Today we’re participating in a blog hop. Our first. We had to think about it a while. Is it anything like a sock hop? For those of you born after 1970 who are scratching your heads, high school dances used to be held in the gymnasium, and they made us take off our shoes and dance in our socks to avoid scarring up the floor. Of course, we don’t actually know about sock hops first hand, just word of mouth – allegedly.

Maybe a blog hop is like the bunny hop – you know, hop, hop, hop.

Or better yet, what if it has something to do with the hops they use over at the local brewery when conjuring up our favorite draft. Nice!

The evidence suggests:  A blog hop isn’t any of those things. It’s an activity writers participate in, sort of like a chain letter or a game of tag, wherein we answer four questions about our own writing process then tag other writers to do the same. Yeah, we know what you’re thinking:  Boy, do they need to expand their universe.

It sounded like fun to us, so when Donis Casey, the author of the excellent Alafair Tucker Mysteries, tagged us, we agreed to participate. The seventh book in Donis’s series, Hell With the Lid Blown Off, has just been released by Poisoned Pen Press. Donis crafts a fascinating look at life in Oklahoma in the early 20th Century, and the mystery element of her novel keep you turning pages.

So our day has come, and here we are, answering four questions about our work – whether you were wondering or not. LOL.

What are we working on now?  Stealing the Golden Dream is about ready to send off to our publisher. It’s Book 2 in the Jordan Welsh and Eddie Marino series.

Jordan Welsh and Eddie Marino of Shea Investigations & Security are on the job at Arizona Heritage Museum in Old Town Scottsdale guarding the Golden Dream Dahlonega Gold Coin Collection valued at five and a half million dollars, but it all goes to hell. The coins are stolen. One of Shea’s employees is murdered.

Eddie Marino’s alibi doesn’t hold up and he is immediately under suspicion. Jordan knows it’s a frame-up. But how to prove it? The case tumbles down a path of betrayal and treachery littered with cheaters and liars, thieves and killers.

Complications arise when Eddie’s mother, Mama Rose, rolls into town unexpectedly with her smooth-talking main squeeze, Mark – or as Eddie calls him, Marky Mark. Eddie’s convinced the old geezer is after her money. Just what Eddie needs: missing loot, a murder to avenge, and his mother to babysit.

Jordan and Eddie need to solve the case before the police to save their firm’s reputation. The golden trail takes them from the Valley of the Sun to Tucson the Old Pueblo, to the State Prison in Florence, and finally to the dark side when Eddie is hijacked by an old enemy. Jordan is scared to death. Can she find him before his captor murders him? Will Jordan save the man she loves, the company she’s worked so hard to build, and the Golden Dream?

How does our work differ from other books in its genre? Our books combine romance, detective fiction, and suspense; drama and humor; yin and yang. When we decided to spin our stories around a team of detectives, we opted to alternate the main focus book to book – Book 1, Stealing the Moon & Stars, was about Jordan Welsh, our maverick heiress out to prove to everyone she’s a normal American pie sort of girl more than capable of taking care of herself. Book 2’s focus is more on Eddie Marino, Jordan’s sexy partner and a graduate from the school of hard knocks with a dark past. In our books, Jordan Welsh and Eddie Marino are hired to clean up one matter then find themselves in the middle of something more complicated than they ever could have imagined.

Why do we write what we do? We are voracious readers of mysteries, suspense, and romance. We love them. It wouldn’t make any sense for us to write space odysseys or war stories unless they, too, were full of mystery, suspense, and romance.

How does our writing process work? We work 3 days a week together, side-by-side, word-by-word, pounding it out. We aren’t “pantsers.” We use an outline and mostly stick to it. Setting a schedule and staying with it keeps us disciplined. For team writers, unless your partner happens to be as big a bum as you are, when she shows up at the appointed time, by George, you’re gonna write. And what we write together works.

That’s it for us, peeps. We’re tagging two (in reality 3) awesome authors: Lia Ferrell and Cathy Rogers. They’ll post their hops on the 30th. Their info and a little about them follows – to peak your interest. Check them both out, please. And while you’re at it, check out the first in our new series: Stealing the Moon & Stars –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZIQAn1U00c

then pick up a copy

http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Stars-Jordan-Welsh-Marino-ebook/dp/B00K6RJAL2

Now…

Tag, you’re it, Lyn Farquhar and Lisa Fitzsimmons, writing as

 Lyn Farquhar is the mother of this mother/daughter writing team. She is a retired faculty member from Michigan State University where she was a professor in the medical school writing grants and conducting research studies. She has two daughters, six step children and to date, 12 grandchildren.

