Today I welcome
Duffy Brown, author of the new mystery,
Iced Chiffon (A Consignment Shop Mystery)
which releases
TODAY!
About the book:
There’s always something to gossip about in Savannah, Georgia, and Reagan Summerside always seems to be in the middle of it. She’s busy enough running her consignment shop, The Prissy Fox, with her vivacious Auntie KiKi, but now the gossip—and the sales—are about to pick up after a gruesome discovery…
Reagan’s messy divorce has left her with nothing but a run-down Victorian and a bunch of designer clothes. Strapped for cash, Reagan makes use of the two things she has left, turning the first floor of her home into a consignment shop and filling it with the remnants of her rich-wife wardrobe.
Thanks to his cunning lawyer Walker Boone, her ex got everything else, including the Lexus—not to mention a young blond cupcake. When Reagan finds the cupcake dead in the Lexus, she’s determined to beat Boone to finding the murderer. As it turns out, the gossip fiends flooding Reagan’s shop will give her a lot more than just their unwanted clothes—they have information more precious than a vintage Louis Vuitton…
(
From the hostess again: I love mysteries with a touch of humor and this is a good one. And who doesn't just love digging out treasures at consignment shops?? So, I guess I'll forgive her daring to let a "cat" sneak in here! Oh, I mean, I ADORE felines... (can always use another tote bag...ha-ha) -- Good news is - the book does feature a
rescue dog! Much better. ha! * Read on for her contest and an excerpt!)
Here's Duffy's two cents:
The Dr. Watson Chronicles...
I’m a cat, all best pets are and today something terrible happened, The Servant told me…me!...to start earning my keep, that I’d better be useful as well as ornamental around this house or it was no more Fancy Feast and she’d start buying that cheap three-for-a-buck tuna crap!
Cheap tuna??? Me!! Where’s my crystal? My china? Didn’t I train her better than this? That bitch! And I’m hungry!
So here I am paws poised at the keyboard instead of snuggled on my memory foam mattress with blue silk pillow while The Servant pours over her latest WIP, Killer in Crinolines. That’s me right now, least the killer part is. Do you know what she wrote in that book and in the one before it?? A dog!! Bruce Willis! Where’s the loyalty, the love the good sense. Everyone knows the best pet is a cat in and out of book!
I figured I had The Servant pretty well trained. Open the door, shut the door, scoop the litter, new toys every week, bits of steak and brie and salmon...you get the picture. But suddenly I’m second fiddle to a dog!
I’m not taking this lying down! I’m not taking this at all. I’m getting even!! I’ll shed!
We all know the best pet of all is spelled c-a-t and not d-o-g. Dogs drool, and CATS rule and don’t you forget it.
*** So, what’ pet do you like best in your books? I know it’s a cat but if you say so maybe The Servant pounding away on her keyboard will believe me. And if you agree with me I’ll put you in a drawing for an Iced Chiffon tote.
Keep on purring,
Dr. Watson
* Excerpt from ICED CHIFFON:
Auntie KiKi scurried out the front door waving her hands in the air. “Where in the world have you been?” she panted, leaning in through the open car window. “When I got home, there were three people waiting on your porch ready to shop! They said they got one of those tweets.” She tsked, the universal sound of exasperated Southern women everywhere. “Whatever happened to the days when you got a nice phone call from a friend telling you what was what?” she lamented. “You have customers in your dining room looking for bargains, and I have a waltz lesson with Bernard in ten minutes.” She heaved a weary sigh.
Bernard Thayer was seventy, had no rhythm, less coordination, been Mr. Weather on Savannah TV for thirty years and he was determined to wind up on Dancing with the Stars.
KiKi thrust a wad of bills at me. “I went and got stuff from my own closet to sell to spruce up your inventory and what in the world are you doing with the Lexus?”
“I sold that fountain in the back yard to Raylene Carter for a small fortune. Now I have to deliver it as well as get the car back before Hollis knows I took it. I sort of didn’t tell him.”
“Oh, honey, Grand Theft Auto, your mamma will be so proud.”
I ignored the possibility that my scum-bucket ex would call the cops and I popped the trunk. “Take a look-see at how much room we have. Hollis stores his real estate junk in there.”
“We?”
I grabbed my purse and rummaged for keys to the shed as I headed for the back yard. “I’ve got a cart. We can haul the fountain and--”
“Sweet Jesus in heaven! Uh, Reagan, honey,” KiKi called, her finger crooked at me in a come-here gesture. “We have junk, a great big pile of it.”
“Dump it on the lawn,” I said hurrying back to the car to help unload. “If I have to hire movers I won’t make any money and I have an electric bill due and-- Holy mother of God!” My gaze landed on Cupcake, eyes wide open, and dead as Lincoln right there in Hollis’s trunk.
KiKi and I stared, neither of us breathing. KiKi finally whispered, “She doesn’t look nearly as good in the pink chiffon as you do.”
“Maybe because she has blood in her hair and is rolled up in plastic like a hot dog in a bun.” I made the sign of the cross for disrespecting the dead.
