A warm welcome to authors Hank Edwards & Deanna Wadsworth joining us today to talk about their joined release “Murder Most Lovely”. The authors brought the heroes from their new release to answer some questions and share an excerpt. There is also a giveaway you can participate in!
Welcome Hank & Deanna 🙂
An interview with the heroes of MURDER MOST LOVELY
Host: We’d like to welcome Michael Fleishman and Jasper Dilworth to the XXX blog today!
Jasper: (flashes a smile) Please, call me Jazz. I’m a little jazzy and I love music, but I can’t play a note.
Host: Will do, Jazz. Welcome Jazz and Michael. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourselves and the book MURDER MOST LOVELY
Jazz: (glances at Michael) Beauty before age?
Michael: (chuckles) Yes, you are older than me aren’t you? Although I do believe when we first met, you fibbed about your age. You’re almost fifty, not forty-one.
Jazz: (feigns shock) Spoilers! Don’t let these readers know that! They’ll think I’m a bad boy. Although, I do believe my shy mortician likes bad boys.
Michael: (blushes bright red and whispers) Quiet about that!
Jazz: Oh sweetie, readers will learn all about the sex starved fantasies floating around in your mind on page 3. Don’t you daydream about dripping hot wax on my nipples while you’re riding—?
Michael: Yes, well. (straightens up and adjusts his glasses) I believe our host asked us about the book, MURDER MOST LOVELY, so let’s get back on trach, shall we?
Host: Yes! Can you tell us about the story?
Michael: Well our village Lacetown sits on Lake Michigan and throughout the summer it hosts many festivals. The Great Lakes Literary Fest came to town, and I was looking forward to meeting my favorite mystery author, Russell Withingham.
Jazz: My cheating ex-husband.
Michael; Indeed. Jazz and I met while waiting to meet Russell. Well, I was waiting in line to meet him and have ten of my books signed. Jazz was there to confront him.
Jazz: The jerk owed me money.
Michael: While we waited in the rain, we shared my umbrella and made small talk. Jazz is a local hairdresser, and he agreed to come do some work for me at the funeral parlor. The deceased need their hair arranged for services and it isn’t easy to find people comfortable in that line of work.
Jazz: You stay in the beauty business long enough, eventually you get a call to give a client their last do. I don’t know where they’re going in the next life, but I’ll be damned if any of my clients get to the other side with their hair a wreck.
Michael: (smiling as he admires Jazz)
Host: So you met at a local event and began working together professionally, but how do you become embroiled in a real-life murder investigation?
Michael: (shares a somber look with Jazz) A dead body washed up on a local beach, with both of his hands cut off. As the county’s appointed coroner, I was sent to collect the body. And Jazz knew the victim. It was Russell’s young lover, Dylan Roberts.
Jazz: Which naturally made me a prime suspect with our local sheriff, Sheriff Musgrave. Let’s just say, I’m not his favorite person.
Michael: (takes Jazz’s hand) You’re my favorite person.
Jazz: You say the sweetest things, sweetie!
Host: Without giving away too much about the murder, tell readers what else to expect in the book?
Jazz: Well, aside from some surprisingly hot sex with this hunk sitting next to me, there’s a killer loose in Lacetown, some bumbling drug dealers, the cranky sheriff, and Michael’s awesome but sometimes tipsy grandpa. Oh, and there’s a cat napping.
Host: A catnapping?
Michael: Yes, my cat Mr. Pickles is taken hostage, and believe me, we get him back.
Jazz: (leans his head on Michael’s shoulder) Our hero.
Host: Can you tell us about the authors? Hank Edwards and Deanna Wadsworth?
Michael: When Hank and Deanna decided to write MURDER MOST LOVELY, each of them created one of our bios. Deanna—a hairdresser in real life—made my character. And Hank did an amazing job creating Jazz, if I must say. I couldn’t have imagined a better partner for myself if I’d created him myself.
Jazz: And I didn’t know what to expect when I met you, but you were definitely the most pleasant surprise I’ve ever had.
Host: I think the readers are going to enjoy getting to know both of you too. Thank you for visiting with us, Jazz and Michael. You’ve brought along a special excerpt and a rafflecopter for our readers and all the links to find your story.
