Review: Where They Bury You by Steve Kohlhagen

 

ISBN: 978-0-86534-936-0

Hardcover, $32.95

Paperback, $24.95

eBook, $9.99

344 pages

September 2, 2013

Sunstone Press



In August 1863, during Kit Carson’s roundup of the Navajo, Santa Fe’s Marshal is found dead in an arroyo near what is now the Hubbel Trading Post. The murder, and the roughly millions of today’s dollars in cash and belongings in his saddlebags, is historically factual. Carson’s actual explanation is implausible.

Who did kill Carson’s “brave and lamented” Major? The answer is revealed in this tale of a group of con artists operating in 1861-1863 in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. As a matter of historical fact, millions of today’s dollars were embezzled from the Army, the Church, and the New Mexico Territory during this time. In this fictionalized version, the group includes a Santa Fe poker dealer with a checkered past claiming to fall in love with one of her coconspirators, and the historically accurate duo of the Marshal of Santa Fe and the aide de camp of the Territories’ Commanding General. It is an epic tale of murder and mystery, of staggering thefts, of love and deceit.

Both a Western and a Civil War novel, this murder mystery occurs in and among Cochise’s Chiricahua Apache Wars, the Navajo depredations and wars, Indian Agent Kit Carson’s return from retirement, and the Civil War. The story follows the con artists, some historical, some fictional, during their poker games, scams, love affairs, and bank robberies, right into that arroyo deep in Navajo country.

 Grab a copy

 REVIEW

I have always loved Westerns, and  I used to love watching North and South when I was little, so this book was a really exciting read for me. The history of this era has always fascinated me.

Kohlhagen's mix of fact and fiction made the story come alive, making me feel like I was right alongside these amazing historical figures who shaped the future on the United States. My knowledge of the Civil War is not vast, and war is always ugly, but my gosh, the thousands of lives lost within a two year span was just devastating. It seemed like everyone in that time was out to kill someone, and what made it worse was that a lot of the people involved knew each other personally at one time or another, yet they acted like strangers in the face of war.

There were many amazing characters within the pages of this story, and they each had their own battle, or two, to fight, but I never once felt overwhelmed or lost with everything that was going on. I have to say that out of all the characters, Lily was my favorite. She was feisty and knew how to hustle just about everyone around her. She played a great game with those she was in cahoots with, but I also had to admire her loyalty to Damours. She didn't necessarily give a damn about being loyal in a physical sense, but her heart was in the right place, and she was always looking out for him, even when she could have easily kicked him to the curb.
Cummings, for me, was the most loathsome character. He gave me a bad vibe off the bat and my dislike for him grew right to the end of the story. He was spineless, deceitful and a little creepy.

This book is an action-packed, murder mystery adventure, and at times a little chaotic (and I mean that in a good way).
Kohlhagen has masterfully captured history, adding his own twist on factual events, and readers will be totally enthralled.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Marissa Curnutte

347-574-3136

marissa@jkscommunications.com

FROM WALL STREET TO THE WEST

Financial guru Steven W. Kohlhagen turns to his roots in the American West high desert for his first historical fiction novel

‘Where They Bury You’

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO – Steve Kohlhagen wasn’t convinced after reading Hampton Sides’ nonfiction account, “Blood and Thunder,” that American frontiersman and Indian fighter Kit Carson’s official report of the events in August 1863 was entirely true. And in the 150^th anniversary year, Kohlhagen begs the question, “Did the Navajos really shoot Carson’s Marshal?”

His new book “Where They Bury You” puts a different spin on what’s found in the history books. Based on actual facts and a very real murder, this Western murder mystery takes place during the Civil War battles in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. A former Wall Street investment banker who currently sits on several Board of Directors, most recently joining Freddie Mac’s, Kohlhagen’s retired life in the San Juan Mountains gives him a unique perspective on the region about which he writes.

After researching a group of con artists who did, indeed, embezzle millions of today’s dollars, Kohlhagen sheds fictional light on who committed the actual August 18, 1863 murder of Santa Fe’s Provost Marshal deep in Navajo Territory. The novel vividly depicts battles among Cochise’s Chiricahua Apaches, the Navajo and other Southwestern Indian tribes, Kit Carson, the Union Army, volunteers from the western Territories, and the attacking Confederate Rebels from Texas.

