It’s Tuesday morning and I’m rushing to catch the Metra train to go downtown. Of course, I have to weave my way around the group of students jogging to the lake front. My neighborhood is home to the University of Chicago and those students seem to love their jogging. Some people think Hyde Park is like a college town in the midst of the city. For sure it’s a real melting pot with people from all different backgrounds.

I make it up the stairs to the platform just as the train is pulling in. I’m heading downtown for a dance class. This one is tap, but it’s less about me mastering the shuffle-ball change than to get the feel of the class so I can write up a description. The dance gym is one of my clients. I suppose I could just watch the class, but that’s not how I work. I know, I know, I get way too involved with my clients.

My name is Veronica Blackstone and I’m a writer-for-hire. I write promotional copy, descriptions of ice cream flavors, wedding vows, celebrations of life for funerals, love letters – just about anything as long as it’s legal.

Right now I’m writing love letters for Evan, well, as him. Evan’s a good guy and I really hope the letters work and he wins over Sally. Actually, I’m doing more than letter writing. He seems to need advice and support as well. The irony is that my own social life is at zero.

My other project is a lot lower in the joy department. I’m working on a booklet to celebrate the life of Rachel for her funeral. It was barely a year ago that I was helping her with her wedding vows. And something happened between then and now to make her go from a supremely happy bride to someone who mysteriously “fell” off the balcony of a downtown high rise.

There’s no time to linger downtown when the dance class is over and instead of taking a walk along Michigan Avenue with all its lovely shops and eating places, I go right back to the Metra station. When I get off the train there’s another set of joggers moving down 57th Street like a trio of gazelles. I consider stopping for a bowl of the homemade soup at the coffee shop on the corner, but go home instead. Home is a three story walk up that’s over a hundred years old. I’ve lived there all of my thirty-year-old life. When I look around the living room, I see a montage of memories as my family went from three, to two, to now just me.

Now it’s time to prepare for the writers’ group I lead. I’ve already gone over the pages they left with me last week and put them on the dining room table as soon as I clear it off.

There’s always a little tension during the groups’ meeting. The deal is that nobody reads their own work out loud to the group. Ed ’s copy is always racy and explicit. The only person who can manage to read his work without getting embarrassed is Ben. He’s a cop with a blank expression who reads Ed’s pages like he’s reading a police report. Tizzy, well her name kind of says it all. She works at the University and is in the middle of everybody’s business. She’s writing a time travel novel that takes place in our neighborhood. It’s pretty easy to guess what Ben is working on– a terse detective story. Daryl is writing a romance which wouldn’t be a problem except she can’t handle criticism, or for that matter, if we say her work is fine. She’s like a cork waiting to pop.

I wonder what delicious dish Sarah, my neighbor downstairs, will send up tonight. She gifted her brother Ben with several months of the workshops thinking writing would crack open the shell he’s built around himself, and in the hopes she’d match us up. She keeps telling me that there is more to him, but he sure hides it well. He has dinner with Sarah and her family before he comes up for the writers’ group and arrives with a plate for me. Somehow there always seems to be leftovers mysteriously without meat (I’m a vegetarian). After the group leaves, he hangs out while I eat so he can fulfill his sister’s order to bring her plate back. We both see through it, but humor her anyway.

Chances are after all that I will once again have no time to work on my own writing, or that’s what I’ll tell myself. I wrote a successful mystery, The Girl with the Golden Throat, featuring Derek Streeter, but when it comes to the sequel, I’m stuck. A hard copy of the first three chapters is sitting in my office, taunting me. Well, there’s always tomorrow.

Murder Ink, A Writer for Hire Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: February 2021
Purchase Link

Writer for Hire Veronica Blackstone is asked to write a celebration of life book for a former client’s funeral, but was the death as straightforward as was reported?

Veronica Blackstone is a writer for hire. Be it love letters, biographies, resumes or wedding vows, Veronica has you covered. Her latest assignment is writing a celebration of life book for the funeral of one-time client Rachel Ross who tragically died one year after her wedding.

While researching Rachel’s life, Veronica finds the information surrounding the circumstances of her death to be shrouded in mystery. No one quite knows what happened and her prominent family are more concerned with their image than the truth.

Was Rachel’s life as perfect as it seemed or was there something dark going on? Was her fall an accident, deliberate or something else? In celebrating the life of Rachel, Veronica is determined to get to the bottom of her death.

About the Author
Despite getting a degree in fine arts, all Betty Hechtman ever wanted to be was a writer. The national bestselling author has had 20 books published across two cozy mystery series centered on another of her loves—yarn craft. She lives in Southern California. Connect with Betty at bettyhechtman.com or on Facebook at @Betty Hechtman Author.

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