English carpenter Joe Walker thinks his life is over when he discovers his wife and best friend having an affair. Restoring an abandoned theatre offers little hope for a fresh start…until he follows a group of strangers through a hidden door into a world he never could have imagined.

In the haven known as Quarter Square, Joe encounters a community of supernatural street performers who straddle the mortal world and the magic realm known as the Wild. Here, Joe finds a sense of belonging he’s never known before—and a chance to uncover the truth behind the frightening visions that have haunted him since childhood. He also meets Min, an enchanting singer who quickly captures his heart.

But as Joe settles into Quarter Square, he learns their haven is under attack, while an ancient enemy threatens to tear him and Min apart. Now, Joe must learn to wield his own powers in order to save the life he’s come to love…

Buy QUARTER SQUARE at Carina Press!

By

Lee Alvarez

(Protagonist of the Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series)

I am a fairly new cat owner, my little Tugger only being 10-months old, but how hard can it be to train a cat to use the facilities, right? Why should I be falling over a litter pan every time I go to my laundry room to do the wash, right? After all, I am a Stanford graduate. I am a private detective. And he is a very intelligent, obedient cat. Okay, he’s very intelligent. That’s a start.

I got the idea after reading a particular entrancing ad on the internet. “Potty training a cat just takes patience, firmness, and steel-reinforced leather gloves, easily purchased for $15.95. No longer suffer the waste of space given over to a litter pan or endure the smell of soiled kitty litter. Have that poop go right down the john and out to the Bay where it belongs. Your fabulous feline may initially balk but will come around to your way of thinking with our tested, tried, and true method. And if you act now, you get two – two – two – for the price of one!”

After several days, I received a pair of steel, reinforced gloves in the mail and a set of instructions that went like this:

Remember, it is essential to take the upper hand when laying down the law to your cat. Despite the fact that cats do seem to become hard of hearing or recalcitrant when issued an order, do not be put off! You can achieve your goal if your commands are clear and concise. You will be rewarded by an animal who loves you even more for your discipline. Below are three foolproof steps to employ:

1 – Discuss overall goal with self. You must be in total agreement with self on objective and how to achieve it. Keep cat out of room during this discussion. There is no sense in alerting cat ahead of time. They have their ways.

2 – Relay overall goal to cat moments before you begin training process. You will find that sitting cat down in a quiet place, void of distractions, and outlining problem is a good way to go. They will usually pay rapt attention to you, especially if you are waving catnip about at the time. They may not remember all that you’ve said but it is a bonding experience.  

3 –When you see cat doing business in litter pan, carefully lift animal out of pan while wearing aforementioned, patented gloves and carry to toilet. Be sure lid is up. Firmly but gently, place back legs of said animal on either side of seat, smiling and chatting casually. Casualness is essential for success. After a few times of using firm but pleasant voice, cat will accomplish feat on his or her own.

Those were the three basic steps outlined in the literature. Below are the remaining steps they left out:

4 – Dry self off after cat and you splash about in toilet bowl. Apply Neosporin to scratches on upper arms and face. Clean up urine and fecal droppings that landed on new rug while carrying cat from laundry room to bathroom.

5 – Transfer litter pan from laundry room to bathroom, so it will be closer to ultimate goal. Go find cat.

6 – Using ladder, get wet cat off top shelf of linen closet and towel dry. Put more Neosporin on new bites and scratches, bearing in mind that you have to break an egg to make an omelet, although, at this moment, you have no time to cook.

7 – Introduce cat to new location of litter pan in one and only bathroom of house. Leave lid of toilet up even though you are a woman and you are used to it being down when not in use.

8 – Clean up cat poop in laundry room done by now confused cat that went behind dryer on your new, washable silk blouse that fell there earlier in day and which you forgot to retrieve. Rewash blouse. Hope claw marks will not show.

9 – Return to bathroom. Because you left toilet lid up, remove rubber ducky and bottle of expensive perfume that fell in when you and cat were engaged in wrestling match. Wash ducky and perfume bottle thoroughly.

10 – To continue training process, stand guard over litter pan waiting for opportunity to catch cat using again. Sleep in bathtub overnight.

11 –Bandage big toe that got stuck in faucet during night. Wash foot that stepped into litter pan as you were trying to get out of tub, overturning litter pan in process. Curse internet. Curse Johnny Cat litter. Curse all cats.

