ONLY $.99 FOR STAND BY YOUR HITMAN - ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT - ENDS MAY 19! PLUS, A CHANCE TO WIN A $100 GIFT CARD!!
STAND BY YOUR HITMAN has a new cover! And in honor of that - I've decided to throw a sale! HITMAN will be 99cents at all etailers from
May 13 - May 19! The good news is I've added a contest! If you tweet, facebook share, or "goodreads" this news, you will be entered (once for each post you make) to win a $100 gift card to the etailer of your choice (amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iTunes)! Enter early and often - this will all be monitored by Rafflecopter so we will definitely have your posts!
May 13 - May 19! The good news is I've added a contest! If you tweet, facebook share, or "goodreads" this news, you will be entered (once for each post you make) to win a $100 gift card to the etailer of your choice (amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iTunes)! Enter early and often - this will all be monitored by Rafflecopter so we will definitely have your posts!
Here's a sample from Stand By Your Hitman:
I stared at the letter in my hand. I was making the same face I made a few moments earlier when checking my phone messages. It’s not a pretty face. You wouldn’t like it.
Dear Ms. Bombay,
Your application has been accepted. We are thrilled to have you as a contestant in the new television programme, Survival! We received thousands of applications for the show, but quite frankly, your
video blew everyone away here at CAB network. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone defuse an explosive device so quickly. You are exactly what we are looking for. In a few days, you should receive a complete package in the mail with all of the information you will need. I look forward to meeting you next
month.
Sincerely,
Bob Toole
Executive Producer, CAB
Well, that wasn’t right. I never applied to be on Survivor. True, it was one of my favorite shows. But I think I’d remember submitting an application. It’s not like I go around videotaping myself defusing bombs every day. Okay, there was that once but I just wanted to see what it looked like in third person. It was my little egoist guilty pleasure. No one knew I had it. Or at least, I thought no one knew.
So, maybe that’s what Bob is talking about. Hmmmm. If I didn’t send it in, who did?
“Mom!” The unanimous shout came from my two teenaged sons, Montgomery and Jackson Bombay. My name is Mississippi Bombay, but I prefer Missi.
“In here,” I responded suspiciously. Did they do this?
Monty and Jack popped their heads into the doorway simultaneously. Fraternal twins, you’d never look at them and even think they were related. Monty was tall and gangly, with dark hair and green eyes.
Jack was short and stocky with a shock of unruly red hair and freckles. In spite of their physical differences, the boys shared one, obnoxious personality.
“Do I need to ask?”I waved the letter at them.
Monty snatched it out of my hands and began to read. “Cool! Mom, this rocks!”
Jack grabbed it from his brother and scanned the page. “Ohmygod!” He shouted it as one word. “How cool are you? Why didn’t you tell us?”
From the looks on their faces, I surmised they didn’t do it.
“So you had nothing to do with this?” I had to ask just to make sure. I haven’t survived this long as a single mother of twin boys without confirming everything. Usually twice.
They shook their heads. “We would’ve if we thought you were interested,” Monty started.
“But we never dreamed you’d want to go on the show!” Jack finished.
I swiped the letter from Jack and put in on the table, “Well, it’s obviously just a joke, so we’ll forget about it.” I now had other ideas. After all, I came from a family of assassins. A prankster or two in the gene pool was to be expected.
You heard me right. Assassins. The Bombay Family had a monopoly on the biz since Ancient Greece. Every blooded member of the family begins training at the age of five and works until, well, forever. My grandma was just forced into an early retirement or she’d still be taking on contracts. Not that she needed to. She was on the Council. That’s the geriatric crew who runs the operations, dishes out assignments, and kills off renegade family members. That’s right. This family business isn’t exactly optional. And if you screw up or screw over the family, the Council will take you out.
I looked around from my mental meanderings to find the boys gone. Oh well. Where could they go? We live on a small, private island off the coast of South America.
Speaking of mental fragmentation - I’ve been experiencing that a lot lately. Maybe it has something to do with being 45. Or it could be that I haven’t had sex in a long, long time. Being widowed will do that to you. Well, that and the isolation of being on an island no one but my immediate family lives on. Or it could be the bizarre nature of my work. Besides killing people for a living, I’m a bit of an inventor. It’s my only creative
outlet. And it was one more service I could offer the Bombays.
What do I invent? Oh, this and that really. Hairdryers that can blow your head off, lilies that can suffocate you, explosive jockstraps . . . the usual bric-a-brac I guess. My mind began to meander again
and I started thinking about Pop Tarts. I LOVE Pop Tarts. But only the chocolate fudge ones. I could eat those for every meal.
