This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Marta will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Some secrets can’t stay hidden, especially when they involve murder…
Liz Farrell is still reeling over the murder of her mother almost a year earlier at the hands of her father, Leo Bauer, when she receives the startling news that she’s inherited her estranged father’s sizable estate. Unable to come to terms with her father’s unspeakable legacy, Liz and her grandmother, Kate Stanton, visit Leo’s property in Benedict Canyon, desperately hoping to find closure. Instead, they find a bunker hidden under an old hunting lodge that had been used by Leo at one time to hold Liz’s mother captive. Horrified by the discovery, Liz immediately orders the bunker filled and the lodge destroyed but the ensuing demolition quickly comes to a grinding halt after a man’s remains are discovered in a shallow grave at the base of the old lodge. Once the press get wind of the gruesome discovery, rumors quickly surface, linking the remains to a murder spree that took place at the same address almost half a century earlier; a murder spree conveniently covered up by the governor at the time who also happened to be Leo Bauer’s stepbrother. Liz and Kate’s efforts to uncover the truth behind the murders are soon hampered by family secrets and a killer who’s intent on finishing the job started almost fifty years ago.
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Enjoy this excerpt:
Karen Devane pulled into the parking lot of her cousin’s apartment building with a squeal of tires. She drove around, trying to find a parking spot. Finally, she gave up and pulled into a tow away zone. Picking up the pizza box on the seat beside her, she hurried into the building before waiting impatiently for the elevator to take her to the second floor. Rushing down the corridor, she stopped in front of the door marked 10B and rapped on it. A second later, she rapped again, this time more impatiently.
“Who is it?” came the muffled question from the other side of the door. .
“It’s me,” Karen replied. She heard a few locks turning and the door was thrown open a minute later by Liz, wearing a bathrobe and a forlorn expression on her face. .
“Hi.” Her eyes were puffy and red, and it was clear that she’d been crying. .
“Hi yourself.” Karen charged into her apartment, not waiting for an invitation. .
Liz followed behind, watching wordlessly as Karen marched into her kitchen and began opening cupboard doors, looking for plates. Everything about her small apartment, from her dining room table to the small balcony that was a myriad of colors and scents, was neat, orderly, and inviting. “Cupboard on the right of the sink, second shelf,” Liz told her automatically, pulling up a chair to the other side of the counter. “What are you doing here … or is that kind of a stupid question?” .
Karen gave her cousin a pointed look. “What do you think? Grams told Mom what happened at the attorney’s office and Mom told me.” She flipped open the lid of the pizza box and extracted two cheesy slices before plopping them on a plate and handing it to Liz. .
“Figures.” Liz listlessly picked at the crust of her pizza. .
“You might as well get used to how things work in our family.” Karen helped herself to several slices of pizza and went over to sit beside her cousin. “Want to talk about it?” .
Two lone tears slid down Liz’s cheeks. “What’s there to talk about? How totally screwed up my whole life has been, or how screwed up it is now?” .
My review:
I didn’t read the first book of the series but I didn’t really have a hard time catching up. The author did a pretty good job transitioning into this story. I definitely want to go back and start from the beginning now. It was easy to get invested in these characters and become quickly engrossed as the mystery behind all the family secrets unfolds. I liked all the dark twisty parts. It’s not a book for someone who is looking for a light mystery. I really got caught up with the author’s style of writing and I am definitely going to be looking up her other books.
About the Author:
By the time Marta Tandori reached fifth grade, she was an avid reader and writer with a stack of short stories collecting dust in a box under her bed but it wasn’t until she began studying acting in her early twenties at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York that Marta realized acting wasn’t really her passion – writing fiction was. What followed was years of writing workshops as well as correspondence courses in writing for children through the Institute of Children’s Literature in Connecticut. She credits the award winning author, Troon Harrison, as the instructor who helped her find her literary voice. Marta’s first work of middle-grade fiction, BEING SAM, NO MATTER WHAT was published in 2005, followed by EVERY WHICH WAY BUT KUKU! in 2006. With her more recent endeavors, Marta has shifted her writing focus to mysteries and suspense having “strong female protagonists with closets full of nasty skeletons and the odd murder or two to complicate their already complicated lives”. To learn more about Marta, please visit her website at http://martatandori.com, her Facebook Author Page at www.facebook.com/MartaTandoriAuthor
Marta will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:
http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/04/virtual-super-book-blast-tour-no-hard.html
Thanks so much for hosting my blog blitz tour of NO HARD FEELINGS, a Kate Stanton Mystery! I thought I’d stop by and share with your readers a few details about me and my book.
For those of you who are new to my books, if there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I’m a H-U-G-E fan of historical events and it’s usually these events that somehow shape or influence many of my characters in my books. This is particularly true in the case of Amanda Nixon, one of the main characters in this book, whose back story was influenced by the Sunset Strip curfew riots and the Charles Manson Family massacre of Sharon Tate and her friends, two tragic events that took place in the late 1960’s.
Even the title of my book, NO HARD FEELINGS, has an interesting twist and it’s not what you think it might be. One reviewer on Amazon had this to say about the title: “…the title “No Hard Feelings” will unfold in a very unique way!…It is an extraordinary element of the story and the presentation, when used in the novel, is outstanding and clever!” Another reviewer on Amazon summed up NO HARD FEELINGS rather nicely when he wrote: “As you gather the pieces of the puzzle in this book, you start looking for the framework and then you begin to wonder how all of the various pieces are going to fit together to come out with a conclusion that makes sense. But Marta Tandori brings all of these pieces together to create a fascinating and interest[ing] mystery novel.” All said, NO HARD FEELINGS is the second book in the Kate Stanton Mystery series. It’s a standalone but I think it’s always great if you have the opportunity to read the first book in order to fully appreciate each character and their respective back stories – great if you want to, but not necessary. If you like books about dirty family secrets, past mistakes and ugly revenge, you’ll like NO HARD FEELINGS, I promise you!
Interesting book info
bn100candg at hotmail dot com
Enjoyed excerpt. This sounds really good. Looking forward to getting to read it.
Thank you for sharing and the giveaway!
brown_angel 123 (at) yahoo (dot) com
Thank you for hosting