The Call with Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

I knew from the time I was eight years old that I would be a writer. I was always writing little stories and making little books. I was that kid always making up plays and getting her sisters and friends to play the parts. As I grew up, that love for writing morphed into careers in journalism where I was telling human interest stories, and then, public relations and development where I was telling the stories of non-profits and organizations. Eventually, I leaned into my desire to get back to writing fiction and I dove headfirst into screenwriting. I found my forensic, crime writing voice and started to write a bunch of film and TV scripts. As these began to pile up, I got the spark of an idea to turn them into novels. It wasn't soon after that I found myself teaching a day-long forensic bootcamp for writers at the ACFW conference in 2014. That's where I met Julie Gwinn. It was the final hours of the conference and I was standing in line at the Starbucks when someone introduce her to me because they knew I was looking for a literary agent. We probably said five sentences to each other, but that was the start of my journey with Julie and Seymour! I had never written a novel before, so Julie TOTALLY took a chance on me. I spent the next year writing my first novel under Julie's gentle guidance. Then Julie spent the next year plus trying to sell it. In the meantime I had written a movie, God Bless the Broken Road, and we decided to novelize it. That was actually my first book contract! I remember I wrote the first three chapters while we were filming. Two weeks after I turned in those pages, we received several offers. We chose one and that was my first fiction contract with a publisher! It wasn't long after we sold my first novel to another publisher. 

Jennifer's Newest Release, Hole in the Woods

About the Author, Jennifer Graeser Dornbush:

Jennifer Graeser Dornbush is a screenwriter, author, international speaker and forensic specialist. As she says, “I grew up around death.” 

The television or movie screen is the closest most people will ever come to witnessing the forensic world. But Jennifer was raised in it, as the daughter of a small town medical examiner whose office was in their home. There were body parts in the fridge. She investigated her first fatality, an airplane crash, when she was 8 years old, picking up pieces of skull with her father who simply saw it as an anatomy lesson. It was the first of many coroner lessons she experienced over two decades. 

After exploring journalism and high school teaching, Jennifer turned seriously to screenwriting where she began to connect her coroner world to her writing. She sought out a degree at the Forensic Science Academy in Los Angeles to gain more forensic training and earned a unique kinship with LA’s top CSIs, fingerprint specialists, DNA scientists and detectives. To share her love of forensics with the writing world, she authored the top-selling non-fiction authoritative book, Forensic Speak, used not only by show-runners and writers, but also crime investigators and law enforcement. As a forensic consultant, she is frequently asked to consult with TV writers on shows such as Bull, Conviction, Hawaii Five-O, Leverage, Suits and Rectify. 

She created an Amazon top-selling mystery novel series, The Coroner’s Daughter. The first book in the series, The Coroner, released August 2018. The second in the series, Secret Remains, released January 2020. She is developing the series for TV. She wrote the theatrically released film and novel, God Bless the Broken Road (2018). She has developed a TV crime drama series with Echo Lake and Hoplite Entertainment. She also adapted a popular YA novel to script and sold a children’s show. 

She teaches screenwriting and mentors aspiring writers. Jennifer is a member of the Writers’ Guild of America, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America and FBI Citizen’s Academy Alumni. And she has a great sense of gallows humor. 

Website:  www.jenniferdornbush.com

Facebook: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

Twitter: @JGDornbush

Instagram: @JGDornbush

LinkedIn: Jennifer Dornbush 

The Seymour Agency Q&A with Author Jen J. Danna

Seymour Agency: You recently launched your new series, the NYPD Negotiators, with EXIT STRATEGY. Why hostage negotiation?

Jen J. Danna: In LONE WOLF, the first book in the FBI K-9s series, I wrote a character who was a hostage negotiator. This guy had a really tough job as the middle man between the FBI, who wanted to close the case, and an armed gunman, who was holed up with his family. The negotiator was not only trying to save lives, but was also fighting to satisfy his law enforcement brethren, many of whom saw force as the best way to quickly get their man. This character really stuck with me, partly because the situation he had to deal with was different than anything I’d written before.

SA: How was it different?

JJD: In all my other police procedurals, the protagonist is always reacting to the initial situation, usually a murder, sometimes a natural disaster. I wanted to explore police work from the opposite, proactive angle. Yes, there’s a crisis in play, but the challenge is to save lives before they’re lost, to get the hostages out in one piece, and hopefully contain and arrest the person responsible.

