Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Cathryn Grant & Kaitlin Queen crime novels

THE DEMISE OF THE SOCCER MOMS

 Cathryn Grant’s short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Her short story, “I Was Young Once” received an honorable mention from Joyce Carol Oates in the 2007 Zoetrope All-story Short Fiction contest. Cathryn’s flash fiction has been published at Every Day Fiction and at her website under Flash Fiction for the cocktail hour. One reader commented that she “makes the mundane menacing”. When she’s not writing, Cathryn works in high tech, reads, and plays very high-handicap golf. During the winter she hibernates with books, a fire, popcorn, and a glass of wine or scotch.

In The Demise Of The Soccer Moms, a seemingly quiet suburban neighborhood is upended when a provocative single mother saunters onto the school playground for the first time. Her Doc Marten boots, tight T-shirts, and in-your-face attitude stir up buried fears and sexual anxiety. In the dark corners of her home, a woman battles crippling memories that threaten to destroy the family she wants so desperately to protect. A suspicious death forces her best friend to make a hard choice between marriage and friendship. Paranoia, jealousy, and maternal instinct collide, leading to the demise of the soccer moms.

Q: What will e-readers like about your book?
Readers will find something familiar in each of these flawed suburban women who so desperately want to keep their children safe. They’ll be thrilled with a bit of morbid fascination as they see how violence can escalate when paranoia takes hold, and will be anxious to find out what choices these women and men make when faced with the darker side of suburban life.

Q: Why did you go indie?
As the doors opened for ePublishing, I no longer saw the value provided by traditional publishers. As I considered pursuing the indie route for business reasons, it suddenly hit me how great it would be to have direct interaction with readers. I also love having creative control over my title and cover, as well as the pricing and marketing of my work.

Q: Who are your favorite authors in your genre?
Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith. I also like literary authors who have strong crime themes in their fiction – Joyce Carol Oates and Laura Kasischke
Read a free sample at http://suburbannoir.com
Buy The Demise Of The Soccer Moms at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Smashwords

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One More Unfortunate by Kaitlin Queen (99 cents during March)

Born in Essex, I moved to Northumberland in the north-east of England when I was a child and have lived there ever since. My children's fiction (mostly for the 9-15 age range) has been published by Puffin, Hodder, Orion and others and has, in some weeks, out-sold the Harry Potter books. "Kaitlin Queen" is the name I use for my adult fiction.

Product description:
It's the mid-1990s and Nick Redpath has some issues to resolve. Like why he is relentlessly drawn back to a circle of old friends and enemies -- and an old love -- in his seaside birthplace in north Essex. And why he won't let himself fall in love again. But first he must prove that he didn't murder his old flame, Geraldine Wyse...

Q: What will e-readers like about your book?
I've wanted to move into adult fiction for some time, but I wanted to keep it distinct from my earlier work, hence all the cloak-and-dagger business with the pen-name. Taking on a new persona for this was surprisingly fun, freeing me up to write a very different kind of story: a love story, a crime puzzle, and a novel deeply embedded in the history of a place I love dearly. Perhaps readers will pick up just how much I enjoyed writing this, and will share some of that feeling with me.

Q: Why did you go indie?
Adopting a pen-name made me start thinking about approaching the publishing of the novel in new and different ways: why not publish it as an ebook original, through a writers' collective just like the new infinity plus imprint my old friend Keith Brooke kept telling me about? His persistence paid off, and the book is now available. It's strange to be starting a new writing career in such a radically different manner, and I'll watch with interest to see how my novel is received.

Q: Who are your favorite authors in your genre?
Peter James, Cathi Unsworth, Ruth Rendell, Simon Brett and many, many more!


http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/books/omu.htm

1 comment:

  1. cool, John! thanks for introducing these....

    ReplyDelete