Up Front and Very Personal with Sam Cheever

Greetings Sam. Thanks for joining me today. Let's get right to it. Where are you from? What is your writing name?

I write mainstream fiction as Sam Cheever and some would say I’m from Mars. But in actuality I grew up in a mid-sized town in Indiana. Kind of the same thing, actually.
I also write M/M romantic suspense and fantasy as Declan Sands.

As a child, who did Sam want to be when she grew up?
I always wanted to be a writer. I believe everyone is good at something, the trick is just finding out what that something is. #:0) I discovered at an early age that I had a knack with words. But I didn’t think I was going to be able to make a living writing. Then I found a degree program at a local 4 year college called Professional and Technical Writing. It was the happiest day of my life! I was able to use my BA degree in writing to offer my writing and editing services to Corporate America until I could get my fiction writing career underway. I feel very blessed to have been able to do what I both love and have a skill for.

Tell us about your first book, the highs, the lows and the unexpected.
My first published work was ‘Tween Heaven and Hell, a fast paced paranormal romance about angels and devils in a futuristic world. I wrote the initial draft as a weekly serial, one chapter a week, for a few dozen subscribers. When it was complete I sent it out to several publishers and received an acceptance from Ellora’s Cave a few weeks later. It was very exciting!

The book was published on the Cerridwen Press side of the house, which was the sensual rather than erotic side of Ellora’s Cave because it wasn’t an erotic book. As a result, my sales figures were not as healthy as I’d hoped. However, the first book in the series has gone on to win several awards and the series has gained an extensive following.

What do you find the most difficult to write? Dialogue? Back story? Emotion?
Probably back story. I try really hard not to do info dumps in my stories so I have to use different tactics to flesh out the plot with the necessary information. Writing series fiction, which I tend to do a lot of, makes that both easier and harder. It’s obviously easier for readers who have read the other books in the series to keep up with the relationships and stories that have shaped them, but readers who start in the middle or end of the series need to feel like they know what’s going on too. I solve the problem by making all the books standalone, and then including self-contained information snippets that tie them together as the story unfolds.

What was the best piece of advice you were given in regard to your writing?
Nothing earth shattering there…the advice is the same for everybody…just keep writing. Much easier said than done as you get rejection letter after rejection letter. But the only writers who eventually make it big are the ones who believe in themselves enough to keep slogging through all the disappointment and criticism. It ain’t easy! But if you truly believe you’ve got what it takes, hang in there, keep writing, it will come, grasshopper.

I see you are published with many houses, Sam. How important is it to diversify your publishers in today’s market?
Extremely important. Each house has a specialized, target market where they sell most of their books. For example, Ellora’s Cave obviously has a big chunk of the erotica market and Changeling Press writes hot, short, serialized fiction. Once you figure out what a house’s market is, you can tap into it and broaden your audience. And since most readers tend to read across genres, you can often draw readers across publishers once they’re familiar with your work.

What is your strangest writing habit?
I write in snippets on multiple projects at once. Many writers sit down in the morning and just crank out an allotted number of words on a single project or even a couple. I might have six projects going at any given time and will write a couple thousand words on 3 or 4 of them, sometimes moving back and forth between two or three of them in the space of a single day.

How do you avoid interruptions?
Avoid them? I embrace them! If something has managed to interrupt me it’s probably because I’m stuck on a plot point or have exhausted my creative energy for that moment. I’ll usually take a break and then come back to it. It works for me.

What is one problematic area you have with your writing and how do you fix it?
Occasionally I neglect to describe my characters. #:0) I see them so clearly in my mind and forget the reader doesn’t know them like I do so I think I just take it for granted they know what they look like. Har! It’s now on my list of things I look for in rewrites but, if all else fails, thank goodness for my editor!

Do you have critique partners or beta readers?
No on both counts. I’m a loner when I work. I don’t share my toys in the sandbox very well. It’s just never been something I’ve sought out. The biggest problem for me is timing. I write to a tight deadline and as soon as I finish a book I generally send it off to my editor. I don’t like to wait for others to provide feedback. I trust my editor to find what others would find and, working together, she and I usually turn out a pretty clean book.

