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Family...like Granny Zula says, we are three gallons of crazy in a two gallon bucket. When it comes to me and my sister, Charlotte Rae, she's the crazy one even though I'm the one who was diagnosed with the Funeral Trauma. Just like most sisters, Charlotte and I were a little competitive in the funeral home business. After all, she did leave Eternal Slumber, our family funeral home, and began to work for a big funeral home that was more than just laying corpse in the casket. She went to work for the Hardgrove's Legacy Centers. They hosted baby showers, bridal parties, and even catered events right along side of a funeral. Granny said that she'd never seen the like: "You can go to a baby shower in the morning and walk over to a layout to pay respect in the afternoon."
But back to the Funeral Trauma. What is the Funeral Trauma? Well, I think Doc Clyde made it up to make granny and Charlotte feel better after I had a perilous run in with a plastic Santa falling on top of my head and knocking me flat out! I thought I was a goner, gone to visit the big guy in the sky like the clients I stuck six feet under when I was visited by the ghosts of people I've put six feet under. Only they tell me that they can't cross over until I can figure out who killed them.
KILLED THEM??? I'm an undertaker, not a criminal investigator. Or was I?
A couple of years later, a few Betweener clients murders solved (yeah...they're called Betweeners, stuck between here and there), I've got the hardest client yet.
Charlotte Rae Raines.
Yep. That's my sister. When she realized I could see her in her new ghost state and when I realized I was the only one who could now see here. . .our relationship took a turn.
The thought of my sister being dead and I was the one who had to help find her killer was bitter sweet. Don't get me wrong, I want to bring the killer to justice and get my hands on them, but when I do find out, Charlotte will cross over and I'll never see her again.
Of course Charlotte's murder has about put Granny one foot in the grave and when Charlotte told me she wanted IT'S MY TURN on her tombstone, Granny about flew off the handle. It's a little undertaker humor that Granny didn't see fit.
I just might take my time trying to figure out this murder.
Welcome to the Bee Farm! I'm Kayla Noro. Me and my husband, Andrew, have been here a long time. We don't have no youngins' between us. These bees are our babies.
I hope y'all had a great ferry ride over and Big Bib wasn't too much of a grump. He can be that way sometimes.
Anyways, as you know, we are a little island off the main land of Honey Springs. We are a working. . .um. . .I'm sorry, I get a bit misty eyed when talking about the place.
You see, I love this farm. I love all the bees. And as you walk around and take a tour, you'll notice a few of our bee houses are vacant. The upkeep of a house costs up to $400 each and sometimes these winter months do a number on them, though we do all we can to survive.
I hate to bring it up, but if you like what you see, we are actually taking donations to help fund the Bee Farm.
There's a jar inside of the gift shop next to the register. You know Christmas is coming, so if want to gift someone a jar of honey, we are doing free shipping. So buy several jars.
If you see Andrew out there, he's probably fiddlin' with some bees. Stop by and say hello. He loves to answer questions.
What is something you love to eat with honey in it?
***(YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT THE BEE FARM AND ALL IT'S PROBLEMS ALONG WITH A DEAD BODY TIED TO THE RUMBLINGS IN DECAFFEINATED SCANDAL, THE FIFTH BOOK IN THE KILLER COFFEE MYSTERY SERIES >>>>>>> https://amzn.to/2pylHdL ***
Character Interview With Hunky Oscar Park, Sheriff of Whispering Falls
1 - We all want to be different, so what is the one thing you wish your creator had done differently with you? I wish she’d put more love scenes in there with me and June! Or even had more scenes with me using my wizard wand instead of everything focusing on June and her gift of potion making.
2 - If you could have added something to the story, and your creator would have let you, what would that have been?
3 - What do you love best about yourself? What do you like least? I love that I’m a cop and she made me super cute. The girl readers seem to love that and call me their book boyfriend! The least thing I like is how June seems to get in sticky situations without me there to help her out. I don’t like my girl in danger.
4 - What part of the book was the hardest for you and your creator to work through? The fact that June is in situations where she is eye-to-eye with a murderer. Since I’m the sheriff, I have to keep some things a secret and that’s hard for me to do.
5 – What do you want to accomplish in the next book? Now that June and I are married, I tell her a lot of the evidence and crime scene information I collect from the recent murder in Whispering Falls. It's been great because June has this amazing intuition and we talk out what might've happened and I get leads from her that I'd otherwise never gotten before. I'd like to accomplish more in the way of deepening my relationship outside of romance with June.
Welcome to Normal, Kentucky, where nothing is . . . NORMAL!
