Release Day for Pretty Dead

Release Day!! 

From New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier comes her newest SERIAL-KILLER THRILLER!

 500 COMBINED 5-STAR SERIES REVIEWS.

What reviewers are saying:

"A great read. Would recommend to any fans of KARIN SLAUGHTER and LISA GARDNER."

"This thrilling page-turner will keep readers intrigued and on the edge of their seat."

"By far the best of the three books. I laughed, I was almost bought to tears and I couldn't put my kindle down till I'd read every last page. After being approved for this book, I went to Amazon and downloaded the first two books. The first first two books are good, but there is something about this one that leaves them in the dust. I loved the use of misdirection, angst, betrayal, attraction, and suspense.. I can't wait for what comes next for Elise, David and their merry band of misfits."

"The story line and the characters were gripping. Would highly recommend this book and author."

"This is my favorite book from the Elise Sandburg series. Once again Anne Frasier kept me captivated from the beginning to the end."

"A working girl is dead at midnight under the moss draped square. And the story never stops. Elise Sandberg's world collapse in the aftermath. From opening to denouement, you will not put this book down."

"This was possibly the best book of this series, and one can only hope there are more to come. Riveting."

PURCHASE PRETTY DEAD: http://amzn.to/1PIKtfW

PURCHASE STAY DEAD: http://amzn.to/1Lf7k4d

PURCHASE PLAY DEAD: http://amzn.to/1KcFSUI

Author website: http://bit.ly/1Rj2836

Newsletter signup: http://bit.ly/1N02ozG

About PRETTY DEAD

A serial killer stalks the streets of Savannah...

Homicide detective Elise Sandburg and her partner, profiler David Gould, are all too familiar with the terrible costs of chasing evil. Despite their wounded psyches, the detectives delve into the deranged killer’s twisted mind, determined to unravel the clues in the taunts he leaves behind.

A city gripped by fear...

When his daughter becomes the killer’s next victim, a grief-stricken mayor comes down hard on the police, demanding that they catch the psychopath—now. Feeling the pressure, department officials enlist the aid of both Elise’s estranged father and an FBI profiler who has unresolved business with David.

A cunning and elusive madman...

In a heart-pounding race to stop the next homicide, the detectives uncover their own role in the madman’s deadly game. Will they outsmart the killer before another horrific murder takes place in their beautiful city? Or have Elise and David finally met their match?

PRETTY DEAD

Pretty Dead, the third Elise Sandburg book, will be released September 1. Please keep in mind that this is a Thomas & Mercer title, which means the ebook will be available exclusively through Amazon. Print copies can be ordered through other vendors like B&N, or brick-and-mortar bookstores. 

The ebook is available for pre-order, and will be delivered to your Kindle on September 1. 

ORDER LINK

About the book: 

A serial killer stalks the streets of Savannah...

Homicide detective Elise Sandburg and her partner, profiler David Gould, are all too familiar with the terrible costs of chasing evil. Despite their wounded psyches, the detectives delve into the deranged killer’s twisted mind, determined to unravel the clues in the taunts he leaves behind.

A city gripped by fear...

When his daughter becomes the killer’s next victim, a grief-stricken mayor comes down hard on the police, demanding that they catch the psychopath—now. Feeling the pressure, department officials enlist the aid of an FBI profiler who has unresolved business with David.

A cunning and elusive madman...

In a heart-pounding race to stop the next homicide, the detectives uncover their own role in the madman’s deadly game. Will they outsmart the killer before another horrific murder takes place in their beautiful city? Or have Elise and David finally met their match?

Forty Press and Once Upon a Crime Classics

The newest print edition (trade paperback) of Before I Wake, published by Forty Press, has the honor of being the first book to be released as a Once Upon a Crime Classic.  The Penguin/NAL edition came out in 2005. Up until that point, my Frasier titles had been set in cities and were fairly traditional police procedurals. This time around, editors asked for a rural setting. Once you move a story from a city, and once you add isolation, the tone changes and the book begins to feel a little like horror.  Before I Wake is a mixture of psychological suspense, thriller, and a little bit of horror.