“Steve Kohlhagen knows the West, knows his history, and combines them here into a fastpaced,

irresistible story!” raves Bernard Cornwell, award-winning author of over 50 historical fiction novels who USA Today calls “the reigning king of historical fiction.”

“Where They Bury You” is a thrill ride into the old and mysterious ways of the West, to a place and time in history that provides surprises along the way.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Kohlhagen is a former, now retired, Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, are tired Wall Street investment banker, and is on several corporate boards, most recently elected to the board of Freddie Mac. While at Berkeley he authored many economics publications, and he and his wife Gale jointly published the murder mystery “Tiger Found” under their pen name Steven Gale in 2008.

Kohlhagen was inspired to write his latest book “Where They Bury You” after reading Hampton Sides’ “Blood and Thunder,” a non-fiction history of Kit Carson and the West. Sides’ reporting of the factual murder of Marshal Joseph Cummings on August 18, 1863 led Kohlhagen to conduct further research on Carson and Cummings, including at the National Archives. He also pulled from his own knowledge of the West, as the writer divides his time between the New Mexico-Colorado border high in the San Juan Mountains and Charleston, South Carolina.

Connect with Steve

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Where They Bury You Virtual Tour: Guest Post with Steve Kohlhagen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISBN: 978-0-86534-936-0

Hardcover, $32.95

Paperback, $24.95

eBook, $9.99

344 pages

September 2, 2013

Sunstone Press



In August 1863, during Kit Carson’s roundup of the Navajo, Santa Fe’s Marshal is found dead in an arroyo near what is now the Hubbel Trading Post. The murder, and the roughly millions of today’s dollars in cash and belongings in his saddlebags, is historically factual. Carson’s actual explanation is implausible.

Who did kill Carson’s “brave and lamented” Major? The answer is revealed in this tale of a group of con artists operating in 1861-1863 in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. As a matter of historical fact, millions of today’s dollars were embezzled from the Army, the Church, and the New Mexico Territory during this time. In this fictionalized version, the group includes a Santa Fe poker dealer with a checkered past claiming to fall in love with one of her coconspirators, and the historically accurate duo of the Marshal of Santa Fe and the aide de camp of the Territories’ Commanding General. It is an epic tale of murder and mystery, of staggering thefts, of love and deceit.

Both a Western and a Civil War novel, this murder mystery occurs in and among Cochise’s Chiricahua Apache Wars, the Navajo depredations and wars, Indian Agent Kit Carson’s return from retirement, and the Civil War. The story follows the con artists, some historical, some fictional, during their poker games, scams, love affairs, and bank robberies, right into that arroyo deep in Navajo country.

 

 

 

 Grab a copy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

CONTACT:

Marissa Curnutte

347-574-3136

marissa@jkscommunications.com

 

FROM WALL STREET TO THE WEST

Financial guru Steven W. Kohlhagen turns to his roots in the American West high desert for his first historical fiction novel

‘Where They Bury You’

 

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO – Steve Kohlhagen wasn’t convinced after reading Hampton Sides’ nonfiction account, “Blood and Thunder,” that American frontiersman and Indian fighter Kit Carson’s official report of the events in August 1863 was entirely true. And in the 150^th anniversary year, Kohlhagen begs the question, “Did the Navajos really shoot Carson’s Marshal?”

 

His new book “Where They Bury You” puts a different spin on what’s found in the history books. Based on actual facts and a very real murder, this Western murder mystery takes place during the Civil War battles in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. A former Wall Street investment banker who currently sits on several Board of Directors, most recently joining Freddie Mac’s, Kohlhagen’s retired life in the San Juan Mountains gives him a unique perspective on the region about which he writes.

After researching a group of con artists who did, indeed, embezzle millions of today’s dollars, Kohlhagen sheds fictional light on who committed the actual August 18, 1863 murder of Santa Fe’s Provost Marshal deep in Navajo Territory. The novel vividly depicts battles among Cochise’s Chiricahua Apaches, the Navajo and other Southwestern Indian tribes, Kit Carson, the Union Army, volunteers from the western Territories, and the attacking Confederate Rebels from Texas.

