July 2021 Newsletter

 

It’s Summertime, and the Writing is Easy*!

Welcome to the quarterly newsletter for M.A. Lee, mysteries and more.

Let’s go to the first and most important thing.

Newest Release ~ Portrait with Death

Releasing July 16 for the ebook / July 20 for the paperback

cover

When Murder Paints with Blood

Isabella Newcombe Tarrant must finish her commission to paint a portrait before she can join her husband in India. She travels to Greavley Abbey School in the sleepy village of Upper Wellsford. There she meets the young photographer Flick Sherborne, and they become friends.

Then murder intrudes.

Isabella and Flick stumble upon the body George Webberly, a teacher at Greavley Abbey School. He’s been bludgeoned to death.

Why would anyone kill a school master? Motives abound, and suspects increase.

·         Fellow teaching masters.

·         A former soldier haunted by the nightmares of the war.

·         Three ladies who were rivals for Webberly’s attentions.

·         A husband may have clubbed him and cracked open his head.

·         A photographer.

·         Three fishermen.

·         A medic.

·         The pub owner and his wife.

·         The local constable.

Who committed the murder? Can Isabella find the answer?

Or will a murderer paint with more blood?

A tangle of motives and hidden evidence complicate the unplanned murder case in Portrait with Death, an amateur sleuth mystery set in an 1920 sleepy English village.

Portrait with Death is the third novel in the series Into Death, with artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant. New characters Flick Sherborne and Detective Inspector Michael Wainwright (introduced in Christmas with Death) share the novel’s viewpoints with Isabella.

As of my writing of this newsletter, I have not yet uploaded the book to Draft 2 Digital, which handles distribution to B&N and Kobo and more. That is coming, I promise.

Here’s the current link: Portrait with Death (Into Death Series Book 3) - Kindle edition by Lee, M.A.. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

The Into Death series will continue through the 1920s. While Isabella is leaving England, traveling to join her husband in India and then Australia, we have new characters who will carry the series forward: Flick Sherborne and Michael Wainwright.

Isabella isn’t gone entirely. I wish to write a few short stories with her: on shipboard, in India, on Australia, returning to England with Madoc. I have plans! Not quite sure what will be next. I do mull stories over for a good bit, trying to work out the mystery and its entanglements before setting pen to paper.

Coming Next

All three Into Death novels with Isabella Tarrant will be bundled into an ebook, to be released July 30. If you’re an ebook reader and haven’t yet read an Into Death book, then wait for the bundle’s release, as it will be less expensive. No link yet, I’m sorry to say.

Next in Line

A new series, Miss Beale Writes, will send us back to historical Britain in the decades before Regency England. Miss Beale is an authoress introduced in the 12^th and final Hearts in Hazard novel, The Hazard with Hearts, pictured below.

I want a series of six short stories and novellas for this series. Knowing how my brain works, I will have more novellas than short stories.

Only the vaguest glimmer of ideas have arrived from the creative muse. I’m listening, though. More suspense than mystery, maybe a little gothic: these will be great fun to write.

HWH cover

Don’t Miss

Did you miss the Book Funnel promo to receive a free novella? Never fear; here is a workable link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/wc84divkre

The first of the story is Jack Portman’s point of view, so warning! The language veers hard.

Jack Portman had never forgotten Filly Malvaise. Then she walked into his local pub and into the clutches of a loan shark.

Can he rescue her before she falls victim to evil?

The Lion’s Den is a brief novella set in London of the early 1920s with the Bright Young Things and soldiers returned from the Great War.

Although this story is not part of a series, Filly and Jack were originally introduced in the 2^nd book of the Into Death trilogy, Christmas with Death.

Lion’s Den cover

What I’m Reading Now

I have discovered Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver, totally by chance. I had read Wentworth’s Run! and Nothing Venture years ago—not quite to my taste then or now.

Then, in late April, I picked up The Chinese Shawl, #5 in the Miss Silver series. Next came The Grey Mask, #1 from 1928, and I was hooked. Since then I’ve read The Case is Closed, #2 from 1937, and In the Balance, #4 from 1941 (Danger Point in Great Britain).

I highly recommend the Miss Silver series. The next one in my TBR stack is Miss Silver Intervenes, #6 from 1943, the same year as The Chinese Shawl.

What I Should Be Doing

Writing that punctuation book that I started in 2019 and carried into the first months of 2020. I was still writing on it, a little at a time while I volunteered at my church’s office on Friday mornings. When the coronacoaster interrupted that in March, the Punx book stopped cold. It’s intended for newbie teachers who never learned grammar / usage / mechanics and the home school market (those parents are brave) and any writer interested in learning the reasons behind errors pegged by software.

By the way, software only pegs certain errors. Not everything is marked. That’s because software still isn’t fluid, the way our brains are, and grammar / usage / mechanics requires fluid thinking.

I have Functions 1, 2 and 3 written. Now if I can manage to write F4 and 5. It’s too easy to push this book into the background.

Where to Find Me

I probably need to do more with social media, but oh well!

Blogger is updated more often than anything. It’s easy, fast, simple. This is the one that I would bookmark and check about once a month. (Or wait for the newsletter 😉).  M.A. Lee (maleebooks.blogspot.com)

Website for Writers Ink Books, through which I publish M.A. Lee. These pages are checked and a blog written about once a month. This is the entity with which I started my writerly presence. A certain amount of sentimentality attaches to it. https://writersinkbooks.com/m-a-lee/

Twitter M.A. Lee (@MALee76327666) / Twitter

The ubiquitous Facebook site. I only do promotional posts; I never engage. (16) M.A. Lee | Facebook I have no idea why the “16” is in the link. FB started simple and has now become complicated, pushing me into its business suite and constantly asking for a credit card number. Nope, not going to happen, FB, because of reasons.

If you want to engage with me, with questions / comments / speculations about my many books, then write to winkbooks@aol.com. Fill in the subject line with the title that sparked the engagement. I will likely burble on much more than I should in response.

That’s All!

I have burbled on much too much in this newsletter LOL.

Remember, if this newsletter isn’t your thing, use the link at the bottom to unsubscribe (but I would really like for you to stay!).

As always, thank you so very much for subscribing.

Cheerio and Pip, Pip, as we read in P.G. Wodehouse.

M.A. Lee

(aka emmiD)

 

*Apologies to Ira Gershwin for changing his lyrics!