Tag: women’s fiction

March 2022 Newsletter: New Book!

Die by the Sword  Coming Soon

I am very pleased to announce that my new book, Die by the Sword, a novel of suspense, is now available for you to pre-order at www.amazon.com/dp/B09WKX9ZR2 for the very special price of $2.99. (The cover shown here is a stand-in for the final one that I’m still working on.)

Here’s a snippet from Die by the Sword, a book I’ve been working on for decades in assorted forms, along with a description.

Van stopped at the crossroads of four wide paths, all strewn with straw and well lit by an electric lamp secured at the top of a tall pole overhead. “Ye Pirates Cove” said a sign shaped like arrow projecting from the post. It pointed to the left. “Ye Dell of the Ancient Ways Society” said another sign, pointing right.

Darn! Van thought. Why didn’t I keep those keys out?

Shifting the basket again to her left arm, she dug in her pocket and pulled out the set of keys. Okay, which one? This was only the second weekend of the fair and she still wasn’t used to the routine.

She was holding the key chain up to the light when she heard a strange, metallic sound behind her. Startled, she tried to turn but didn’t have time before something or someone hit her in the back, sent her sprawling. The keys flew off into the darkness. The basket holding the crockery crashed into the post. “Oh no,” she gasped.

Van struggled to get up, but someone held her down with his foot.

“Shall you too die by the sword?” a hoarse voice said.

“Die? Me?” Van shrieked. “By a sword?”

When potter Vanessa Mathison hurries to the craft shop that she partly owns on the Medieval Faire site late one night, someone wearing shining armor assaults her. But her friends don’t believe her, even after the body of a young man is discovered on the site. Nor does the police detective she tells about the attack. Still, determined to find and stop her assailant she comes to know as Sir Scourge, the Lord of Lamentation, before he kills her, Van enters the strange world of the Ancient Ways Society, a group sharing a fantasy that becomes increasingly dangerous as Sir Scourge continues attacking her and her friends.

Die by the Sword is set in September and October of 1988. In the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, my daughter and I belonged to the Society for Creative Anachronism and participated in several Renaissance Festivals.

Please let me know in the comments or at jkwryter@gmail.com if you would like an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) of Die by the Sword, so you can write a review of it on Amazon.com on or shortly after the publication date of May 27, 2022. Please note: The ARC will probably be a PDF of the final copy. Please also note that Amazon, being its picky, tricky self, only displays reviews from those who actually have purchased the titles they’re reviewing.

Once again, you can pre-order Die by the Sword at www.amazon.com/dp/B09WKX9ZR2

Oh, I’m so excited. Best, Juliet

Fun in Old K.C. only 99 Cents

As their wedding day fast approaches, Minty Wilcox has some questions about her fiancé Daniel Price. Did he really kill someone? Why has he never told her he’s rich? And for goodness’ sake, where will they go on their honeymoon?

 

From Minty’s journal . . .

But back to my story of naming the Irish setter puppy that Papa has given us as a wedding present . . . My fiancé, the outrageous Daniel Price, the man that I am to marry in less than a week, told me in no uncertain terms that the dog must be named Butch! I suppose he was just teasing, but still . . . Butch?

Even Papa said, “Why, Daniel, giving this sweet girl pup a thug’s name doesn’t bode well for when you two start giving Laura and me grandchildren.”

(That reminded me of possibly being called “Mrs. Elmer Horace Frankenfurter-Engishdeiler” that at one point Daniel said was his real name, so I giggled a bit over it.)

After Papa said that, Daniel backed down and said, “Well, let me think about it then.”

He does seem to like the pup very much. After he half scared the poor little thing to death with his clown’s wig and white face, he took off the wig, went upstairs to the bathroom and washed up. When he came down again, he looked fairly normal except for the bruise around his left eye.

Speaking of that, my brother Kit said, “Will you have a black eye for your wedding day?”

“I might,” Daniel said . . .

Mischief in March is Book 3 of the Calendar Mystery series that tells the story of Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price from newly met to newly wed and beyond a hundred years or so ago, when life in Kansas City could get downright deadly.

For a short time only, Mischief in March is $0.99 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR1STRN and £0.99 at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XR1STRN
(And it’s always free on Kindle Unlimited.)

Charming Mystery – reduced price

Mystery . . .

Romance . . .

Wannabe woman sleuth

in old Kansas City . . .