12 – Hobbling, track down cat and spy him curled up in bed on top of your favorite pillow, looking like the innocent you know he isn’t, but you realize you love him, anyway.

13 – Stagger back to bathroom. Shut lid to toilet. Refill and remove litter pan. Return pan to laundry room. On knees, scrub down bathroom and use seventy-five dollar an ounce perfume to help mask odor you believe to be coming from recently removed litter pan. Realizing it is you yourself you smell, take shower to remove odor and excess kitty litter from hair and body. Put soothing moisturizer on chaffed knees, re-bandage toe, and reapply Neosporin to bites and scratches. Throw what’s left of perfume behind your ears; what the hell.

14 – Pray cat forgets entire 24-hour experience and will resume litter pan usage in laundry room. While you’re at it, pray boobheads that sold you reinforced gloves will take them back.

15 – Crawl into bed next to sleeping, purring cat that snuggles next to you. Thank God for short memories. Throw gloves in trash can. Who’s kidding who about anybody taking them back?

- – - -

Answers to yesterday’s 3 questions from A Wedding to Die For excerpt:

1 – What is the phrase Lee’s mother, Lila, uses to describe Warren McFadden’s designing style? Avant-garde

2 – What is the name of the ex-bride’s lover? Charlene

3 – What color is Lee’s bridesmaid dress? Whipped Lime

On my mother,

The-Never-Had-A-Bad-Hair-Day,

Lila Hamilton Alvarez

By

Lee Alvarez

(Protagonist of the Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series)

My mother makes me crazy. I say this because she is perfect. I once heard a joke that went like this: Two men are drinking at a bar. One man says to the other, “What brings you here every night? For me, my wife can’t do anything right. I can’t stand being around her.” The second man shakes his head and replies, “It’s not my wife’s faults that are killing me. It’s her virtues.” The first man says, “Wow! You have my sympathy. That’s even worse.”

I can relate to their take on this like nobody’s business. All my life I have lived in the shadow of the most beautiful, in-control, stylish, intelligent, and knowledgeable woman on this planet, my mother.

Since I was a little kid, my girlfriends used to tell me how lucky I was to have such a ‘with it and gorgeous’ mom. When I got a little older, all my boyfriends developed huge crushes on her. I think most of them hung out with me, just to get to her.

When Dad was alive, he used to say Mom was the only woman he ever knew who would gut a fish in a beaded Halston gown. Mom would respond, arching one of her famous eyebrows, that she didn’t see anything wrong with it, because she always wore an apron. Then they’d both laugh and laugh. It was a running joke between them. These two were seriously in love. They were a 21^st century Romeo and Juliet, he the Mexican immigrant made good, and she the Palo Alto blueblood.

I’m told I take after my father in nearly every way. Dark hair, twilight colored eyes, fiery temper. When I was a kid, everybody would say, “Lee’s got her daddy’s features and her mother’s fixtures.”

Not that anyone ever said this around Mom. First of all, way too crude. Gender-based innuendos are not made around L. H. Alvarez. She would be scandalized. And secondly, my mother can’t tolerate people who use nicknames, like “Lee.” She thinks it’s lazy. She’s called me only Liana, since I dropped out of the womb. Whoops. Scratch that remark. Back to being crude.

And what really makes her crazy – ha ha – is how at the tender age of eleven, I became enamored of Dashiell Hammett, the quintessential writer of hard-boiled detective stories. Dad had given me a set of the famous writer’s books for my birthday and, man oh man, it changed my life. I never looked back. Becoming a PI was the next logical step.

You could say right here in modern day Silicon Valley, I cut my teeth on Sam Spade. That’s who I emulate. Of course, I like to wear a Vera Wang, carry a Louie Vuitton bag, and sip on a Starbuck’s mocha latté, as I emulate.

Well, after all, I am my mother’s daughter.

3 Questions for the readers from yesterday’s excerpt of humorous mystery novel,

 A Wedding to Die For:

1 – What is the phrase Lee’s mother, Lila, uses to describe Warren McFadden’s designing style?

2 – What is the name of the ex-bride’s lover?

3 – What color is Lee’s bridesmaid dress?

Please leave a comment for Heather and come back tomorrow for your chance to win her most recent release.