I think the Forty Press cover is a HUGE improvement over the original cover, which looked like romance. In fact, I love the new cover:

Partial screen shot of title page with intro by publisher Joe Riley:

Forward by Gary Shulze of Once Upon a Crime:

Once Upon a Crime Series Editor Note
Looking through reviews and blurbs of Theresa Weir’s books (aka Anne Frasier) in preparation for writing an introduction to this edition of Before I Wake, I was struck by the consistent use of the best in adjectives: Gripping, Chilling, Clever, Engrossing, Brilliant, Heart- thumping...you get the idea. These and more apply to her entire body of work. Many of them I used myself back when I reviewed books for Crimespree Magazine. (I jokingly say that I had to quit reviewing because I ran out of adjectives.) One of my favorite review

5

assignments back then was to review Before I Wake in May, 2005. In that review I wrote “...Anne Frasier...once again demonstrates her mastery of atmospheric suspense.”
I wasn’t the first, and surely I won’t be the last, to describe The- resa as a master. She is fluent in a whole range of genres: Romance, Romantic Suspense, Crime Thriller, Psychological Suspense, and Horror (sometimes combining a bunch of them in the same book) while winning a batch of awards along the way. Plus, she wrote a knock-out memoir, The Orchard (2011)—a book that puts the “heart” into “heart-wrenching.” In a word, she is a “master” of the craft, and an author to watch, and of course, to read.
So just what does a master of atmospheric suspense do? With apparently no effort, she manages for you not to just visualize a scene, but invites you in as a participant—often with long-lingering effect. In Garden of Darkness (2007), there is a simple scene of dried leaves blowing across a road. Something you see any given day, but forever- more something I’ll be seeing with fresh eyes and ears.
In Before I Wake, as Arden walks us down the halls of the Mad- eline State Lunatic Asylum—now a psychiatric research unit-cum- nursing home—you can hear the floors creak. And during the book’s incredible finale, which takes place at the Arden family farm during a pounding blizzard, you just may want to bundle up.
We at Once Upon a Crime have been honored to have hosted publication launch parties for all of Anne/Theresa’s books. She is thoroughly delightful and we love her to death. She also makes our skin crawl, and scares the crap out of us.
– Gary Shulze Once Upon a Crime Minneapolis, MN January 22, 2013 

~~~~

The release date is March 9, but copies are already available through Once Upon a Crime.  They love phone orders, so don't hesitate to call: 612 870- 3785

 I will be attending the CrimeSpree 50th Issue Party at Once Upon a Crime this Saturday, February 22, so if you'd like a signed copy just give Gary and Pat a call.

Print versions of Before I Wake can also be purchased from any bookseller.

THE DEVIL AND THE DIVA

I moved from southeast Iowa to the Twin Cities in…I think it was spring of 2000. My son had settled in the area a few years earlier, and I fell in love with the place after just a few visits. I had to remain in Iowa until all of our aging animals were gone, one being a horse. If you read my memoir, you will have met him. Mr. Red. My daughter ended up at the University of Minnesota, so it was wonderful when our small family was once again reunited. 

I can't explain why I love the Twin Cities. I've tried. How can you love a city that is oftentimes dark and ugly and full of crime? A place where your car is destroyed right in front of your house? When you get mugged leaving a venue? When your pocket is picked at a gas station?  When cops throw people over car hoods and arrest them steps from your door? When you sometimes wonder if you just heard gunshots. Pretty sure those were gunshots. 

I love it because there's magic here.  There's this wonderful energy, this charge of creativity that's in the air and in the buildings and in the sidewalk under your feet. It's in the snow that falls and pisses you off because you can't get anywhere.  If you could flip a switch and actually see the creativity, it would look like flying sparks settling in your hair and inside your boots, catching on your eyelashes. When you inhale, you breathe sparks into your lungs.

I set a book in the Twin Cities, but I was unable to convey my love of the place, or why I loved it.

Well my friends… If you want to understand why Minnesota is wonderful, if you want to know how in the hell people can stand it here when a dark winter night bottoms out at -40 (that's not wind chill), download a copy of the Devil and the Diva by David Housewright and Renee Valois.  You will understand.  You will want to move here. Even if you already live here, you will want to move here.

Here's my short blurb:

Mysterious, lush, and lovely; a present-day gothic tale drenched in love for a magical land called Minnesota.

It's rich, it's lush, it's romantic, it's smart, it's funny. It's a mix of genres, a Beauty and the Beast tale.  Mystery. Crime fiction. Intrigue. Gothic romance.  Inside the pages we visit Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, the North Shore, all in winter. Winter!  A masked man. Dark wool capes that flow over deep snow. A house like a castle. A woman in a white gown holding a candelabra.

READ MORE ABOUT THE BOOK: THE DEVIL AND THE DIVA

Full disclosure: David is a friend of mine and contributed a short story to the Halloween anthology Deadly Treats. He's also an Edgar winner. So there ya go!

City of the Lost by Stephen Blackmoore

I'm so excited about this book.  I read an early version several years ago and LOVED  it. LOVED it.  Stephen Blackmoore has voice. He has darkness.  He has humor.  And he has heart. 

And to give you an idea of Stephen's voice, here's a little excerpt from his short story, World's Greatest Dad, taken from the Deadly Treats Halloween anthology. Below that, some early reviews of City of the Lost (release date January 3).

***

By the time Franklin Delacorte wakes up, he's been dead six hours.

He's confused, disoriented.  Wondering why he's naked and surrounded by multi-colored candles in the middle of a crypt. 

He sits up, wobbles a bit.  Steadies himself on the top of the stone sarcophagus he's been lying on.  Yellow light gutters through the room, throwing scattered shadows along the stone wall. 

The candles are a little unnerving.  Scented.  Vanilla, spice, potpourri.  It smells like his grandmother's house. 

"Dude," someone says behind him.  "You so have to see this." 

Franklin looks to the door at a vaguely familiar teenager.  Can't quite place him.  Pimples, greasy hair, wearing an old army jacket.  A cigarette dangles on the kid's bottom lip, his mouth hanging open.  After a moment the cigarette falls to the floor. 

and a little later....

Franklin sits in the back of Billy's busted up Cougar, the body bag from the morgue wrapped around his waist.  The Cougar would be a classic car if it wasn't mostly rust with an engine that sounds like a wood chipper.  Billy keeps working on it, but it never seems to get any better.

"This is what I get for busting my butt to keep you boys out of trouble.  Didn't you learn a thing in Sunday school?  Like don't play with the forces of the devil?"

"Jeez, dad, we said we were sorry," Jake says.

Franklin's a little worried.  He's seen movies.  He knows how this sort of thing turns out.  "I don't even want to know how you did it, but I swear if I start gnawing on brains I'm gonna start with yours."  

World's Greatest Dad, Stephen Blackmoore

***

Praise for City of the Lost:

Review

"The gritty streets of CITY OF THE LOST are filled with snappy dialog, and fascinating characters, as well as a rollercoaster of a plot that doesn't slow down from beginning to end. This is the zombie crime novel we didn't know we were all waiting for."
- Seanan McGuire, author of DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON

"CITY OF THE LOST is the best kind of paranormal noir: gritty, breakneck- paced, and impossible to put down. Joe Sunday is a new antihero to watch, and the next installment can't come soon enough."
- Caitlin Kittredge, author of THE IRON THORN

"Bruja, demons, bloodsuckers, the living dead and bucketloads of bloody magic - you'll find all of those in CITY OF THE LOST, but the real magic is how Blackmoore deftly breathes secret supernatural life into the City of Angels. This is an auspicious debut that's at turns violent, hilarious, and tragic. Can't wait make a return trip to Blackmoore's voodoo version of L.A."
- Chuck Wendig, author of BLACKBIRDS

"For a debut author, Stephen Blackmoore knows perfectly well how to snatch up his readers and barrel away with them from page one. In Joe Sunday, he's created the perfect hard-boiled anti-hero - an inexorable protagonist who's short on tongue-wagging and long on visceral brutality, yet is totally sympathetic due to his singular narrative voice. Oh, yeah. He's also dead. CITY OF THE LOST is one hell of a fast and thoroughly enjoyable ride. The perfect book for fans of crime noir, urban fantasy, and horror. One of my favorite reads of the year."
- John Hornor Jacobs, author of SOUTHERN GODS

"The funhouse reflection of L.A. Blackmoore conjures is at once vibrant, seedy, and mysterious - streets so mean, they feel as though plucked straight from Chandler's DT nightmares. CITY OF THE LOST effortlessly blends the grit with the fantastical, and paints a world in which magic is to be feared - but not nearly so much as the people behind it."
- Chris F. Holm, author of DEAD HARVEST