Saturday, June 29, 2013

Celebrate Independence Day with Free Trouble...hmm, that sounds wrong...

From July 4th for a week, Pearlsong Press is offering free Kindle editions of Josephine Fuller's 4th Adventure, A Ton of Trouble, and Lonie McMichael's excellent examination of Acceptable Prejudice.

Here's what Pearlsong Press founder, Peggy Elam says:

FYI, in response to the American Medical Association's recent decision to declare "obesity" a disease -- against the recommendations of its scientific advisory committee -- we have decided to release the Kindle ebook of Acceptable Prejudice? Fat, Rhetoric & Social Justice by Lonie McMichael, Ph.D. a month early -- and give it away for free for five days starting July 4.

We had already scheduled a free giveaway during that period for A Ton of Trouble, Book 4 in Lynne Murray's Josephine Fuller mystery series, so we're combining the promotions. I've scheduled a blog post for tomorrow/Sunday morning announcing them, and just sent out a press release to the ASDAH, Show Me the Data and Fat Studies egroups, asking that word be spread. (A separate blog post just announcing the ATOT giveaway will be published Wednesday morning.)

Links to the blog post(s) will go out over Facebook & Twitter, so please like/share/retweet as you can. And spread the word whatever other ways you think of. The Acceptable Prejudice? ebook has been called "Fat Acceptance 101" and could be a great opportunity for someone unfamiliar with the issues to learn about them for free.

Read more about Acceptable Prejudice? at http://www.pearlsong.com/acceptableprejudice.htm . More about A Ton of Trouble at http://www.pearlsong.com/atonoftrouble.htm .

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Murder in the California Wine Country -- A Ton of Trouble, now it's an ebook!

Sleuth of size, Josephine Fuller's fourth adventure A Ton of Trouble has just been released in paperback and ebook form for the first time by Pearlsong Press. The earlier edition only came out in hardcover.

We decided to take the Amazon Select option, so the ebook version will be exclusive to Amazon for 90 days, but the trade paperback is available from many Pearlsong, Barnes & Noble, Powells and the Book Depository.

The book was partly inspired by what was probably the most fun job I ever had.

For several years I worked in the word processing department of a law firm whose founding partner owned a winery in Sonoma County. Each 4th of July, he invited the staff to a picnic where we could spend a day rambling through the vineyards and admiring his winery, stables, small lake, politically important guests, etc. in between competitive, picnic-style events. Alas, the job and the picnics ended with major staff cuts.

Knowing that I was writing mysteries, some of my fellow laid-off co-workers asked me to murder a particular manager who enjoyed getting rid of workers. He wasn't shy about what pleasure he took in replacing even the most loyal long-term employees. He did it with some glee.

Oddly, A Ton of Trouble is not the book wherein a character similar to the manager met his fate. But my former co-worker enjoyed that book so much she asked me to kill him again. This I could not do, one murder request per customer. She did suggest an interesting place to conceal the body though, and a wonderful line to accompany the discovery. These are in A Ton of Trouble. ,p. The winery in the book may be similar but its owner could not be more different from the lawyer who hosted us so long ago. No actual humans are ever harmed or even accurately portrayed in any of my books. I enjoy my fictional characters much more. In A Ton of Trouble, Wolf Lambert is a legendary horror movie director who has retired to indulge in his hobby--making porn films with plus-sized leading ladies. The research for that aspect of the book was interest too--but I'll talk about it another time!