and the current state of the Mafia in Italy.

What book is currently on your nightstand?

I’m reading Ann Patchett’s The Patron Saint of Liars. And, I’m loving it. I enjoyed Patchett’s Bel Canto. She writes character driven books with a lot of emotion. That’s the kind of book I like to read.

Where can your fans find you ?

Readers can find me at my website http://www.joancurtis.com There they can order all my books and even download the first chapter from each of my books. They can also find me on most of the social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) and I have an Amazon Author page. I would love to interact with my readers. When they tweet me or post on Facebook, I always respond.

If I give you a time machine, what time period and in what place would you travel to?

I love the 19 Century period pieces on Masterpiece Theatre. So, perhaps going back to that period with all the neat clothes and servants would be fun, but I’d have to be wealthy. I don’t want to live in the slums of England in the 1800’s. That would be too dismal.

Are you reading or writing something else at the moment?

I’m working on a stand-alone suspense mystery now. It is full of different characters and is totally different from what I’ve already written. At first it was a detective mystery, but one of my Beta readers suggested I remove the detective’s point of view and write the book from the points of view of the main protagonists. That was a challenge I’m still struggling with.

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Literary Addicts Interview

Peter Slade never thought he’d be coming home. But after his family is put in danger because of his past misdeeds, he has to reconcile with the son he abandoned years ago .

But his son has been in good hands. Liv Morgan has never been the nurturing type, but when hard times forced her to move in with her best friend and her orphaned nephew, she found herself being the adoptive mother to a troublemaker with a heart of gold.

Liv has no idea what trouble really is. When Slade rolls back in town and is ready to reconcile with his son, Liv finds herself walking the thin line between the estranged father and son. And as she’s more and more drawn to Slade, she realizes that if things go wrong, it will be more than just her heart breaking.

But Slade came back for a reason. His family is in danger. Liv might think that keeping him away will protect her heart, but he wants her body safe too and to do that, he’s going to have to stay close. Liv is about to learn that revenge has never been this sexy…

Mallory Crowe is the award winning author of the Fractured Farrells series, the Bad Boys of the Underworld series and many other novels. She grew up surrounded by rescue dogs and escaping into romance books whenever possible. After trying to do the “adult” thing by getting an accounting degree and CPA license, she decided to try her hand at writing and never looked back.An avid traveler, reader, and Netflix addict, Mallory currently lives in Michigan, with her neurotic but laid back dog.

www.MalloryCrowe.com
www.MalloryCroweParanormal.com
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMalloryCrowe/
@CroweInk

Interview With Mallory Crowe

1. Describe your book in one sentence.

Take one bad ass criminal for hire, one utterly normal small town veterinary student, the criminal empire that destroyed his life and add in the child that binds them together and you get prime recipe for revenge.

2. What’s your current guilty pleasure?

My current guilty pleasure is all of the Halloween baking shows (Halloween Wars; Halloween Baking Championship…) I usually can’t watch cooking shows because I get so hungry when I watch them, but I love Halloween so much that I make an exception! I don’t even have cable. I bought all the seasons on Amazon, so now I can watch them every year.

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3. Did you always had in mind to be a writer or it just happened?
For a long time of my life, writing wasn’t on my radar. I’ve always suffered from a bit of a pessimistic mind. I simply assumed I wouldn’t be a good writer. However once I had gone the “adult” path of getting married, getting a house, and getting a full time job at an accounting firm, I finally allowed myself to dream. And after I started writing. I could never stop. It’s my passion and my dream and now it’s my life in the best way possible. And the most important lesson this taught me is that if you don’t try, you can never succeed.

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4.Have you always wanted to be a writer?
I haven’t always wanted to be a writer. This was never originally part of my life plan! However I have been an avid reader for a very long time. There was one year of elementary school where I would spend my resses sitting alone and reading my mother’s collection of thrillers (if you can’t tell, I wasn’t always the most popular kid). My middle school English teacher said I was the only person she had to yell at for reading in her class. Around this time, my imagination started to run wild. I started to create my own stories. Some were original and some were improvements on TV shows that frustrated me (I’m looking at you, ANGEL…).

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5. Which scenes were the hardest to write?
Love scenes are some of my most difficult scenes to write (Even though they’re some of my favorite to read). Because it’s not just paint by numbers for me. The characters really need to feel that heat and I have to try my best to channel it through the keyboards. Not only do all the body parts need to be in the right place, but the emotions need to be there too. So it’s like a puzzle that needs to go together. Over and over again. Until they reach completion 😉

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6. Do you see yourself in any of your characters?
I see myself in every single one of my heroes and heroines. Liv in this case is sometimes stupidly loyal where Josh (the 10yo son of Slade who she has helped raise for the past 10 years) is concerned. And Slade is kind of reckless and adrenaline searching. No comment on that one 😛

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7. How did you come up with your premise for your books?
I come up with inspiration from music, television and movies. The Stolen Hearts series was inspired by the show Leverage. I really love the idea of bad people doing good things and the interactions between these sorts of “bad” people.

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8.What book is currently on your nightstand?
Kind of funny… My nightstand right now is a bookcase! So there are a few hundred books there! The newest however is a Christen Feehan, Elizabeth Hoyt and Jayne Ann Krentz, because I simply can’t pick a genre. (And my Kindle is just too packed at any given moment for me to even get into).

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9. Do you prefer Twitter or Facebook?
I love Facebook! I think I can connect with my readers better there. And I can connect via my group AND my profile which gives people the best way possible to reach me and hear all my upcoming news (And see all my cute dog pictures obviously)

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10. What’s your favorite vacation spot?
My favorite vacation ever was an Alaskan cruise. But I’ve recently gone through a divorce and I’m trying to devote the next few years to myself. I want to go to all the crazy places I’ve never been (Europe, Mediterranean, Bahamas). Because you can’t really have a favorite vacation spot until you visit them all, right???

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11. Are you working on any other projects except writing, right now?
I’m actually working on the next Stolen Hearts book! This one is called “The Cunning Thief”. It’s really fun to write because the hero is a bit of a compulsive liar and I’ve enjoyed playing around with the reader knowing the truth even when Tristan doesn’t. And of course lying is usually an asset when it comes to being a thief, but not when it comes to love!

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Literary Addicts – Interview

Winner: Mystery Writers of America McCloy Award. National finalist: Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest.

Cassandra Patton Conover is about to become an outlaw. Searching for her wayward dog in Maine’s dense woods, she finds her best friend Shannon crushed under a tree. Then she finds tracks larger than any animal she knows and a mystery only wild animals can help her solve.

Before she can absorb the loss of her friend, Patton is hired to guide a surly reporter who suspects extinct wolves have returned to Maine, but the forest has too many agendas. A billionaire hopes wolves will become a save-the-forest strategy. A timber company plans to exterminate the pack. A game warden loyal to his Penobscot tribe, his attraction to Patton, and his law enforcement life, has too many tough choices, and a black ops mercenary rips open Patton’s wounded life so he can aim her at the wolves.

When gold wolf eyes issue a challenge at her tent door, Patton is drawn deeper into Shannon’s mysterious murder and the wolves’ fate. To find her friend’s killer, she must find and trust the pack. To save her dog, the wolves, and her own life, she must step outside the law, sacrifice her career, and embrace a wild world.

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