On Tour With LynDee Walker and a Giveaway

I’m delighted to be participating in author LynDee Walker’s Great Escape Virtual Book Tour for her latest release, BURIED LEADS.

As part of this delightful tour, the author has an awesome gift package she is giving away. More about that at the end of the post.

This is a fun cozy filled with great mystery, humor and a bit of romance. BURIED LEADS is the second installment in LynDee’s Headlines in High Heels Mystery series. Published by Henery Press, the book contains 276 pages. Here’s a brief synopsis:

     When an Armani-clad corpse turns up in the woods, crime reporter Nichelle Clarke smells a scoop. A little digging, and Nichelle uncovers a web of corruption that stretches all the way to Washington, D.C. Politics. Murder. And a dead lobbyist. It’s everything Nichelle’s ever dreamed of.
     The cops are playing it close, the feds even closer, and Nichelle’s afraid her boss will assign the story to the political desk any day. Richmond’s new ATF SuperCop makes an arrest before she can say “Louboutin,” but Nichelle’s gut says he’s got the wrong guy.
    Her sexy Mafia boss friend warns her off the case, her TV rival is hot on her designer heels, an ambitious copy editor wants her beat, and victims are piling up faster than she can track them down. As Nichelle zeroes in on the truth, it’ll take some fancy footwork to nab this headline before the killer nabs her.


LynDee is joining us now and has graciously answered some questions about her book and her writing.


Thanks so much for having me today, Mason! I’m excited to be here!
 
Mason - As a former journalist, how much of your protagonist Nichelle Clarke is like you?

LynDee:
This is always a tough one for me. I think there’s some of me in Nichelle, certainly: she’s smart, and sassy, and she truly cares about the people behind the stories she covers. The people were always the biggest thing about reporting for me: helping families find closure, telling their stories. Nichelle definitely gets that from me. And I do love shoes. But I cannot run in stilettos.
 
Mason - What inspired you to write this story?

LynDee:
BURIED LEADS started as another rule I broke, actually. In the publishing industry, writers are often cautioned to never start a sequel until the first book is sold. I love Nichelle and her friends and wasn’t ready to say goodbye to them when I finished writing FRONT PAGE FATALITY. So I typed “the end” and opened a new file and started BURIED LEADS. The story itself grew out of the industry headquartered in this part of Virginia and Nichelle’s desire to cover politics.

Mason - The cover of BURIED LEADS is adorable. Do you have any input into the design of the cover and the title?

LynDee:
Thank you so much! I adore my covers. Henery Press has some amazingly talented folks! I am fortunate to have input into both.
“Buried Leads” popped into my head while I was writing and just fit the story so well. I’m glad my editor loved it, too. Titles are usually difficult for me, so it was lovely to just have one from the ether this time.
On the cover, I get a sheet to fill in asking what I’d like to see, if there’s anything I specifically don’t want, etc. I mostly just want the artists to do their thing, because I’m blessed with people who get my stories and put pretty faces on them.

Mason - If you had to write this book over, would you do anything differently - content in the book, your writing schedule, the way you researched it, etc.?

LynDee:
Not that I can think of, except that maybe I wouldn’t have pushed so hard to finish the rough draft the week before Christmas. Even the things I had to change in edits taught me something, and I love to learn and improve my craft.
 
Mason - How would you encourage someone who has never read your genre to give it a try?

LynDee:
Oh, goodness! Well, I can say that there’s something in the pages of my books for almost everyone, I think. It’s a mystery, but there are plenty of funny moments and there’s a dash of romance, too. There are even a few good action scenes. So folks new to the mystery genre might find something they’re familiar with amongst all that, and they might discover that they like mystery, too!

Mason - What can readers look forward to next from you?

LynDee:
In the pretty immediate future, there’s a Headlines in High Heels novella coming December 10, in the anthology HEARTACHE MOTEL from Henery Press. Terri L. Austin, Larissa Reinhart, and I all took the heroines from our mystery series and sent them to a seedy motel in Memphis with an Elvis theme, drag queens, and plenty of hijinx. Mayhem ensues, of course. Nichelle gets locked in Graceland with a huge story and a thief who doesn’t appreciate her poking around.

By the time this goes live, I’ll have just turned the third Nichelle novel over to my editor. My working title is SMALL TOWN SPIN, but I’m not a hundred percent sure if it will stick. Nichelle is investigating a suspicious string of suicides in a small town on the Virginia coast. It’s scheduled for release in April 2014 from Henery Press.

LynDee, thanks so much for joining us today and answering these questions. I totally agree with you about people being surprised what all they will find in a cozy mystery that they might not have guessed was there – romance, action, humor, etc.

Now let me tell you a bit about LynDee:

LynDee Walker grew up in the land of stifling heat and amazing food most people call Texas, and wanted to be Lois Lane from the time she could say the words “press conference.” An award-winning journalist, she traded cops and deadlines for burp cloths and onesies when her oldest child was born.

Writing the Headlines in Heels mysteries gives her the best of both worlds. Her debut novel, Front Page Fatality (A Nichelle Clarke Headlines in Heels Mystery), is an amazon new humor #1 bestseller.

LynDee adores her family, her readers, and enchiladas. She often works out tricky plot points while walking off the enchiladas. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she is working on her next novel.

For more on LynDee and her writing, visit her online at www.lyndeewalker.com. You can also find her on the following social sites:
Twitter: @LynDeeWalker
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lyndeewalkerbooks
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/lyndee_walker
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/lyndeewalker


GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

LynDee is giving away a Cool Gift Package, including at $25 gift card to the bookstore of the winner’s choice, using the Rafflecopter widget below. The mandatory entry for that giveaway is to leave a comment for the author. The Rafflecopter will run through the weekend after the last tour post. In addition, LynDee is also giving away a swag package prize to a lucky visitor to each blog participating in her tour. Both giveaways are U.S. Addresses only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more chances to win, visit the other blogs participating in LynDee’s tour:

October 14 – Mommasez: Review & Giveaways

October 15 – Musings and Ramblings: Review, Guest Post & Giveaways

October 16 – dru’s book musing: Guest Post & Giveaways

October 18 – Lily Pond Reads: Review & Giveaways

October 21 – Mystery Playground: Guest Post & Giveaways

October 22 – Kaisy Daisy’s Corner: Review & Giveaways

October 23 – Melina’s Book Blog: Review, Interview & Giveaway

October 24 – Escape With Dollyycas: Review, Interview & Giveaways

October 25 – Brooke Blogs: Review & Giveaways

October 27 – Socrates’ Book: Review Blog Review & Giveaways

October 28 – SavingFor6: Review & Giveaway

October 29 – rantin’ ravin’ and reading: Review, Interview & Giveaways

October 30 – Traveling With T: Review, Guest Post & Giveaways

Thanks for stopping by today for LynDee’s tour. Are you a big fan of cozy mysteries or do you prefer thrillers or maybe both?