SA: How did you develop Gemma Capello and her first responder family?

JJD: This was the first book I wrote solo, so it was fun to take advantage of my own family history to flesh out Gemma. Like me, her family hails from Siculiana in Sicily. Like me she lost a parent at a young age (though her loss is by very violent means). But I like writing ensemble pieces, where the characters appear throughout the series, so I crafted a family around her, a father and four brothers, who with only one exception are all NYPD officers in various branches of the department (the other brother joined the FDNY). In this way, she can work with at least one of them during her cases.

SA: How does her family play a part in EXIT STRATEGY?

JJD: When an alert goes out, interrupting a family celebration, Gemma, her father, the Chief of Special Operations, and her two older brothers respond. But when the hostage situation takes a turn for the worse and Gemma has to put herself at risk with the hostage taker, everything, including her life, will rest in the hands of her younger brother.

SA: What can we expect next from Gemma?

JJD: The second book in the series, SHOT CALLER, will release in summer 2021 from Kensington Books and Dreamscape Media. In it, Gemma is called to New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail when a riot occurs and both correctional officers and inmates are taken hostage. It’s a contained but extremely volatile situation, and Gemma and her negotiating team are pulled in different directions as everyone tries to steer the crisis—from the inmates, to the staff at Rikers, to the city administrators that run the Department of Corrections, to the NYPD. She also has to balance her need to peacefully resolve the situation, which takes time, with the tactical team’s desire to go in and rapidly resolve the crisis with force. It’s a real nail biter. Then the third book in the series, LOCKDOWN, will follow in the summer of 2022.

About the Book, Exit Strategy:

In this taut new suspense series featuring NYPD detective Gemma Capello and her close-knit law enforcement family, a madman brings a halt to the heart of the city that never sleeps . . .

After her mother’s death during a bank robbery when she was a child, Gemma Capello grew up to become one of the NYPD’s elite hostage negotiators. In a family of cops, there’s rarely a day when a Capello isn’t facing down some form of threat. Still, despite their unpredictable schedules, they always find time for their annual family summer picnic. But this year, a sudden phone call changes everything. 

A heavily armed gunman has taken hostages at City Hall. Gemma races downtown to join the rest of the Hostage Negotiation Team as they scramble to identify the captives—fearing the mayor may be among them. But as they scramble for answers and struggle to gain control of the circumstances, it becomes clear that the mayor is at the center of it all, just not in the way they initially believed. 

With several lives on the line and a criminal who always seems to be one step ahead, Gemma is the only one able to connect with the suspect. Soon, she finds herself engaging in a battle of wits while enduring a battle of egos in the command center. With time running out and a mastermind who has proven he’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants, Gemma risks it all—her career and her life—in a last-ditch effort to save the hostages. Now, she needs to figure out how to save herself . . .

About the Author, Jen J. Danna:  

A scientist specializing in infectious diseases, Jen J. Danna works as part of a dynamic research group at a cutting-edge Canadian university. However, her true passion lies in indulging her love of the mysterious through her writing. 

With Ann Vanderlaan, she writes two series. Under Danna and Vanderlaan, they craft suspenseful crime fiction with a realistic scientific edge. Their five Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries include DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT; NO ONE SEES ME ’TILL I FALL; A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH; TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER; and LAMENT THE COMMON BONES.

Under the joint pseudonym of Sara Driscoll, they write the FBI K-9s mysteries series, starring search-and-rescue team Meg Jennings and her black lab, Hawk. The series includes LONE WOLF and BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, STORM RISING, and NO MAN’S LAND. The fifth book in the series, LEAVE NO TRACE, will release in January 2020.

Jen is also the author of the upcoming NYPD Negotiators thriller series, with the first book, EXIT STRATEGY, releasing in August 2020. The second book in the series, SHOT CALLER, will release in 2021, and the third book, LOCKDOWN, will release in 2022.

Jen lives near Toronto, Ontario with her husband, two daughters, and three rescued cats, and is a member of the Crime Writers of Canada.

You can reach her through the contact page on her website or by email at jenjdanna@gmail.com.

Social media links: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram.

Review: Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower

Hello Readers!

Welcome to 5-stars Friday!

I’m beyond excited to share with you my review of Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower.

Crime and Poetry is the first book in the Magical Bookshop Mystery series, and I loved it. Like, five stars plus a glass of Veuve Clicquot and two macarons loved it.