Praise for Fatal February

Book 2 of Juliet Kincaid’s calendar mystery series

In the year 1900, Minty Wilcox has been hired by a private detective agency, her on again/off again beau’s employer, as a stenographer. For this spunky gal, typing and taking shorthand aren’t enough. She wants to be an operative. So, of course, author Juliet Kincaid, accommodates her protagonist by letting her delve into a missing person/murder case, sometimes sanctioned, but often not, by her boss. The ins and outs of the investigation, Minty’s romantic ups and downs, and her inside out family situations are fun to follow . . . Good follow-up to January Jinx, the first mystery in the series. Amazon reviewer

Snippet from Fatal February

Just then the door to Mathison’s office from the outside hall opened and a fellow shuffled in. He wore a loose, black jacket that came down to his mid thighs and brown corduroy trousers that bagged around his ankles. As the man sauntered toward them, he pulled a black, visored cap off his head.

“It’s getting cold out there,” said Daniel Price.

“Why, Mr. Price,” Minty said. “I didn’t recognize you in those clothes.”

He stopped, held his arms wide and looked down. “Like them? These are my workingman’s duds.”

“Fetching, Mr. Price, though they do look like you stole them from a larger man.”

“Not exactly. I bought them second hand or even fourth hand. Who’s to know? At any rate, these duds suit the work. And by the way, Miss Wilcox, I like your pretty hair ribbon.”

“Why, thank you, sir.”

“Enough of your banter, you two,” Mathison said. “It’s about time you decided to come in, my boy. I hope your efforts paid off better than Miss Wilcox’s.”

“But, Mr. Mathison, I discovered quite a bit . . .”

Fatal February is available February 10 through February 16, 2020 for only

£0.99 at  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017081JHM

$0.99 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017081JHM

(and Fatal February is always free on Kindle Unlimited.)

 

Cozy Historical Mystery on Sale

MISCHIEF IN MARCH

Book 3 in the Calendar Mystery Series

By Juliet Kincaid

 

 

Excerpt from Minty Wilcox’s Journal

11: 55 p.m. on Friday, March 23, 1900

It’s shortly before midnight on the very last day of my life as a single miss. Or so I hope and pray.

Right now, I’m sitting on the floor way up at the top of the house in the storeroom where Mama and I hid my wedding gown. We even put it under lock and key.

When we got it up here, we draped it on Mama’s dress form surrounded by old sheets so the train wouldn’t get dusty from the floor. My wedding gown is beautiful and white, its bodice encrusted with pearls and its skirt covered with lace. And it gleams like a ghost in the light of the lantern I’ve set on the floor next to me as I write what will be my last installment in my investigation into all things Daniel Price before our wedding day.

But what if something happens to my wedding dress or the flowers in my bouquet or the fine new suit Daniel is supposed to wear or the wedding ring he’s supposed to give me?

What if the wedding doesn’t go off as planned?

Or the wedding goes off, but what if we don’t set off on our honeymoon on time or even at all?

Oh, that man I’m supposed to marry tomorrow. He can be so aggravating. He still hasn’t told me where we’re going on our honeymoon. That doesn’t seem fair after I’ve warned him time and time again that he’s to keep no more secrets from me. It makes me wonder what else he hasn’t told me about himself that a girl needs to know before she gets hitched to a fellow.

Not knowing where we’re going for our honeymoon just adds to my jitters about the whole thing.

What if we don’t get to the church on time . . . or at all?

So many possible slips between the lip and the cup, rum punch cup if Papa and my brothers have their way.

I tell you one thing I know for certain and for sure. If the least little bit goes wrong with Mama’s plans for the wedding, she’ll have a conniption fit that might even lead her to blaspheme right there in church in front of God and everybody.

This makes me smile, but really I shouldn’t.

So much could go wrong. So much has gone wrong already leading up to our wedding day, so many unexpected events, so much mischief, some of it amusing and good-spirited and some of it malicious . . .

And then there’s the murder and Daniel in jail for committing it.

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As their wedding day rapidly approaches, Minty Wilcox still has many questions about her fiancé Daniel Price.

Did he really kill a man?

What else is he hiding about his past?

Why has he never told her he’s rich?

And for goodness’ sake, where are they going on their honeymoon?