BLURB:
A killer at a small-town literary festival. Bumbling drug dealers. A kidnapped cat. Starting a romance among all this chaos might be the death of them.
Michael Fleishman is excited to meet his favorite mystery writer, Russell Withingham, at Lacetown’s Literary Fest. He is not expecting to cross paths with sexy hairdresser Jasper “Jazz” Dilworth—or become embroiled in a real-life mystery. As Lacetown’s only mortician and the county coroner, Michael is called to his first murder scene and is shocked to recognize the victim—Russell’s young lover.
Jazz only wanted to confront his ex, Russell, over his cheating. Instead, he meets the adorably awkward Michael and becomes a murder suspect. Soon Jazz is teaming up with Michael to clear his name. Along the way, they are helped and hindered by Michael’s sassy assistant, Kitty, the grumpy Sheriff Musgrave, Russell’s creepy PR rep, Norbert, and Michael’s lothario grandfather, who likes his manhattans strong and his women saucy. And of course, Mr. Pickles Furryton the Third….
Buy Links:
MURDER MOST LOVELY
Lacetown Murder Mysteries: Case One
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“I always knew I’d return to Lacetown and run the funeral home,” Michael went on. “It’s been in our family four generations now.”
“No choice?”
Michael smiled, eyes lighting up. “I always had a choice. My father was a kind man. But growing up in the business, well?” He seemed to ponder it. “It was just the correct choice for me. My grandfather was the last appointed county coroner, and since we already had the appropriate facilities in the parlor’s basement, several county officials encouraged me to pursue the profession so a local could take the position when he retired.”
“Lacetown loves their locals.” Jazz laughed. “You would’ve thought I was offering six ninety-nine chop-jobs when I moved here last summer. Thankfully Misty bragged me up and some ladies took a risk”—he did air quotes—“on the out-of-towner.”
“That’s a small town for you.” Michael chuckled. “After I completed my doctorate at Florida International, in Miami, Grandpa retired, and well? I became a coroner too. Not that I’m called to do much beyond the occasional autopsy of an unusual death, like a healthy person dropping dead, or a child. Dylan Roberts is a bit out of my wheelhouse, what with the criminal element and all. My PhD is in chemistry, not criminal investigation. Never thought I’d need that in Lacetown.” His expression darkened, pensive.
Not wanting to talk about the murder, Jazz whistled and said in his best Missouri accent, “Ooo-eee! I dun landed me a doctor!”
It had the desired effect, and Michael smiled again. “So it seems you have.”
They reached the front of the line, and Jazz handed tickets to the vendor. “Two pinot grigios, please.”
“We only have chardonnay here,” the woman said.
“That’s fine,” Michael piped up.
Jazz accepted the two drinks, saying to Michael, “So you lived in Detroit and Ann Arbor and Miami and still wound up back in Lacetown. Any regrets? I mean, Miami is a fun town. Woke up naked and hungover with a pair of hot Latin beach boys the first time I went down there.”
The woman selling wine harrumphed.
“Pa-leeze.” Jazz gave her an eye roll. “You wish you’d been a fly on that wall.”
She scowled and faced her next customer. “What can I get you?”
Michael chuckled, accepting his drink. They rejoined the festival-goers, strolling through the crowds and sipping their wine.
“The dating scene was easier in Miami than Lacetown,” Michael agreed. “Not that I saw much of it, with my studies and working in a funeral parlor in my spare time.”
There was an odd note in his voice, and Jazz couldn’t be sure if it was regret or sadness.
“But I love Michigan, Lacetown, and the lake,” Michael said, face bright again. “I grew up in the house I live in now.”
“And your parents? Are they still in town?”
“My mother left us when I was seven.”
“That stinks. My father bailed when I was real little. Don’t really remember him or care to. Do you talk to your mom?” Jazz hoped he did. It hurt his heart imagining Michael without supportive family. Jazz knew firsthand how shitty that could be, and while he’d made peace with it himself, Michael just seemed… more fragile somehow. Jazz couldn’t place why he thought that, but he did.