The Pop Tarts made me think of Kleenex, which reminded me that I still had a few finishing touches to make on my latest explosive device. I headed for the lab.
“Mantisnuts,” was the secret word I spoke into my security system. The door popped open and I went in thinking it was time to change my password. Maybe something like bananaface. Did praying mantis
have testicles? I wasn’t sure. At least in the figurative sense they did. It takes balls to make love to a woman you know will bite your head off afterward.
On a table in the middle of the room was one of those Wacky Wall Walkers. Remember those? Real big in the ‘80’s. I had several back then. Anyway, for those of you who are big hair and shoulder-pad
challenged, they were these sticky little octopuses (octopi? What is the plural anyway?) you threw at a wall or sliding glass door (sliding glass doors were also very big in the ‘80s) and it kind of flopped, ass over, um, tentacles all the way down the wall. You’d think something like that would be a failure, wouldn’t you? But the inventors of that stupid little toy (did I mention that I owned several?) made millions. You never know what will hit it big.
It was with that in mind that I decided to work with the gummy little bastards as some sort of explosive device. Remember Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible? The first one – not the crappy sequels. Anyway, he had that stick of gum he just had to fold in half and stick on the aquarium at that restaurant in Prague and it blew up? Of course, it was ridiculous. Have you ever tried to fold a stick of dry gum in half? It snaps in two, doesn’t stick to itself - doesn’t stick to anything really, so it wouldn’t have worked in real life. But that’s okay cuz I liked the movie.
The trick with the Wacky Wall Walkers was to get just the right compound that would ignite as it struck a solid surface, and wouldn’t affect its inherent gumminess. I didn’t want to overdo it, but I wanted
something that would do the job. I wasn’t sure what the job was yet, but it didn’t matter. I loved working in my lab. I could work with whatever I wanted and the family didn’t give a damn. Ha.
An hour later found me behind my blast shield as I blew up my fifth piece of glass-coated dry wall. I was having a pretty good time too. That is, until the alarm went off. I’d set it to high because I wanted
to know if anyone came into my lab unannounced.
“Hello, Mississippi.” York Bombay stood in the doorway. I couldn’t stand that man. My mom’s cousin York was a creepy old dude. Of course, his father, Lou, was much worse. Thank God he’s still locked up with
Grandma and the other former Council at that maximum-security nursing home in Greenland. I folded my arms across my chest and made up my mind to definitely change my password. How the hell did he get it,
anyway?
“What’s up, Uncle York?”
He forced a grin and reached over to fondle Charo from my b-list bobblehead collection. I made a mental note to scrub them with Chlorox later.
“Well, my dear, the Council requests your presence. Tonight at seven.”
Dear Ms. Bombay,
Your application has been accepted. We are thrilled to have you as a contestant in the new television programme, Survival! We received thousands of applications for the show, but quite frankly, your
video blew everyone away here at CAB network. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone defuse an explosive device so quickly. You are exactly what we are looking for. In a few days, you should receive a complete package in the mail with all of the information you will need. I look forward to meeting you next
month.
Sincerely,
Bob Toole
Executive Producer, CAB
Well, that wasn’t right. I never applied to be on Survivor. True, it was one of my favorite shows. But I think I’d remember submitting an application. It’s not like I go around videotaping myself defusing bombs every day. Okay, there was that once but I just wanted to see what it looked like in third person. It was my little egoist guilty pleasure. No one knew I had it. Or at least, I thought no one knew.
So, maybe that’s what Bob is talking about. Hmmmm. If I didn’t send it in, who did?
“Mom!” The unanimous shout came from my two teenaged sons, Montgomery and Jackson Bombay. My name is Mississippi Bombay, but I prefer Missi.
“In here,” I responded suspiciously. Did they do this?
Monty and Jack popped their heads into the doorway simultaneously. Fraternal twins, you’d never look at them and even think they were related. Monty was tall and gangly, with dark hair and green eyes.
Jack was short and stocky with a shock of unruly red hair and freckles. In spite of their physical differences, the boys shared one, obnoxious personality.
“Do I need to ask?”I waved the letter at them.
Monty snatched it out of my hands and began to read. “Cool! Mom, this rocks!”
Jack grabbed it from his brother and scanned the page. “Ohmygod!” He shouted it as one word. “How cool are you? Why didn’t you tell us?”
From the looks on their faces, I surmised they didn’t do it.