Mae West, owner of Happy Trails Campground, never thought she would become an actress like her namesake. Calling herself an actress might be far stretch as she plays a minor role in the local Civil War reenactment BATTLE AT CAMP WILDCAT.
When the reenactment doesn't go as planned, not one but two of the town's folks aren't playing dead. . .they were MURDERED!
Come to find out there was a prison break and the serial killer is believed to be in Normal and someone has stolen a motorhome from Happy Trails Campground.
Are these connected?
Mae lets boyfriend and hunky detective, Hank Sharp, follow all the leads about the murders and on the trail of the serial killer because she's got bigger s'mores in the fire.
The motorhome owners have filed a lawsuit and suing her for the deed to Happy Trails Campground. Mae has embraced Normal and there's nothing or no one going to take her campground. She's determined to find the motorhome and return it to the owners before she hands over any deed to anyone.
Mae just might find out that tapping into her namesake just might come in handy when coming face to face with a serial killer.
There is nothing worse than being a witch in your late twenties and still working as a waitress in your family diner. Don't get me wrong, I use to love working at The Brew. I love the locals, I love talking to everyone, I even love cleaning up after them, but after I found out that I belong to a colony of witches and we each have our own powers, then working in the diner isn't so much fun.
I'm the last of my family to get my Witchy Hour and my mom is wondering if I'll ever get my hour or if I'm doomed for life. After all, when I turned sixteen and in anticipation of having my hour, my family introduced me to my familiar. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to get my fury familiar who was going to be my constant companion. Lilith, my sister, has Riule the cat, Gilbert the Macaw is my mother's, and Miss Kitty the owl belongs to my Auntie Meme.
The joke was on me. When I opened my eyes I was confused. There wasn't a four-legged or even two-legged animal. There was a four rubber creature. A 1965 AC Cobra named Vinnie.
"You are different than your sister," I recalled my mother saying. "She likes to stay around the house where you like to run around, go shopping, and hang out with your mortal friends. So we felt it best that your familiar is your car."
It wasn't like Vinnie was a cool car. Sure, the AC Cobra is awesome, but Vinnie. He's snarky. He's sneaky, And he is jealous.
While playing a little game of Truth or Spell with my sister Lilith, my spell backfired sending me into the line of fire between a few bad men and Mick Jasper, an agent with SKUL. Now SKUL expects me, Maggie Parks, to help them since it was me that ruined their mission. Vinnie doesn't like Mick sitting in the passenger side and he's not good at hiding our family secret. Sure, I'd like to help Mick, but not at the expense of my Witchy Hour.
If you had your choice of a familiar, what would you pick? Leave a comment and enter to win a Tonya Kappes Loves Her Readers Tote and charm bangle bracelet!
Early reviews: "A delightful story filled with magic, mystery, intrigue and a touch of Southern humor." ~ Goodreads member Joanne
"I absolutely loved this book. The characters are very well developed, the scenes are very well described and the story line is fun with unexpected twists." ~ Goodreads member Cricket
While Maggie Parks waits for her Witchy Hour, she works at the family diner with her mom, Aunt Meme, and Lilith, her sister - all witches. Soon Maggie gets entangled with a mysterious handsome stranger, Mick Jasper, and his secret U.S. organization, SKUL. Has she found her calling?
June Heal: Olivia Davis, you are up. Tonya said you go first since your novel was her first mystery published.
Olivia Davis: What? What is Tonya up to now?
June: Something about a new adventure in blogging where we do the blogging, not her.
Olivia: Really? (She rubs her hands together.)
June: Umm. . .yes.
Olivia: What do you want me to say?
June: I guess since this is our first time on the blog, we need to tell the readers who we are and what we do.
Olivia: I'm Olivia Davis in the Olivia Davis Mystery Series. Tonya created me after she saw a show where this guy uses the internet as breakup business. Since I'm extra special to Tonya. . .
June: You aren't extra special.
Olivia: Yes I am. I was first.
June: Um-kay. Whatever you say. But I have eight books in my series to your two.
Olivia glares at June.
June: (shrugs) Just sayin'.
Olivia: Anyways, having a breakup service wasn't enough and Tonya loves to watch shows like Mork and Mindy, Twilight Zone, Betwitched, Knight Rider, Murder She Wrote, Touched By An Angel, so she knew having me posses some sort of paranormal power would add a little more fun and humor to the story.
Holly Harper: She didn't give me any special powers.
June: Holly, it's not your turn yet.
Holly: Did Tonya die and make you a writer?
