Did you hear that I wrote a novel and it’s available on Amazon? It’s true! Look!

Mystery’s End: A Betsy Malone Mystery (Betsy Malone Mysteries Book 1)

That’s my book! (Clicking on the picture or the link will take you to the Amazon page.) This has been a long, long time in coming, and I’m excited that Betsy is finally out there in the world.

Would you like to know more about Betsy? She’s pretty awesome.

Betsy, whose full name is Elizabeth (she’s named after my sister), is everything a flapper is not.  She has long brown hair, wears sensible dresses, and doesn’t run around to speakeasys. She works as a photographer for a private investigator to support herself after the death of her father. I wanted to write a detective character who wasn’t an “ideal”, who second guesses herself and isn’t overflowing with confidence, even though she’s an incredibly good person. Creating the character of Betsy, I drew from 3 women I know who wouldn’t call themselves special, but who could move mountains if they put their mind to it. (Perhaps I will reveal their identities in another post!)

Angela Bentley, Betsy’s best friend, on the other hand, is what you picture when you hear the word “flapper”. Blond, bobbed, and bubbly, Angela is fiercely loyal to her husband Dexter and to Betsy. Quick with a laugh, Angela is always up for a good time. Writing Angela was pure joy. From her first moment on the page, when she answers Betsy’s after midnight call with a joyous, “Hello darling!”, which she quickly follows up with a, “Oh darling, how ghastly! I’m so glad it was you. Could you imagine? I picked up the phone and the words just came out!”, she existed fully formed and loud as can be. Writing some of the other characters was a bit of a struggle, but Angela was always as clear as can be.

Betsy’s first adventure, Mystery’s End, finds her invited a house party at the mansion Angela has just inherited. The house is a bit insane, as Angela’s old aunt had it built to very specific, very strange specifications. And when Angela introduces the party games of using a Ouija board and table tipping to contact “the spirits”, things get a little spooky. But when someone ends up dead, Betsy has to figure out if it was a vengeful ghost, a heart attack, or murder.

The book is set in the 1920s, because I find that time period fascinating. The spiritualism movement, in particular, is so compelling. As people dealt with the aftermath of WW1, many people flocked to the idea that contacting the dead was possible, and many mediums and spiritualists “helped” them to do so. Some of them believed that they could truly communicate with spirits, while others flat out knew that they were taking people for a ride, and depended on intricate performances and tricks to convince them to part with their money.

If you decide to pick the book up, please let me know! And if you love it, please leave a review on the Amazon page. And regardless, please point people you think would enjoy it to the page. The more people who hear about it, the better!

There is also a Goodreads page for the book. If you participate on Goodreads,  please rate it, or mark it “to read”, or anything else, so long as it’s good.

Now I’m off to work on the next book!