 

“Steve Kohlhagen knows the West, knows his history, and combines them here into a fastpaced,

irresistible story!” raves Bernard Cornwell, award-winning author of over 50 historical fiction novels who USA Today calls “the reigning king of historical fiction.”

“Where They Bury You” is a thrill ride into the old and mysterious ways of the West, to a place and time in history that provides surprises along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 GUEST POST

 with Steve Kohlhagen

 

 

 

Why I chose this particular story, and why it compelled me to write a novel

 

I was innocently reading Hampton Sides’ wonderful history of the West, Blood and Thunder, when I came across Kit Carson’s implausible explanation for the 1863 murder of a U.S. Marshal under his command during his war against the Navajo (August 18, 1863---150 years ago, practically to the day). Intrigued, I started researching Army Archives and biographies of the people who were there, and discovered there had been a massive embezzlement of the Territorial government, the Church, and the Army by a group of con artists that, interestingly, actually happened in the months just previous to the murder. And the murdered Marshal had $750,000 of today’s dollars in his saddlebags. All this took place against the backdrop of the Texans and the Civil War inserting themselves into the Territories’ Apache and Navajo wars.

Interesting times. Interesting unsolved murder. The more I read and the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was a potentially fascinating story during a complex and fascinating period of history. I was compelled to write a novel that included a more plausible (fictional) explanation for the murder. Once I placed the fictional characters onto the historically accurate canvas, the story took off.

And the Marshall was killed again. This time more interestingly, and, more to the point, more plausibly.

 

 

 

 

What my favorite part of putting the book together was, and what it was like changing history for a book based on real events, but retold in the way I think it really happened.

 

My favorite part of putting the book together was watching the characters carry the book on their shoulders. When I created Lily Smoot, she was supposed to be a minor character, a former prostitute headed off to deal poker in Santa Fe. When she was finished with me (and all the real and fictional characters in the book) she was the heroine. Out of nothing, something fun.

I also very much enjoyed writing the battle scenes in a fictionalized way, with the characters controlled by historical accuracy and at the same time driving the flow of the fight.

To answer your question, I chose NOT to change history. All the characters are controlled by the actual events of history (with a debt to Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). The only liberties I took with historical accuracy were to: a) compress certain events (especially lengthy battles); and b) increase the role of some characters to reduce the number of characters to keep track of, both so as to not bore or burden the reader.

Since no witness to the Marshal’s murder ever came forth in historical records, even the ending of Where They Bury You cannot be proven to NOT be historically accurate. Just different from Kit Carson’s convenient and implausible explanation.

 

 

 

 

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

 

Steve Kohlhagen is a former, now retired, Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, are tired Wall Street investment banker, and is on several corporate boards, most recently elected to the board of Freddie Mac. While at Berkeley he authored many economics publications, and he and his wife Gale jointly published the murder mystery “Tiger Found” under their pen name Steven Gale in 2008.

 

Kohlhagen was inspired to write his latest book “Where They Bury You” after reading Hampton Sides’ “Blood and Thunder,” a non-fiction history of Kit Carson and the West. Sides’ reporting of the factual murder of Marshal Joseph Cummings on August 18, 1863 led Kohlhagen to conduct further research on Carson and Cummings, including at the National Archives. He also pulled from his own knowledge of the West, as the writer divides his time between the New Mexico-Colorado border high in the San Juan Mountains and Charleston, South Carolina.

 

 

 

Connect with Steve

 

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

 

 

 

Review + #Giveaway: Sky's End by Lesley Young #SkysEnd

Paperback, $15.99
eBook, $2.99
ISBN: 978-1619352384
Fiction
430 pages
Soul Mate Publishing
July 15, 2013







A secret she must never share. A secret that two warring species are determined to control. A universe’s future at stake.

Twenty-year-old Cassiel Winters joins Earth’s new space academy in hopes of finding her brother, one
of Command’s top pilots and her only family, who’s been reported MIA. But she quickly realizes she may not be cut out for life in space, where female cadets are outnumbered, competition’s fierce, and she’s already failed her hand-to-hand combat test once.

Even the station’s most respected officer, Lt. Damian King, probably can’t help Cassiel pass the second
time around – so why is he so interested in her progress? If only one of her freaky déjà vu visions would offer an answer instead of mysterious messages like hide.