You bring a wicked sense of humor to your books - is this you or just your characters micromanaging you..
Alas, I’m afraid it’s me. I can’t seem to help myself. In fact, my characters sometimes beat me upside the head for the situations I put them in. But that’s a big mistake. I have one of those contrary personalities and I’m likely to torture them even more if they complain. hehehe

Click Amazon to read excerpts from books by Sam Cheever.

USA Today Best Selling author Sam Cheever has published 50+ books of romantic suspense and fantasy/paranormal. Her books have won the Dream Realm Award for fantasy and The Swirl (interracial romance) Award. They've been nominated for and/or won several CAPAs, have been nominated multiple years for “Best of” with LRC and The Romance Reviews, and have won eCataromance’s Reviewer’s Choice award. Sam is published with Musa Publishing, Changeling Press; and Ellora’s Cave. She also publishes as Declan Sands, writing m/m fiction, and under her own imprint, Electric Prose Publications.

In real life, Sam lives in a cabin in the woods with 13 dogs and one husband. A self-proclaimed dog-aholic, Sam insists she's holding at 13...maybe...

Learn more about Sam Cheever on her website and blog Eclectic Insights. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find Sam on Goodreads, her Amazon Author Page, and About. Me.

Bubba's Here and I'd Love for You to Meet Him

...you know...before he's dead...

Where Miss Fortune meets Miss Chance

Miss Felicity Chance’s father is missing, and her sexy PI Calford Amity thinks he’s found him. Together, they follow a trail of gold coins to Sinful, Louisiana, where a homeless guy named Bayou Bubba turns up dead with an alligator tooth in his hand and a gold coin between his teeth. Is Bubba Miss Chance’s long lost father? Or will the mystery of his disappearance suck her down into the bogs of the Bayou, and ruin her favorite purse?

By the time we drove into Sinful, Louisiana, I’d reconsidered the wonderfulness of spending time with the once sexy Cal Amity. A more judgmental, stick-up-the-ass person I’d never met. I realized as he scoured me with a look that said “you’re an idiot aren’t you?” for about the hundredth time since we’d met at the airport in Indy, that the gulf between him and me just might be too wide to leap…or cross with a 747.

“I made us reservations at the Backwater Inn,” he told me as he turned left off Sinful’s wide, main street and headed for the dirty brown strip of water in the distance.

“Of course you did,” I murmured.

“I heard that.”

“Of course you did,” I murmured more softly.

“I heard that too.”

I glared over at him. “What’s the deal with the muddy puddle up ahead? Has there been a flood?”

“That would be the Bayou and I might need to use a boat for part of my investigation.”

I didn’t miss the “I” in his declaration. I would have argued, telling him there was no “I” in “me too” but the other part of his statement iced my bowels. My eyes widened as we turned into a pockmarked gravel parking lot, adjacent to a long building with fake logs for walls. “We’re going out there?” I jabbed a finger toward the muddy ribbon cutting a swath along the edge of Sinful. “Why ever would we do that?”

“Because that’s where I believe your father is.” Cal cut the engine and climbed out of the black Jeep he’d rented for us. He unfolded his long, lean length and stood, stretching enthusiastically before closing the door.

Yes, god help me, I did stare at his fine, round behind as he stretched. He might be a pain in my ass, but his was finer than hundred-year-old Scotch in front of a roaring fire.

Or as the people of Sinful would probably say…finer than frog hair. If frogs had hair.

Shaking my head on the question I climbed out too, groaning and clasping my back as pain zig-zagged down my leg. “I don’t want to sit down for a week.”

Cal focused his Caribbean blue gaze fringed with thick black lashes on me and, despite the “you’re an idiot aren’t you?” look on his chiseled features, my knee ligaments melted a little. “It was a long trip,” he offered in only a slightly disgusted tone.

I blinked, nearly toppling to the muddy gravel with surprise. “Um. Yeah. It was.”

I followed the intrepid Cal toward a door marked “Office” at the center of the long building.

A ten foot long concrete alligator adorned the narrow strip of grass alongside the door, his painted surface chipped and the flower hat on his head faded from the sun.

