The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel
Give a warm welcome to M.S. Spencer, author of The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel just released on January 22, 2018!
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about MS Spencer and The Pit and the Passion:Murder at the ghost Hotel.
Thanks so much for letting me talk to your readers about my new mystery romance The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel. Set on Longboat Key, Florida, it features an unexpected skeleton, a quirky romance between an arrogant though talented writer and a beautiful reporter, and a complicated set of clues that lead to a deadly secret long hidden by the most famous circus family in the world.
At midnight, in the darkness of a deserted hotel, comes a scream and a splash. Eighty-five years later, workmen uncover a skeleton in an old elevator shaft. Who is it, and how did it get there? To find out, Charity Snow, ace reporter for the Longboat Key Planet, teams up with Rancor Bass, best-selling author. A college ring they find at the dig site may prove to be their best clue.
Although his arrogance nearly exceeds his talent, Charity soon discovers a warm heart beating under Rancor’s handsome exterior. While dealing with a drop-dead gorgeous editor who may or may not be a villain, a publisher with a dark secret, and an irascible forensic specialist, Charity and Rancor unearth an unexpected link to the most famous circus family in the world.
Ohhhh… this sounds good!
The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel
In this peek between the pages, Charity runs into Rancor (literally) on the beach late at night. Longboat Key is a barrier island, 12 miles long and maybe a mile wide. At the northern tip lies Beer Can island, basically a sandbar. Just south of it is a wide swath of beach that ends in an eroded cliff. It is often deserted and gives the visitor a view of an enormous sky. A perfect place for a tryst.
Excerpt (PG): The Man on the Beach
The Milky Way spread a swath of cream overhead. One small cloud trundled across the sky. Behind it peeped a gibbous moon. The beach was wide here, sweeping south in a twelve-mile-long arc but ending only a few yards north of her at a severely eroded cliff.
Not a soul stirred on the sand, except for a couple of willets picking their way along the edge of the water. She turned and headed toward the cliff.
Someone had left a beach chair out. She sat and watched the waves, listening to the chittering of the sandpipers and the putt-putt of a trawler far out. She assumed the rustle behind her was a ghost crab and kept quiet, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. She loved the way they would stop, half in and half out of their holes, their eyestalks waving. They’re so sure they’re invisible.
Charity?”
She jumped straight up, knocking the chair backward.
“What th—?” Her heart pounding, she turned. At that moment, the cloud shrouded the moon, and in the sudden darkness she could only make out a form.
“Who…who’s there?”
“It’s me. Rancor. Rancor Bass.”
She held out a hand and encountered a broad chest, lightly furred. She pulled it back quickly. “Are you…are you…”
He snickered. “Naked? As a matter of fact, yes.”
She backed up. A splash told her that her brand-new sandals were likely ruined. She vaulted out of the water and landed between two bare arms.
“Easy there, Charity. I hardly know you.”
“Stop it, Mr. Bass. And let me go. If I were you I’d drop that conceited tone. I wouldn’t be caught dead in your arms.”
His voice came low, laughter licking at its edges. “You don’t feel dead to me. In fact”—she tensed at the touch of a finger on the inside of her elbow—“you feel very much alive. And quite…fresh. Call me Rancor.”
“Rancor Bass, you leave me alone.” She tried to walk around the shadow, but an arm snaked out and caught her. She opened her mouth to scream and found two lips smothering hers. She stood quite still, fear and…something else…oh my God, desire?…taking over her senses.
He let her go. “Couldn’t resist. Wanted to see if those defensive walls could be breached.” He sat down in the chair. The moon came out from behind the cloud and cast a pale glow on his hair. “You’re a tough cookie, Charity.”
She wanted to deny it, to tell him how vulnerable she could be, but knew that would be very stupid. She wanted to kiss him again but knew that would be even more stupid. So she settled for a grunt and walked away.