“So you had nothing to do with this?” I had to ask just to make sure. I haven’t survived this long as a single mother of twin boys without confirming everything. Usually twice.
They shook their heads. “We would’ve if we thought you were interested,” Monty started.
“But we never dreamed you’d want to go on the show!” Jack finished.
I swiped the letter from Jack and put in on the table, “Well, it’s obviously just a joke, so we’ll forget about it.” I now had other ideas. After all, I came from a family of assassins. A prankster or two in the gene pool was to be expected.
You heard me right. Assassins. The Bombay Family had a monopoly on the biz since Ancient Greece. Every blooded member of the family begins training at the age of five and works until, well, forever. My grandma was just forced into an early retirement or she’d still be taking on contracts. Not that she needed to. She was on the Council. That’s the geriatric crew who runs the operations, dishes out assignments, and kills off renegade family members. That’s right. This family business isn’t exactly optional. And if you screw up or screw over the family, the Council will take you out.
I looked around from my mental meanderings to find the boys gone. Oh well. Where could they go? We live on a small, private island off the coast of South America.
Speaking of mental fragmentation - I’ve been experiencing that a lot lately. Maybe it has something to do with being 45. Or it could be that I haven’t had sex in a long, long time. Being widowed will do that to you. Well, that and the isolation of being on an island no one but my immediate family lives on. Or it could be the bizarre nature of my work. Besides killing people for a living, I’m a bit of an inventor. It’s my only creative
outlet. And it was one more service I could offer the Bombays.
What do I invent? Oh, this and that really. Hairdryers that can blow your head off, lilies that can suffocate you, explosive jockstraps . . . the usual bric-a-brac I guess. My mind began to meander again
and I started thinking about Pop Tarts. I LOVE Pop Tarts. But only the chocolate fudge ones. I could eat those for every meal.
The Pop Tarts made me think of Kleenex, which reminded me that I still had a few finishing touches to make on my latest explosive device. I headed for the lab.
“Mantisnuts,” was the secret word I spoke into my security system. The door popped open and I went in thinking it was time to change my password. Maybe something like bananaface. Did praying mantis
have testicles? I wasn’t sure. At least in the figurative sense they did. It takes balls to make love to a woman you know will bite your head off afterward.
On a table in the middle of the room was one of those Wacky Wall Walkers. Remember those? Real big in the ‘80’s. I had several back then. Anyway, for those of you who are big hair and shoulder-pad
challenged, they were these sticky little octopuses (octopi? What is the plural anyway?) you threw at a wall or sliding glass door (sliding glass doors were also very big in the ‘80s) and it kind of flopped, ass over, um, tentacles all the way down the wall. You’d think something like that would be a failure, wouldn’t you? But the inventors of that stupid little toy (did I mention that I owned several?) made millions. You never know what will hit it big.
It was with that in mind that I decided to work with the gummy little bastards as some sort of explosive device. Remember Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible? The first one – not the crappy sequels. Anyway, he had that stick of gum he just had to fold in half and stick on the aquarium at that restaurant in Prague and it blew up? Of course, it was ridiculous. Have you ever tried to fold a stick of dry gum in half? It snaps in two, doesn’t stick to itself - doesn’t stick to anything really, so it wouldn’t have worked in real life. But that’s okay cuz I liked the movie.
The trick with the Wacky Wall Walkers was to get just the right compound that would ignite as it struck a solid surface, and wouldn’t affect its inherent gumminess. I didn’t want to overdo it, but I wanted
something that would do the job. I wasn’t sure what the job was yet, but it didn’t matter. I loved working in my lab. I could work with whatever I wanted and the family didn’t give a damn. Ha.
An hour later found me behind my blast shield as I blew up my fifth piece of glass-coated dry wall. I was having a pretty good time too. That is, until the alarm went off. I’d set it to high because I wanted
to know if anyone came into my lab unannounced.
“Hello, Mississippi.” York Bombay stood in the doorway. I couldn’t stand that man. My mom’s cousin York was a creepy old dude. Of course, his father, Lou, was much worse. Thank God he’s still locked up with
Grandma and the other former Council at that maximum-security nursing home in Greenland. I folded my arms across my chest and made up my mind to definitely change my password. How the hell did he get it,
anyway?
“What’s up, Uncle York?”
He forced a grin and reached over to fondle Charo from my b-list bobblehead collection. I made a mental note to scrub them with Chlorox later.
“Well, my dear, the Council requests your presence. Tonight at seven.”
STACY JUBA'S SINK OR SWIM IS ONLY 99CENTS!
