Wednesday 1 December 2010

Christmas Ebook & More

Just in time for Christmas I've put THE NELSON SCANDAL on Kindle at a 'gift' price of $2.99. Thumbnail: Sheriff Cas Larkin and his matchmaking wife Connie follow hot clues and cold trails investigating four homicides - two of them more than a hundred years old!

Also new on Kindle is RECIPE FOR TROUBLE; MARDI GRAS MURDER; and AN UNPOPULAR CORPSE. Since these are all cases for Sheriff Cas Larkin in my Maryvale series and I'm planning on writing as long as I can see the monitor - look for more (please? LOL)

In the meantime, I wish all of us happy reading, writing, and cyper hugs,
Break's over,
Jackie

Saturday 30 October 2010

Woops! SecondnewnovelonKindle!

This is a PS I guess - since I forgot to tell you about the other newest Kindle novel in my last post.

Title: L.I.F.E. (Takes place in the near enough to worry about future).

Logline: Two senior med students hard up for living expenses and tuition apply for part time jobs and find out the current difination of L.I.F.E. is just as bizarre as their mysterious new jobs. Read it - dare ya! :-)

Break's really,positively over this time :-)
Jackie

Back With News!

Here I am again after a long break. I'd tell you what I'm into, onto, and up to, too (maybe) but I might want to sell the movie rights, LOLFOF. The Fickle Finger of Fate sometimes just defies imagination.

The newest thing is I have more things on Kindle and at very good prices both here and on the Amazon UK Kindle.

On the publishing front: Dead on Arrival, HC first of the Maggie and Joe series is available as of January 2010 from Five Star/Gale.

Merrywinds, a romance/adventure novel will be out HC in November also from Five Star, then the large print will be out in December of 2010.

I've just put two new full length novels up on Kindle also:
The Snafued Snatch, second of the Maggie and Joe series.
Thumbnail: "Two young would-be criminals disappointed with the take from robbing convenience stores, decide to try kidnapping. They look in all the Memphis papers, case businesses, and decide to kidnap Hank Hanover's wife, Grace, and ask only a hundred thousand dollars so he will pay and not call the police. They plan the 'snatch' for Halloween night when the Hanover's are having a party and it goes well except for one little hitch. Instead of Grace they get Hank's cousin, Maggie. With Maggie tied up in their van they call Hank at the party. They tell Hank they have his wife and the figure they have in mind is a hundred thousand in small bills. Hank, full of good bourbon and looking at his wife across the room, laughs at them, says the way Grace spends money and credit he can't afford to take her back for a mere hundred grand and hangs up on them. Maggie hears the last of the conversation and is inclined to laugh at the difference between a hundred thousand and her check book balance - but does her husband, Joe even know she is missing? And what will happen when these two morons find out she's not Grace?

There are also new low prices on the Amamazon UK to hopefully make some new friends in the UK.

The gorgeous fall weather is making it impossible to stay in the house any longer! Break's over - please come again,
Jackie

Monday 29 March 2010

MARCH FREEBIE LAUGH

This is from LIGHTEN UP - one of my ninety-nine cent e-books on Kindle. LIGHTEN UP is composed of a few random articles from the humor column I did for a weekly in Memphis before I got too many deadlines (way back then - LOL).

"It's never too late to start exercising" according to the spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise. Funny how I think about exercise at night when it's too dark to get out and walk. Sort of like deciding to cut down on certain kinds of foods right after a heavy meal that includes an embarrassing lot of them. The move-it-or-lose-it school of thought is getting more prevalent (louder, too) as America gets older. However, to a person as talented at relaxing as I am (I practice a lot), it seems there are as many people overdoing the moving as there are couch potatoes who are at least enjoying the process of losing it. You can't drive more than three blocks in any direction without passing or meeting someone in sweats (some of those sweats cover a multitude of sins like a coat of paint) either walking briskly or jogging for dear life. Some of the joggers are red in the face as Rudolph's nose and huffing like they should have brought their oxygen with them. Makes you wonder if they're going to jog right through the Pearly Gates. (They're surely smart enough to do a quick U-turn if they start seeing smoke or smelling brimstone in their quest for the Body beautiful!)
All this talk about pectoral muscles, abs, 10K runs, and (shudder) cellulite, is hard to ignore (yeah, I'm trying). Especially since my own exercising is minimal with a capital MIN. A glance in the mirror at all of the above which belong to you seem to be moving south thanks to flab and gravity. Reminds you of the horror stories warning of what happen if you don't exercise and take care of muscles, bones, and the cardio-vascular system. all that long worded propaganda makes a nice, deep easy chair look like a death trap. You immediately recall the warning that if you don't exercise the quadraceps in your thighs, you'll soon be unable to get out of that chair under your own power!
Knowing all that plus my own limitations: being three years older than God and never by any stretch of the imagination the athletic type, I exercise just enough to feel good, work up an appetite (as if I needed that one), ease my conscience, and not take root anywhere.
My laps around the yard are respectable enough, since it's a big yard. Of course of the five acres available I always pick the two in the shade. None of those exercise freaks said getting burned and wrinkled would do your muscles any good. The laps around the yard (in the shade), unavoidable errands, and necessary housework (kicking a path through and cleaning enough not to fear a visit from the fire department or board of health,) are enough for me until the bathroom scale starts saying "get off " instead of those little red numbers.
My lap around the couch is a snow job, the only exercise involved being to adjust a pillow to just the right angle to read a book comfortably.
Don't let the do-gooders push you into overdoing it and jogging through the Pearly Gates before your time. When you decide to walk more, there are lots of ways to enjoy that too. Don't be brainwashed into making work out of it. Walk to places you want to go. There are lots of interesting destinations at the nearest mall - enjoy!

