We couldn’t be more excited! For the last year, eight authors from around the United States and Canada have been planning for this moment–the premier of our first book in TheMagnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles. It’s a joint venture; we all write about a small town in Texas where the growing body count is enough to choke a horse. (No pun intended)
We are publishing a mystery a month beginning April 21st. Out of the gate charges CW Hawes with
DEATH WEARS A CRIMSON HAT
Harry Thurgood is an enigma. Polished, cultured, and relatively new to Magnolia Bluff, Texas, he’s a man with a past, and he keeps his secrets close to his chest. Not only is Harry hiding his sins, but so is a good portion of Magnolia Bluff. The Crimson Hat Society is a group of women in the town who do many charitable works for their community, but beneath the group’s surface bubbles a malignancy of lies and deceit that leads to death. CW Hawes’ characters are colorful and unforgettable—like the Reverend Ember Cole, preacher at the local Methodist Church. She moves around Magnolia Bluff dressed in ministerial black with a Saturno religious hat perched on her head. Despite her dour dress, Ember’s face is as angelic as her personality, and Harry is willing to go to hell and back to win her love. Someone in the town wants to make sure Harry and Ember never consummate their romance.
CW Hawes is an amazingly prolific writer who dances between genres with ease. He writes horror, cozy mysteries, and yes, murder mysteries as well. Here’s his website CWHAWES.COM and a link to our premier book in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XGSSKCW
I love writing, but I must admit the process of writing and traditional publication had become stale for me. I wanted something new and fresh to invigorate my writing. It was at the prompting of several friends that I decided to write my next book by podcast. It’s not quite an audio book, but you get the flavor of one without me reading my book to you. So I invited a fellow radio broadcaster, Larry Hinze, to put on his theatrical mask and become homicide detective Nick Winston. I have become his partner in policing, Pat Strom. If you haven’t had the opportunity to tune into my new book Podcast, Deadly Match, I’d like to give you samples of my episodes. Hopefully, I’ll intrigue you enough that you’ll tune in every other Sunday for a new episode.
Episode One finds Seattle Homicide Detectives Nick Winston and Pat Strom called to a late night murder scene at the Nickerson Street Saloon in Seattle. Pat finds Nick near a dumpster where a homeless person had been dumpster diving and instead of dinner, he found the severed head of a once beautiful woman. If this is your first visit, you can listen to the entire episode here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQYvDDQiUo&list=PL1YyuYedCtU79EsXf1SdUQQLoREFI5RBJ
In Episode Two, Nick peruses online dating sites and discovers revealing pictures of a woman who looks suspiciously like the victim he and his partner had discovered the night before. The provocative site is called Meet Your Match and the woman’s user name was Spanish Eyes 69. Listen here for Episode Two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RMfHMt1hUQ&list=PL1YyuYedCtU79EsXf1SdUQQLoREFI5RBJ&index=2
Episode Three finds the two detectives scrambling to discover the identity of the Spanish Eyes 69. Their supervisor, Captain Martin, decides to make a public plea and engages the help of a forensic artist to draw the image of the severed head. A frantic call to the Seattle Police Department leads to success for the department, but marks a tragedy for a family desperately hoping to find their loved one. Here’s the link for Episode Three. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztMfuFeV_CY&list=PL1YyuYedCtU79EsXf1SdUQQLoREFI5RBJ&index=3
Episode Four: Nick and Strom visit the home of Valentina Colon’s family. The victim’s mother is now the custodian of the dead woman’s three young children. Nick is captivated by three-year-old heartbreaker Mateo Colon. Later, Nick makes Tandy an offer she can’t refuse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVFdVw9u544
Episode Five Nick and Pat learn another body part has been found in trash bin behind a Mexican Restaurant just south of Seattle. Their goal is to find the killer who has murdered and dismembered Valentina Colon. The detectives hope more of her body can be recovered for a more thorough autopsy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag48l-u1iU0&list=PL1YyuYedCtU79EsXf1SdUQQLoREFI5RBJ&index=6
Episode Seven: Our two homicide detectives, Nick Winston and Pat Strom, are increasingly convinced that another serial killer has emerged in the Pacific Northwest. Camila Vasquez, the mother of Valentina Colon, is instrumental in providing invaluable evidence in the hunt for the madman murdering and mutilating area women. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0gI0cTqivg&list=PL1YyuYedCtU79EsXf1SdUQQLoREFI5RBJ&index=9
Episode Eight: Seattle Detectives Nick Winston and Pat Strom have been desperate to find the phone of murder victim Valentina Colon. They believe the cell phone will identify who was the last person to see Valentina alive. The detectives rush to a remote area on Cougar Mountain where her car is finally discovered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqf23RrD_Xg&list=PL1YyuYedCtU79EsXf1SdUQQLoREFI5RBJ&index=4
Episode Nine: is produced and set for publication. At last, Winston and Strom have the name of the man who perhaps was the last person to see their victim alive. The detectives locate Handsome Harry. Join me for the next exciting episode of DEADLY MATCH at KellyMarshallBooks.com/on-the-air.