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Reality TV Turns To Murder in Sink or Swim, just 99 cents for a limited time. After starring on a hit game show set aboard a Tall Ship, personal trainer Cassidy Novak discovers that she has attracted a stalker. Soon she will have to walk the plank for real...
Sink or Swim Excerpt:
"Look! There she is!" A few hundred spectators pointed and gawked as Cassidy entered the ballroom of the Starlight Sensation. She gulped and smoothed down her sleeveless emerald pantsuit.
Deniz Jewell had called the other day with an offer for Cassidy’s first public appearance, and conveniently, it was only forty-five minutes from home. A cruise line had asked her to headline the grand preview of a new luxury ship, docked at the Black Falcon Terminal in the South Boston Waterfront District. They wanted her to sign autographs and socialize with the guests who’d paid to attend a cocktail party and information session.
Cassidy would have preferred something more fitness-related, like an exercise video or sneaker endorsement, but Deniz said she was putting out feelers and that in the meantime, her client should take any work she could get.
Although a cruise ship wasn’t what Cassidy had hoped for, she appreciated the marketing department’s interest in her and liked that the event was in Boston. Even better, the cruise line had sent a black stretch limo for her and her companions from the Garrett Daily News.
Lynn, the cruise line’s six-foot plus brunette director of publicity, rubbed her hands together in anticipation. Barrettes fastened sausage black curls off her rawboned face, lengthening her giraffe neck. Her springy ringlets bounced as she talked. "We’re delighted to have you here, Cassidy, especially on such short notice. We just knew you’d be the perfect ‘face’ of the Starlight Sensation. When we have our maiden voyage this fall, we’d love for you to cruise with us. We could do a huge publicity campaign."
"Oh ... wow, that sounds like fun," Cassidy said.
First SOS. Then the cruise runner-up prize. Now this. How many ships was she doomed to ride?
"As you can see, you’re a big hit." Lynnwaved toward the guests murmuring and sneaking glances from round tables festooned with drinks and appetizers. "You’ll sign autographs in here and our staff will be sure to keep the line orderly."
Good to know, but Cassidy half-wished she’d jumped out of the limo a few miles back at Castle Island, a spacious urban park and her favorite spot in Boston. She loved walking or jogging around CastleIsland and the peaceful Pleasure Bay, enjoying views of the ferries and vessels passing in the harbor, the low airplanes descending toward Logan InternationalAirport, and the tourists milling about the historic Fort Independence. She’d give anything for a hotdog and ice cream at Sullivan’s, the popular family-run restaurant that serviced visitors. Alas, she’d get no relaxation today.
As Lynn conferred with a co-worker, Cassidy turned to her own personal news team. "Boy, does this beat the Atlantic Devil in the luxury department," she muttered.
"No kidding." Alison scrawled into her wire-bound notebook. With her sleek helmet of blonde locks and designer wardrobe, she looked more like a TV anchorwoman than a small-town newspaper reporter.
Zach Gallagher, her photographer, pulled his Nikon digital camera out of a padded bag and removed the felt Stetson from his wavy black hair. "I wouldn’t mind taking a trip on this baby myself." His flash blinked, triggering a half-dozen cameras from other parts of the ballroom.
"Cassidy! Cassidy!" An acne-scarred young man rushed over to them. Lank greasy blond strands hung ragged past his shoulders, limp as a used mop, and a torn tee-shirt with Cassidy's blurred likeness fell to the waist of his ripped jeans.
He cupped a camera to his heart. "Please, could I pose for one picture with you? I know this is a huge favor, but I can’t stay that long."
Lynn gave her a subtle nod. "Yeah, sure," Cassidy said.
She positioned herself beside the kid and Lynnsnapped the photo with a cheerful "cheese."
His lip trembling, the kid stared at Cassidy. "You don't know what this means to me. You should have won. Reggie was a loser."
How could he say that? Reggie was dead. There were more important things than winning. Like living. Cassidy clamped down on her lip to keep from retorting. Telling off a fan wouldn’t exactly endear her to the cruise line. Being the "face" of the Starlight Sensation could mean a lot of money in her bank account. They were already shelling out $1,000, plus the expense of a limo, for her to scribble her name and act amiable.
Luckily, the rest of the fans acted more restrained. Cassidy spent a pleasant hour and a half smiling and signing autographs. Afterwards, the last group streamed out the French doors, heading to the theater for the travel spiel. She snagged a finger sandwich and a couple wedges of cubed melon off a platter before strolling toward Alison, Zach and Lynn in back of the room.
