Cozy Spotlight: Out of Options

-


Cozy novella spotlight!



Out of Options:A Century Cottage Cozy Mysteriesby Dianne Ascroft

About the Book

 
Cozy MysteryPrequel Novella 
Independently Published (April 28, 2019) 
Paperback: 126 pages 
ISBN-10: 1096163373 
ISBN-13: 978-1096163374D
igital ASIN: B07R4GQWQN
 
Out of Options is a prequel novella to the Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries series, and introduces Lois Stone and her companions, Raggs and Ribbons, a pair of perceptive calico cats.
A dry district, a shocking secret, a missing person. When Lois Stone’s friend, Beth Darrow, arranges to meet her to reveal an astonishing discovery, Lois’s curiosity is piqued. Then Beth doesn’t keep their lunch date and Lois becomes worried. What has happened to her friend?
Middle-aged widow Lois is settling into life on her own in her neighbourhood and in the library where she works, and she is just about coping with her fear of strangers after her husband was mugged and died in the park at the end of their street. But her quiet existence is rocked when her friend and fellow local historical society researcher, Beth, arranges to meet her to reveal an exciting and shocking discovery she has made about the history of prohibition in West Toronto Junction, the last dry area in Toronto, and then goes missing before she can share her secret with Lois. There isn’t any proof that Beth is missing so the police won’t actively search for her. Only Lois and Beth’s niece Amy are convinced that Beth’s disappearance is very out of character, and they are worried about her. Where has Beth gone? Is she in danger? And, if she is, who might want to harm her and why? Lois knows she must find the answers to these questions fast if she wants to help and protect her friend.
And so begins a weekend of skulking in the park, apple and cinnamon pancakes, familiar faces staring out of old newspapers, calico cats, shadows on the windowpane, and more than one person who might want Beth to disappear from the quiet, leafy streets of the historic and staunchly dry West Toronto Junction neighbourhood.

About the Author

Dianne Ascroft is a Torontonian who has settled in rural Northern Ireland. She and her husband live on a small farm with an assortment of strong-willed animals. She is currently writing the Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries series. Out of Options is a prequel to the series.

Her previous fiction works include The Yankee Years series of novels and short reads, set in Northern Ireland during the Second World War; An Unbidden Visitor (a tale inspired by Fermanagh’s famous Coonian ghost); Dancing Shadows, Tramping Hooves: A Collection of Short Stories (contemporary tales), and an historical novel, Hitler and Mars Bars, which explores Operation Shamrock, a little known Irish Red Cross humanitarian endeavour.

Dianne writes both fiction and non-fiction. Her articles and short stories have been printed in Canadian and Irish magazines and newspapers. When she’s not writing, she enjoys walks in the countryside, evenings in front of her open fireplace and folk and traditional music.

Author Links

Website: http://http://www.dianneascroft.com  
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DianneAscroftwriter  
Twitter: @DianneAscroft
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1357575.Dianne_Ascroft  
Newsletter Sign up: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/y1k5c3  

Purchase Links:  

Amazon 
Barnes and Noble   
Kobo

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

TOUR PARTICIPANTS 

July 8 – I’m All About Books – GUEST POST
July 9 – The Pulp and Mystery Shelf – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
July 10 – Babs Book Bistro – SPOTLIGHT
July 10 – The Ninja Librarian – SPOTLIGHT
July 11 – Laura’s Interests – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST
July 12 – Socrates Book Reviews – REVIEW
July 12 – A Wytch’s Book Review Blog – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
July 13 – Baroness’ Book Trove – REVIEW
July 14 – LibriAmoriMiei – REVIEW
July 15 – Sapphyria’s Books – REVIEW
July 15 – A Blue Million Books – GUEST POST
July 16 – Here’s How It Happened – REVIEW
July 17 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
July 17 – Island Confidential – SPOTLIGHT
July 18 – The Book Decoder – REVIEW
July 19 – Brooke Blogs – REVIEW
July 19 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
July 20 – The Avid Reader – REVIEW
July 21 – Literary Gold – REVIEW

Have you signed up to be a Tour Host?Click Here Find Details and Sign Up Today!

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Let us know what you think! We love to hear from our readers!

Popular Posts

Non-fiction Audiobook Review: Falter, by Bill McKibben

-
Image
Important stuff, but hard to hear. Title: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Author: Bill McKibben. Ready by Olivery Wyman Publication Info: Macmillan Audio 2019. 11 hours. Hardback by Henry Holt & Co., 291 pages. Source: Library Blurb: (Goodreads): Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And t
Read more

#WEP--The Scream

-
Image
WEP challenges are FREE and open to all. On the 1st   of the challenge month, there will be a   get-your-thinking-caps   on post. The badge will include the dates of the challenge and the winner’s   prizes. The InLinkz sign up will open on the third Wednesday and close 3 days later. It will contain no news, just the sign up. Participants link up with their DLs (Direct Links to their entry).  Learn all about it here .    My entry this time is based on an actual incident. Mom and my brothers will recognize it. My apologies to them for the non-trivial liberties I took with history and their personalities. We are now also meant to provide a tag line for our stories, so here's mine: What terrors lurk in the root cellar?     The Scream The house we lived in that year wasn’t much. The wind blew in everywhere you could imagine a draft, and some places you couldn’t. The old enclosed porch we used as a root cellar was worse. It wasn’t just the wind that could get in through the chinks a
Read more

#WEP: December Flash Fiction Challenge

-
Image
This December challenge wraps up the year of artistic inspiration from some great works of art. The WEP is open to all, following the simple rules: 1. SUBMIT your name to the list below on December 1 thru the 15th . Add your link (URL) 2. POST your entry, put WEP is in the TITLE along with The Narcissus badge within your entry. 3. STATE feedback preferences and word count at the end of your entry. 4. READ other entries, giving feedback if requested. 5. SHARE THE CHALLENGE on social media. Tweets are ready on the WEP blog. PLEASE NOTE: ENTRIES CLOSE Dec. 15th @ midnight (NY Time - check WEP blog clock) ALL GENRES WELCOME except erotica - 1,000 words maximum My story for this month's challenge is maybe cheating a little--I didn't write it for the challenge, but I decided that the common understanding of Narcissus and narcissism fits well enough, even if the story doesn't relate to the painting. I wrote this while trekking in Nepal last month, highlighting a character w
Read more