The latest installment in The Visitor Mysteries releases Friday, July 14. And the author is…me! Here’s a short introduction from my main character, Samantha Carr:
A churning sensation in my stomach threatened to steal my appetite. Nerves—it’s just nerves. That’s what Mom always used to say right before my piano recital in third grade, or ahead of the final game in the softball tournament. Nerves.
Mom had always calmed my nerves. Talked me through troubled waters. Until my dad passed. Suddenly. Mom spiraled down into a deep valley of grief. Now, it was my turn to offer emotional support. How goes it so far? Not well. Not well at all.
So, when I heard my Aunt Connie was planning a fundraising gala in our small town, I had a great idea. Why not invite her to stay at Mom’s? Mom loves her youngest sister. Although, she and most of her siblings initially balked when Aunt Connie took over as head of the family business. I never understood their objections, but perhaps I was too young. “There is a lot of history involved,” Mom said. And closed mouths, at least where the younger generation was concerned.
What’s up next for The Visitor, Connie B. Wright? She runs into a bit of challenge with her sister Kimberly, lakeside in Michigan. In a “snap” – she’s off again, to help her favorite brother’s daughter, Teagan out of a tough situation. Connie doesn’t look for trouble, it just kind of…follows her.
The Visitor – Contemporary Mystery & Light Suspense
What do an unmanned boat, a gardener’s secrets, and ghostly crying have to do with murder?
Kimberly McConil loves the old house she just bought, even if her twins seem to think she has no idea what she’s doing with the renovations. She doesn’t need her baby sister’s help either, but Connie is only there to organize a fundraiser for the Wright Foundation. At least, that’s what she says.
Still, Kimberly is rather pleased to have her sister with her when the sounds of the house move from common to creepy. And then there is the man who tries to break in . . .
Match wits with The Visitor as she unravels this knot of lies and the drama that it causes.
A quirky, old house…odd, unexplained noises… The locals say it’s haunted. Kimberly McConil bought it via the internet and intends to make it her forever home. With the help of her little sister–head of the family business, mystery and mayhem magnet–Connie Wright, she pursues the truth about the old house by the lake. This one will keep you guessing and might produce a chuckle or two along the way.
How do a Yellow Mustang, a missing dog, and a game of Clue set up a murder?
Connie B. Wright must unravel this mystery.
Teagan Wright is determined to impress Aunt Connie. Her fondest hope is to work with her for the Wright Foundation, and organizing a small part of this elaborate fundraiser is a great opportunity to show off what she can do.
But when her best friend is the victim of a hit and run, and her least favorite person winds up missing, Teagan becomes more focused on proving that she herself isn’t the one to blame.
Then there’s the body that she finds . . .
Match wits with The Visitor as she weaves through a treacherous route to uncover a game master.
The Visitor Plays a Game is a fun read and one you won’t want to put down until you find out whodunnit! Like a certain mystery solving board game, this story provides clues along the way. Teagan and her Aunt Connie B. Wright have to work hard to try to solve the mystery and prove a friend’s innocence before it’s too late. I couldn’t put it down until I’d read the oh, so satisfying ending. If you love a mystery, this is a must-read.
I’m back from a short break in beautiful early spring Virginia where flowers were blooming under difficult circumstances. We woke up to a heavy frost the first couple of days. I can only imagine how much work was involved in keeping Colonial Williamsburg beautiful for its early spring tourists.
Meanwhile, on the writing front, the releases continue in The Visitor Suspense series. Our publisher is getting ready to release book 3, The Visitor Sees a Ghost, by Lil Kohler. Where is the Visitor going this month? Here are the two clues we’ve released so far. Be sure you follow the directions when submitting your guess (see directions next to the red suitcase).
See bottom of post to download or purchase your copies of the first three books! All of the books in the series are available for purchase or preorder at Amazon.
And speaking of traveling, have you ever visited Colonial Williamsburg? I loved our time there. My head is still full of historical facts I gleaned. What fun to walk streets where the first settlers conducted their daily business. Many other sites are close by, along with the Chesapeake Bay, the James River, and the York River (my personal favorite).
We toured a replica of one of the ships and climbed hundreds of steps to the first lighthouse at Cape Henry. Even watched jets soar overhead from Langley AFB near Virginia Beach.
If you’re looking for your next excursion, I highly recommend the area.
This cozy mystery has intrigue, suspense, humor, and enough quirky characters to keep you guessing until the end. I loved this novella, book two of The Visitor mystery series, and highly recommend it.