Lynn gathered papers into a folder and stretched to her Amazonian height. "Thank you, Cassidy. That was fantastic. The next presentation should be starting if you’d like to watch."
"Great. I’m still shocked all those people waited in line to meet me. Thanks so much for inviting me today." Cassidy popped a piece of fruit into her mouth.
As Alison asked the publicist a few questions, Zach plucked a long-stemmed red rose off a vacant chair and extended it to Cassidy. "For you, my lady."
She looked at him over the blood red petals. Young face, mature eyes. Wisps of dark bangs straggled under the brim of his cowboy hat, which he had replaced after he finished taking pictures. He definitely improved the view around here. The harbor outside had nothing on him.
"Thanks," Cassidy said after she swallowed the melon.
Zach offered a sheepish grin, tanned olive skin setting off even white teeth. "It's not from me. I would have bought you a dozen if I knew you liked them. A little girl asked me to give it to you."
Cassidy read the tag taped to the stem. "You're the flower of my life. My love for you is blooming. Miles."
Hair on the back of her neck bristling, Cassidy dropped the rose to the hardwood floor and spun around. All she saw were white-jacketed waiters, glittering crystal chandeliers and their own reflections in the mirrored walls. "Was she with a man? What happened? What did the girl look like?"
"She was five or six. Long blonde hair pulled to the side, pink shirt, blue jeans. She came up to me on deck while I was walking around and said, 'This has to go to Cassidy.' I said, sure. I didn't see a parent, but I wasn’t paying much attention. You okay?" Frowning, Zach touched her arm.
GEMMA HALLIDAY'S BIG SALE!
My friend Gemma's book is on sale for only 99cents this week! It's brilliant and I'm telling you to buy it!
Reality TV meets murder in HOLLYWOOD CONFESSIONS... just $.99 for a limited time! When the producer of the trashiest reality shows on TV winds up murdered, reporter Allie Quick's killer headline leads her down a deadly path.
Buy now:
Amazon Kindle: click here
Barnes & Noble Nook: click here
iTunes: click here
Kobo: click here
Excerpt:
The first thing I did when I got back to the office was pull up the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to check out the list of shows that the murdered Chester Barker had worked on. While the names were familiar, I wasn’t exactly a reality TV devotee, and I needed the deets.
IMDB holds a list of every TV show and movie made in Hollywood, complete with the names of every single person who ever worked on it. Very handy if you were fishing for suspects in a very big pond.
Right off the bat, I eliminated the crew members low on the totem pole. Besides the fact that they’d have very little day-to-day contact with Barker, crew turnover was so fast in this town that I doubted any of them had had enough time to grow a murderous grudge against the producer.
Which left the cast of his latest reality hits.
I pulled up the name of the first show, Little Love, and read the description. Little Love was a reality dating show, where one eligible bachelor was put into a house with twenty hot, young single girls. Every week the girls tried to out-flirt each other on group dates to earn a rose at the end of the hour-long show. The last one left standing at the end of the season got a proposal from the bachelor. To be honest, it sounded like any number of dating shows I’d already seen on TV. Except Chester added a twist to his. All the contestants on the show were little people. As in dwarfs.
I scrolled through photos of the little ladies, all dressed in evening gowns and having cocktails with the little bachelor, a guy by the name of Gary Ellstrom.
I looked at his photo. Gary had the typical features and body type associated with achondroplasia dwarfism—an elongated forehead and average-sized torso, coupled with shortened limbs. He had dark hair, dark eyes and wore a sparse mustache on his upper lip. I wrote the info down on a post-it (pink and shaped like a heart), before moving on to the next show on my list: Don & Deb’s Diva Dozen.
Anyone who hadn’t been living under a rock for the past year knew Don and Deb Davenport. They were the parents of 12 children: two sets of triplets (ages six and ten) and a set of sextuplets (four-year-olds). Which in itself was enough to become reality show royalty, but Don and Deb took their fame one step further—all twelve of their children competed on the Tiny Tot beauty pageant circuit. They were in their fourth season, and the ratings just kept climbing.
Though, in all fairness, some of the recent rating hikes had been due more to Don and Deb’s personal life than their children’s painted faces and fluffy-pink costumes. Deb’s close-cropped hairdo had been plastered all over the tabloids recently (including our fair paper), ever since Don had been photographed with a string of young co-eds at trendy Hollywood nightclubs. Rumor was he’d had an affair, but no one had ever come forward claiming she was the other woman. At the beginning of last season the couple had announced a trial separation. Deb took the sextuplets, doing the Southern Glitz pageant circuit, and Don took the triplets, doing the West Coast Sunshine pageants. The separation had lasted right up until sweeps week, when the couple announced they were going to give marriage a try again. The season had culminated in an hour-long Don & Deb’s Reunion show where the couple took all twelve children to Vegas for a long weekend, renewing their vows at the MGM Grand.