The Forgotten Child

By

Heather Haven

When the first book of the Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series came out last January, I almost threw a ticker-tape parade. The main protagonist of this humorous series is Lee Alvarez, a combination of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and Janet Evanovitch’ Stephanie Plum. This 34-year old divorcee works as a private investigator in the family business, Discretionary Inquiries, a successful Silicon Valley agency that normally deals with the theft of computer software. Since the death of Lee’s father, her beautiful ice-princess mother, Lila, has taken over as CEO and head of the business. Lee’s younger brother, Richard, is the head of Research and Information Technology. Her Uncle Tío is a retired head chef of a well-known Mexican restaurant. Even the new foundling kitten, Tugger, becomes head of the household in Lee’s small, two-bedroom apartment over the family garage. Lee isn’t head of squat, thank you. But she’s got the heart of a lion, eyes the color of twilight, and the instincts of a first-rate PI, which is good, because she’s always getting herself into trouble.

Ever since the first book came out, I’ve been blogging, promoting, bragging about, interviewing for, and in general being pretty obnoxious about Murder is a Family Business, the fore-runner of the series. At the same time, I was in the process of writing the 3^rd book of the series, Death Runs in the Family. Every writer knows there is nothing as all-consuming as the current project.

But somewhere along the line, the 2^nd book of the series, A Wedding to Die For, has fallen by the wayside. It quietly got published April 22^nd and came in, not as a lion, but as a mewing lamb. You could say, this is my middle child. I’ve read lots of articles proclaiming the middle child is often the one apt to be overlooked, even by the most caring of mothers. Well, just smack me silly. How could I do that to my little darling?

I mean, this is such a fun story! It starts out with troubled upcoming nuptials, due to the groom being arrested for murder. Even the most Bridezilla of us can’t pull off a wedding without a groom; nobody’s that good. Enter an ancient, missing statue of a blue dog, a crushed diamond stud earring, and our gal, Lee Alvarez, is off to the high mountains of Mexico, amid spectacular views and 16^th century cities, in search of pilfered Mesoamerican artifacts. Throw in a mysterious, gorgeous guy who keeps popping up in the oddest places, add a couple of dead bodies, toss in a kidnapping or two, sprinkle it with laughs, and top the whole thing off with the best tasting tamales ever. That’s the recipe for A Wedding to die For, sitting on the countertop of life waiting for someone to gobble it up.

I have to face it. I’ve been a neglectful, lacking mother. I’ve failed my middle child, who never asked to be born in the first place. All it wants is a little love and attention. Here goes: Who loves ya, baby? Who loves her widdle A Wedding to Die For, sweetie-pie, like nobody’s business? Who just wants to hug the words right off your pages? Me, your mumsie, that’s who.

Whoops! Still not enough.

Okay, I have to try to make it up to the little tyke. Below is an excerpt from the 2nd book, A Wedding to Die For. Via a drawing, one person who answers the three questions posed on the following day will get a free pdf copy. I did the same for Murder is a Family Business, and as we all know, what you do for one kid, you gotta do for the other!

Chapter One

I Love to Cry At Weddings

(excerpt)

Dragging out a dog-eared, worn sheet of legal- size yellow paper, I read it carefully. “Wow! I don’t think there’s much more.” I giggled with relief. “I signed the contract with the two bands yesterday. One is an eleven-piece mariachi band that our very own Richard plays guitar with now and then. He’s agreed to play a set with them. I thought that was a nice touch. The alternating band is a three-piece jazz combo. Something for everyone.”

“Indeed,” Mom responded.

“Allied Arts is renting us the restaurant for the reception, including the outside patios, from five-thirty to eleven-thirty p.m. Do you think ten cases of champagne, plus five cases each of Chardonnay and a Napa cab are enough?”

“That sounds more than sufficient. What else?”

I started counting off items on my fingers. “Bridal shower, next week. Richard is in charge of the bachelor party. The tuxes are ordered. The gowns arrive this afternoon, and I have two seamstresses set up for the fittings. I haven’t seen a picture or rendering of the designs yet, but I’ll bet they’re incredible. Mr. McFadden designed them himself, something he hasn’t done for years. He said he chose a ‘theme,’ which reminds me, I’ll have to get samples of the fabric to the florist. Don’t you own one or two of Warren McFadden’s dresses?”

“No. I find him a little avant-garde, Liana,” Mom said.

“I think they call it cutting-edge now, Mom,” I corrected.

“If you say so.” She smiled and changed the subject. “Did you find a photographer?”

“Yes, finally. I thought I was going to have to buy a camera and take pictures, myself.”

“Who is it?”

“Did you know the reason the wedding got canceled that was supposed to take place at Mem Chu was because the bride came out of the closet and is now living in San Francisco with her lover, Charlene?”

