Good morning all you wonderful mystery readers out there:
I’m Wendy Winchester, a strawberry-blonde, blue-eyed newspaper reporter whose life has started looking up lately. Now, get this: I took the job as the society columnist for my hometown Rosalie Citizen three years ago hoping to get my foot in the door as a journalist. After all, I got my journalism degree from Mizzou–maybe the best out there–and I can assure you my plans did not include describing wedding cakes and bridal bouquets and sip ‘n sees ad infinitum. At least not for long.
Surely, I thought, my editor Dalton Hemmings, would see I was capable of doing much more than that. But he has this thing about ‘women doing women’s work,’ and ‘men doing men’s work’ in the newspaper business. Ugh! So three years later, I’m still writing up weddings and hoping Hemmings leaves us. (And you can take that any way you want.)
But this yawner of a job I trudge through every day in my little gray cubicle in the newsroom may be on its way out. You see, four society widows here in historic Rosalie on the Mississippi River–they call themselves the Gin Girls after their adult beverage of choice–have all just been poisoned during one of their bridge luncheons, and I have talked Mr. Hemmings into letting me do a feature of these murdered ladies and their families and what they all meant to the community. For once, my experience as a society columnist is coming in handy.
So now, I’m interviewing survivors and suspects like mad, and the time I now spend in my cubicle is joyous and exciting. In the back of my mind is the idea that if I can even solve this murder case, I will really get a fantastic promotion. And you know what? My boyfriend, Ross, is a police detective and my father is the Chief of Police. It’s not like I don’t have my sources, you see.
Well, back to work for me. The cursor is blinking. Every day I find out something new about the ladies and their families, including some not so very nice secrets. Am I close to solving this case? As I said, things are looking up for me, so I just might.
Wendy Winchester
Giveaway: Leave a comment below for your chance to win a print copy of Grand Slam Murders. U.S. entries only, please. The giveaway ends February 1, 2019. Good luck everyone!
You can read more about Wendy in Grand Slam Murders, the first book in the NEW “Bridge To Death” mystery series, released January 29, 2019.
After four bridge players are poisoned, newspaper reporter Wendy Winchester sets out to catch a killer who’s not playing with a full deck . . .
When the four wealthy widows who make up the venerable Rosalie Bridge Club never get up from their card table, this quiet Mississippi town has its first quadruple homicide. Who put cyanide in their sugar bowl? An aspiring member and kibitzer with the exclusive club, Wendy takes a personal interest in finding justice for the ladies.
She also has a professional motivation. A frustrated society columnist for the Rosalie Citizen, she’s ready to deal herself a better hand as an investigative reporter. This could be her big break. Plus, she has a card or two up her sleeve: her sometimes boyfriend is a detective and her dad is the local chief of police.
Partnering up with the men in her life, Wendy starts shuffling through suspects and turning over secrets long held close to the chest by the ladies. But when a wild card tries to take her out of the game, Wendy decides it’s time to up the ante before she’s the next one to go down . . .
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Meet the author
R. J. Lee follows in the mystery-writing footsteps of his father, R. Keene Lee, who wrote fighter pilot and detective stories for Fiction House, publishers of WINGS Magazine and other ‘pulp fiction’ periodicals in the late ’40’s and ’50’s. Lee was born and grew up in the Mississippi River port of Natchez but also spent thirty years living in the Crescent City of New Orleans. A graduate of the University of the South (Sewanee) where he studied creative writing under Sewanee Review editor, Andrew Lytle, Lee now resides in Oxford, Mississippi.
All comments are welcomed.
This series sounds fun! Definitely adding to my TBR list.
Thank you for the giveaway! I would love to win!
Thanks for your interest. You won’t be disappointed.
New-to-me author/series…
Thank you for the giveaway…..
I hope you like the series.
This sounds like a fun book…I’m adding it to my TBR List.
I think you will applaud my detective work.
I love newspaper themed cozies. The niece that just got married got her first college degree in journalism. Then she joined Teach America and taught History. Go figure. LOL
Toss my name into the magic hat please Dru.
I think you will approve of my detective work and journalism skills.
Sounds like an amazing new series featuring an awesome new voice!
The writer who created me, R.J. Lee, was very kind. Yes, he made me an attractive woman. But more importantly, he gave me outside the box cognitive skills. And he’s already finished with putting me through the second novel.
This sounds fun
You will have a great time reading about my journalistic and detective skills.
My husband is a pilot and comes from an aviator family. When we married, some of his mother’s (she was a WAC) copies of WINGS came along. Glad that you are following the family tradition. I’m looking forward to catching up with the Gin Girls, you know how it is in the South, sometimes you get to know folks best after they pass.
What a thrill to find someone who read Wings magazine. My father wrote for Fiction House right after he and my mother were married. They lived in Greenwich Village. I attended Book Expo in late May this year and walked around Central Park thinking that my parents probably did that a lot all those long decades ago.
A delightful story which I would enjoy. Thanks.