Cal’s assessing gaze slid right over the gator, seeing no entertainment value in it at all. But I just couldn’t resist a quick selfie. Crouching down next to the silly critter, I made my eyes go wide and my lips form a terrorized “O” and clicked a picture to send to my BFFs back in Indy. I chuckled as I hit Send and turned, squeaking a little as I almost ran into a man with a thin, graying ponytail and a tattoo of a gator running up his enormous biceps. “Oh, sorry.”

The man fixed me with a glacial gray gaze. He didn’t speak, his too-small mouth pursing a little inside the boundaries of a mustache and scraggly beard.

“Well.” I felt like a complete fool for my selfie antics so I laughed self-consciously and stepped around him, imagining I could feel the sting of his gaze on my back as I hurried inside.

Cal was talking to a man I assumed to be the manager.

“Yeah, I know him,” the manager said. “That’s Bayou Bubba. Sinful’s most interesting homeless guy. He don’t look like that no more though.” The manager grinned, showing jagged teeth the color of the Bayou.

Cal slipped the picture he carried of my father back into his shirt pocket. “Can you tell me where we can find him?”

The man’s mud-colored smile slipped away. He glanced at me…probably noting, too late, the shell-shocked aspect of my face. He inclined his head in my direction. “Ma’am.”

“Hello.”

The man I assumed was the manager of the Backwater Inn reached beneath the counter and pulled out a key, handing it to Cal.

One key. Oh oh. I opened my mouth to object when Cal handed it to me. “Do you know where Bayou Bubba is living?” he asked the motel manager.

The man skimmed me another look.

Cal glanced my way. “Miss Chance, will you go to the room, please? I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.” Remembering my close call with the frigid-eyed guy outside, I considered digging in my heels and insisting that I stay, but something on Cal’s handsome face made me nod and exit the stifling office. Despite the thick, overheated air outside, I was thankful to leave the stale ashtray scent of the office behind me. I looked at the key, which had a grinning alligator key chain, and noted the number nine on the gator’s yellow belly.

Room number nine wasn’t far from the Jeep. Recoiling at the sour, coolish air that met me at the door, I shielded my nose with one hand. “Ugh!” The room was dark and noisy, with a portable air conditioner toiling loudly from its hole in the wall.

There were two beds, both covered in dark green cotton spreads, and one small table between them.

The carpet was also dark green, making the whole room depressingly dark. I went over and yanked the heavy drapes back, sneezing as dust bloomed on the air. Sunlight speared the room with light and heat.

The door snapped open and the delectable Cal was suddenly backlit by the blazing sun. He stared at me for a moment and I held my breath. My gaze followed him as he closed the door and crossed the room. He scanned a look over the bathroom before coming back.

“Do we have enough towels?”

He didn’t even crack a smile.

“Soap?” Okay, there was a slightly desperate sounding squeak in my voice. I twined my fingers together and swallowed. “Just hit me with it. Rip it right off like a Band-Aid.”

Cal’s dark eyebrows peaked. “Rip what off?”

Good god! “What did the manager tell you that he didn’t want to say in front of me?”

“Oh.” Scrubbing a big, square hand over his chin, Cal looked me right in the eye. “He told me your father’s in the morgue.”

My knees buckled and, to his credit, Cal proved he had excellent reflexes as well as a truly fine ass. Thank god he caught me. I’d have hated to land on the filthy carpet.

The sun streaming across it had illuminated something that looked a lot like dried blood.



Click Amazon to read excerpts from books by Sam Cheever.

USA Today Best Selling author Sam Cheever has published 50+ books of romantic suspense and fantasy/paranormal. Her books have won the Dream Realm Award for fantasy and The Swirl (interracial romance) Award. They've been nominated for and/or won several CAPAs, have been nominated multiple years for “Best of” with LRC and The Romance Reviews, and have won eCataromance’s Reviewer’s Choice award. Sam is published with Musa Publishing, Changeling Press; and Ellora’s Cave. She also publishes as Declan Sands, writing m/m fiction, and under her own imprint, Electric Prose Publications.

In real life, Sam lives in a cabin in the woods with 13 dogs and one husband. A self-proclaimed dog-aholic, Sam insists she's holding at 13...maybe...

Learn more about Sam Cheever on her website and blog Eclectic Insights. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find Sam on Goodreads, her Amazon Author Page, and About. Me.