“Get to the point, dear.”

“I thought you might be interested in hearing the lead-in.”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, this guy was supposed to be their photographer, so he was available. I’ve seen his portfolio. He’s good.”

“That sounds fine,” Lila said, somewhat mollified. “What about the rehearsal dinner? Didn’t John offer to take care of that part of the festivities?”

“Originally, but he had to bow out due to a heavy work schedule.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yes,” I said and nothing more. My latest love had been pulling back big-time on a lot of things, but I didn’t want to admit it or deal with it yet. “However, Carlos took over and got us a private room at the new Japanese steakhouse for after we go through our paces.” I looked at the tattered list again with all the checkmarks indicating completion and would have done cartwheels around the room if I hadn’t been so tired.

“Mom, I think I’ve done it. After I order the flowers and take care of the fittings, I’m done,” I said with pride. “This wedding is completely done and Good-to-Go.”

            Five hours later, I stood in front of a mirror, enveloped in what felt like eighty yards of a chartreuse moiré taffeta laughingly called “Whipped Lime.” Between the starched crinoline underskirt, ruffled hem of the overskirt, and tufted bodice, all in a hideous yellow-green, I looked like a New Year’s Eve float depicting baby poo.

I ripped open the other boxes to find matching gowns in different odious colors sporting the names of “Pineapple Fizz,” “Mango Madness,” “Orange Frappe,” and “Passion Fruit Frazzle.” Mr. McFadden had created a theme, all right. Jamba Juice Rejects. And in moiré taffeta. When Mom called his work avant-garde, she was being kind.

The phone rang, but I was afraid to move. On top of how I looked, any movement sounded like leaves trapped in a wind tunnel. No wonder no one wore taffeta anymore, I thought. Noise pollution. One of the seamstresses answered the phone and slapped it into my frozen hand.

“Hello?” I said.

“Lee, it’s me. We need your help,” Mira said. Her voice sounded frantic and as if she’d been crying.

“Mira? Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not,” she sobbed. “Carlos is being arrested for murder.”

“What?” I said, sinking straight to the floor, buried in a mound of taffeta. “Carlos is being arrested for murder?”

“Yes, they say he murdered the thief who broke into our apartment last night. They’re taking him away,” she wailed.

“Wait a minute. What thief? What murder? Mira, what’s going on?” She tried to tell me, but between the hysteria, coughing, and wheezing, I couldn’t understand her.

“Never mind,” I interrupted. “Hold tight. I’ll be right there.” I struggled to my feet and thought, with the groom arrested for murder maybe this Good-to-Go wedding just Got Up and Went.

_ _ _

You can find the first chapter of book two, A Wedding to Die For, in its entirety and book one, Murder is a Family Business, on my website: http://www.heatherhavenstories.com/

For some other internet things,

HTTP://Twitter.com/HeatherHaven

Follow Heather’s blog at: http://tinyurl.com/4nensnp

A Wedding to Die For Youtube book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE5dfVzMRzA

Follow Lee’s daily Twitters at: http://twitter. com/PILeeAlvarez

Richard Alvarez blogs about his sister, Lee, the protagonist in

Murder is a Family Business

My sister is the best but she can drive a person crazy. She takes chances, she doesn’t listen to reason, and she certainly doesn’t listen to me. Maybe that’s because she’s three years older. Lee’s pretty smart, but don’t tell her that; I like to pretend I’m the smart one in the family. I’m a computer genius, if I’m to believe any of the write-ups in Wired, but Lee’s got this other talent, which is pretty awesome. She’s a natural born ferret. She can find anything or anybody, anytime, anyplace. That’s why she’s got a reputation as one of the best investigators at Discretionary Inquiries. Some people might say that’s only because our mother is CEO of D.I., but nepotism will only take you so far, especially with Lila Hamilton Alvarez. Behind her back, I call Mom ‘Our Lady’ and she’s Godzilla tough. I’ve known her to crack open a coconut just by staring it down. We’re quite a family.

