Teaching isn’t glamorous, but it has its moments. Like the time I derailed one of my summer college literature classes into a discussion of comparative traditions to avert the evil eye. The witches in the class offered to teach me spells to keep aggressive men off my back.
I keep my high-school classes more regimented. State testing doesn’t allow for individuality. Don’t get me started.
When my deadbeat husband drained our bank account and ditched me, I wished I’d taken my students up on those offers of spells. But after twenty-four hours of shock and rage, I banked the rage into a slow-burning furnace and rebuilt my life. My best friend gave me a few hundred dollars to pay the electric and gas bills. I paid her back within six months. I took the bus to work, because the deadbeat sold my car. I lived on ramen and peanut butter sandwiches. I rebuilt my entire life as a solo, strong, independent woman.
It’s been six and a half years. I have a bank account again. I have a used car. I have my grandmother’s house–paid in full before I met the scumbag. Why didn’t i divorce him? Because when the money will cover keeping the lights on or paying legal fees, the lights win. After awhile, it just wasn’t important. I wasn’t about to risk another relationship. The odds a new man could turn into another scumbag were too high. Plus, I love being solo. My time is my own. I have great friends. I can go to a movie or read a book until midnight or take a weekend trip because the only person I have to please is myself.
It was perfect, until the deadbeat showed up again on the losing end of a car chase and gun fight. I’m not joking. There was blood, there were cops, there were hours of interrogation. As though I knew what the deadbeat had been doing for the past six years.
Well, I’m not letting him ruin my life again. The cops can figure out who came after him. I’d bet on the Mob, but that’s their business. A new cop showed up on my doorstep asking about him. This one could be on the cover of a romance novel, but he’s not my problem either. As soon as I get it through his thick, handsome skull that I’m literally an innocent bystander in all this, my life will go back to normal.
I’ll make sure it does.
DEATH OF A BAD PENNY
Series: A Moonlighting Mystery, Book 1
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: September 2026
Format: Print, Digital
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College professor Cordelia West loves her life–until her deadbeat husband returns at the losing end of a car chase and gun battle. He dies in her lap in front of a packed restaurant. Powering through the police interrogation and bystander videos going viral, Cory vows no man will ever wreck her life again.
But after finding the cryptic artifact he slipped into her pocket as he died, Cory has a new problem: the killer’s after the artifact. Now she’s stuck with a charming detective who insists on helping her as they go on the run. Dodging the relentless killer and the detective’s suspicious behavior is giving Cory whiplash. She’s seriously considering smashing the artifact over Mr. Charming’s head.
About the author
Baker of brownies and tormenter of characters, A.M. Loweecey grew up watching Scooby-Doo mysteries and Hammer horror films, which explains a whole lot. When A.M. isn’t finding new ways to mystify readers and make them laugh, she’s growing vegetables in the garden and water lilies in the koi pond. A.M. writes the Renegade Exorcist series (starting with Demons & Ramen), the Moonlighting Mysteries series (starting with Death of a Bad Penny), has 9 books in the Giulia Driscoll, P.I., mystery series (as Alice Loweecey) and 2 stand-alone horrors as Kate Morgan: Staking Cinderella and The Redeemers. She also has several anthologized short stories.