Sponsored by Virtual Book Tour Cafe
Welcome to Books, Books, and More Books. I am pleased to share my review of this book
with you. Thank you for visiting and
please come again.
Book
Genre-Cozy Mystery
Publisher -
Tightwad Tess Press
Release
Date-September 2011
Blurb :
A Mystery for Ghost Hunters!
When Betsy's Aunt Maggie wants to drag
her along on a ghost hunting excursion at the local abandoned tuberculosis
hospital she isn't sure if she quite believes in ghosts. When she comes upon a
fresh spirit in the form of a body, she starts to rethink about what really is
haunting the hospital.
Betsy must solve the murder in spite
of her father, who is a lieutenant on the Pecan Bayou Police Force, town
citizens worried about the effect of the occult on their children, and handsome
stranger from Dallas. How do you get blood out of a silk blouse? Betsy
Livingston can tell you in her newspaper column, "The Happy Hinter".
When she's not writing, or taking care of her young son, she's busy solving
mysteries in the tiny Texas town of Pecan Bayou.
About the
Author:
Teresa Trent
wasn't born in Texas but after a few glasses of sweet tea and some exceptional
barbecue she decided to stay. With a father in the Army, she found herself
moved all over the world, settling down for a while in her teens in the state
of Colorado. Her writing was influenced by all of the interesting people she
found in small towns and the sense of family that seemed to be woven through
them all. Teresa is a former high school teacher and received her degree from
The University of Northern Colorado.
Teresa is presently working on the third book in her Pecan Bayou
Series. Her second book, Overdue For
Murder, came out in June of 2012.
Contacts:
Excerpt:
“Watch out, Betsy, some of
these old floorboards may be treacherous.” I followed Aunt Maggie through the
rooms full of cracked plaster, floor debris and the ever-present graffiti
sprayed on the walls of the former tuberculosis hospital.
Aunt Maggie was a tiny
woman at four-foot-eight, and the world often towered above her. Her height was
the only part of her that was small. She had the strongest will and the biggest
heart in Texas.
“This is going to be great
when we film here on Halloween, the scariest night of the year. I’m so glad you
decided to help us out and took a few hours away from your tip-writin’ column.
The Pecan Bayou Texas Paranormal Society thanks you, and if we find a ghost –
boy howdy – I thank you.”
“Well, I can spare a few
hours here and there.”
“So, what are you writin’
about now? “
“Um, I’m working on my
pre-Thanksgiving columns. Hey, I have a question for you. What would you say is
the best way to get red wine out of a tablecloth?”
“You know, Aunt Ida had an
unusual way of doing that.”
“You mean the one that used
to bring the chocolate pecan pie when she came to Thanksgiving?” I had not seen
Great Aunt Ida much since she moved to the retirement center near Austin.
“That’s the one. She used
to put her tablecloth over a bowl with the wine stain in the middle of it. Then
she would pour salt on the stain, and then pour boiling water over into the
bowl. Darnedest thing. Took it right out.” Maggie said.
For our other-worldly
walk-through today, Aunt Maggie dressed for the occasion with a black cap on
her head adorned with glow-in-the-dark letters that read “Paranormal Investigator.”
“You like it?” she asked,
noticing my gaze. “I ordered one for everyone on the crew and a few extras. I
thought we ought to look official, bein’ on TV and all.” My aunt’s
honey-colored bouffant hairdo was all crammed up in the cap with sprayed curls
poking out in places.
“Can’t wait to wear mine.”
I was not someone who looked terrific in a ball cap. At least that was what
Barry had said. Funny how after all these years I still felt rejected by him.
.jpg)
Maggie crunched around on
the fallen trash in the main hallway. As we came to the end of the hallway, her
voice lowered slightly. “This up here was what they called the ‘dead tunnel.’ I
saw it in the blueprints Howard had.” Howard was the head of Aunt Maggie’s
paranormal group. Even though sometimes he looked like a person mental health
officials might be interested in observing, he was extremely intelligent and
had a doctorate in paranormal psychology. I didn’t even know a person could get
a degree in ghost hunting, but Howard had achieved this greatness.
Maggie continued her story.
“It was the tunnel they used to wheel the bodies to the morgue. That way the
patients wouldn’t see someone had died.” I never was one to get too frightened
by horror movies, but coming into this part of the hospital certainly had me
qualifying for an official case of the heebie-jeebies. The dead tunnel was
windowless and grimy, and I felt as if we were walking into a mineshaft, not a
morgue.
“So here we are.” Aunt
Maggie’s voice took on a softer tone as if we had just entered a funeral home.
“Looks a little longer than it did in the blueprints.”
We stepped gingerly through
the open door with a sign hanging askew that read, “Hospital Personnel Only: No
One Beyond This Point.”
Unless you’re dead, I
thought. Then you are welcome to come on in and sit a spell.