But back to Lee and her ferreting, I remember when I was in the 6^th grade, this bully a year or two older, started beating me up after school for no reason. Lee found out that his dog had been missing for three weeks and he was taking his frustration and anger out on me. Wearing her non-judgmental hat, Lee went to him and said that she would find his dog if he promised to leave me alone after that. Even I didn’t think she could pull that off and I knew about her skills from day one. This kid laughed in her face but she got him to promise. Long story short, Lee took her bicycle out every day after school and found the guy’s dog five days later chained in a yard in East Palo Alto. She had to walk back with dog in tow, because she’d traded her Schwinn for him. The bully turned out to be pretty nice guy after that, serving in Iraq now, and we still keep in touch at Christmas. Anyway, that’s the kind of sister Lee is. She’s got your back. Which is good. She may drive me crazy but when Murder is a Family Business, she’s exactly who you want to be hanging out with.

 And the next adventure I had with her was in A Wedding to Die For. Well, all I can say it, hang on to your maracas! The Alvarez Family goes south of the border, having been thrown into the well-organized world of plundered Mesoamerican relics, all tied in with our best friends’ wedding. No wonder my sister’s philosophy about love is, ‘when Cupid’s wings start flapping, take cover.’ Olé!

 Answers to yesterday’s three questions:

 1 – How many miles round trip does the Palo Alto Mogul drive to get to San Francisco? 84 miles, 42 miles each way.

 2 – What do Lee’s Mexican relatives do back in Vera Cruz, Mexico? They fish the sea.

 3 – What is Portor Wyler’s wife’s first name? – Yvette

Welcome Lee!

1. Tell the truth now, Lee. What’s one thing about you that you’ve never told anyone?

A – I always tell the truth, except when I prevaricate. But here’s something nobody knows. I’ve always wanted to play the ukulele. In fact, I have one gathering dust under the bed. It’s been there for three years. I tried to play it when I first got it, but it’s really hard.  For about two weeks I would practice every day. The tips of my fingers were raw. I asked a musician friend and he said that if I practiced for the next two years or so, maybe I could advance from ‘horrible’ to ‘amusingly bad.’ I don’t know if it’s pride or just the time factor – I mean, I do spend the majority of my life investigating the theft of intellectual property and software piracy, with a few murders thrown in every now and then. Do I see myself like Sherlock Holmes and his violin?  Maybe. Maybe I’ll pick up my uke one of these days and play Tiny Bubbles for all the world to hear.

 Q.           Having murder as part of the family business must be difficult. How do the events around you affect you as a person?

 A – OMG, I can’t tell you the stress.  My kid brother, Richard, head of the Discretionary Inquiries Research and IT Department, is always giving me some new fangled piece of equipment no bigger than a cigarette lighter and then yelling at me because I can’t get to work. I mean, I’m chasing down murderers in the middle of San Francisco winter storms and it’s my fault his stupid scanner doesn’t work? I haven’t read the instructions? I don’t think so. And then there’s my mother, the lovely Lila Hamilton Alvarez, a serious fashionista. She sends me out on jobs no other self-respecting gumshoe would take and then it’s my fault somebody gets killed on my watch? And God forbid, I should be wearing navy blue with black. She’ll tell me to stop chasing the perp and go change clothes.  At least I have Tío, my wonderful uncle, a retired Mexican chef who can do things with chorizo and cheese that stops traffic in the streets. Speaking of streets, there is a new addition to the Alvarez Family, a little kitten I found wandering the streets in the rainstorm. I’ve named him Rum Tum Tugger. He’s my new guy. I’ve been getting into a lot of messes lately, so I’m lucky I’ve got my family around, warts and all. 

Q.           Why do you do what you do and not take up some dream job in a part of the world no-one’s ever heard of you?

A – There’s a dream job in some other part of the world? Lead me to it. Just kidding. Detective work is the family business. Before Dad’s sudden death two years ago due to an aneurism, he taught me everything he knew about being a good detective, hoping I would follow in his footsteps. He built up this thriving business specializing in tracking down law-breakers in software and intellectual property computer fraud, here in the Silicon Valley. But in my heart of hearts, what I really wanted to become was a ballerina. I studied every since I was five years old. I worked really hard at it. But the truth? There’s no substitute for talent. I am, at best, a mediocre dancer, no matter how hard I work at it. It doesn’t help that I’ve 5’8” tall, either. A good ballerina is usually around 5’4” in height. Anyway, at about sixteen-years of age I had to face it. I could never get a job in anything more than the chorus of a second-rate ballet company. We all have our secret ‘what ifs’, things we wish had turned out differently. But I’m smart enough to know that not being able to do a first-rate glissade arabesque is probably one of life’s better regrets.