Hope you had fun and some chuckles - break's over! :-)
Jackie

Sunday 28 February 2010

FREEBIE LAUGHS

This is one of the columns in LIGHTEN UP - a $0.99 ebook on Kindle. It's excerpts from a humor column I did years ago before I got too many deadlines (life et cetera LOL) It's also short enough to put on your computer if you don't have an e-reader so you can read them one at a time or whenever you want to.

This was entered in one of the AWC (Arkansas Writers contests) and won first prize in the humor article contest. It's name was LUCKY Me at that time, now it's part of LIGHTEN UP on Kindle :-)Here it is:

The beautiful spa city where I was born is now in the middle of the annual horse racing season. The excitement, myriad social whoopie occasions, greedy expectations, and general chaotic scrambles for parking space are rising along wth the fattening of the purses for the races. In spite of all that, I have not, so far, bet one peso, yen, or American buck on a horse. It just isn't humane to burden a poor beat with the kind of luck I have. It's enough entertainment to see the methods some people use to bet, and the results they get. One sunny afternoon at the matinee, two obviously learned professors of the sporting game who sat in front of me and my husband poured over newspapers, tout sheets, and other information, calculators in hand, before picking THE WINNER. That noble bast came in fifth. The air head with party colored hair behind us who bet on a horse with a name like ther cousin's cat, had a winning ticket according to what I could understand of th shrieks and jumping up and down and general rampant joy when the winner was announced.
Lady Luck's curse on me is not confined to horses. It sort of parallels Murphy's Law - anything that can go wrong will, you know how it goes. Somehow, when I got my ticket into the world, the angel in charge that day left good luck and a sense of direction out of my hiking kit. I'm doomed to work twice as hard for all accomplishments and carry a map and a compass, or do without and be lost as a goose. This maks for some tough choices and beaucoup self discipline.
Once in a while I forget my betting on a poor animal could be hazardous to its health and I take a chance. Not a calculated risk - a chance. Chances are much more fun than dull old calculated risks and make the adrenalin pump. Would you believe I once bet on a likely looking grayhound at the dog track who ran back the other way and tripped four other dogs? Whether or not they shot the big palooka, I couldn't tell you. All I know, is they wouldn't let ME do it!
You can see, with luck like that, I have to be very, very careful. About a year ago, the grcery store near us put up a pen outside and gave away chances on a Mexican burro with sacks of groceries. My husband wouldn't let me go in there for fear I'd wind up inning the thing! Fortunately, it wasn't long before someone else did so we didn't starve.
We are gong to the dog track with some friends next week (I'm going to bet two bcks to show on the rabbit).


Blog friends; Five Star writers; and other cyber friends: To read this: On Your browser go to Jackie Griffey's Books and click where it has the title of this blog - FREEBIE LAUGHS happy reading :-)

Break's over!
Jackie

Monday 25 January 2010

http://www.pumpupyourbook.com./2009/12/08/the-devil-in-merrivale-virtual-book-tour-january-10/

It's been so long since I updated i'm expecting to see news I've 'quit smoking' LOL. Nope, I'm still among the living (probaby because I never have smoked - ha!). Anyway, I'm 'up to my ankles and in head first' and about 'blogged blind' even if I have neglected my own blog.

Think I told on here that Zumaya Publications has bought my Maryvale series for their new mystery imprint - Enigma. They have staked me to virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book and I'm burning the midnight oil answering interview questions and doing guest blogs. It's fun, but it takes up more time than you thought you had!

Enigma has changed the name of my little fictional town to Merrivale and is calling it the Cas Larkin series - he's my Sheriff Hero.

I've got the first of a new mystery series just out this month from Five Star, the name of it is Dead on Arrival and you will see a good write-up about it on International Thriller Writers January Webzine by Austin Camacho.

The virtual book tour goes on till January 29 so please come by and comment or ask any questions you want to - I love meeting new readers and writers. You can find it on your browser at: http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2009/12/08/the-devil-in-merrivale-virtual-book-tour-january-10/

I look forward to hearing from you.:-)

Break's over!