He didn’t follow, and as she reached the dunes, she felt an unexpected twinge of disappointment. Could this man be the one? Nah. Still, preoccupied by this novel notion, she decided to skip the police station and go straight home. As she turned into her condominium parking lot, the obvious question finally occurred to her. What the hell is Rancor Bass doing naked on the beach in the middle of the night?
Buy Links:
Wild Rose Press, Amazon, ITunes, Kobo, Barnes and Noble. and Google:
About the Author:
Although M. S. Spencer has lived or traveled in five of the seven continents, the last thirty years were spent mostly in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant, speechwriter, editor, birdwatcher, kayaker, policy wonk, non-profit director, and parent. After many years in academia, she worked for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Department of the Interior, in several library systems, both public and academic, and at the Torpedo Factory Art Center.
Ms. Spencer has published eleven romantic suspense novels, and has two more in utero. She has two fabulous grown children and an incredible granddaughter. She divides her time between the Gulf Coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine.
Contacts
Blog: http://msspencertalespinner.blogspot.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/msspencerromance
Twitter: www.twitter.com/msspencerauthor
Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MSSpencerauthor
GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/msspencer
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/msspencerauthor/
Linked in: www.linkedin.com/in/msspencerauthor
It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Humorous, M.S. Spencer, Mystery, Romantic Comedy, The Pit and the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel by Tena Stetler with 13 comments.
Interview Anna-Marie Abell – Holy Crap! The World is Ending!
Happy holidays to all! Give a big welcome to Anna-Marie Abell, author of Holy Crap! The World is Ending! How a Trip to the Bookstore
Led to Sex with an Alien and the Destruction of Earth – The Anunnaki Chronicles, Book One. A humorous paranormal romance.
Anna-Marie, Do you see yourself in your characters?I am 100% the main character in the Anunnaki Chronicles, strange eating habits and all. In fact, friends all tell me they are picturing me as they are reading. I always get a little flushed when they say this and tell them, “Please don’t think of me during the more ‘intimate’ scenes, or it could get awkward.
What do you want your readers to take away from your books?
Curiosity about our ancient past and an open mind about the possibility of other life in the universe. There is way more to the story of the origins of the human race than we have been led to believe. The universe is also teaming with life, and NASA is finally starting to admit that. Proof of life out there could potentially change how we behave as a human race. It was Reagan that said: “Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” I think if we stop seeing the differences in each other, and realize we are all one and the same, the human race, this world would change for the better. Finding out we are just a blip on the cosmic life radar might bring the minuscule variations of our species into perspective.
Where do your story ideas come from? If they come to you in the middle of the night, do you get up and write them all down?
I have no control over when they come, but I have to say, my best ideas come in the shower. I don’t know why, but that seems to be common among creative types. I have a waterproof tablet I keep with me for the shower. I also have a lighted tablet I keep in my car and by my bed. I have learned that if I think of an idea, I need to write it immediately or I will forget it (and it is getting worse as I get older). I also find that the best inspiration comes from real life. It’s true when they say “you just can’t make that up” about real-life events. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction, and makes for an awesome story.
You’ve got a time machine, a cloak of invisibility, and one hour. Where would you go, and what eavesdropping would you do?
Oh, man! So I research the Sumerian culture and they have a very different version of how man was created. The cuneiform tablets state that the human race was created by the Sumerian gods (the Anunnaki) as workers to help them in the mines. I would go back to when the Sumerian “gods” created the human race so I could see just how they did it. Based on their texts, it is eerily similar to in vitro fertilization. It would change everything if I could prove we were created by an advanced race of beings.
A Peek Between the Pages of Holy Crap! The World is Ending! How a Trip to the Bookstore Led to Sex with an Alien and the Destruction of Earth.
What if…
Ever since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated by the unimaginable. I used to gaze at the night sky and contemplate a series of what ifs. But I’m not talking about the boring typical what ifs such as:
What if I won the lotto?
What if I quit my job and moved to Tanzania?
I’m talking about those outlandish ones:
What if I ran across a herd of three-inch pigmy cows capable of producing solid gold milk, but each ounce I extracted took a month off my life? Would I still do it?