Q.           What makes your style unique, what is your trade mark?

A – I like to read Dashiell Hammett detective stories and watch old black and white  movies while on my laptop hunting some suspect down. Picture me a sort of a modern California gal-PI, dressed in Vera Wang, with a big crush on Humphrey Bogart. I think of myself as colorful. At least, that’s what I say to my mother. She’s not buying any of it, though. She wants me to stop being impulsive, think ahead before I leap, and for heaven’s sake, act like a lady. Ha ha.

Q.           What makes you happy?

 A Sapphire Bombay Gin martini – shake that sucker, please — two olives, served icy cold. Throw in a bowl of mixed nuts, and a Barbara Stanwyck movie. Curled up with my cat and my Snub Nose Lady Blue Detective Special, life doesn’t get much better. OMG. I just reread that. Does that sound as pathetic as I think it does?

 Q.           If you could have anything at all what would you want or need to make your life complete?

World peace. No kidding around. I’m lucky and I know it. I have a wonderful but weird family, who love me despite my many faults. I live in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, California’s glorious Bay Area. I have a great job as a PI in our family business. My health’s good, I’m pretty smart, and reasonably attractive. In the best of all worlds, I would like to have someone to share my Kashi GoLean with most mornings, but I’m working on it, I’m working on it.

 - – - -

3 Question for the Readers on the excerpt of Murder is a Family Business

Here are the three questions for a free ebook of Murder is a Family Business, based on the excerpt in yesterday’s blog:

1 – How many miles round trip does the Palo Alto Mogul drive to get to San Francisco?

2 – What do Lee’s Mexican relatives do back in Vera Cruz, Mexico?

3 – What is Portor Wyler’s wife’s first name?

Hi Everyone! I’ve been asked to share three days of thoughts and feelings with the readers, and I am delighted and honored. Before I do so, let me tell you a little bit about my career as a writer and the Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series.

In my twenties and thirties, I spent my writing career in New York City creating short stories, comedy acts, plays, television treatments, ad copy, and commercials. I even ghost-wrote a book once. The idea of writing my own book didn’t occur to me until I was in my early forties. What can I say? I’m a late bloomer.

I read my first Nancy Drew book at the tender age of nine and have never looked back. I love a good mystery, in particular, humorous mysteries. Most of the time when I read a book, I like it to be on the funny side. If I want to cry, I can pick up a newspaper and read the real estate or financial section. Tears will spring to my eyes immediately.

So I decided to write a funny murder mystery series, and began with Murder is a Family Business following it up with the second book of the series, A Wedding to Die For. I love writing this series. A writer lives inside her or his head and if I have to be in there 24/7, I’d like to have a few laughs along the way. Plus, I get to be all of the characters, including the cat!

I felt my series had to include two important things:  the recently immigrated, which is one of America’s natural resources, and the family unit.  But I knew this wasn’t going to be a ‘classic’ family i.e., father, mother, sister, brother, and large dog, all careening around in a shiny SUV. Of course, these days a family like that is harder to find than a dinosaur with feathers. Oh, wait. Archeologists are digging those up all the time from unsuspecting peoples’ backyards. The Ozzie and Harriet family does still exist. Hello there!

But I wanted something unique. Hence, the Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series, a family of detectives, was born. Quirky Lee Alvarez, the protagonist, along with her younger brother, Richard, are the products of a 35-year union between Roberto, a Mexican Immigrant who made good, and a Palo Alto blueblood, Never-Had-A-Bad-Hair-Day Lila Hamilton Alvarez. Roberto dies unexpectedly and like most sudden familial deaths, a realignment of the surviving members takes place. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but as a rule, it will be different. Who would have thought another death two years later would help rekindle what this small family had lost earlier?

Lee Alvarez is a combination of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and Janet Evanovitch’ Stephanie Plum. This 34-year old divorcee works as a private investigator in the family business, Discretionary Inquiries, a successful Silicon Valley agency that normally deals with the theft of computer software. Her beautiful ice-princess mother, Lila, has taken over as CEO and head of the business. Lee’s younger brother, Richard, is the head of Research and Information Technology. Her Uncle Tío is a retired head chef of a well-known Mexican restaurant. Even the new foundling kitten, Tugger, becomes head of the household in Lee’s small, two-bedroom apartment over the family garage.

Lee isn’t head of squat, thank you. But she’s got the heart of a lion, eyes the color of twilight, and the instincts of a first-rate PI, which is good, because she’s always getting herself into trouble.