I wrote down Don and Deb’s names, along with their dozen (Dorri, Diana, Delilah, Dolly, Daria, Donna, Daphne, Deirdre, Destiny, Dominique, Demitra, and Drea), though I doubted we were looking at a Tiny Tot killer.
Last on my list was the show that had put Chester’s name on the map in the first place—Stayin’ Alive. Currently in its ninth season, Stayin’ Alive was the granddaddy of all reality shows, pitting fifteen strangers against each other to fight for the title of Last Survivor Alive. Each season, Chester dropped the contestants in the middle of nowhere, the only location requirements being a beach (where the female contestants could wear their teeny tiny bikinis), torrential rains (that wetted said bikinis suggestively), and lots of big, hungry mosquitoes (just for kicks). This season was Stayin’ Alive: Tonga, and each week all fifteen contestants would brave both the elements and each other, fighting it out in reward and immunity challenges. Anyone who did not with immunity was forced to go to the tribal staging area, where someone was sent home each week. However, they weren’t voted out on their survival skills. Instead, the contestants participated in a dance-off, where a panel of judges voted out the contestant with the worst ballroom skills. We were three weeks from the end of the season, which meant the contestants still had to dance the cha-cha, the tango and, the grand finale, the Venetian waltz.
While I figured none of the contestants likely had much contact with Barker—being that he was killed here and not in Tonga—the three judges had been with him since the beginning of the show, giving them plenty of time to build up a grudge. Damon Crow, a record producer from Detroit, was the first, a big guy who tended to phrase his critiques of the contestants with so much slang they needed urban dictionaries to decipher his meaning. Mitzy Reed was second, an 80’s pop icon just this side of being labeled washed-up. And just this side of sober most of the time. She had a reputation for being able to find something nice to say about even the worst dancer. Which nicely balanced out judge number three, Lowel Simonson, an Australian-born choreographer whose favorite word was “dreadful,” followed closely by “horrendous” and “no-talent hack.” Needless to say, America loved to hate Lowel.
After I wrote all three names down, I sat back and looked at my list of suspects. Twelve beauty pageant contestants, two on-again-off-again parents, twenty-one dwarves, and three reality show judges.
Oh boy. I seriously had my work cut out for me.
Reality TV meets murder in HOLLYWOOD CONFESSIONS... just $.99 for a limited time! When the producer of the trashiest reality shows on TV winds up murdered, reporter Allie Quick's killer headline leads her down a deadly path.
Buy now:
Amazon Kindle: click here
Barnes & Noble Nook: click here
iTunes: click here
Kobo: click here
Excerpt:
The first thing I did when I got back to the office was pull up the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to check out the list of shows that the murdered Chester Barker had worked on. While the names were familiar, I wasn’t exactly a reality TV devotee, and I needed the deets.
IMDB holds a list of every TV show and movie made in Hollywood, complete with the names of every single person who ever worked on it. Very handy if you were fishing for suspects in a very big pond.
Right off the bat, I eliminated the crew members low on the totem pole. Besides the fact that they’d have very little day-to-day contact with Barker, crew turnover was so fast in this town that I doubted any of them had had enough time to grow a murderous grudge against the producer.
Which left the cast of his latest reality hits.
I pulled up the name of the first show, Little Love, and read the description. Little Love was a reality dating show, where one eligible bachelor was put into a house with twenty hot, young single girls. Every week the girls tried to out-flirt each other on group dates to earn a rose at the end of the hour-long show. The last one left standing at the end of the season got a proposal from the bachelor. To be honest, it sounded like any number of dating shows I’d already seen on TV. Except Chester added a twist to his. All the contestants on the show were little people. As in dwarfs.
I scrolled through photos of the little ladies, all dressed in evening gowns and having cocktails with the little bachelor, a guy by the name of Gary Ellstrom.
I looked at his photo. Gary had the typical features and body type associated with achondroplasia dwarfism—an elongated forehead and average-sized torso, coupled with shortened limbs. He had dark hair, dark eyes and wore a sparse mustache on his upper lip. I wrote the info down on a post-it (pink and shaped like a heart), before moving on to the next show on my list: Don & Deb’s Diva Dozen.
