Can You Judge a Book By Its Cover?

Imagine being embarassed about your child's appearance. Not the color/length/amount of their hair or their low-slung jeans and silly t-shirts (well, okay, this one is clever), but the closeness of their eyes, the thinness of their lips, the de Bergerac-ness of their nose. You had no choice how they came out, really, but you have to live with these attributes for the rest of your life.

Hop on over to Inkspot, a collaborative blog of Midnight Ink authors, and read the rest of my post.

Interview on Working Stiffs Blog

Oh, that Poppy. She loves rules and regulations, lists and procedures, things that are black and white. Her t’s must be crossed, her i’s dotted, and her clothes arranged by type and color in her closet. Poppy is a planner. She likes to know every little detail about every little thing in advance.

Hop on over to the Working Stiffs blog to read more of my interview with C. L. Phillips.

KAZI Radio Interview with Hopeton Hay

On Mother's Day, the official pub date of my book, I gave my very first radio interview with Hopeton Hay of the KAZI Book Review on Austin's KAZI 88.7 FM.

May is Texas Mystery Month, and Hopeton had two well-known crime writers on his show—T. Jefferson Parker and Harlan Coben—and me.

Click here for a direct link to the interview and Hopeton's review of my book. I'm about 3/4 of the way into the interview after Harlan Coben. Yes, I had to follow Harlan Coben.

Other than sounding like I'm 12 years old, I think it went well.

If You Can't Stand the Heat | Now Available

Former chef turned public health inspector Poppy Markham hates favors. She hates doing them and she hates asking for them. But when her father asks her to help out in the family restaurant for one special night, she can’t say no. And that’s when the trouble starts.

A couple of hours into the grand re-opening celebration of Markham’s Grille & Cocktails, guest chef and European bad boy, Évariste Bontecou, is murdered. Poppy’s territorial stepsister, Ursula York, swears she didn’t do it, but the evidence against her is pretty solid: it was her knife sticking out of Évariste’s heart.

Despite serious doubts about Ursula’s innocence, Poppy begins investigating the only people who had access to Ursula’s knife—the restaurant staff. Using her talents as a world-class snoop, honed to perfection in her day job as a public health inspector, Poppy begins uncovering things people want to keep hidden.

As Poppy gets closer to the truth, the hotter things get. And as everyone knows: if you can’t stand the heat, you should stay out of the kitchen.