Lisa Fitzsimmons is an interior designer and muralist. She has two children and two grandchildren. We both have two dogs. Lyn’s dogs are Welsh corgis and Lisa’s has a Siberian Husky and a pug.

We are enjoying writing together and learning daily about the publishing industry.

One Dog Too Many, A Mae December Mystery by Lia Farrell from Camel Press

Mae December runs a successful dog boarding business in Tennessee. When her neighbor, Ruby Mead-Allison, fails to pick up her unruly Pomeranian from Mae’s kennel, Mae pokes around and discovers the woman’s body. It is clad in one red boot, and there is a vehicle counting cord around her neck.

While delving into the mystery of Ruby’s death, Mae encounters handsome Sheriff Ben Bradley. Together they find no shortage of suspects. Ruby was standing in the way of a project that would widen their road and make the area safer. Was she killed by an angry neighbor? Her estranged husband? Her disinherited brother? The sheriff may not appreciate Mae’s amateur detective, but he does respond to her as a woman. Meanwhile the murderer thinks it’s time to put a permanent stop to Mae’s meddling.

 Two Dogs Lie Sleeping, a Mae December Mystery by Lia Farrell from Camel Press

It’s early August in Rosedale, Tennessee, and July December Powell is alone at the historic Booth Mansion, putting the finishing touches on the Showhouse room she designed for tomorrow’s grand opening. A loud bang draws her to the nursery, where a man lies dying. Not just any man, but Tom Ferris, the love of her life, who she hasn’t seen since he disappeared with no explanation some fifteen years earlier.

Who shot Tom in the back? What drove him away in the first place and made him stay away, even after his parents were killed in a car accident? What was he trying to tell July with his last breath?

The gossip mill is in high gear in the small town of Rosedale, and July is the sister of Mae, a dog breeder and kennel owner who happens to be dating the sheriff, Ben Bradley. Ben’s close relationship with the December family has thrown a wrench in his investigation, forcing him to rely on Detective Wayne Nichols, his deputies, and his office manager Dory to do most of the legwork. Meanwhile July’s marriage is imploding, and Mae already has too much to deal with—including a new corgi puppy and Ben’s four-year-old son. Mae is torn between loyalty to her boyfriend and her sister as she does her darndest to get the bottom of a case that just seems to involve more and more of their friends and neighbors.

June 30– Check out their post at: http://www.liafarrell.net/blog

ALSO—tag, you’re it, 

As an only child growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cathy Ann Rogers spent her early years listening to vivid stories by parents, relatives, and other elders. After establishing her accounting and tax business, Cathy refined her writing craft through a series of published short stories. Her first novel displays her penchant for creating literary characters who imitate reality through their skewed sense of justice as well as their bittersweet victories. She lives in the Arizona desert, where she shares her home with two Bichon Frises, Whitney and Sophie. She us currently writing the next installment in the Pilar Sagasta series.

Here Lies Buried,  A Pilar Sagasta Mystery, by Cathy Ann Rogers

History! Mystery! Murder!

Looking for family among strangers, a woman finds that seeking out distant relatives can be deadly and that some Arizona mysteries are better left buried!

PILAR SAGASTA steps into a world of cunning deception when she travels to Arizona to connect with her late grandfather’s sister, Virginia. Eager for details of their Mexican history before the family fled the political turbulence in 1916, Pilar realizes quickly that she made a mistake. Far from the loving relatives she envisioned, she finds a group of odious characters who doubt her motives and want nothing more than to drive her away.

When Virginia dies suddenly, Pilar takes that as her cue to leave. But when she agrees to investigate after another relative is murdered, she discovers her family has a dubious past enmeshed in unsolved Arizona robberies, foreign politics, missing loot, and murder.

Secrets buried deep in the past reach to the present generation and obscure motives in a family where no one is who they seem and everyone has a secret to hide.

 6/30 - Check out Cathy’s Post at: http://cathyannrogers.wordpress.com

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 Thanks, everyone for hopping with us.

Sally J. Smith and Jean Steffens

http://www.smithandsteffens.com