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Friday, November 6, 2015

Review: Wouldn't It Be Deadly - by D.E. Ireland


This first in the crime-solving partnership of Miss Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgins was an Agatha nominee, and well deserved. It takes place in the months following Eliza’s successful transformation from Cockney flower-seller to elegant Society lady.

Eliza is trying to get a handle on her new life, living with the professor’s mother while teaching elocution to other people who wish to appear to fit in among a higher social class. There’s good scene-setting and sound period atmosphere, and then whump! A body hits the floor. With both Eliza and Henry quickly rising up the suspect list, they must put aside their animosity and learn to cooperate again. It will take all their combined ingenuity to keep each other off the gallows.

This is a fairly convincing foray into the refined world of Edwardian society, both the high and the low. It maintains a gently humorous tone through much of the book, and, if the solution seems to leap a bit rapidly to the fore toward the end, it’s easy to overlook that in the enjoyment of the journey.

I’m looking forward to diving into the second book, ‘Move Your Blooming Corpse,’ which title, coincidentally, I won in a blog draw the very day I finished off the first book.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond

Here at last is the full cover for my upcoming Steampunk Adventure, "Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond."  Artist credit goes to the immensely vibrant and talented Robin Kaplan (aka The Gorgonist).

The novella is coming out mid-September in ebook and print from Tyche Books in Calgary, although some lucky folks got their hands on the special conference edition this past weekend at the wonderful 'When Words Collide' readers'/writers' festival this weekend.



Back cover reads:


Miss Maddie Hatter, renegade daughter of a powerful Steamlord, is scraping a precarious living as a fashion reporter when the story of a lifetime falls into her lace-gloved hands.  


Baron Bodmin, an adventurer with more failed quests than fingernails, has vanished in circumstances that are odd even for him. 


While he is supposedly hunting the fabled Eye of Africa diamond in the Nubian desert, his expeditionary airship is found adrift off the coast of England. Maddie was the last reporter to see the potty peer alive. If she can locate the baron or the Eye of Africa, her career will be made. 


Outraged investors and false friends complicate her quest, and a fiendish figure lurks in the shadows, ready to snatch the prize . . . at any price.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Day 2 of the 5-day cover teasers for this Special Edition Steampunk Adventure with exclusive original interior artwork. Leave a comment to get added to the draw for the first of this very limited run!

Monday, August 10, 2015

Teaser #1 for my first Steampunk Adventure


Special limited edition - including exclusive original art - is coming out at When Words Collide in Calgary this coming weekend.

Sunday, June 28, 2015