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Amazon Review of Mischief in March

The Groom is Going to Jail? So much to like about this book. First, Minty Wilcox, a decidedly modern miss, determined to find a place for herself in a business world dominated by men, but who fears her fiancé is keeping secrets from her, including where he plans to take her for the honeymoon. And the fiancé, Daniel Price, chief investigator of the Kansas City branch of the detective agency founded by his grandfather, who faces the likelihood that he will be forcibly walked into jail when he had been planning to walk his bride down the aisle. Certainly not the least are the incredible historical details of Kansas City in the early 1900s, rich with descriptions of well-known buildings and shops and places like Emery, Bird, Thayer to grab a quick bite. Since the letter carrier delivered Mischief in March to my mailbox, I haven’t been able to put it down.

Another Amazon Review of Mischief in March

Beware of Relatives . . . Minty Wilcox is in love and is anticipating her wedding while still learning new things about her husband-to-be. Meanwhile, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents – tons of folks start arriving for the up-coming nuptials. Mystery and mayhem ensue. Minty investigates, and family members help while Mother becomes tense over all the wedding plans. Another fun Calendar Mystery.

 

Mischief in March is on sale for only $0.99 at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR1STRN and only £0.99 at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XR1STRN from March 13, 2019, through March 19, 2019.

Old Time Stories Now in Print

Join business girl Minty Wilcox and detective Daniel Price in old Kansas City as they sleuth, get to know each other, and fall in love in six stories that occur before, between or after JANUARY JINX, FATAL FEBRUARY, and MISCHIEF IN MARCH, the first three novels in the Calendar Mystery series. Included are “Detectives’ Honeymoon” which starts exactly where Book 3 ends and “The Shackleton Ghost,” published here for the very first time. OLD TIME STORIES also includes eleven nonfiction pieces about the real people and places that inspired Juliet Kincaid to tell the story of Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price from newly met to newly wed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

Five-Star Review of “The Barn Door”
“This short prequel story to the first book, JANUARY JINX, is fun and introduces us to the two main characters, Daniel and Minty, before they actually meet. I especially like the descriptions of Kansas City in the 1900’s as well as the vivid descriptions of the characters. Read ‘The Barn Door’ and you will not be disappointed.” Amazon Reviewer.

Five-Star Review of “Lost Dog”
“What a delight to find myself in ‘old’ Kansas City again with such wonderfully drawn characters. I feel I know them and would love to follow them along the street while looking for the lost dog’s owner and I could just push that old neighbor back into the bushes after rescuing the poor dog from her vicious beating. Oh, this author brings them so alive and that is what keeps me reading her stories.” Amazon Reviewer

 

 

OLD TIME STORIES is now available as an EBOOK at www.amazon.com/dp/B07F4JL8D5 and a TRADE PAPERBACK exclusively from Amazon.

New Calendar Mystery Story!

TWO BIRTHDAYS

An Old Kansas City Story

June 22, 1899

Price Investigations Office

Kansas City, Missouri

The office door opening that afternoon startled Minty Wilcox and she almost looked up to see who it was. But then she thought, I’d better keep my head down and look busy. It won’t do for Mr. Mathison to catch me reading a mystery novel when I’m supposed to be hard at work. Indeed, George Mathison, the manager of the Kansas City branch of the Price Investigations Agency, was quite strict about the office staff keeping busy, especially Minty, the newest member of the staff.

Not that there was much work to do at the moment, no one there to take dictation from, no operative reports to type, no papers to file.

Still, Minty closed the black book, a favorite of hers that she liked to reread that time of year, and hid it in her top desk drawer. After that, she began typing furiously at her ancient blind-strike Remington typewriting machine. As a precaution earlier, she’d loaded a blank piece of paper in the typewriter. A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, she typed. A quick . . .

“Where’s Mrs. B?” a man asked.

After Minty lifted her hands from the keyboard and looked up, her heart started going pitty pat.

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Two Birthdays, an old Kansas City story

After Minty Wilcox has worked for six months or so at Price Investigations as a stenographer/typist, the dashing detective Daniel Price appears in the office and carries her off to take notes on a new case the agency has been hired for. But once he starts filling Minty in on the details of the case, some of the information sounds strangely familiar. And she begins to wonder what he’s really up to on her twentieth birthday, June 22, 1899.

