Where Does the Time Go?

Hi, Sandra Orchard here. Can you believe that we’re a third of the way through May already?!

Time seems to be flying these days. Well, unless you’re one of the readers who is impatiently waiting for the release of the final book in my Port Aster Secrets mystery series.

It’s surreal to look back now and reflect on how long in the making the series has been. I completed the first draft of what was then called Murder by Marigolds—still love that title (My pitch was: guaranteed to change the way you look at flowers)—way back in early 2008.

At that point, I’d written five novels and editors were showing interest. After the 2009 American Christian Fiction Writers’ conference in Colorado, at which I received several invitations from editors to submit, their enthusiasm buoyed by my recent Daphne DuMaurier contest win, I joined a small group of writers for an immersion class in the Colorado foothills.

While there, we ate at a tea shop, similar to the shop in my story, and the ever-optimistic Angie Breidenbach suggested taking photos for the promo, since she was confident a publisher would snap it up. 

The next year, I signed my first contract with Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense and shelved the mystery series, since publishers weren’t showing much interest in mysteries and I was now living my dream! 

So…it was quite a shock to get a call from my agent in the fall of 2011 saying Revell was interested in the series and wanted blurbs for the rest of the books.

Oops!

I’d written Murder by Marigolds (aka Deadly Devotion) THREE years earlier and could scarcely remember what it was about, let alone what the two “unwritten” ones would be about!!

Thankfully, I managed to whip up a couple of believable blurbs and updated my proposal to include the fact I was now a published author, and off it went to the pub board.

A few months later, the three-book contract arrived!

Now, six years since that first hopeful “tea” photo shoot, and one son-in-law and 2 ½ grandbabies and... 

seven LIS babies later,

 the series is finally complete!

Okay, okay.... readers still have to wait a couple of more weeks for Desperate Measures to release, but if you haven't read any books in the series yet, the Good News is…

You can try Deadly Devotion for 

For the next couple of months, it will be available as a free download from all the major online retailers.

Of course, I hope it’ll hook you into reading the rest. <grin>

I highly recommend reading them in order, because there are spoilers in subsequent books. If you enjoy fast-paced mysteries with a touch of romance and small town quirky characters or herbal teas or wonder sometimes about pharmaceutical company practices, you’ll enjoy this series.

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Your Turn: Do you enjoy reading mysteries?

Impatient guy image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
"Free" Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net