Thanks for being a reader, April.
I like the cover.
The cover is so colorful and intriguing. Kensington’s Art Department came up with that. I do think it will attract browsers at book stores and libraries.
This sounds like a fun series! Thanks for the chance to win a copy.
I know you won’t be disappointed. Thanks for being a reader.
You got me hooked again. Thank you for the review and the giveaway. Can’t wait to read this new book.
Debra: You will not be disappointed. And kudos if you are able to figure out the surprise solution.
Sounds like a fun to read series I would like
Hi,Stacey. You knew me previously as Ashton Lee, writer of the Cherry Cola Book Club series. Now, I have switched to cozy mysteries for Kensington. I have found my niche and know you will approve.
Sounds like a unique and fun series you have planned. I am definitely going to read this book!! Thanks for the chance to win a copy.
Thank so much for being a reader.
Wow!!! This sound like a good read. Since I’m stuck in the fridget temps here in the Illinois, what a way to spend it reading. Thank you for a great giveaway!!!
You aren’t the only one out there who believes that reading books is a great way to stay warm in the winter.
Your blog really provides us with some interesting books to check out. It’s also nice to be able to enter a giveaway to win a book without jumping through hoops. Keep up your wonderful blog.
I am delighted with the opportunity to make new readers this way.
This does sound like fun!
Wendy Winchester here:It was mostly fun for me. But my creator, R. J. Lee, put my life in danger during my investigations. I’m not Super Woman, but R. J. made me a pretty strong character. I hope you’ll see for yourself.
It’s very Southern–authentically so, since I am a Deep Southerner by birth.
A new series! Sounds funny and fun! Thanks so much for this chance. Y’all all stay warm!!
Reading by the fire is a great way to stay warm. Grand Slam Murders is a great, cold-weather read.
Oh my. The bridge game from hell!
Haha! I’m wondering now if I shouldn’t have changed the title from Grand Slam Murders to Bridge Game From Hell. Too on the nose? Well, anyway, thanks for being a reader.
Cute cover and sounds like a fun read!
I think you’ll like following me in my first murder investigation. And, yes, someone tries to kill me at one point.
Sounds like a really funny book. I would love to read it. Thank you for this chance.
Well, Carolyn,there are parts of my investigation that weren’t so funny. For instance, someone tries to kill me. But thank goodness for my determination and sense of humor as I forged ahead recklessly.
Sounds like a great read.
Kirkus Reviews said of it: “A compulsively-readable series debut, dripping in Southern charm, with a clever sleuth whose knowledge of bridge breaks the case open.” Thank you for being a reader.
Sounds like an interesting book. Adding to my TBR list.
By all means, do so. You will not be disappointed. Especially by the surprise ending.
Sounds like Wendy will be busy for awhile.
My creator, R. J. Lee, keeps me even busier in the second novel–Playing the Devil. But first things first. Follow my adventures in Grand Slam Murders. You won’t be disappointed.
Love the cover. This sounds like a fun read. A new author for me to get to know her books. Thanks for a chance to read and win.
Haha! You said ‘her’ books. R. J. stands for Robert Joseph in my pen name. Yep. I’m a redheaded guy writing about a redheaded heroine. I write women well. See if you don’t agree. Love making new readers this way.
Sounds like a fun read. Wonder how her father and boy friend react to her investigating the murders.
To answer your question about her boyfriend and her father wading in on her investigation: they both make it clear to her that theirs is the official investigation, and they can’t share certain things with her. But she can share things with them, which she does. However, Wendy is a pistol and can squeeze a few things out of the men in her life that she is not supposed to know. When I did some research on this with a police captain, she said that spouses often end up letting things slip here and there at the end of a long day. All to Wendy Winchester’s benefit in the plot.
Thanks for the info on this book. This is a new series to me.
I am sure you are going to like the universe of Rosalie, Mississippi–an old, layered, historic city where eccentricity is normal.
Love Wendy
Love the book
Love R. J. Lee
Thank you, Elaine. You blast from the past!
lol. I never played bridge, but I’m going to love this book!
Let me assure you that you do not have to have extensive knowledge of bridge to follow the plot. Bridge players may enjoy it a little more, but Grand Slam Murders is reader-friendly. You may have great difficulty discovering the solution, but it won’t be because you aren’t an expert bridge player.
Wow, this looks like fun. I can’t wait to read it.
Last night, I had a signing here in Oxford, Ms, and my entire bridge club came. All thirty of them. But you do not have to be a bridge player to understand and have a fun time reading Grand Slam Murders
Though I don’t play, I do come a family of Bridge players. They were real serious about it.
This sounds like a great read.
As I said in an earlier part of this thread, I think those who play bridge will get an even bigger kick out of the novel. But non-players will be able to navigate it, too. Thanks for being a reader.
**** WINNER ****
Grand Slam Murders is Yolanda Scott
Congratulations!
Congratulations, Yolanda. Welcome to my universe.