“Aunt Maggie, we can still
go get Howard. He’s roaming around somewhere here.”
“What are we? Chickens? We
can do this, Betsy.” With that, she shined her red plastic heavy-duty
flashlight down the tunnel. The tunnel seemed to go on and on, leading into
absolute darkness. A million things could be down that hall. They could have
stuffed it all with furniture or antiquated medical equipment that we would
banging into at any moment, and that was my rational expectation. I wasn’t even
acknowledging my irrational side. My aunt’s calling me a chicken did not quite
raise my confidence and charge me up about getting down the dead tunnel.
I nodded my head dully in
agreement as my eyes tried to lock onto anything solid in the dark.
“You’re making fun of me, I
know, but it is true, Betsy. I sense something here. I just hope we can get
this on tape when we have a thermal energy camera pointed at it.” According to
Howard, a thermal energy camera would capture cold and hot spots that the human
eye couldn’t see. We stepped forward, our footfalls now echoing against the
chilled stone.
As Maggie spoke, I felt a
cold breeze hit me. I clenched my bare arms as I felt goose bumps raise up on
my skin. It seemed as if we had phantom air conditioning in this part of the
hospital. Down at the end of the blackness I could hear a faint, high,
chirping, clicking sound. Somehow I hadn’t imagined a ghost clicking at me.
Maybe there were some tap-dancing spirits floating around.
“It has arrived,” Maggie
whispered.
“No,” I said trying to
squelch the shake that had come into my voice. “A … draft has arrived, that’s
all.”
“Think what you want, my
dear.”
She angled the wavering
beam of light into the black recesses of the tunnel. From the other end of the
tunnel, I could hear a distinct rustling sound as something headed our way.
“The apparition is coming
near us,” Maggie sounded delighted.
“What should we do, Aunt
Maggie?” I asked, the volume of my voice rising as the rustling became an
increasing cacophony of noise.
Maggie looked down the
passage and then yelled, “HOLD YOUR GROUND!” She stood with her hands placed
firmly on her rounded hips as the wind started blowing her hat off, releasing
the many stuffed strands of hair that had been under it. She looked like Medusa
as the glow of her flashlight highlighted the snakes of hair surrounding her
face.
The rustling sound
increased. A thousand little clicking noises came at us as a cloud of pulsating
blackness came out of the pitch black.
“This is dangerous, Aunt
Maggie!” I shouted. “I’m not standing here, and neither are you!” I grabbed
Maggie by the shoulders, preparing to lift her off the ground and carry her out
if that was necessary.
“It might be a spirit of
the dead!” she warbled above the din.
“Or it might be the spirit
of something alive.” I turned her around, and we ran as the flashlight beam
bobbed against the walls. I could feel something pulling at my hair and reached
up to grab it. When I did, I could see the wingspan of a Mexican bat as it
flapped out of my grasp. We careened out the door and slammed it behind us. We
could hear the thud of a few bats hitting the door and then what sounded like
the wings of hundreds of bats flapping as they turned back down the tunnel.
I turned around to see
Maggie, leaning against the wall, holding her hat, trying to push the hair out
of her face as her breath came out unevenly. “Are you all right?” I asked as we
both panted at each other.
“Yes, a little jittery, but
I’ll be fine.”
Other Books:
Writing Can
Be Murder!
When local
writers present their books on romance, vampires, chick lit and alien
abductions at the Pecan Bayou Library, one author gets a killer review. Betsy Livingston, there to talk about her
book on helpful hints, finds herself point at for the murder. Join Betsy in her second mystery as she tries
to clear her own name in this hilarious tale of small town Texas life and
murder.
In ebook Form
In Print
Tour Schedule:
September 30 - Introduction at VBT Cafe' Blog
October 2 - Review, Book Feature & Ebook Giveaway at Books, Books, and More Books
October 4 - Interviewed at Reviews & Interviews (Lisa Haselton)
October 9 - Review, Guest Blog & Ebook Giveaway at The Bunny's Review
October 11 - Guest Blogging at Cindy Vine's Blog
October 15 - Guest Blogging at Book Reviews by Dee
October 17 - Interviewed at MK McClintock's Blog
October 18 - Review & Interview at Kaisy Daisy Corner
October 19 - Reviewed at Self Taught Cook
October 23 - Book Feature & Ebook Giveaway at Blogzine
October 25 - Interviewed at Turning The Pages
Book Review:
I love a good murder mystery. I love that this book has a hint of romance
at the fringe but never goes into full blown romance. That hint just adds to the mystery and
tension. And the story keeps you pulled
in until the end. And when you find out
that the murder is … You didn’t think I would really tell you, now did
you? Let’s just say I wouldn’t have
guessed it in a million years.
I give this story 4.5 out of 5
clouds.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
This product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my opinions or reviews.