Tonya Kappes: Ladies! Okay. I didn't want to intervene, but this is exactly why I didn't write one book with all of y'all in it because each of you deserve your own stories and spotlight.
Olivia: Yeah, but I was your first USA Today Bestselling novel.
June: I was second!
Olivia: You know what Ricky Bobby says: if you ain't first, you last.
Tonya: Stop! Olivia finish telling our new blog readers who you are.
Olivia: I can't hold a regular go the the office type of job because I read auras and pass out when too many are coloring my world. So I started an online breakup service where my clients write me, telling me personal things about their relationship so the person I'm breaking up with knows I'm not a fake. Things are going great until one of my clients ends up dead and the police traces his computer files back to me and my business. Of course I had to take matters into my own hands in fear the police is going to shut me down and I'd never be able to another job to pay my bills.
Tonya: Holly, can you tell our new readers your story?
Holly: Yep. I live in one of Tonya's made up small southern towns. I own The Beaded Dragonfly, a lapidary (bead store). I belong to a divorcee club where we use to meet in the basement of the local baptist church. Now me and the Divorced Divas, what we like to call ourselves, meet once a week at my store and make jewelry. The Divorced Divas range in age from nineteen to a spry eighty-five. Me and the Divas love to bash our exes until one of them showed up dead. And all the fingers pointed to us Divas!
Tonya: Thank you, Holly. Laurel London.
Laurel: What?!
Tonya: Ladies and gents, Laurel is the snarkiest of my characters. I'm sure you'll get a kick out of her.
Laurel: Yeah, they say I'm full of piss and vinegar. Really I'm just full of snark and sass. I grew up in an orphanage in my small southern town that Tonya created. Needless to say, I got into a lot of trouble as a kid and some people in town just haven't forgotten it as I've grown up, making it hard for me to keep a job or having a nice car. So I drive an old police cruiser that looks like a taxi. When mob boss, Trigger Finger Tony, jumped into my car thinking I was a taxi, my life changed forever.
Tonya: Emma Lee Raines, are you here?
Emma: I am. If y'all haven't figured it out, Tonya writes southern, small town charm with humor. She's known to make you laugh out loud, dry your tear ducts, and keep you guessing until the end. It might sound silly that she can make my job as an undertaker all those things, but somehow she does. I love being the undertaker in my small southern town, but when I had a run in with a falling plastic Santa Claus and knocked flat out, I woke up in the hospital. I was sure I was a goner. Joined the big guy in the sky because my family stood on one side of my hospital bed while clients of my funeral home, Eternal Slumber, stood on the other side of my bed. My clients as in six-feet under. Dead. That year Santa didn't give me a gift I wanted, he gave me the gift of communicating with dead people. Dead people who have been murdered. Now I have two jobs. I'm an undertaker and a Betweener.
Tonya: Alright June.
June: Saving the best for last? (June picks up her fairy-god cat, Mr. Prince Charming)
I'm June Heal. I'm going to tell a big secret. My story was the first one Tonya wrote back in 2009. Originally I was going to be a young adult. Tonya let me hang around because she isn't a witch or knows anything about witches and she didn't want her readers to think she was witch, so she wrote several of my stories and waited. I'm glad she did because she's developed my world into an amazing place. I'm a homeopathic curest just like my mamma, Darla was. It wasn't until later that I discovered I was born into a family of spiritualist, but didn't know until I moved to a small southern town with cozy shops. Little did I realize all the shop owners have some sort of spiritual gift and their shop is a cover for their gift. Since I'm a homeopathic curest, my shop is sorta like an apothecary. When a client comes they might think they have heartburn, when in reality they have a broken heart. I hide behind my little partition where my cauldron is located and make a very personal potion for each customer. Mr. Prince Charming, my fairy-god cat, happens to be one of the most popular characters in the books as well as the Karima sisters. They own Two Sisters and A Funeral, both can communicate with spirits. Then there Raven and Faith Mortimer, who own Wicked Good Bakery. I could go on and on about all the cozy shop and their owners, but I suggest you come visit and take a gander around for yourself. Readers have claimed that I'm the adult version of Harry Potter! Fun!
Emma Lee: I think I can speak for all of Tonya's series and characters when I say that Books and Company Book Store had it right last year when they claimed that "Tonya Kappes has the freshest voice in cozy mystery." And Murder By The Book Store claims that my series, The Ghostly Southern Mystery Series, is the most anticipated series of the year! Plus. . .my story won Best Fiction Novel 2015 from Joseph Beth Booksellers.
Tonya: Okay, y'all. Stop bragging.
Laurel London: We have to because we know you won't.