Praise for January Jinx, Book 1 in the Calendar Mystery series

The delightful, creative, and charming January Jinx introduces a terrific character in Minty Wilcox, a good old-fashioned cozy mystery persona who will surely be able to carry the planned-for series. It’s Minty who drives the readable narrative, and author Juliet Kincaid keeps the pace steady and fast at the same time for quite a readable experience. The writing is appropriate for the historical setting without ever being gimmicky or archaic . . . The unique setting of 1899 Kansas City is full of flavor that never overwhelms the story and the characters. With a terrific, original, but still comfortable series concept, there are certainly big things afoot for Juliet Kincaid and Minty Wilcox’s Calendar Mysteries.

“Two Birthdays,” a Calendar Mystery short story featuring Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price getting to know each other, is now available for your Kindle for $0.99 (and always free from KindleUnlimited)* at www.amazon.com/dp/B076JS3D2Y

*This fun story will be available for free to all on October 20 through 22, and October 26 and 27.

 

 

Nancy Martin’s Miss Ruffles

A JKWryter Fav

Long a fan of Nancy Martin’s Blackbird Sisters Mysteries, recently I came upon her stand-alone mystery, Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything while trolling the mystery section at my local library. I’m very glad I checked it out because this mystery has all the elements I’ve enjoyed in Ms. Martin’s other work, plus more.

1) A resourceful, kind, likeable female amateur sleuth. In this book the lead is Sunny McKillip who becomes a dog’s caretaker. Miss Ruffles is a small, feisty, noisy cattle-herding dog, as yet untrained, that clearly shows her opinion for all she meets. If you pass approval, you get licks. If you don’t, you get growls and nips.

2) Spot-on observations like this one: “enough flowers for a royal wedding.”

3) Top writing skills: I really admired the way Ms. Martin introduced the major suspects of the mystery in Chapter 1 at the funeral of the very wealthy Honeybelle Hensley and then the supporting characters when Sunny walks Miss Ruffles home through the town.

4) A lively well-constructed mystery plot that climaxes in a hilarious, laugh-out-loud big scene with plenty of surprises along the way. (Miss Martin’s books aren’t formulaic.)

5) A manly, yet imperfect possible love interest.

To this mix, Ms. Martin added some fresh elements.

1) A setting different from her usual East Coast, Philadelphia area: a little Texas town called Mule Stop and its inhabitants.

2) A protagonist/narrator who’s an outsider, not an insider: As Sunny struggles to get to know the strange culture in which she finds herself, she casts a sharp eye on its foibles and the secrets of its inhabitants.

3) The dog is great.

I really liked Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything and highly recommend it.

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Juliet Kincaid writes the calendar historical mysteries set in Kansas City, a place that could get deadly a hundred years ago or so and the Cinderella, P. I. fairy tale mysteries for grown-ups featuring a favorite character twenty years, three kids and a few extra pounds after the ball. These stories and novels are available as eBooks and trade paperbacks from Amazon. Here’s the link to Juliet’s Amazon Author’s Central page: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=Juliet+Kincaid&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Juliet+Kincaid&sort=relevancerank

The Business Girl

Earlier this year when I was working on Mischief in March, the third book in my calendar mystery series, I decided to find out if my heroine, Minty Wilcox, could have read the Ladies’ Home Journal in March 1900. So I launched a Google search and found out that sure enough she could.

In doing so, I stumbled upon a book called The Business Girl in Every Phase of her Life by Ruth Ashmore. Based on an advice column for young women in the Ladies’ Home Journal, the book first appeared in 1898. Written in the voice of a sympathetic older woman, it offers the business girl advice on twelve issues. These include behaving properly in the work place, getting along with her boss, living away from home, forming friendships, taking care of her clothes, and managing her money.

Now, one of the things I love about researching and writing historical fiction is making happy discoveries like this one. In this instance, I soon realized that Minty Wilcox, newly graduated from high school in 1898, would have read The Business Girl. And she would have taken its advice to heart in her decision to become a stenographer/typist, so she could help with the household’s finances and to make her own way in the world.

The real Eureka moment came for me when I realized that my great-aunt Melicent Perkins, on whom Minty Wilcox is based, undoubtedly read The Business Girl. Born on June 22, 1880, Aunt Melicent graduated from high school in 1898, went to business school, and then to work for the Daily Home News newspaper in New Brunswick, NJ in 1900. She worked there until she retired sixty-seven years later as the executive secretary/treasurer. She never married, perhaps because she, like the business girl Mrs. Ashmore addresses in the preface of the book, never met “her ideal” or because she had too many family responsibilities to wed.

(I have quite a different future in mind for Minty.)

