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Friday, March 8, 2019

Beach Blanket Homicide by Maria Geraci-Great Escapes Tour With Giveaway


About the book 
The first book in a fun, quirky chick-lit mystery series featuring Lucy McGuffin, world’s best muffin maker and amateur sleuth.
Everyone agrees that Lucy McGuffin bakes the best muffins in Whispering Bay, but she’s got another talent, one that she’s tried her whole life to hide. Lucy can always tell when a person is lying or telling the truth. Being a human lie detector isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially when you don’t really want the answer to the universal question: Does this dress make my butt look too big?
When Lucy is hired to cater the grand opening celebration of the city’s new community center, she stumbles across the dead body of Abby Delgado, a prominent member of the Sunshine Ghost Society. Lucy’s brother, Father Sebastian, a local priest, is the last person to have seen Abby alive. Convinced he’ll be breaking a confidence, Sebastian refuses to cooperate with the police, forcing Lucy to put her skills to the test to save her brother’s good name.
Enter the town’s new hotshot deputy, Travis Fontaine. Travis doesn’t want an amateur like Lucy snooping around his turf, so he offers her a deal. He’ll stay out of her kitchen if she’ll stay away from his crime scene. But Lucy isn’t about to let her brother’s fate rest in the hands of an arrogant cop. Good thing she has her best friend Will and her new little rescue dog, Paco, to back her up, because its up to Lucy to figure out what everyone in the quaint little beachside town is hiding
Guest post by Author Maria Geraci

WHAT MAKES A GOOD COZY TITLE?

One of the best parts about writing cozy mysteries? (Besides coming up with those zany plotlines?). Coming up with titles! A good title not only gets your book noticed, but gets it noticed by the right audience.

I’d written ten romantic comedies and two chick-lit books before I decided to dip my toe in the cozy mystery market. Several of my romances had elements of mystery in them and I wanted to explore that side of my writing. I wanted to flip it around and write mystery with some element of romance.

Now that I’ve written two books in my cozy mystery series, I’m completely hooked. For one thing, cozies are FUN. They’re irreverent, eccentric, and only in a cozy can you get away with a dog who sees ghosts.

As for titles? I’ve decided that the wackier, the better. When I was brainstorming the title for the first book in my Whispering Bay Mystery series, I knew that it needed to have the same fun feel as the book. It’s set in a beach town and the murder takes place during a town festival where the theme of the costume contest is sixties beach movies. Add in a bunch of Annette Funicello’s and Frankie Avalon’s, and voila! Beach Blanket Homicide was born.

The second book in the series Whack The Mole has absolutely nothing to do with hitting small burrowing mammals on the head with a hammer, and everything to do with killing wise guys—as in mafia hitmen. I have to confess to watching a LOT of The Sopranos while writing this book. For inspiration, of course.

The third and upcoming book in the series Murder By Muffin…well, I think you can pretty much figure that one out! Yes, poisonous muffins are involved and don’t get me started on my Google searches for this one. If someone were to come along and see my Internet history, they’d probably put out a warrant for my arrest!

            But back to titles. If you look at the top selling cozy mysteries on Amazon, you’ll find a plethora of snicker worthy titles—Chocolate Cream Pie Murder—this one not only makes me laugh, it makes me hungry too. A Tale of Two Kitties—love the Dickens knock off, plus, there are kittens on the cover. What’s not to love about that? Mrs. Pettigrew Sees A Ghost—I wish I’d thought of that great title! Arsenic In the Azaleas—murder and gardening? Count me in.
                             

I think we can pretty much agree that no other genre has as much fun with their titles as cozy mysteries!

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