What if we could suddenly have intellectual conversations with all animals? Would we continue to eat them?
What if the whole world went blind and deaf all at the same time? Would we survive as a species?
Another favorite childhood pastime of mine was observing ants clambering atop one another to locate food or gather leaves, like inhabitants of a metropolis bustling to work. Ants are innately oblivious to the threat of a gargantuan foot looming over them. I’ve often wondered if humans would behave the same way if the tables were turned.
What if a jumbo foot came down on us and squashed a city block on a regular basis? After a while, would we just shrug it off and alter course to go around it like ants do?
Some people go out of their way to squish any and all bugs that come across their path. Not me. I have a strict “no kill” policy with every type of animal.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I have an exception for animals I buy in a grocery store. I know: this is incredibly hypocritical. But dammit, I love me some cow. Perhaps I should define my “no kill” policy as “not slaying a creature simply because it annoys you—or simply because you can.”
For example, I can’t help but wonder:
What if I were reincarnated as a fly in my next life? Would I appreciate getting stuck on a glue trap?
Put yourself in the fly’s place. You’re ambling along, minding your own business, when out of nowhere the glorious aroma of In-N-Out Burger wafts in your direction. Those freshly cooked fries and juicy burgers fill your senses with food ecstasy. Just when you can’t take it anymore, a sign pops up out of thin air that reads: All You Can Eat! Free In-N-Out Burgers All Day.
Salivating, you charge toward the smell all excited. Then—BAM!—you step onto a glue pad, unable to break free. Not only are you doomed to a lengthy, torturous death of dehydration and starvation, but your last days are filled with the constant aroma of those heavenly cheeseburgers you can never have.
Not the way I’d want to kick the bucket, that’s for sure.
My fixation over these what ifs is why I was so into UFOs, ancient aliens, near-death experiences, ghosts, and really, anything paranormal. Truth be told, I’m not sure if deep down I believed in all these things, or if I just wanted them to be real, so I’d have something to hope for beyond the monotony of human life. I mean, think about it. What would be more entertaining: cleaning a toilet, or cleaning a toilet haunted by a ghost? (Well, a friendly one. It might get messy if your bowl were possessed by a demon.) Phantom commodes win hands down.
I’ll never forget the day this whole obsession got started. When I was six, I asked my mom what life was going to be like when I grew up. She was always one for blunt honesty, and she said, “Well, you’ll go to school for a really long time, marry a guy who will lose all his hair, get a job you’ll probably hate, have kids, get old, poop your pants, and then die.”
I broke down in tears.
My mom ended up regretting having told me all that, because at the age of seven, I convinced myself that those things wouldn’t happen to me, and that it was my destiny to one day rescue the planet. I am talking about a Will Smith in Independence Day style rescue (except I imagined myself with a breadstick in my mouth instead of a cigar). In one childhood fantasy, I used a butter knife and my badass Barbie Mobile to defend the residents of my neighborhood from a rampaging, genetically mutated, alien-giraffe hybrid that had escaped from a secret government lab. (Kids, if you ever want your mom to get fired as the president of the PTA so she doesn’t embarrass you in front of your class, simply splatter your shirt with ketchup and burst into the annual Teacher Appreciation Luncheon with a spork screaming about man-eating giraffes. Trust me, it works like a charm.)
This desire to be the hero had me hooked on stories where people discover they’re part of an amazing new reality—a world where the impossible becomes possible. If I waited long enough, I thought, maybe Hagrid and his flying motorcycle would come crashing into my bathroom as I sat on the toilet and proclaim, “You’re a wizard, Autumn!”
But it’s one thing to dream it, and an entirely different thing to live it. Had I been smart and heeded the advice of the Pussycat Dolls when they warned us to “Be careful what you wish for, ’cause you just might get it,” then maybe things would have played out differently.
I wished it.
I got it.
And now I’m about to die.
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Alien, Anna-Marie Abell, Holy Crap! The World is Ending!, Humorous, Paranormal, Romance by Tena Stetler with 4 comments.
