Today I'm pleased to welcome author Susan Whitfield to my blog. Please take a look at Susan's books, get to know her and if you read down you'll learn how to get a free copy of her KILLER RECIPES book.
Welcome, Susan!
North Carolina Mystery Writer, Susan Whitfield, has written four books in the Logan Hunter Mystery series, including Genesis Beach, Just North of Luck, Hell Swamp, and Sin Creek. She sets her novels in the state she loves. Genesis Beach, the first in the series, is set in a fictitious place only she can locate with any accuracy. “I was first inspired to write my first novel while I was at the beach looking down at a tanned man with a pierced nipple in the hot tub,” she giggles.
Excerpt from Genesis Beach:
I’d come all this way to slap him and tell him to go straight to Hell only to find out he was already there.
“I liked my female protagonist, Logan, so much that I decided without hesitation to send her off to the Blue Ridge Mountains after a serial killer. Just North of Luck challenged us both.”
Reviews :
“Just south of sanity!”
“…grabs you by the scruff of the next and takes you on a harrowing ride into hellish, gruesome, and scary scenes. Whitfield’s skill at expectation and reversal will leave you saying OMG!”
“…unique supporting cast of Appalachian characters…”
Excerpt:
“Chase drives these mountains like he’s on flat land,” I explained to Pepper, who was pale. He took the hint and slowed his speed, soon coming to a parking area off to the left. We pulled in and locked up. A white plastic banner across the road twinkled bright lights: Go Nuts at the Testicle Festival! I spotted a television cameraman filming cooks and getting reactions from tasters. People were bestowing glorious accolades on the samples.
We approached the tables and a man shoved sturdy cardboard platters into our hands. I tried to give mine back, but Pepper pulled me toward a deep fryer filled with bubbling oil. Chase gave me a bemused look and egged Pepper on to get me to try a fried bull gonad. Unexpectedly one was on my plate, sizzling, and smelling--alluring. I shook my head. What was I thinking? I turned and watched in horror as Pepper and Chase counted to three and bit into a crispy gonad. They both leaned toward me, chewing and moaning as if it were wonderful, but they weren’t fooling me.
“Eat up, Logan. They won’t be this good once they cool off,” Pepper warned. She and Chase both took another bite. Chase winked at me and walked off toward some boiled kudzu, adding it to his plate. I followed them with my gonad still in its entirety.
Whitfield went back to her childhood home and the nearby mansion she loved to set Hell Swamp along Black River, and use The Black River Plantation for the crime scene. “There really is a Hell Swamp somewhere down Black River but I didn’t venture there because I’d been told about the canopy of water moccasins that call it home. I have since become friends with the plantation’s owner, Ed Padfield, a real sweetie. I treasure that friendship.”
Reviews:
“Hell Swamp, a lovely place for a vacation if you like finding floating skulls, cottonmouths, being pushed into the river, shot at, whacked over the head and finding stately southern plantation homes. Least I forget, the plantation home had an addition that I should probably mention here. An old lady, dressed out like a fresh killed deer, viscera piled on the floor beneath her and hung from the main chandelier in the foyer.
This is the situation that SBI agent Logan Hunter discovered when she was called off of vacation to head up an investigation in rural North Carolina.
The story spins along at an entertaining pace as you follow Logan through her investigation.
Peculiarities abound as you meet the suspects. Whitfield has drawn a cast of characters from 'down by the Black River' that rings delightfully true, scary and injected with just enough humor to make HELL SWAMP stand out from the pack. Read this book. It's a good 'un.” ~~Tom Cooke, Memoirs of Bear
Excerpt:
I could hear myself screaming. I snatched out of the fingers’ grip and fell. Fell a long way. Then the dirt hit my face. I was being buried alive! I scrambled sideways when I realized I could. The hand wrapped around my throat, the long nails on its fingers cut my skin. I screamed. There was nothing to stop me. When I hit the table, I woke up, piled on the floor with the aloe plant from the bedside table and all its dirt on top of me. The nightmare I’d once had was back and more frightening than ever. I sat up on the floor and spit out dirt, flipping the plant onto the floor. I trembled, realizing I had peed in my pants.
The fourth novel in the series, Sin Creek, is set along the Cape Fear Riverfront in Wilmington. I love Wilmington, but this novel was a major challenge. I stopped many times but finally completed it. The topics of rape and pornography give me the creeps, but it’s out there and this story had to be told,” Whitfield admits.
Here’s a tidbit to tease you:
The Cape Fear River snakes through eastern North Carolina past the stunning port city of Wilmington, and sidling up next to it is Sin Creek, a sliver of water where wickedness and decadence take precedence over decency and threaten to bring the city to its knees.
Reviews:
“…provocative page-turner!”
“…unexpected turns, engaging situations…”
“Sin Creek, new in the Logan Hunter mystery series by Susan Whitfield, is an eye-opener and a heart-breaker, but with the sweetest redeeming ending.
Having had a long-standing friendship with a detective, when reading Sin Creek, I felt a sense of déjà vu about events I know to be true. These foul crimes do exist and are proliferating all over the world, both promoted by and brought to law enforcement attention by the Internet. Whitfield portrays the underpinnings of one man's vile world of pornography with researched accuracy.
Though this story is fiction, the very same types of exploitation continue to happen and escalate. If you never understood how lewd and dangerous the world of porn is, read Sin Creek. It's fiction but true to life. It'll make you shudder.”
Excerpt:
After a short scuffle and a gunshot, Crack worked feverishly over my naked body, untying my left hand. I looked into his eyes with tears, but he diverted them to focus on the binding. Just as my hand escaped the rope, Crack jolted up, his eyes wide and shocked before he keeled over onto the floor, a knife in his back.
Whitfield’s series can be purchased anywhere books are sold as well as online in print or digital format. “If you want a book autographed, just go to my site at www.susanwhitfieldonline.com and order from there. I’ll personally autograph it for you or someone else.”
Whitfield also has a cookbook she compiled after asking writer friends to submit recipes for Killer Recipes, not only a book of writers’ favorite foods but also book titles, web sites, and other interesting tidbits. All proceeds from this cookbook are donated to cancer research.
“I feel so good about doing this because so many of us have been affected by cancer in some way. I appreciate eighty-seven authors submitting as many as five recipes for this project.” This cookbook is available on Whitfield’s web site, from the publisher at www.lldreamspell.com, as well as Amazon.com and other online stores.
“I’m proud and grateful that L&L Dreamspell jumped at the chance to publish this special book and donate their earnings to the cause.”
GIVEAWAY: Today we're giving away a copy of Killer Recipes. All you have to do is leave a question for Susan and you'll be enetered to win a free copy. The winner will be chosen at random.
Susan Whitfield is currently working on a stand-alone about the misadventures and perils of two women who’ve been friends since infancy. The working title is The Goose Parade of Old Dickeywood. She’s also working on the fifth Logan Hunter Mystery, tentatively called Punch Street, and researching a medieval ancestor in hopes of writing an historical novel.
Susan also blogs at www.susanwhitfield.blogspot.com and interviews authors and industry experts. She’s also on Facebook, Twitter, and www.booktown.com set up Susan’s Interviews for its members.
My last read of the year will be Future Perfect by Suzanne Brockmann.