Two Names for One Talented Woman

I'm very excited to have multi-published author Sam Cheever here today to talk freely about her career and life. So let's get right to it.

Where are you from? What is your writing name?
I write mainstream fiction as Sam Cheever and some would say I’m from Mars. But in actuality I grew up in a mid-sized town in Indiana. Kind of the same thing, actually.

I also write M/M romantic suspense and fantasy as Declan Sands.

As a child, who did Sam want to be when she grew up?
I always wanted to be a writer. I believe everyone is good at something, the trick is just finding out what that something is. #:0) I discovered at an early age that I had a knack with words. But I didn’t think I was going to be able to make a living writing. Then I found a degree program at a local 4 year college called Professional and Technical Writing. It was the happiest day of my life! I was able to use my BA degree in writing to offer my writing and editing services to Corporate America until I could get my fiction writing career underway. I feel very blessed to have been able to do what I both love and have a skill for.

Tell us about your first book, the highs, the lows and the unexpected.
My first published work was ‘Tween Heaven and Hell, a fast paced paranormal romance about angels and devils in a futuristic world. I wrote the initial draft as a weekly serial, one chapter a week, for a few dozen subscribers. When it was complete I sent it out to several publishers and received an acceptance from Ellora’s Cave a few weeks later. It was very exciting!

The book was published on the Cerridwen Press side of the house, which was the sensual rather than erotic side of Ellora’s Cave because it wasn’t an erotic book. As a result, my sales figures were not as healthy as I’d hoped. However, the first book in the series has gone on to win several awards and the series has gained an extensive following.

What do you find the most difficult to write? Dialogue? Back story? Emotion?
Probably back story. I try really hard not to do info dumps in my stories so I have to use different tactics to flesh out the plot with the necessary information. Writing series fiction, which I tend to do a lot of, makes that both easier and harder. It’s obviously easier for readers who have read the other books in the series to keep up with the relationships and stories that have shaped them, but readers who start in the middle or end of the series need to feel like they know what’s going on too. I solve the problem by making all the books standalone, and then including self-contained information snippets that tie them together as the story unfolds.

What was the best piece of advice you were given in regards to your writing?
Nothing earth shattering there…the advice is the same for everybody…just keep writing. Much easier said than done as you get rejection letter after rejection letter. But the only writers who eventually make it big are the ones who believe in themselves enough to keep slogging through all the disappointment and criticism. It ain’t easy! But if you truly believe you’ve got what it takes, hang in there, keep writing, it will come, grasshopper.

I see you are published with many houses, Sam. How important is it to diversify your publishers in today’s market?
Extremely important. Each house has a specialized, target market where they sell most of their books. For example, Ellora’s Cave obviously has a big chunk of the erotica market and Changeling Press writes hot, short, serialized fiction. Once you figure out what a house’s market is, you can tap into it and broaden your audience. And since most readers tend to read across genres, you can often draw readers across publishers once they’re familiar with your work.

What is your strangest writing habit?
I write in snippets on multiple projects at once. Many writers sit down in the morning and just crank out an allotted number of words on a single project or even a couple. I might have six projects going at any given time and will write a couple thousand words on 3 or 4 of them, sometimes moving back and forth between two or three of them in the space of a single day.

How do you avoid interruptions?
Avoid them? I embrace them! If something has managed to interrupt me it’s probably because I’m stuck on a plot point or have exhausted my creative energy for that moment. I’ll usually take a break and then come back to it. It works for me.

What is one problematic area you have with your writing and how do you fix it?
Occasionally I neglect to describe my characters. #:0) I see them so clearly in my mind and forget the reader doesn’t know them like I do so I think I just take it for granted they know what they look like. Har! It’s now on my list of things I look for in rewrites but, if all else fails, thank goodness for my editor!

You bring a wicked sense of humor to your books - is this you or just your characters micromanaging you.
Alas, I’m afraid it’s me. I can’t seem to help myself. In fact, my characters sometimes beat me upside the head for the situations I put them in. But that’s a big mistake. I have one of those contrary personalities and I’m likely to torture them even more if they complain. hehehe

Sam, please tell us more about your writing and a little on the personal side of your life.
I write as Sam Cheever for mainstream romantic suspense and fantasy, all heat levels; and Declan Sands for M/M romantic suspense and fantasy. I live on a hobby farm in Indiana with 13 dogs, 2 horses, and one husband. I write books I like to read and read books I wish I’d written. My books are fast paced and fun loving. Not one of them will solve a single world problem, but you definitely won’t be bored while reading them!