When Cassiel’s manipulated into a perilous mission, she encounters a warrior species bred to protect
the universe from an even greater threat. And she learns that her secret visions are at the heart of it all.

Now Cassiel must fight to control her own destiny and race to save her brother – even if it means pretending to be the pawn of Prime Or’ic, the cold-as-steel Thell’eon leader. Even if it means risking her life, facing hard truths, and making the ultimate sacrifice.

Purchase this Book:

Soulmate publishing

REVIEW

Holy stars! Space travel has never been so HOT!

If, like me, you’re not a huge fan of sci-fi, this is one book you cannot miss. It will change your opinion of the genre. Not only was all the sci-fi, space jargon easily pronounceable, but the aliens encountered in this story are a far cry from the tiny, green men with large heads and oversized eyes. They are drop dead gorgeous with smoking bods, and any warm blooded, human woman would easily forget their allegiance to their fellow earthlings with these guys around. Well almost any woman. Thankfully, Cassiel is determined, kickass, and she doesn’t allow her attraction for these other beings blind her.

In the beginning of the story, Cass is painted as a bit of a weak character. She’s not a great cadet, and struggles through the ESE tests, but she’s driven by her love for her brother, and the mere fact that she joined ESE on a hunch shows how strong she really is. She also has a really awesome but strange gift, one she’s always tried to hide, except from Daz, and I was excited to see her in action with it. When her first mission reveals so much more about her than anyone would have ever expected, she really came into her own, and her character continued to develop with each hurdle she faced.

Her relationship with King is very new, but I liked Cassiel’s loyalty, not only to King, but to ESE – even though they were a shady organization. There were a few moments when that loyalty seemed to wane in the presence of Or’ic and she actually seemed to be enjoying her time with the Thelléons, but then she’d remember why she was with them and it would bring her back to reality. This didn’t mean there was nothing between Cassiel and Or’ic. The sexual tension was off the charts and it was obvious there was a mutual attraction, one that wasn’t the result of the high levels of pheromones present. Or’ic was so sincere when he approached Cassiel after the Candidacy that my heart broke for him. Even though his way of thinking and feeling is so very different from the human way, he was really trying to connect with her in the best way possible. I think it was just a little too late.

This story was well paced but I did feel it lost some of its momentum towards the end. It did end on a high note though and I cannot wait to see where this story will go. I only hope it involves more Or’ic.

This book is filled with adventure, mystery and romance. It is sexy and exciting.

Simply put…it is METATABULOUS!!

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Journalist Lesley Young never thought she would delve into the world of writing fiction, but when she sat down for the first time to put pen to paper, ideas for what would become her first novel just poured out naturally. Young’s first book, “Sky’s End,” is a multi-genre tale that showcases her unique style of weaving romance, action and wit into one page-burning story.

Young was born in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. She holds an arts degree from the University of Alberta and a journalism degree from the University of Victoria.

Young now lives in Loretto, Ontario where she works as a journalist, freelance writer and editor for health, décor and business magazines. Since 2008, Young has written more than 300 articles for print and online media including Profit, Toronto Life, MSN Green, and Elle Canada among others. She is a regular contributor to Reader’s Digest, Best Health, Canadian Living and House and Home Magazine.

Young has won three gold honors for feature stories from the National Business Magazine Awards and another top media award from the Canadian Dermatology Association.

Soul Mate Publishing releases “Sky’s End” on July 15 in paperback and e-book. The novel is Young’s first installment in a series about Cassiel Winters, a futuristic heroine, and her outer space escapades.

Connect with Lesley:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Amazon

JKSCommunications Virtual Book Launch: The Family That Stays Together by Deborah Plummer Bussey

 

 

Hello, Therians!!

 

 

How does a fun virtual book club meeting sound??

 

 

Well, Deborah Plummer Bussey, along with the fabulous JKSCommunication team, will be having a

Virtual Book Launch for the second book in her

Sister Nun Mystery Series,

The Family That Stays Together,

and you're all welcome to join in the fun! 

 

 

 

It's going to be a blast!

 

 

 

The VBL will take place Sunday, August 18 - 4 - 5pm EST.