I have two photographs of my aunt Melicent when she was young. Here she is, looking eager and perhaps a little nervous about her future when she graduated from high school, and some time later, looking serene and confident as the business girl.

Mischief in March is available for free for your Kindle reader from May 11 through May 14, Mother’s Day, at www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR1STRN

M. Louisa Locke’s Maids of Misfortune

Maids of Misfortune by M. Louisa Locke, a review by Juliet Kincaid

This historical novel, set in San Francisco in 1879, hooks you from the start with the widowed Annie Fuller receiving a letter claiming that she owes some gent the sum of $1,380 for a loan made to her late husband. If you keep in mind the statistic that what you could buy for a penny in 1900 would cost you a dollar in 2000, you’ll realize just how shocked Mrs. Fuller must have been with an unexpected debt of the equivalent of $138,000.

Dr. Locke follows through on her strong opening with the revelation that Mrs. Fuller supplements her income running a boarding house by giving advice on investing and personal matters as Madam Sibyl, a clairvoyant. Sibyl charges $2 (or $200 in 2000 dollars) a sitting and worth every penny of it, at least according to her favorite client, who sadly has died under suspicious circumstances. And so Annie goes undercover as the new hire maid to find out what really happened to him in this lively first book in Dr. Locke’s Victorian San Francisco Mystery series.

A couple of quibbles . . . Descriptions of San Francisco seem a bit thin, though of course lots of that city as it was in 1879 disappeared in the great earthquake and subsequent fires of April 18, 1906. The romantic subplot with a handsome lawyer who soon shows up seems somewhat conventional. These reservations disappeared, though, as I read Uneasy Spirits and Bloody Lessons, the next two novels in the series as well as her collection of Victorian San Francisco stories. Obviously I remain hooked by the engaging Annie Fuller and I suspect that other fans of historical mysteries will enjoy the series as well.

FYI: Maids of Misfortune is permanently free for Kindle, Nook, and other eBook readers.

Looking for Old Kansas City, Part 2

Inside the New England Building

(See my blog post of August 25, 2016, for Part 1.)

When I began researching and writing my calendar mystery series set in Kansas City around a hundred years ago, I decided to place the detective agency my heroine Minty Wilcox works for in the historic New England Building, a handsome brownstone seven-story structure with a distinctive oriel on its southwest corner. It was the first building in Kansas City to have elevators.

Originally, Price Investigations was on an upper floor of the New York Life Insurance Building. But during a site visit several years ago, I discovered that I couldn’t get above the first floor of the New York Life Building, so I decided to move the agency just a little west on Ninth Street to the New England Life Insurance Building on Wyandotte. When I visited that building several years ago, I climbed the stairs inside to the third floor and looked around. But I didn’t go inside any of the offices. Still, taking a leap of imagination, I decided to place the agency in the third floor office that had the oriel.

This location served me well for the end of January Jinx and all of Fatal February. However, once I started Mischief in March, I realized I would have to know the interior layout of that two-room office suite because in the course of the first part of the book, it would become a crime scene! Yikes! The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, an exquisite poster of the building showing four of its seven floors, and the original architectural drawings offered limited help. Particularly troublesome was that pesky oriel. Was it big enough for a chair? I wondered, or just for a Boston fern?

And so I decided I simply had to get into that building and walk around in that space. However, by that time, a new wrinkle to my search had developed. The New England Building had become a construction site as it was being converted into apartments and thus was off limits to the public.

Nevertheless, I called the company that now owns the building and they said they’d give me a tour. Another problem arose. When I actually got inside the New England Building, I discovered most of the interior walls were gone, but there still were marks on the floor showing where they’d been, so I got a feeling for the space. Here’s a shot of an original door with the mail slot and one of the fireplaces with a cast iron mantel.

And I got inside the oriel. It turns out it’s big enough to hold an easy chair where the agency manager might sit to read the Kansas City Star, and maybe also a potted Boston fern. But the big surprise to me, something I wouldn’t have known until I actually went there, is the oriel is two stories high both outside and inside as well. Here are some pictures. Isn’t that oriel the coolest thing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

January Jinx is available as a trade paperback and as a Kindle eBook for $3.99 at www.amazon.com/dp/B00HSSSBE4

Fatal February is available as a trade paperback and as a Kindle eBook for $3.99 at www.amazon.com/dp/B017081JHM

Mischief in March will soon be available as a trade paperback and now is available as a Kindle eBook  at www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR1STRN  for $3.99.