My published work includes 40+ works of young adult, romantic suspense, and fantasy/paranormal. My books have won the Dream Realm Award for fantasy, been nominated and/or won several CAPAs, were nominated for Best of 2010 with LRC and The Romance Reviews, and won eCataromance’s Reviewer’s Choice award. I am published with Ellora’s Cave, both Romantica and Blush; Changeling Press; Electric Prose Publications (my own imprint), and Red Rose Publishing. I look forward to chatting with you today and sharing some of my work!

Sam Cheever links: Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Blog

Declan Sands links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads



If lust were flames there'd be scorch marks across the ages!

Ardith is a time traveling witch, a member of the Epoch Mages. Draigh is a Sorceri Bounty Hunter. They H-A-T-E each other. When they’re thrown together by the elders to chase an evil rogue witch through time and save the world from flesh eating zombies, they quickly discover that, while their minds may tell them they don’t like being together, their bodies don’t quite agree. In fact, if lust were flames, there would be a lot of scorch marks across the ages!

~ 5 Stars from SnifferWalk "I don't hand out a ton of 5 Star ratings for books. Like my Ratings Guide says, they have to be practically life changing. But if I read a book and I just cannot seem to forget it, it has to be a 5."

~ 5 Stars from My Cozie Corner Book Reviews "A hard to put down novel that will captivate you from the beginning."

~~*~~

Draigh couldn’t believe he was being forced to work with a mage. He was fully capable of capturing the crone Edana without an epoch mage tagging along. He’d hunted rogue magic users for centuries and needed no instruction from the young wench striding along beside him as if she owned the world.

He cast her a sideways glance, taking in the long, well-toned limbs and the lush curves beneath the scant leather costume she wore. The ridiculous clothing barely covered her considerable assets. He wanted to be disgusted by the clothing, hating how it made him hard beneath his own leather breeches.

Very hard.

And he despised the woman. The last thing he wanted was to have any kind of pleasant thoughts about her. Particularly of the carnal kind.

Draigh forced his gaze away from the soft roundness bulging past the edges of the leather top. The woman was a damn temptress. He’d seen her type before. He’d had his balls handed to him by one in fact. He might not be the smartest hunter on the planet. But he rarely made the same mistake twice. The witch was nothing but trouble.

At the moment she stood between him and his prey. That was unacceptable. The first thing he needed to do was rid himself of her. Then he could do the job he’d been hired to do.

Her steps slowed and faltered as they approached the low-slung structure at the edge of town. He immediately realized the same thing she obviously had. It was one of the bunker-style buildings that had become so popular since the great wars. Only the entrance was above ground. Most of the structure was subterranean.

He slid a furtive glance the witch’s way and noted the moisture already beading on her upper lip. Her usual creamy, peach-toned skin had turned a pasty shade of tan. He wanted to celebrate her discomfort. But somehow he just couldn’t. “I can go inside and question the witness. You can wait outside.” He hadn’t meant it to sound like a command. Unfortunately that was the way it had emerged from his lips.

Her head whipped around, flinging the thick, waist-length braid into the air as her gaze snapped in his direction. “I’m fine. I don’t need you protecting me.”

Draigh ground his teeth. So much for learning from his mistakes. He’d tried to give the viper a soft nest to rest upon, and the damn thing had thanked him by attempting to sink its fangs into his throat. “Suit yourself, witch.”

She strode right up to the victim’s door and pounded. Draigh waited a few feet back, his gaze sweeping the area for signs of Edana’s own special type of trouble. The witch pounded on the door again and received no response.

She glanced at Draigh. “Looks like we’ll have to do this the hard way.” Magic thickened on the air and Draigh swore. “Let me try…”

Ardith sent a focused beam of magic into the door handle and the door swung open. She turned to give Draigh a smug smile, not noticing as a large hand appeared from inside the house and wrapped around the edge of the door. Draigh called out a warning and she started to turn.

The door slammed outward, sending her sprawling.