Below is an excerpt from Book One, Chapter One of Murder is a Family Business. Tomorrow, I’ll post three questions regarding the contents and ask you to send in the answers. The following day, I’ll post the answers and anyone (or everyone) having gotten the answers right, will receive a free ebook of Murder is a Family Business from me. Happy Sleuthing!!

- – - -

Chapter One

The Not-So-Perfect Storm

“God, surveillance sucks,” I griped aloud to a seagull languishing on a nearby, worm-eaten post, he being my only companion for the past few hours. He cocked his head and stared at me. I cocked my head and stared at him. It might have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but a nearby car backfired, and he took off in a huff. Watching him climb, graceful and white against the gray sky, I let out a deep sigh, feeling enormously sorry for myself. I eyeballed the dilapidated warehouse across the parking lot hanging onto the edge of the pier for any signs of life. I didn’t find any.

I knew I was in trouble earlier when I discovered this was the only vantage point from which I could stay hidden and still see the “perpetrator’s place of entrance,” as I once heard on Law and Order. That meant I couldn’t stay in my nice warm car listening to a Fats Waller tribute on the radio but had to be out in the elements, hunkered down next to a useless seawall.

For three lousy hours, rambunctious waves from the San Francisco Bay made a break for freedom over this wall and won. Salty foam and spray pummeled my face, mixed with mascara, and stung my eyes like nobody’s business. Then the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped faster than the Dow Jones on a bad day.

Speeding up Highway 101 toward Fisherman’s Wharf, I’d heard on the car radio that a storm was moving in. When I arrived, I got to experience it first hand. Yes, it was just winter and me on the San Francisco Bay. Even Jonathan Livingston Seagull had taken a powder.

I concentrated on one of two warehouses, mirrors of each other, sitting at either side of a square parking lot containing about twenty cars and trucks. “Dios mio, do something,” I muttered to the building, which housed the man who had caused me to age about twenty years in one afternoon.

 I struggled to stay in a crouched position, gave up and sat down, thinking about the man I’d been following. I was sure he was a lot more comfortable than I, and I resented him for it. Two seconds later, I realized the cement was wet, as well as cold. Cursing my stupidity, I jumped up and stretched my cramped legs while trying to keep an eye on the door he had entered, lo those many hours before. With me being the only one on the job, I couldn’t keep an eye on the cargo bay on the other side of the warehouse, but I felt pretty safe about it being a non-exit. Without a boat or a ship tied there, it emptied into the briny bay. The perp, thankfully, didn’t look like much of a swimmer, even on a nice day.

 I tried to focus my mind on Mr. Portor Wyler, said perpetrator, and the singular reason for all my misery. I kept coming back to this burning question:

Why the hell is a Palo Alto real estate mogul driving 42-miles roundtrip two to three times a week to a beat-up, San Francisco warehouse on the waterfront?

After that, I had an even better one:

What the hell am I doing here? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Mom.

My name is Liana Alvarez. It’s Lee to my friends, but never to my mother. I am a thirty-four year old half-Latina and half-WASP PI. The latter, aforesaid relatives, drip with blue blood and blue chips and have been Bay Area fixtures for generations. Regarding the kindred Mexican half of me, they either immigrated to the good old US of A or still live in Vera Cruz, where they fish the sea. How my mother and father ever got together is something I’ve been meaning to ask Cupid for some time.

However, I digress. Back to Portor Wyler or, rather, his wife, Yvette Wyler. It was because of her I was in possession of a cold, wet butt, although I’m not supposed to use language like that because Mom would be scandalized. She has this idea she raised me to be a lady and swears her big mistake was letting me read Dashiell Hammett when I was an impressionable thirteen year old.

My mother is Lila Hamilton Alvarez, of the blue blood part of the family, and CEO of Discretionary Inquiries, Inc. She’s my boss. Yvette Wyler has been a friend of my mother’s since Hector was a pup, so when Mrs. Wyler came crying to her, Mom thought we should be the ones to find out what was going on. That didn’t seem like a good enough reason for me to be where I was, assigned to a job so distasteful no self-respecting gumshoe I hung out with would touch it, but there you have it. Leave it to my mother to lay a guilt trip on me at one of my more vulnerable times. I don’t know who I was more annoyed with, Mom or me.

