Okay so I know I’ve kept promising and promising, but really soon, I promise, cross my heart and so on, there will be an actual new Dottie book this year and of course, the Miss Gascoigne mysteries new series will also be starting, which is a spin-off from the Dottie Manderson series.
(Sorry if I’m repeating myself, I know you know this stuff really, this is just for the occasional accidental tourist to this site!)
So without further ado here it is:
A Meeting With Murder: Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 1 :
A 1960s-era traditional mystery series set in Britain and featuring Dee Gascoigne, a newly separated woman who has just lost her job and is wondering what to do with her life. Dee has a family who love her, and a rather massive crush on her not-quite cousin, Inspector Bill Hardy, who struggles to keep the women of his family out of police investigations.
The eBook will be out on 7th October 2022, with the paperback and large print paperback coming out probably a day or two earlier.
The eBook will only be available from Amazon. It will also be available through Kindle Unlimited.
The ‘normal’ paperback will be available from most online stores including Barnes and Noble, D2D, Scribd, and many others.
The large print paperback will also only be available from Amazon.
And here’s a teeny snippet from the book just to whet your appetite: It’s May 1965, and something bad has happened to Dee’s neighbour…
The stairs were right ahead of her as she entered the house. The interior was dim; only the first three or four stairs were illuminated by light coming in at the open front door. With a pause to allow her eyes to adjust, as well as to try to get her nerves under control, Dee placed her hand on the panelled wood of the enclosed staircase and began to ascend. The steps were steep and shallow, and with no rail on either side, it was a precarious climb in the near darkness. How on earth did Mrs Hunter manage, she wondered. Perhaps the old lady had a bedroom downstairs? At the top, she paused and took a calming breath. She turned to the left and as instructed walked along the gloomy corridor to the end, where a door stood open, spilling a little pool of yellowish light into the hallway.
She felt a deep reluctance to enter the room. Already she knew this was no ordinary moment. There was a musty stale smell, and something else besides. The metallic scent of blood on the air. She was still puzzling over the idea of there being blood as she went into the room. After all, no one had said anything about…
She stopped dead. Staring at the scene, her brain scrambled to make sense of the picture in front of her. A person—Sheila, yet not Sheila anymore—was seated in an armchair beside a small circular table. On the table was a wine bottle and a single glass with a small amount of wine left in it.
Unwillingly, yet knowing it could not be avoided, Dee turned to look at Sheila Fenniston. She had fallen slightly to the side, leaning against the edge of the table, and her head lolled back, her eyes half-open, her gaze fixed upon something Dee couldn’t see. Sheila was wearing a nightdress of a surprisingly demure variety, and all over the front of the white cotton was a dark reddish-brown stain. Sheila held her hands in her lap, and all down the forearms and on the lap of her nightdress was the brown sticky mess of blood. It had run down on either side of her and formed two puddles on the thin aged carpet. And there by her right foot, glistening softly in the half-light was the razor, dirty with blood.
Dee put her fingers to Sheila’s neck, knowing it was pointless. The skin was cold. There was no pulse. Dee backed out of the room, groping her way down the stairs. She closed the front door behind her and said, her voice faint, ‘No one can go in. Sheila’s dead. We must get the police immediately.’
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Meanwhile, back in 1935, Dottie is ready for another outing as Rose Petals and White Lace: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 7 is now available to pre-order prior to release on 9th December 2022.
Once again, the eBook version of Rose Petals and White Lace will be out on 9th December 2022, with the paperback and large print paperback coming out probably a day or two earlier.
The eBook will only be available from Amazon. It will also be available through Kindle Unlimited.
The ‘normal’ paperback will be available from most online stores including Barnes and Noble, D2D, Scribd, and many others.
The large print paperback will also only be available from Amazon.
If you’d like to know more about this series, please click this link to go to the page for the Dottie Manderson mysteries book 1-4, or this link for the Dottie Manderson mysteries books 5 onwards.
Here’s a sneak preview from Rose Petals and White Lace to get you in the mood:
It’s 1935, and Dottie Manderson is helping out Inspector William Hardy’s sister, Ellie, who has a problem in her tearoom:
Lunch was, if anything, busier. Every table was occupied both inside and out, and the spare chairs at Dottie’s table had been borrowed to be set around the other tables where there were more than four people in the party.
Everything was going beautifully when two tables away, suddenly a man exclaimed loudly and in a disgusted tone, ‘Good God! What on earth is this doing here?’
There was no time to see what ‘this’ was, for he immediately dropped it onto the floor and stepped on it. Very rudely, he shouted, ‘Girl!’ to Ellie or Ruth who were already both making their way over. Ellie looked as though she felt ill, whilst Ruth looking angry. Dottie got up for a better look at what was going on, thinking Ellie might need her help.
Looking down at his plate, now the man said, ‘What? I can’t believe it! There’s another one!’ His annoyance rose and he looked about him angrily. ‘Where’s the manager?’
Ellie reached his side, clasping her hands and saying, ‘Excuse me, sir, may I help?’
He rounded on her in his fury, and she took a nervous step back. Red-faced, and with his voice reaching everyone in the building, he shouted, ‘Get the manager, you stupid girl. This is an utter disgrace! In all good faith I came in here with my family and ordered some food, only to find not one but two maggots on my plate!’ He was on his feet, towering over her, and Ellie was patently alarmed. Dottie glanced back towards the bakery counter and noticed that Andrew was ignoring the situation, calming greasing loaf tins, his back to the tearoom. For a brief moment Dottie wondered if he was actually deaf.
‘Darling, I’ve found another one!’ the woman with the angry man declared, leaping to her feet in revulsion and taking two steps back. She had a napkin to her mouth as if for protection, or to prevent herself from being sick. Around the tearoom, there was a deathly hush; everyone had turned to watch and listen.
‘Don’t gawk, you idiot, get me the manager! Now!’ the man yelled in Ellie’s face, a tiny spray of spittle flying from his mouth to her cheek.
Ellie began to stammer an apology, adding, ‘I am the m-manager.’
The man directed a scornful look up and down her frame. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life.’
I hope that has got you in the mood. This book will be chock full of creepy-crawlies and bugs of all kinds, so if they make you itchy and uncomfortable, make sure you have some nice soothing tea and biscuits on hand when you start reading. I always do!
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