Before he knew what he was doing, Draigh had thrown himself over the witch.

She landed beneath him with an umph and started pelting his chest with her small fists. “Get off me, oaf.”

Pain pierced his calf as her damn familiar clamped his massive jaws around Draigh’s leg and gave it a warning squeeze, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

The stench of sour, old death assailed his nostrils. Draigh squinted through the shadows beyond the door and saw movement. “Stop it, witch! Call off your dog. We have company.”

He tried to grab her wrists but she was too agitated. Fighting the urge to smack her unconscious, Draigh screamed into her face, “Stop fighting me. Edana’s pets are about to descend on us.”

Fortunately her dog was smarter than she. He released Draigh and stood with teeth bared, snarling at the shadowed entrance.

She peered around his shoulder just as the first pale half-rotted face appeared in the doorway. “Well why didn’t you say so?” The first blast of her magic nearly took his ear off.

He rolled off her. “Damn it, woman.”

She leapt to her feet and sent another blast into the conglomeration of mucus and bone marching stiffly toward them. The zombie’s bloodied, jagged teeth were bared in a warning hiss. When her magic hit, the thing surged backward, a huge chunk of its chest sloughing away under the force of her witch fire.

Draigh pulled one of his knives and leapt on the lumbering monster nearest him, slicing the knife cleanly through its spongy neck with one swipe. Putrid-smelling green slime sprayed in an arc from the blade of his knife, saturating Draigh’s face and arms. The head dropped to the ground and rolled away, and the body sank to the earth.

When Draigh looked toward the door, he was facing a small army of the mangy creatures. Ardith stood beside him, her eyes flashing and her fists fizzling with unshed magic.

He glanced at her. “I hate zombies.”

She gave him a slow smile. “You wanted exercise. I think you’re gonna get it.”

Then she leapt into the fray, witch fire flying, and Draigh reluctantly followed.

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AND THE NOMINEES ARE...

Some of the finest books, authors, covers, and publishers in the industry are up for the annual awards from Love Romance Café. Dawn Roberto and her staff worked hard to select the contenders and lay out the voting procedures. A wise and seasoned author told me, "Chosen as a nominee is the honor" and I do believe she was correct.

I'm grateful and excited to be a part of this moment. My erotic novella PHOTO Op! is in the running for Best Contemporary Book 2013. This would not have happened without my amazing editor Helen Hardt and those two critique rascals who never let me get by with a thing, Melissa Bradley and Erica Dananay. A special thanks goes to the person who started this all and shoved me onto the right path, my mentor mystery writer Beth Anderson.

There are many close friends who are nominated this year. Three phenomenal authors who are also my Wenches of Words cohorts: Sharon Ledwith, Legend of the Timekeepers Best YA Book, and Sam Cheever Best Author and Declan Sands Blood-Hound Best Series. Another bud who has always been there when I needed her Clare London Best Cover. The other nominee friends are at the top of their genres Jane Dougherty The Dark Citadel Best YA Book, Desiree Holt Lock and Load Best Thriller/Suspense/Mystery, Selena Illyria Mate Not Wanted Best Erotic Romance Book. I am elated to add Musa Publishing BEST PUBLISHER, and they really are.

The excitement builds as the voting begins today. All 4000 plus members of Love Romances Café are eager to choose their favorites.

Congratulations to all the talented nominees and the best of luck to everyone!

What Makes Cozy Mysteries so Popular?

by Sam Cheever

What is it about cozy mysteries that makes them so much fun? To answer that question, I guess you need to start with the basic elements of a cozy. When one thinks of a cozy, one might think Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple or maybe Angela Lansbury’s character, Jessica Fletcher, of Murder She Writes fame. The traditional cozy is set in a specific, confined area, such as a bunch of people stranded in a remote location with a killer in their midst, a.k.a Clue (Best. Movie. Ever). Many contemporary cozies are in small town settings, with quirky characters and the challenges and opportunities inherent in small town living. A cozy generally revolves around a murder, but the murder is usually off screen and/or not overly violent.