“Oh, she comes and visits. Sweeps in like a favorite aunt, rather than a mother. She lives in LA with her… um? Film director husband. Likes the novelty of having a gay son a bit too much, if you get my meaning. My dad was the one who raised me. He was a brilliant man.”
“Was?” Jazz questioned gently.
Michael gave him a tight-lipped smile. “He passed away five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
They walked quietly for a moment, the silence stretching out between them.
“Any other degrees or jobs you haven’t mentioned? Any hot Miami sex stories you wanna share?” Jazz asked, suspecting Michael might need to lighten the conversation a bit.
“Yes, um, hardly. No, but I was a coffee barista in Detroit. That was kind of fun, but the customers talked way too much.” Michael snapped his mouth shut immediately.
“I’m used to clients talking a lot,” Jazz offered, wondering why Michael seemed embarrassed by his comment. “But I guess in your line of work, customers talking back would be a little terrifying.”
Stopping, Michael studied him for a long moment. “Truth?”
“Sure, why not?” Jazz said as he spied an empty picnic table in the beer garden, close enough to the action that they could hear the music, but secluded enough for conversation. He pointed to it. “Care to sit?”
“Sure.”
Once they sat, Jazz waited for Michael to ask him a question.
“My line of work… it doesn’t make you….” Michael fiddled with his cup. “Uncomfortable?”
Smiling, Jazz shook his head in confusion. He opened his mouth to say, “No way, José,” but then decided Michael might need a more genuine answer.
Jazz reached across the table and placed his hand over Michael’s fidgeting one. Their eyes met.
“Michael, the one thing you’ll learn about me is that I’m honest. I can be blunt, though I like to think I have discretion. But I don’t lie and I don’t exaggerate. If I have a fat client with thin hair who wants to look just like Kim Kardashian, I don’t tell them they will, because they won’t. So when I tell you that I don’t have one single problem with your line of work, nor does it embarrass me or make me uncomfortable in any way, I want you to believe me. Okay?”
The awkward smile that flashed across Michael’s face felt like the greatest reward. He let out a whooshing breath and nodded several times. “Thank you for saying that, Jazz.”
Jazz did not want to let go of Michael’s hand, but eventually he gave it a gentle squeeze and discreetly moved his hand back. “Your turn. Truth or dare?”
“Truth is getting heavy,” Michael said. “How about dare?”
“All right.” Jazz grinned wide. “I dare you to get a book cover photo with me.”
“What?”
“That booth we saw, where people can be cover models on their own book, I think it looks like fun. What do you say?”
Michael looked like he was trying to find a way out of his dare, but eventually he said, “Can I have another glass of wine first?”
Jazz laughed. “Of course!”
~~~~
Deanna Wadsworth might be a bestselling erotica author, but she leads a pretty vanilla life in Ohio with her wonderful husband and adorable cocker spaniels. She has been penning stories since childhood, and her first erotic novella was published in 2010 and served multiple as President of the Rainbow Romance Writers in 2017. When she isn’t writing books or brainstorming with friends, you can find her making people gorgeous in a beauty salon. An avid reader, she also loves gardening, cooking, music, and dancing. Often she can be seen hanging out on the sandbar in the muddy Maumee River or chilling with her hubby and a cocktail in their basement bar. In between all that fun, Deanna cherishes the quiet times when she can let her wildly active imagination have the full run of her mind. Her fascination with people and the interworkings of their relationships have always inspired her to write romance with spice and love without boundaries.
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Hank Edwards has been writing gay fiction for more than twenty years. He has published over thirty novels and dozens of short stories. His writing crosses many sub-genres, including romance, rom-com, contemporary, paranormal, suspense, mystery, and wacky comedy. He has written a number of series such as the suspenseful Up to Trouble, funny and spooky Critter Catchers, Old West historical horror of Venom Valley, and erotic and funny Fluffers, Inc. No matter what genre he writes, Hank likes to keep things steamy and heartfelt. He was born and still lives in a northwest suburb of the Motor City, Detroit, Michigan, where he shares a home with his partner of over 20 years and their two cats.
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Read about the Town of Superstition, Hank’s YA series written as R.G. Thomas on Amazon
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