 

 

All you have to do is register by Friday, August 16 -

email Sami@JKSCommunications to sign up!

 

 

 

For more details see the flyer below or go to the JKSCommunications website!

 

 

 

The first 10 participants will receive a signed copy of the first book in the series, They Still Call Me Sister :)

Cover Reveal: Nadia's Obsession by Charles D. Martin

Hello, Therians!

I have another fantastic cover reveal for you today!

Charles D. Martin's, Nadia's Obsession, releases August, 2013 and is the follow up to his first book, Provocateur. It will be available for free preview through Netgalley starting Tuesday, July 16, so be sure to get your requests in!

But for now, here's the stunning cover! What do you think??

Nadia's Obsession continues the story of a young Russian woman as told in Charles Martin's first novel, Provocateur.

A Brief prologue enables readers to jump right into the his second novel, if they have not read the first.

Martin's fascinating protagonist was born an orphan and had a troubled desperate early life, but was blessed with superior intelligence and beauty. She escaped her impoverished circumstances coming to America through a mail-order-bride program. In America, she became involved with an ex-CIA agent named Olga and, as part of her unique enterprise, is catapulted into a thrilling and dangerous life filled with suspense, intrigue and sexual tension. 

This second novel steps up the pace of intrigue and sexual intensity as Nadia and Russoff, the Russian oligarch, clash again in a battle of wits.  A new romance emerges and takes its twists and turns and the reader experiences new aspects of the gamesmanship between the sexes.  Charles Martin once again holds us spellbound and leaves us wanting more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Martin is the national award-winning author of the novel Provocateur. In his latest book, and its predecessor, Charles writes about strong, audacious women and their encounters with alpha males.

Mr. Martin grew up in a small Ohio town, in a family of modest means. By working two jobs, he was able to put himself through college. He has been fortunate to enjoy a great deal of success in life and had a distinguished career in venture capital and private equity, founding two highly successful investment firms that he managed during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s.

Currently, he runs a hedge fund, Mont Pelerin Capital, LLC and serves on the investment committees of prominent universities. Mr Martin has extensive background in finance and technology, and has travelled to the exotic locations featured in the novel. However, his latest novel is more about the intrigue in the story and the alpha female protagonist that takes on dominant males and conquers them.

Mr. Martin lives with his wife Twyla in a coastal town of Los Angeles, CA.

Connect with Charles:

Goodreads
Provocateur website
Nadia's Obsession Website (Will be up and running soon!)
Twitter

All Our Yesterdays Fan Book Trailer Contest!!!

Hello, Therians!

 

Here's your chance to win some amazing prizes in the run up to the release of

Cristin Terrill's All Our Yesterdays!

 

All details on how to enter can be found below :)

 

 

 

Available September 3, 2013!

 

 

Marina has everything. She’s got money, popularity, and a bright future. Plus, she’s best friends with the boy next door, who happens to be a gorgeous prodigy from one of America’s most famous families.

 

Em has nothing. Imprisoned in a small white cell in the heart of a secret military base, all she has is the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

 

But Marina and Em have one big thing in common: they’re the same person.

 

Now Em must travel back four years in time in order to avert the terrible future from which she’s fled, and there’s only one way to do it. She must kill the person who invented the time machine in the first place: someone from her past. A person she loved.

 

But Marina won’t let them go without a fight.

 

 

 

 

Author Cristin Terrill is getting ready to release her incredible debut Young Adult novel, ALL OUR YESTERDAYS, from Disney-Hyperion and is giving readers a chance to be a part of the launch by creating fan trailers!

 

 

Interested? Here’s how to enter:

 

1. E-mail Sami@JKSCommunications.com with your name, address and contact info. Be sure to enter ”All Our Yesterdays Book Trailer Contest” in the subject line. E-mails must be sent by July 20, 2013 so that  all entrants can be sent one advance reader’s copy with ample time to brainstorm and create a 30-60 second book trailer for All Our Yesterdays by the August 25, 2013 deadline.

 

 

2. Book trailers must be submitted to Sami@JKSCommunications.com by August 25, 2013 (Entrants must be located in the United States). Cristin will pick her top choices, which we will feature on The New Book Network for fans to vote on their favorite.

 

 

3. One Grand Prize Winner will be announced on September 3, 2013 and will receive an annotated copy of All Our Yesterdays with special insights and secrets from Cristin, a sneak-peek at book 2, and some additional goodies and treats straight from Washington, D.C., where the story takes place!

So get those thinking caps on! We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

 

 

********

 

Connect with Cristin:

 

CristinTerrill.com!

Follow Cristin on Twitter!
‘Like’ her on Facebook!

 

Follow the Virtual Tour (online and on Twitter with #allouryesterdays)

 

 

 

#JKSSummerReads - Pack Your Beach Bag: The Lucky O'Toole Series by Deborah Coonts

Hello, Therians!

Welcome to the JKSCommunications #JKSSummerReads Blog Tour.

 Summer is the perfect time to relax on the beach or by the pool with a good book.

So why not pack your beach bag with some amazing reads!?!!

Check out all the amazing books on offer :)

THE LUCKY O'TOOLE SERIES

WANNA GET LUCKY?

A young woman plunges from a Las Vegas sightseeing helicopter, landing in the Pirate’s lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel in the middle of the 8:30 Pirate Show.  Almost everyone writes her off as another Vegas victim. 

But Lucky O’Toole smells a rat.  She’s head of Customer Relations at The Babylon, the newest, most opulent mega-casino and resort on the Strip, so she’s got a lot on her plate: the Adult Film industry’s annual awards banquet, a spouse-swapping convention, sex toy purveyors preying on the pocket-protector crowd attending ElectroniCon….  Still, Lucky can’t resist turning over a few stones. 

When a former flame is one of the snakes she uncovers, Lucky’s certain she’s no longer dealing with an anonymous Sin City suicide.  To top it all off, Lucky’s best friend Teddie—Las Vegas’ finest female impersonator—presses to take their relationship to the next level.  Leave it to Lucky to attract a man who looks better in a dress than she does.

Lucky must manage the Babylon’s onslaught of outrageous festivities, solve a murder, and struggle to keep her life and libido from spinning out of control… not to mention keep her balance in six inch heels.

LUCKY STIFF

Lucky O’Toole--Head of Customer Relations at The Babylon, premier mega-resort on the Vegas Strip--thinks it’s just another night in Las Vegas.  A tractor-trailer has spilled its load of a million honeybees, blocking not only the Strip but the entrance to her hotel... the District Attorney for Clark County—apparently the odd man out of a threesome on the twelfth floor—is hiding in the buff in one of the hotel’s laundry rooms... and Numbers Neidermeyer--one of Vegas’ less-than-savory oddsmakers--is arguing with Las Vegas’ ace private investigator, the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock.

The next day, Lucky discovers Ms. Neidermeyer was tossed into the shark tank at the Mandalay Bay Resort as a snack for the Tiger Shark.  When the police show up at the Babylon with a hastily prepared search warrant, applied for by the District Attorney himself, and Jeremy lands in the hot seat, Lucky realizes her previous night was far from routine. 

Amid the chaos of fight weekend, the hiring of an eccentric new French chef, and her madam mother's intentions to auction off a young woman’s virginity, Lucky is drawn into a deadly game where no one is what they seem, a game that will end only when she discovers who made fish-food out of Numbers Neidermeyer.

Lucky O’Toole and Fabulous Las Vegas—life doesn’t get any better.   

LUCKY IN LOVE

Lucky O’Toole, the vice president of Customer Relations for the Babylon, one of Las Vegas’s most over-the-top strip properties, is seriously regretting booking a reality television show, The Forever Game, in the hotel’s small theater.

The four contestant-couples add their own mischief to the incendiary mix normally available in Sin City while competing for a Las Vegas wedding extravaganza. The host of The Forever Game, Trey Gold, appears interested only in keeping the spotlight on himself while the contestants run wild, sampling all Vegas has to offer and threatening to blow the whole show out of the water.

Not only must Lucky keep the couples from killing each other, killing their relationships, or ending up on the front page of the Review-Journal, she has to navigate her own rocky road of love. Teddie, her live-in lover, seems ready to chase a new career as a singer, leaving Vegas . . . and Lucky . . . behind. And the Babylon’s new French chef seems determined to muddy the murky waters of love even further.