Cozy mysteries feature amateur sleuths of all kinds. For example, some of the most popular contemporary cozy series feature flower shop owners, chefs, caterers, accountants, book store owners, writers, and dog trainers. These unlikely sleuths find themselves repeatedly embroiled in murder most foul and struggling to figure out whodunit. The mystery is made more interesting by the quirkiness of the people involved, their tendency to lie and cover, and the misconceptions that come from knowing someone for years. It’s a fun formula fraught with opportunities for both the reader and the sleuth to go awry and lose their way.

Which brings me to the reason I love a good cozy mystery. I love the challenge and journey of figuring out whodunit in a light, fun environment. No guts, no gore, no over-the-top sensuality. Just a big, fun puzzle.

My own cozy mystery series is centered on an antiques store owner and has an additional fun twist. Filled with lots of great, old things, Yesterday’s Antiques is a hotbed of paranormal activity, giving Yesterday Mysteries a paranormal edge. This aspect adds an extra element of fun to the already enjoyable mystery. Anna Yesterday is a kind, attractive young woman trying to make a living doing what she loves in a small town in Southern Indiana. When Anna opened Yesterday’s Antiques, she inherited two spirits, who are tied to objects that were once buried under the store.

Joss is a cowboy from pre-Civil war times, whose gun belt and holster were uncovered behind the store when Anna was having some improvements made. Joss is sexy, protective, and obviously in love with Anna, and she feels pretty much the same about him. The second specter, Bess was a saloon girl who sometimes cleaned the floors in the inn that was located where Yesterday’s now exists. She lived in the mid to late 1800s and Anna isn’t sure what her transference object is. Bess and Anna butt heads on a regular basis, mostly due to the fact that Bess is jealous of Anna’s relationship with Joss, but also because…well…Bess is kind of a crank.

To make things even more interesting, Anna has a sexy, flesh and blood assistant who’s an ex-cop to help her with her sleuthing. Her growing feelings for Pratt are confusing and cause no end of tension between the two men in her life. All in all, it’s a fun series with likeable characters and I’m really enjoying being on the creation side of the cozy mystery genre for a change! I hope you’ll check these books out.

~~*~~

Antiques can be a dangerous business. Especially when you’re dealing with a desperate politician, a sexy ex-cop, and a couple of “spirited” companions.

Anna Yesterday owns Yesterday’s Antiques in small town USA. When she finds an old newspaper clipping lining the drawer of an antique dresser, she realizes she’s never heard the ugly story of rape and suicide detailed on the yellowed newsprint. So she starts to dig, and her sleuthing exposes an ugly cover-up that casts the residents of Crocker, Indiana into danger and intrigue, and leaves them with a corpse.

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~~*~~

A deadly secret is tangled up in Yesterday’s Threads, and Anna is racing the clock to get it unraveled.

In 1859, Elisabeth Margaret Nelson traveled to Crocker, Indiana to meet her new husband and start a new life. Her family never saw her again. The story of her death and a heartbroken husband who grieves his entire life is a sad tale for sure. But is it true?

When Anna Yesterday receives some vintage dresses from the local museum, she’s excited about highlighting them at Crocker’s annual Apple Blossom Festival. But someone wants the dresses back, and they’ll apparently stop at nothing to get them—leaving a trail of murder and destruction in their wake.

As Anna and Pratt work to uncover the deadly intrigue behind the vintage dresses, interference of another kind is working its way to the surface. All too soon, Anna and Pratt find themselves neck deep in trouble from more than one dimension—and wondering which will get them first!

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Sam Cheever writes mainstream romantic suspense and fantasy, all heat levels; and Declan Sands for M/M romantic suspense and fantasy. Her books are fast paced and fun loving. Not one of them will solve a single world problem, but you definitely won’t be bored while reading them!

Sam’s published work includes 40+ works of young adult, romantic suspense, and fantasy/paranormal. My books have won the Dream Realm Award for fantasy, been nominated and/or won several CAPAs, were nominated for Best of 2010 with LRC and The Romance Reviews, and won eCataromance’s Reviewer’s Choice award. She is published with Ellora’s Cave, both Romantica and Blush; Changeling Press; Electric Prose Publications (her own imprint), Musa Publishing, and Red Rose Publishing.

She lives on a hobby farm in Indiana with 13 dogs, 2 horses, and one husband.


Sam Cheever links: Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Blog

Declan Sands links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads