Signed Paperbacks Available | by Linda Brendle
In this day of tablets and ebooks, I believe that many readers still prefer the experience of paper and ink. Several recent events gave me the chance to confirm that belief while meeting and getting to know some of those readers better. In a ten day period, I had a book signing at a local flower and gift shop, I attended a book club meeting where the first of my two novels was discussed, and I had a table in the exhibit building at our local county fair. Writing can be a lonely pursuit until the author moves out from behind her keyboard and interacts with the lives she touches. It was so much fun to talk with people about my life and theirs, and it was especially fulfilling to hear from those who had read my words and had been touched by them. And it was encouraging to meet some who were anxious for me to sign and sell them one or more of my books so they could read what I had to say next.
The most surprising incident during that time, though, didn’t happen at any of the events I mentioned. Instead it happened on Facebook. I received a message from a friend I met many years ago in a hospital in San Antonio. She was the chaplain, and David was in ICU with a concussion after doing a front flip over his windshield when his Harley came to a sudden stop. We haven’t seen each other since then, but we have kept in touch electronically. In her message she asked me how she could go about getting signed copies of all four of my books. We exchanged addresses and details, and she should have her books any day now.
It occurred to me that there may be others like my San Antonio friend who would like print copies of one or more of my books but would like something more personal than an Amazon purchase. So, I’m making a public offer: an autographed paperback of any of my books – or all of them – for $10 each plus $2 each for postage.
Memoirs :
A Long and Winding Road: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos: The story of the hilarity and chaos and chaos that happen when four people, two of whom have Alzheimer’s, spend seven weeks traveling across the southeastern U.S. in a forty-foot motor home.
Mom’s Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale of Alzheimer’s, Grief, and Comfort: Mom’s goodbye began with a red photo album and ended fifteen years later in a hospital bed in the Alzheimer’s wing of Southridge Village. This is her story and mine. (This is the follow up to Winding Road – the rest of the story.)
Christian Fiction:
Tatia’s Tattoo: As a successful D.C. lawyer, Tatia’s mission in life is to destroy the sex trafficking trade in small-town America. She knows where to find it. She’s been there. Filled with tragedy, crime, redemption, and love, Tatia’s Tattoo is a story that exposes the sordid underbelly of small towns and shines a light of hope on how the evil might be defeated.
Fallen Angel Salvage (Tatia’s Story, Book #2): Tatia and Jesse have a perfect life in Chicago. Her testimony put Eric in prison in Texas twenty years ago. How could anything go wrong? An old black van. A missing child. Tatia and Jesse race through the city streets with a band of bikers while Johnny and Jade dig through the dark web and Detectives Nelson and Martin pound on doors. Will it be enough? Or will their daughter become another statistic?
Interested? Email me at lindabrendle@yahoo.com and we’ll work out the details. Payment can be made by check or PayPal.
Blessings,
Linda
Karen Musser Nortman, after 22 years as a secondary social studies teacher and 18 years as a test developer, returned to her childhood dream of writing mysteries. Her first series, The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries, sprouted from numerous camping trips in Iowa and through at least 24 other states. These mysteries center around a group of retirees who camp together and sometimes stumble over dead bodies. Six of the books have been designated IndieBRAG medallion honorees and three have been finalists in Chanticleer CLUE and Mystery and Mayhem contests. Most of the books are based on actual campgrounds.
When I finished my first book in 2012, Bats and Bones, I began looking for an agent. There was some interest and I was really excited when an agent in New York who handles several successful cozy series asked to see the full manuscript. After I sent it, I read that you need to allow an agent at least six months to look at a full manuscript; if they take you on, another year to find a publisher; and another year to actually get the book in print. I was 69 at the time—I was afraid that I might not live long enough to see my book published!
we were pulling our camper through New Mexico a couple of years ago when we were stopped in a roadblock. They were looking for two escaped convicts who they thought may have stowed away in a camper, car trunk, or pickup bed because there is nowhere in that part of New Mexico for anyone to hide along the road. Our camper had been locked since morning and they let us go on. But later I realized that sometimes we forget to lock the outside storage compartments and two of them were big enough for a person. Fortunately, we had no stowaways but the incident became the germ for The Space Invader.
Most of my books have centered around an event, location, and/or activity. The Frannie Shoemaker books include ones about biking, storytellers, county fairs, geocaching, snowstorms, New Mexico and the Michigan UP. Once I decide what the ‘theme’ is, I think about how a crime might be connected to that activity. Geocachers wander around in remote areas looking for hidden caches, so it stands to reason that they might also find a body. (To Cache a Killer) When we toured the Michigan UP, I was intrigued by the glass-bottom boat tours to view shipwrecks, but what if a dead body appeared in the viewing window (Real Actors, Not People)? In Foliage and Fatality, the second Mystery Sisters book, the sisters volunteer to help at a haunted house fund-raiser. What better place to hide a dead body?
Absolutely not. I wanted to get three Mystery Sisters books out to establish the series, and I just finished the third, Double Dutch Death. I have already started the next Frannie, Corpse of Discovery. The location is based on Lewis and Clark State Park on the Missouri River in western Iowa. There is an annual celebration there of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (the Corps of Discovery) and it includes a fur trader reenactment. An event with hatchet throwing contests and knife makers sounds like it has lots of possibilities for a murder.
Kitty is not a celebrity who seeks the spotlight. She is more like Greta Garbo, the Swedish-American movie star of the 1920’s and 30’s who is famous for the line, I want to be alone. Unlike some family pets who never meet a stranger, Kitty hides under the bed when visitors come, and even though she tries to sneak outside occasionally, she seems to prefer watching life go by from behind a pane of glass. However, the rules and regulations of society don’t favor the sensitivities of the recluse, and this week she had to go out into the world.
On Sundays, David and I usually go home after church and have a light lunch, usually leftovers, but this week Don and Carol asked David if we wanted to go out to eat with them. It sounded like fun to me, so when we pulled out of the parking lot, he turned right instead of left. Everyone must have had the same idea, because the parking lot at Sidekicks was so full we had to park at the flower shop. Don and Carol were already seated at a table for four, but Paul had joined them. When Carol saw us, she said, “Oh, David said he wasn’t sure.” Then, she nodded at the empty table for six behind her, and everybody shifted. It was a little like the tea party scene from Alice in Wonderland – “clean cup, clean cup, move down, move down.” 
