Book Tour & Giveaway for Death of An Irish Diva by Mollie Cox Bryan

Join author Mollie Cox Bryan on her Virtual Book Tour for Death of An Irish Diva, presented by Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours, from February 4 – February 13, 2014.  Please leave a comment or question for Mollie to let her know you stopped by.  You can enter the giveaway on this blog by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can also follow the rest of the tour here. 

Digging Up History by Mollie Cox Bryan

I confess: I loved writing DEATH OF AN IRISH DIVA. One of the most fun narrative arcs to the story is Beatrice’s, which is often the case. Beatrice is my opinionated 83-year-old quantum physicist. She gives me great fodder—and of all my characters, she is the one most readers talk or write to me the most about.

In this book, she decided that she’d like a pool in her backyard. So, a crew starts to dig a deep hole and has to stop several times—once because of an earthquake (yes we’ve gotten earthquakes in Virginia) and a few times because they ran into some artifacts and had to await for the Department of Historical Resources to okay their dig. Which irritates Beatrice to no end. After all, it’s her yard. In fact, at one point she becomes so frustrated that she decided to get in the hole and dig around herself. Yep.

Check it out:

Beatrice leaned further down and lifted it gingerly off to the side and gasped, turning away. Hair, tiny limbs, clothing…

“It’s a doll!” Jon said reaching for her.

“Oh!” she said and laughed. “Thank God. I thought it was a child.”

She looked closer at it. A doll, all right, and very old, she reckoned. The face was barely there, embedded in a mass of hair and clothing. Maybe its arm was detached.

She reached in and touched it. Damp cloth. Soft hair. Porcelain cool face.

Moved by the innocence of the doll, and that of the girl who once played with her, Beatrice swore she could almost hear a child’s laughter, singing, see a child dressing the doll, as she hummed some favorite song.

She ran her hands along the side of the doll and found something sticking out from under her. In fact, there a good bit of stuff under her in the deep chest.

“Oh,” Beatrice exclaimed as she lifted a musty book from underneath the doll.

Jon whistled. “A book? A diary?”

Yes, reader, it IS a book. It’s the kind of a “scrapbook” that was popular in the late 1800s. Called a “Memory Book,” which was often filled with pressed flowers, bits and pieces of fabric of favorite dresses, and sometimes magazine or newspaper cut-outs, along with writing. How cool would it be to find something like this so well-preserved that you actually felt as if you knew the writer after reading it?

As you see in the passage taken from the book, Beatrice is moved by the doll. As the story further progresses, we see the writer of the “memory book,” more and more clearly and get a glimpse into a personal history not soon forgotten.

The mystery of the little book Beatrice found in that chest buried in her backyard runs alongside the murder mystery. At the end the two hook-up in an (I hope) unexpected way.

I’m so lucky that I’m in possession of some of my own grandmother’s scrapbooks—items that I cherish more than jewelry or fancy dishes. Oh, I miss my Grandmother terribly. Even though she is gone, the black and white, and aged-sepia photos on black scrapbook paper give me great comfort. How about you? Do you have any old scrapbooks that you cherish?

Mollie Cox Bryan writes the Cumberland Creek Mysteries, published by Kensington. DEATH OF AN IRISH DIVA is the third in the series. The first book, Scrapbook of Secrets, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2012; the next one Scrapped was published in January 2013. An e-novella will be released this June—A SCRAPPY SUMMER. The next book in the series, A CRAFTY CHRISTMAS, will be released in October 2014.  She lives in Waynesboro, Va., with her husband and two daughters.

Contact her at molliebryan@comcast.net.

Check out her website at molliecoxbryan.com.

Twitter @molliecoxbryan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/molliecoxbryanauthor

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Death of an Irish Diva

By Mollie Cox Bryan

A Cumberland Creek Mystery, Book 3

Publisher: Kensington Books

Release Date: February 4, 2014

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Length: 352 Pages

ISBN:  978-0-758266-33-0

ASIN:  B00ENMXT3G

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About the book:

Spring is in the air, but the ladies of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook Crop hardly have time to stop and smell the roses. Not when famed Irish dancer Emily McGlashen is found murdered in her studio just after the St. Patrick’s Day parade–and one of the Crop’s own members is the prime suspect. Vera’s dance studio may have suffered when Emily waltzed into town, but the croppers know she’s not a vengeful murderer.

Lucky for her, co-scrapbooker Annie is a freelance reporter eager to vindicate her friend. What she discovers is a puzzling labyrinth of secrets that only add question marks to Emily’s murder. Just when it seems they’ve run out of clues, an antique scrapbook turns up and points the croppers in the right direction–and brings them face to face with a killer more twisted than a Celtic knot. . . 

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About The Author

Mollie Cox Bryan writes the Cumberland Creek Mysteries, published by Kensington. The first book, Scrapbook of Secrets, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2012; the next one Scrapped, was published in January 2013. Death of an Irish Diva is the third in the series. Plans for the series include two more novels and two novellas—the first one Scrappy Summer will be available in summer 2014. She writes, gardens, runs, and scrapbooks in Waynesboro, Va. with her husband and two daughters.

http://www.molliecoxbryan.com

Twitter: @molliecoxbryan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/molliecoxbryanauthor

Pinterest  http://pinterest.com/molliecoxbryan/boards/

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