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Dial P For Poison
by Zara Keane
This book was a great mixture of friends and past that brought Maggie to the island.
~Community Bookstop
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Date of Release: 13 April 2017
Number in Series: 1
Publisher: Beaverstone Press
Number of Pages: 352
Synopsis
Movies. Muffins. Murder.
Maggie Doyle moved to Ireland to escape her cheating ex and crumbling career in the San Francisco PD. When the most hated woman on Whisper Island is poisoned at her aunt’s Movie Theater Café, Maggie and her rock-hard muffins are hurled into the investigation.
With the help of her UFO-enthusiast friend, a nun, and a feral puppy, Maggie is determined to clear her aunt’s name. Can she catch the murderer before they strike again? Or will her terrible baking skills burn down the café first?
Cozy, quirky, and fun, this tongue-in-cheek mystery is a delicious introduction to the Movie Club Mysteries Series. Grab a cocktail and join Maggie as she takes her detective skills across the pond in Dial P For Poison.
Guest Post By The Author
YOU HAD ONE JOB…
Dial P For Poison started life as a romantic comedy. It was intended to be the first book in a trilogy featuring three estranged brothers who inherit a castle on a remote Irish island and are forced to live and work together for eighteen months. I had the three books mapped out, but whenever I sat down to work on Book One, I had a nagging sensation that something wasn’t right. My gut reaction was spot on.
I’m a voracious reader. Crime fiction is my favorite genre, closely followed by romance. When I started writing with a view to publication, there were more resources and online support groups for beginner romance writers than for newbie mystery writers, so romance was where I began.
I’d always wanted to write a mystery, but the timing was never right. My romance-writing schedule was packed, and I still had a kid at home with me every day. As with most things in life that are worth doing, I finally realized that there’d never be an ideal time to tackle a new-to-me genre. When my youngest started pre-school, I decided to work on the romantic comedy every morning, and switch to the cozy mystery every afternoon. This system worked well…for about two days. I was struggling with my romantic comedy and I decided to send the opening chapters to a friend for feedback. Her reaction wasn’t quite what I’d expected. Our conversation went like this:
FRIEND: “Yay! You finally wrote the cozy mystery you’ve been talking about for years!”
ME: “Um…what? No, that’s not—”
FRIEND: “I love it! The American heroine, the Irish setting, the concept, the humor…but you’ve got to ditch the guy. He’s cluttering up the place.”
ME (perplexed): “Which guy?”
FRIEND: “The cowboy on the ferry. You need to get rid of him and focus on Maggie.”
ME: “The cowboy’s the hero. The chapters I sent you are from the romantic comedy I’m working on.”
FRIEND: “What? But it’s told in the first person.”
ME: “I know. Third wasn’t working. I don’t know why. I switched to first for this draft, and I’ll swap it out later.”
FRIEND: “But the heroine would make the perfect sleuth. And her friend, Lenny, would make an awesome sidekick.”
ME (slightly desperate): “What about the cowboy? He’s supposed to be the hero.”
FRIEND: “No offense, but when he entered the scene, I wanted to get rid of him to focus on the good stuff.”
You know the, “You had one job…” memes? A romance author has one job: to sell the hero to the audience. If you can’t persuade them that he’s hero material, you’ve failed right out of the gate. Clearly, my subconscious was telling me something, and that something was that I should follow the story wherever it led me. Editing the cowboy out of the opening chapters was so easy that it proved my friend’s point: he was cluttering up the place. I went back to my storyboard and ditched the original plot. It took me a day to map out the bare bones of the mystery and outline the story—a record for me—and I got to work on it the following the day.
Once I embraced what I wanted to write and rolled with it, the story flowed. I woke up each morning, excited to get to my laptop, and I had to force myself to stop writing each evening. I usually dread first drafts and love revisions, but this book pretty much wrote itself. It made me laugh out loud on several occasions—an excellent sign—and I finished it wanting to get to work on Book Two right away. Which I did—The Postman Always Dies Twice will be released 20 April!
I hope readers enjoy Maggie’s adventures as much as I have!
About The Author
USA Today bestselling author Zara Keane grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and spent her summers in a small town similar to the fictional Smuggler’s Cove, the setting of her new cozy mystery series.
She currently lives in Switzerland with her family. When she’s not writing or wrestling small people, she drinks far too much coffee, and tries – with occasional success – to resist the siren call of Swiss chocolate.
Author Links
Website: http://zarakeane.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zarakeaneauthor
Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ballybegbelles/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7729304.Zara_Keane
Purchase Links: http://smarturl.it/dialpforpoison AMAZON Kindle
Tour Participants
April 13 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
April 13 – Community Bookstop – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 14 – Books,Dreams,Life – INTERVIEW
April 15 – Island Confidential – CHARACTER INTERVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 15 – Lori’s Reading Corner – GUEST POST
April 16 – Readeropolis – INTERVIEW
April 17 – Carole’s Book Corner – REVIEW
April 17 – T’s Stuff – SPOTLIGHT
April 18 – Book Babble – REVIEW
April 18 – The Pulp and Mystery Shelf – GUEST POST
April 19 – My Journey Back – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST, GIVEAWAY
April 19 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
April 20 – Author Annette Drake’s blog – INTERVIEW
April 21- Cozy Up With Kathy – INTERVIEW
April 22 – StoreyBook Reviews – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 23 – A Blue Million Books – CHARACTER GUEST POST
April 24 – 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too! – SPOTLIGHT
April 25 – Moonlight Rendezvous – REVIEW
April 26 – Cassidy’s Bookshelves – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY
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