Anyone who hadn’t been living under a rock for the past year knew Don and Deb Davenport. They were the parents of 12 children: two sets of triplets (ages six and ten) and a set of sextuplets (four-year-olds). Which in itself was enough to become reality show royalty, but Don and Deb took their fame one step further—all twelve of their children competed on the Tiny Tot beauty pageant circuit. They were in their fourth season, and the ratings just kept climbing.
Though, in all fairness, some of the recent rating hikes had been due more to Don and Deb’s personal life than their children’s painted faces and fluffy-pink costumes. Deb’s close-cropped hairdo had been plastered all over the tabloids recently (including our fair paper), ever since Don had been photographed with a string of young co-eds at trendy Hollywood nightclubs. Rumor was he’d had an affair, but no one had ever come forward claiming she was the other woman. At the beginning of last season the couple had announced a trial separation. Deb took the sextuplets, doing the Southern Glitz pageant circuit, and Don took the triplets, doing the West Coast Sunshine pageants. The separation had lasted right up until sweeps week, when the couple announced they were going to give marriage a try again. The season had culminated in an hour-long Don & Deb’s Reunion show where the couple took all twelve children to Vegas for a long weekend, renewing their vows at the MGM Grand.
I wrote down Don and Deb’s names, along with their dozen (Dorri, Diana, Delilah, Dolly, Daria, Donna, Daphne, Deirdre, Destiny, Dominique, Demitra, and Drea), though I doubted we were looking at a Tiny Tot killer.
Last on my list was the show that had put Chester’s name on the map in the first place—Stayin’ Alive. Currently in its ninth season, Stayin’ Alive was the granddaddy of all reality shows, pitting fifteen strangers against each other to fight for the title of Last Survivor Alive. Each season, Chester dropped the contestants in the middle of nowhere, the only location requirements being a beach (where the female contestants could wear their teeny tiny bikinis), torrential rains (that wetted said bikinis suggestively), and lots of big, hungry mosquitoes (just for kicks). This season was Stayin’ Alive: Tonga, and each week all fifteen contestants would brave both the elements and each other, fighting it out in reward and immunity challenges. Anyone who did not with immunity was forced to go to the tribal staging area, where someone was sent home each week. However, they weren’t voted out on their survival skills. Instead, the contestants participated in a dance-off, where a panel of judges voted out the contestant with the worst ballroom skills. We were three weeks from the end of the season, which meant the contestants still had to dance the cha-cha, the tango and, the grand finale, the Venetian waltz.
While I figured none of the contestants likely had much contact with Barker—being that he was killed here and not in Tonga—the three judges had been with him since the beginning of the show, giving them plenty of time to build up a grudge. Damon Crow, a record producer from Detroit, was the first, a big guy who tended to phrase his critiques of the contestants with so much slang they needed urban dictionaries to decipher his meaning. Mitzy Reed was second, an 80’s pop icon just this side of being labeled washed-up. And just this side of sober most of the time. She had a reputation for being able to find something nice to say about even the worst dancer. Which nicely balanced out judge number three, Lowel Simonson, an Australian-born choreographer whose favorite word was “dreadful,” followed closely by “horrendous” and “no-talent hack.” Needless to say, America loved to hate Lowel.
After I wrote all three names down, I sat back and looked at my list of suspects. Twelve beauty pageant contestants, two on-again-off-again parents, twenty-one dwarves, and three reality show judges.
Oh boy. I seriously had my work cut out for me.
NEW! NEW! NEW!
Hitman gets a makeover! I always loved this book especially. And the print cover was awful and I never really jived with the one I made for the ebooks. So I made this one!
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
DO YOU LIKE REALITY TV AND BOOKS
(LIKE ME)???
Do you love to read? Do you enjoy watching reality TV shows, or any kind of television show? Then you won't want to miss the Books For
Reality TV Fans list of 15 novels that explore the world of television behind the scenes. These books represent a variety of genres including mystery,suspense, romance, young adult, and middle grade books and they explore dance shows, a soap opera, a morning show, dating shows, a food show, adventure shows, and lots more. The list is hosted by Sink or Swim author Stacy Juba on her One Stop Reading Blog and you can find it by clicking HERE.
My books STAND BY YOUR HITMAN & PARADISE BY THE RIFLE SIGHTS are included on the list!