Guess the location! If you’d like to enter the contest, you’ll find Clue #1 below. Please follow the directions to send your guess. More clues will be released weekly on our social media–Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, you can visit WriteIntegritycom/The Visitor.
Fay Lamb is a longtime friend and one of my favorite authors. Her “hallmark” is humor, so I was excited to see her name included on the list of contributors for The Visitor novellas. I have read this story and will soon be writing a review. It is a delightful suspense story. Delightful, because it’s funny with plenty of mystery and suspense.
–Betty Thomason Owens
Betty with Fay Lamb
When I was asked by my publisher if I wanted to take part in the writing of a contemporary mystery, light suspense series, of course, I said yes.
However, I must make a confession. The authors of the series gathered online in Zoom meetings, each one with a separate book. We began to plot out the secondary but title character of The Visitor who is the link to all of our stories. The Visitor shaped out to be a put-together professional, who wears her signature color red as a sign of her put-togetherness, with neatly trimmed nails and put-together hair. The job of the authors was to bring out her personality through the point of view of our main characters for each story.
The rebel in me saw Connie—the Visitor—only as the baby sister to my character, and my character is a lawyer turned stay-at-home-mom for eighteen years, whose baby and only child is about to go off to college and leave a hole in her heart. She’d already racked her brains on how to make his last summer before college memorable for her family, and she isn’t letting a put-together, red-wearing little sister take that away from her. Pollyanna Reagan will get her sister out in the woods hunting Bigfoot with her family or she’ll die trying—even if Connie’s signature color might attack other dangerous wildlife.
Never fear. Neither Pollyanna nor Connie meets their demise. But someone else does, and guess who becomes a chief suspect. I’ll give you a hint: his name is in the title.
So why was I so adamant about not letting Connie stay in her routine?
Because as an author, a lot of me goes into my characters, and while I was never the mother of Pollyanna’s caliber, I have two sons that are as different as day and night. My youngest son, Ethan, though, did reach his full potential of being a royal pain, and I loved every moment of it. This story allowed me to relive the playful nature of mother and child. My son’s name is Ethan as well.
Not only was The Visitor Meets Old Hairy a chance for me to live the old give-and-take with my boy, but it gave me a chance to visit one of my favorite places on earth. Shh… I can’t mention that place here or my publisher might hunt me down much the way Bigfoot is hunted, and I might not get away with just a shaky camera aimed in my direction. We’re having a contest, and you’ll have to stay tune for details. We want you to guess the location.
Added to the people and the place of my story, one of my favorite subjects is Bigfoot. I know just about everything there is to know about him. I love the big fella, and if you read the story, you’ll see how much I know through the knowledge of my characters. Did I research? Well, yes, I did, but that research has spanned a lifetime. Do I believe in the likes of a big hairy man-like creature?
I ain’t gonna tell you, but you might find some insight into my way of thinking when you meet Pollyanna, Connie, Ethan, and Marc and traipse through the woods with them in search of Old Hairy.
The Visitor goes camping? Pollyanna Reagan can’t wait to take her always-put-together, ultra-professional sister out into the boonies. But when they encounter what they thought was a mythical creature, they might both become sticks in the mud.
Of course, when they find a body, a stiff in the mud, Connie shifts into deduction mode. Was the deceased somehow scared to death or possibly attacked by what should be imaginary, or are there other, more human and certainly more vicious, intentions at play?
Match wits with The Visitor as she unravels this twisted puzzle and the family drama that surrounds it.
Fay Lamb is the only daughter of a rebel genius father and a hard-working, tow-the-line mom. She is not only a fifth-generation Floridian, she has lived her life in Titusville, where her grandmother was born in 1899.
Since an early age, storytelling has been Fay’s greatest desire. She seeks to create memorable characters that touch her readers’ hearts. She says of her writing, “If I can’t laugh or cry at the words written on the pages of my manuscript, the story is not ready for the reader.” Fay writes in various genres, including romance, romantic suspense, and contemporary fiction.
If you’d like to catch up with Fay, visit her at her website, on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter. Also, Fay has become a “novel” gardener, and she shares her adventure in her newsletter, Tales from the Azalea Garden. You can sign up for her newsletter, Tales from the Azalea Garden, here.
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Read all about it & Join the Expedition: Enter the contest by guessing at the clues given to you as to the location of each book in The Visitor series: https://www.writeintegrity.com/thevisitor
Betty Thomason Owens 