Amanda Flower combined all the goodness I love about life - bookstores and magic mixed with a graduate student completing her dissertation. This book was exactly what I needed to read that rainy afternoon when I couldn’t make it to my own favorite bookstore.

Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower is a cozy mystery. The protagonist is named Violet, and she’s a twentysomething doctoral student whose grandmother tricks her into returning home, with the hopes that Violet will agree to run the family bookstore. Violet wants to return to Chicago because she vowed never to return to the small town where she grew up, but then Benedict Raisin is found dead, and Violet’s grandmother is the prime suspect. So Violet decides to find out who really killed Benedict in order to save her grandmother.

Here are just a few of the perfect parts of Crime and Poetry:

Violet’s grandmother is called Grandma Daisy, and right away I wanted to meet her. Not only did she trick Violet to return home, she also owns a bookstore in a picturesque town.

What’s not to love about Grandma Daisy?

...and back to the picturesque town. Amanda Flower writes some of the best imagery I’ve ever read. Her words are smooth and flow into one another, so it’s impossible to stop reading. Not only is it a page-turner because of the mystery aspect, but each scene is filled with the kind of… perfect segue into the next piece of the puzzle.

This is hard — to not give spoilers. Okay. So obviously I’m recommending it.

And I’m recommending it because…

This novel is beautifully written and filled with wit and charm, and Amanda Flower takes the reader on a fascinating journey that provides plenty of wrong turns before solving the murder.

***GIVEAWAY ALERT***

One random and lucky commenter will receive a copy of Crime and Poetry, coloring bookmarks, and a sticker signed by Amanda Flower, so please leave a comment below.

Not sure what to say? Tell me if you have a cat, what’s your cat’s name. If you have a favorite local bookstore, what’s the name of the bookstore? If you’ve read other books by Amanda Flower, what title was your favorite so far?

Okay. Thanks for taking the time to read my review of Amanda Flower’s Crime and Poetry.

xox ~Marisa
IG: @thereisnobox

*GIVEAWAY RULES AND REGULATIONS
U.S. mailing addresses only. If prize is Kindle-related, winner must have a valid Amazon email to receive prize. Must be at least 18 years of age to win. Void where prohibited. Giveaway hostesses are not responsible for items once shipped. We reserve the right to change any and all rules or conditions as needed. Complete and correct information must be provided as requested, or the entry will automatically and immediately be null and void. Bounced email will automatically void an entry. If we cannot locate your follow or other entry options, your entry will be voided. Once the winner email is sent, that winner will have 48 hours to respond to the win with the information requested in notification email.

*Giveaway winner announced during next 5-star Friday. Contest closes on Thursday, October 24, 2019.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT ON: MARY ELLIS

Today's author spotlight is on: Mary Ellis. Welcome, Mary!

Mary Ellis has written twelve award-winning novels set in the Amish community and several historical romances set during the Civil War. Her latest, Midnight on the Mississippi, first of a new mystery series, Secrets of the South, is set in New Orleans. Before "retiring" to write full-time, Mary taught school and worked as a sales rep for Hershey Chocolate, a job with amazingly sweet fringe benefits. Mary enjoys traveling, gardening, bicycling and swimming, and lives in Ohio with her husband, dog and cat.

Media links: www.maryellis.net or

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Mary-Ellis/126995058236

Her author page is here: http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Ellis/e/B001L7NWCO/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

here is the blurb:

What lies beneath the black water of the bayou? Hunter Galen, a New Orleans securities broker, suspects his business partner, James Nowak, of embezzling their clients’ money, but he’s reluctant to jeopardize their friendship. After James turns up dead, Hunter realizes his unwillingness to confront a problem may have cost James his life. Nicki Price, a newly minted PI, intends to solve the stockbroker’s murder as she establishes herself in the career she adores. As she ferrets out fraud and deception at Galen-Nowak Investments, Hunter’s fiancée, Ashley Menard, rubs her the wrong way. Nicki doesn’t trust the ostentatious woman who seems to be hiding something, but is the PI’s growing attraction to Hunter—the police’s only suspect—her true reason for disliking Ashley? As Hunter and Nicki encounter sophisticated shell games, blackmail, and death threats both subtle and overt, danger swirls around them like the mysterious dark water of the bayou. Only their reliance on faith and fearless determination give them hope they will live to see another day.