One of the biggest highlights for an author is when she can write THE END at the bottom of the last page. Friday night, I did just that. It’s like having a baby only your friends don’t give you showers.
A charismatic and popular priest, Father Michael Dunne is brutally stabbed to death in the confessional. The Seattle Catholic Community is stunned and in mourning for a cleric who served not only the people in his parish but many in the Northwest’s burgeoning homeless and drug-addicted communities. Continue reading →
I have numerous friends who love to write. They’re not on the New York Times Best Seller list yet, but they’re working on it. I’d like to share the story of one of my good friends who plows through an impossibly busy life to find time to follow her passion to write.
Kathy MacKenzie is truly a renaissance woman. She is a real estate broker and owner of Mackenzie Realty in California and Texas. She is a social media marketing specialist, a publicist, a web designer, and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the Valley Center California Parks and Recreation Department. She is also a member of the Valley Center Planning Group, and the Chamber of Commerce.
Whew! On top of that she gives piano lessons once a week, and participates in a Kiwanis program called Rolling Readers that assists young children at their elementary school who need help with reading. Oh, yeah, she also plays tennis twice a week. In addition to this crazy, busy schedule, she has written two award-winning novels under the pen name of Bonny Brookes: Linked Lives and Darkest Dawn.
The 2014 winner of the Beverly Hills International Book Award in the relationships category, LINKED LIVES details the story of two women who cement a bond early in their childhood and develop a life-long support system for each other through poverty, unemployment, family struggles, betrayals in love, illness and death. Their linked lives created a rock solid friendship and love that spanned decades.
In Darkest Dawn Kathy writes about a woman named Linda who is unemployed, alone and facing an unplanned pregnancy. Abortion or adoption? The woman wonders if she can raise the child by herself after the father abandons her. In addition to this heart-wrenching decision, she is attacked by vicious dogs and stunned by a cruel death that leaves her inconsolable. Loving hands reach out to help her out of the depths of despair into peace and joy.
Like Kathy, my life is busier than I’d like. My dream is to retire from my full-time job and write every day, but someone has to pay the mortgage, and that would be me. I am working on my sixth novel, the fourth one in my Winston and Strom murder mystery series. Seattle homicide detectives, Nick Winston and Pat Strom are called to investigate the murder of Father Michael Dunne who has been tragically stabbed to death in the confessional. Who would want to kill the popular priest? BLESS ME FATHER FOR I HAVE SINNED will be published in the Spring of 2019
A charismatic and popular priest, Father Michael Dunne is brutally stabbed to death in the confessional. The Seattle Catholic Community is stunned and in mourning for a cleric who served not only the people in his parish but many in the Northwest’s burgeoning homeless and drug-addicted communities. 
KELLY MARSHALL NEWS 