Furthermore, I had no idea what my intelligent, savvy, and glamorous mother had in common with this former school buddy, who had the personality of ragweed and a face reminiscent of a Shar-Pei dog I knew once. Whenever I brought the subject up to Mom, I got claptrap about “loyalty” and “friends being friends.” So naturally, my reaction to the woman made me aware of possible character flaws on my part. I mean, here Mrs. Wyler was, one of my mother’s life-long chums, and I was just waiting for her to bark.

- – - -

You can find the entire first chapter of both books, Murder is a Family Business and A Wedding to Die For at my website: http://www.heatherhavenstories.com/

For some other internet things,

HTTP://Twitter.com/HeatherHaven

Follow Heather’s blog at: http://tinyurl.com/4nensnp

Murder is a Family Business Youtube book trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79vqXtCrRsE

Follow Lee’s daily Twitters at: http://twitter. com/PILeeAlvarez

A big congratulations to the winner of the Weeks 2 & 3 Tribute to Mom and Dad giftbaskets!

Week 2 Basket – Catherine Cater

Week 3 Basket – Karen Billingsly

Please contact me offline at author . ksmanning @ gmail . com (without spaces) with your snail mail address and your MuseItUp/MuseItHot Publishing selection.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone for entering!

(Randomization provided by Raffle King: http://www.limmy.com/playthings/raffleking/)

Week 2 – May 11, 2011 show Mom how much you appreciate all she does for you with the bright and cheery container filled with treasures she’ll love including keepsakes, snacks and your choice of MuseItUp or MuseItHot publication on CD.

• Photo album
• Votive holder with candle
• Vase
• Note cards
• Snacks include: Cheddar and caramel popcorn and cookies
Total Dimensions: 10” x 10” x 10”

Week 3 – May 18, 2011 win this elegant, peony floral gift basket which includes a complete set of total bath and body spa care items and your choice of MuseItUp or MuseItHot publication on CD.

• White gloss gift box
• Peony floral moisturizing body butter
• Peony floral bath and body gel
• Peony floral body scrub
• Peony floral body lotion
• Potpourri
• Exfoliating bath mitt
• Aromatherapy 3-inch pillar candle
Total Dimensions: 9” x 9” x 9”

Winners will be announced Friday, May 20, 2011.

There’s simply no making it stop. Mother’s Day, for a portion of society accustomed to being invisible, is a cultural crucible to be endured. There’s literally no escape even at sacred houses of worship or at movie theaters, the once safe place to tune out the world.

For me, the emotional torture reached its peak a few years ago when I was newly aware that motherhood would forever remain a concept, a theoretical — not an actual experience I would ever know intimately. Years of trying to conceive with increasing amounts of surgeries and medical intervention had proved unsuccessful.

 Ultrasound images of embryos we once cautiously affixed to the refrigerator amid the smiling faces of our family and friends’ children soon found their way into a manila folder along with stacks of doctor forms, prescription regimens and reproductive endocrinology reports. My husband and I found ourselves for a time in limbo assigned to the confounding category of “unexplained” infertility. There were, we were soon to discover, no membership kits, no bonding rituals, no themed parties, no special holidays for the involuntarily childless set.

It wasn’t that I became thin-skinned as a nonmom among the mommy set. It felt rather like I had no skin at all. The sight of a pregnant woman could ruin my day in an instant. But that was only the beginning. I had the unfortunate timing of trying to cope with and mourn the losses associated with infertility at what I’m sure will be remembered as the zenith of the mommy-and-me phenomenon. Mom’s clubs, mommy bloggers and helicopter parents took off like wildfire just about the time my uterus was declared officially closed for business.

This year I’m finding the signs and advertisements don’t elicit the emotional rash they once did. I no longer have the urge to hit the reply button sending scathing responses to e-mail marketers asking how I planned to celebrate motherhood. Mother’s-Day-brunch providers and flower shops urging early reservations no longer cause me to feel like an outcast among women. I can only conclude that I have crossed the threshold to a once elusive zenlike acceptance.

Amid a societal celebration of all things maternal, I was forced to grow a skin much thicker than I ever imagined. Much like regular inoculations sensitize allergy sufferers to irritating substances, I’m much less reactive to the whole motherhood thing in general. In fact, I’ve developed a powerful protective instinct for women who are today where I once was — lost, angry, sad and mourning the dreams they once held so dear.

This year when the fill-in-the-blank (pastor, priest, minister, rabbi, etc.) asks all women in the congregation who are mothers to stand to be recognized, you might take a closer look at the women who remain seated. There are many among them grateful that only a few hours remain to be endured in the annual Mother’s Day season.