Then there’s Lucky’s mother, Mona, who never could leave well enough alone . . .

SO DAMN LUCKY

Lucky O’Toole—Head of Customer Relations at The Babylon, premier mega-resort on the Vegas Strip—thinks it’s just another night in Las Vegas. But then a magician pulls a disappearing act, right under Lucky’s nose. Is it a stunt? Or something worse?


While Lucky chases leads, someone is trying to put her off the scent. As if this wasn’t enough to ruin her day, Lucky’s relationship with The Big Boss is coming to a head—past hurts can no longer be denied. Of course, she is already on shaky emotional ground: Teddie, her live-in, has been touring with a young and lovely pop star. Paxton Dane, former coworker and would-be suitor, is still circling, hoping to find a chink in the armor of Lucky’s resolve. And then, there’s this French chef, who is proving to be too hot to handle…. 


Las Vegas expert Deborah Coonts thrills again with this third installment in her dazzling series focused on casino “fixer” Lucky O’Toole.

LUCKY BANG

A new Lucky O'Toole digital novella. 

Having a blast on the 4th of July in Vegas takes on a whole new meaning for Lucky O’Toole, head of customer relations for the Babylon, a major Strip property, when she discovers a bomb in a friend’s restaurant and narrowly escapes becoming part of the “explosive entertainment.” And this wasn’t the first time. Years ago, when Lucky was small, she’d had another narrow escape. Could the two be related? Missing dynamite, an old grudge, and whispers from the past, force Lucky to delve into dark secrets best left alone. And when her father disappears, things become personal.

LUCKY NOW & THEN: PART ONE

a "Between the Books" Novella

Las Vegas, the City of Reinvention.
No one knows this better than Lucky O’Toole, V.P of Customer Relations at the Babylon, Vegas’s newest, most over-the-top Strip property. As the daughter of one of the men responsible for shaping Vegas from its ignominious Mob beginnings to its full current glory, Lucky has witnessed the constant rebirth. So, when the time comes to implode her father’s first hotel, The Lucky Aces, she feels the angst, but moves on.
Until skeletal remains are found in the foundation and her father is implicated in a murder.

Then it is a race to uncover the long-buried past. A past no one wants revealed, least of all the killer, who has tried to kill Lucky once before. Lucky must unravel the twisted knot of lies, Mob hits, Vegas power plays, passions, and corruption. 
Her father’s life hangs in the balance.

And when Lucky discovers a key to the puzzle is locked in her own memory, she becomes a target herself.

LUCKY BASTARD

Lucky O’Toole, the newly promoted vice president of Customer Relations for the Babylon, Las Vegas’s primo Strip property, has never met a problem she couldn’t handle. But when a young woman is found dead, sprawled across the hood of a new, bright red Ferrari California in the Babylon’s on-site dealership, a Jimmy Choo stiletto stuck in her carotid, Lucky’s skills are maxed out. Of course her life is already on overload. Her mother, Mona, is pregnant, hormonal, and bored — a triple threat. A song that Teddie, Lucky’s former lover, wrote for her is getting national airplay as he hits the talk shows, pleading for her forgiveness. Lucky is less than amused by the high-powered “infotainment” spotlight on her personal life. She’s having enough trouble fending off Chef Jean-Charles Bouclet, the Babylon’s tasty new dish. All of this and The Smack-Down Poker tournament, the second-largest poker tournament in the world, is holding its final round at the Babylon. Hookers, thieves, players, cheaters, media, and hangers-on descend, looking to win or to score. When one of the players turns up dead, Lucky starts to make connections between the two murders, putting her in the crosshairs of the killer. After a revelation by someone close to her sends her world reeling even further, Lucky struggles to keep her life in balance, and a murderer from killing again as bodies pile up. Then, just when she’s losing control… life deals another major complication to her personal life… and it’s not going to be pretty. Lucky struggles to keep her life in balance, and a murderer from killing again as bodies pile up.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My mother tells me I was born a very long time ago, but I’m not so sure—my mother can’t be trusted. These things I do know: I was raised in Texas on barbeque, Mexican food and beer. I currently reside in Las Vegas, where my friends assure me I cannot get into too much trouble. Silly people.

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