WHERE THE DEAD LIE Upcoming Events

I've finally finished Sebastian St. Cyr #13, WHY KILL THE INNOCENT (coming April 2018) and now started on Sebastian #14, WHO SLAYS THE WICKED (coming April 2019).  If you've been following my family's various health issues, I can say that Peanut is now fully recovered, fat, and sassy, Angel (who recently had his 18th birthday) is still hanging in there (although he gave us a scare by first getting a bad cold, then by falling off the dryer and hurting his back), and my son-in-law has just undergone a scary surgery which hopefully will fix or at least improve his long string of health crises. We're now 72 hours out from that.

AND things are about to get hectic with my upcoming book release. Here is my current schedule. If you live anywhere in the area of one of these events, I hope you can come by and say hi!

1. Jane Austen Literary Festival

Saturday, 1 April 2017, 2:45 pm

Panel and book signing

Old Mandeville Trailhead

675 Lafitte Street

Mandeville, Louisiana

2. Garden District Book Shop

Book signing 

Tuesday, 4 April 2017 

6-7:30pm

The Rink

2727 Prytania Street

New Orleans, Louisiana

3. Murder by the Book

Book signing 

Saturday, 8 April, 4:30pm

2342 Bissonnet St

Houston, Texas

4. Poisoned Pen

Cozy Con 

Book signing

22 April 2017, 1-4 pm

4014 N. Goldwater Blvd

Scottsdale, Arizona

In other news, WHEN FALCONS FALL, Sebastian #12, is now out in trade paperback. My publisher has switched their paperback reprints from mass market size to trade because, bluntly, the market for the little paperbacks is drying up and a lot of outlets don't carry them any more. The New York Times has even quit printing a mass market paperback bestseller list, which is really hard for me to wrap my head around! 

It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, the change has on the paperback sales, although the truth is my sales have always been strongest in hardcover and ebook. But I know the switch will be rough on all you OCD types out there. Believe me, I understand.  

Hold Onto Your Carriage Strap . . .

So I guess I'm not doing so well on my New Years Resolutions! Oh, well...

At any rate, here is the charming review Kirkus just gave WHERE THE DEAD LIE. They think the book is a tad "bleak." Because Kirkus has a tendency to give away too much, I have edited it slightly. But be sure not to miss the last couple of sentences; they're real charmers!

In Regency England, a viscount pursues the sadistic killer of London's most vulnerable denizens. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his former comrade in arms, surgeon Paul Gibson, have seen more than their share of violent death in wartime. But neither one can look calmly at the body of Benji Thatcher, a street urchin who [was tortured and murdered]. The death of one more homeless pickpocket is unlikely to cause a stir among most of fashionable London, but Gibson and Sebastian specialize in solving crimes that others can't or won't. 

Sebastian's wife, Hero, is a social reformer who's writing a series of articles about the poor of London, and while she interviews some of the street children who knew Benji, Sebastian uses the testimony of an old soldier who saw and interrupted someone digging Benji's grave as a starting point for finding out what happened not just to Benji, but to a number of other homeless children who've disappeared. The owner of a secondhand store helps direct Sebastian to a brothel catering to clients who like their prostitutes young, and contraband copies of a book by the Marquis de Sade bring Sebastian closer to identifying the person responsible for the pitiful collections of children's bones buried near the shallow grave meant for Benji. Unfortunately, Sebastian's suspects—an actor, a French count, a dissolute marquis' heir about to marry into Sebastian's family, and an even more highly connected person who's also a relative of Hero—all have alibis. 

But Sebastian's power-hungry father-in-law presents the biggest obstacle to his sleuthing in a tale that, despite top boots and tall hats, velvet spencers and gowns à la grecque, and even a cat named Mr. Darcy, is a far cry from the world of Jane Austen. Harris (When Falcons Fall, 2016, etc.) is as determined as her lead couple to explore London's underbelly. Hold onto your carriage strap: the tangle of familial, criminal, and political conflict makes for bleak reading.

A New Year

Do you make New Year's resolutions? I read the other day that one should call them "intentions"--the theory being that relabeling them might make them less intimidating and help us feel less of a failure when we inevitably stumble.

I usually do make them, and they're typically the same ones every year: eat healthily, exercise more, get more sleep, stop wasting time. I actually do eat healthily most days (the result of some twenty years of making the same resolution), and I exercise when my aching joints allow. The sleep and time-wasting are still a work in progress.

Another of my resolutions this year is to be better at keeping this blog. I do like to be upbeat on it because nobody needs a Debbie Downer, and last year was such a rolling series of disasters that I found it increasingly hard to strike the necessary note. Maybe this year . . .

I can tell you that having my girls home for Christmas was beyond wonderful (and Maddie and Zydeco! I've really missed those two. Look how big and fat Maddie is!). My little Peanut is now just fine. One thing I learned from our vet is that runts of the litter, when they hit 7-8, usually start having health problems. So another of my resolutions is to spoil her. She's not complaining.

I'm back at work on my next Sebastian book (tentatively entitled Why Kill the Innocent), and the end is finally, finally within sight. I've reached the point where I'm more than anxious to move on to #14 (Who Slays the Wicked--love that title). I'm also looking forward to the release of WHERE THE DEAD LIE, coming in April. It has already received a nice Publishers Weekly review, which I should be able to share soon. This is undoubtedly my darkest book, by far. I wonder why?

I will be going over to San Antonio again in few weeks to be with my daughter while her husband undergoes major surgery. Another of my resolutions this year is to try to stay calm and meditate more.

We'll see how I do.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I have both my girls coming home this holiday season: Samantha and her husband (and Maddie, Zydeco, Loki, and Odin, too) are here already, and Danielle and Ryan arrive the day after Christmas. The fact that they're all going to be here at the same time set me on a mad scramble to paint Dani's old room and get it fixed up with a double bed in time for the holidays. But everything is now finished--room painted, bed delivered, tree up, house decorated, presents wrapped. I've shelved my writing until after the new year (with just 35 pages left in the 13th Sebastian book!), and now I'm simply settling down to enjoy my family and the holidays.

It's a full house, with eight cats, one dog, four people, and two more soon to come (thankfully Danielle's two cats aren't coming, too!), but Maddie is the Queen and she knows it. She is SO BIG, and still as sweet (and bad) as ever. She especially likes the village under the tree. Ahem.

Huckleberry always loved the tree and village so much that I must admit it was hard putting it up without his help. BUT, my little Peanut is still on the mend, and while I can't completely relax, I think she is going to make it. And my son-in-law, while still so terribly ill, was able to make it here for Christmas, so we are thankful for that. And Steve is now walking well enough that he was able to put up the crown molding in Danielle's room (that was the one room in the house that didn't have it).

I know things could have been so much worse, but this has been a pretty awful year, so here's hoping for a better 2017. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Some Updates

First, an update on Peanut: She's still with us, and while I don't want to jinx anything, she seems to have turned a corner. She's now eating on her own and is bathing herself, and we've been able to stop the subcutaneous fluids. It's been a hard (and expensive!!!) two weeks, and we're still not relaxing entirely, but we're hopeful. She also now officially hates my guts.

And here's a lovely review of my new standalone historical, Good Time Coming, from the Historical Novel Society:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/the-personal-loss-of-war-as-illustrated-in-c-s-harris-good-time-coming/