The full list of authors includes:
Stacy Juba
Gemma Halliday
Amanda Brice
Leslie Langtry
Chanta Rand
Karl Fields
Christi Barth
Kimberly Kinkaid
Lois Winston
Elaine Raco Chase
Liz Talley
We may also be expanding the list of books and authors in the future. In the meantime, with summer reruns just around the corner, we hope you'll check out our books for some fun entertainment. Stacy will be featuring spotlights of each book, as well as hosting interviews with contestants from hit shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, Top Chef, Bachelor Pad, So You Think You Can Dance, and lots more. Some of the authors will also be chatting about books and reality shows on various blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Do you know a reader who loves reality TV? Do you know someone who needs to get AWAY from the television and pick up a book? Then please help us to spread the word.
Reality TV Fans list of 15 novels that explore the world of television behind the scenes. These books represent a variety of genres including mystery,suspense, romance, young adult, and middle grade books and they explore dance shows, a soap opera, a morning show, dating shows, a food show, adventure shows, and lots more. The list is hosted by Sink or Swim author Stacy Juba on her One Stop Reading Blog and you can find it by clicking HERE.
My books STAND BY YOUR HITMAN & PARADISE BY THE RIFLE SIGHTS are included on the list!
The full list of authors includes:
Stacy Juba
Gemma Halliday
Amanda Brice
Leslie Langtry
Chanta Rand
Karl Fields
Christi Barth
Kimberly Kinkaid
Lois Winston
Elaine Raco Chase
Liz Talley
We may also be expanding the list of books and authors in the future. In the meantime, with summer reruns just around the corner, we hope you'll check out our books for some fun entertainment. Stacy will be featuring spotlights of each book, as well as hosting interviews with contestants from hit shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, Top Chef, Bachelor Pad, So You Think You Can Dance, and lots more. Some of the authors will also be chatting about books and reality shows on various blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Do you know a reader who loves reality TV? Do you know someone who needs to get AWAY from the television and pick up a book? Then please help us to spread the word.
GET THIS BOOK FOR YOUR MOM!
I LOVED this book and laughed out loud throughout! I even forced a squib on her: "Janene Murphy is funnier than me, and I want to be her. Don't miss this
laugh-out-loud book from this must-read author! READ IT NOW!" - Leslie Langtry,
author of the Bombay Family of Assassins Series
You can buy the paperback here. Should be coming out as an ebook soon - if it isn't already!
laugh-out-loud book from this must-read author! READ IT NOW!" - Leslie Langtry,
author of the Bombay Family of Assassins Series
You can buy the paperback here. Should be coming out as an ebook soon - if it isn't already!
Special Sale May 1-3 Only!
Check this out if you love to read and love sales! LOTS of great books from my friends! Click here to go to there!
NEW! NEW! NEW!
And yet ANOTHER sneak peek at
DR. AWKWARD: The Adventures of Bob Palindrome in Space! This time it's on the Romance Writers Revenge! Click here to go to there!
DR. AWKWARD: The Adventures of Bob Palindrome in Space! This time it's on the Romance Writers Revenge! Click here to go to there!
The first installment of Thursdays With Bradley - where a 46yr. old babysits her 1yr. old great nephew - forgetting everything she ever knew about babies... Enjoy!
NEW NEW NEW!
Check out the World Premiere Sneak Preview of my New Comedy/Sci-Fi - Dr. Awkward: The Adventures of Bob Palindrome in Space - coming in April! You can check it out here.
Here's a sneak peek at the next Bombay Book: Snuff The Magic Dragon
This is a collection of short stories of Bombay 'assignments' through history!
Coming soon!
This is a collection of short stories of Bombay 'assignments' through history!
Coming soon!
The Bombay Family of Assassins Greatest Hits Box Set - 5 Books in All - Is Just $9.99 at Amazon, Apple, Smashwords, Kobo and Barnes and Noble! Get It Today!
To Buy At Apple, click here;
To Buy at Amazon, click here;
To Buy at Smashwords, click here;
To Buy at Barnes & Noble, click here;
To Buy at Kobo, click here.
My October Review of 'The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days' for Book End Babes, can be found if you click here!
Sometimes, You Just Have To Walk Your Duck - my post at girlfriendbooks, click here!
For my September review of funny books at Book End Babes, click here!
For my day at the pirates' blog - warning - very dark humor, click here!
For my recent killer fiction blog, click here!
Check out my August review of a funny book today at Book End Babes - click here!
NEW & IMPROVED NEW NEWS!
The box set of the Bombay Series is available at Amazon, Kobo, Apple itunes store, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords for $9.99!
STILL NEWS - JUST NOT SO NEW!
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy is 99cents!
For a limited time only at Amazon.com, Smashwords.com, Barnesandnoble.com, kobobooks.com and in the Apple Store!
