GUEST POST and EXCERPT
The Love Detective
(A Clarry Pennhaligan Mystery Book 1)
(A Clarry Pennhaligan Mystery Book 1)
by Angela Dyson
The Love Detective by Angela Dyson is currently on tour with Bewitching Book Tours. The tour stops here today for a guest post by the author and an excerpt. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
The first in a hilarious new series featuring a regular girl set down a path strewn with misadventures and murder to her destiny as ‘The Love Detective’.
Clarry is 26, attractive, funny - and on the road to nowhere. Living a makeshift existence as a waitress, she knows life should be led with some sort of plan, but unfortunately planning is something she needs to get around to. Enter her best friend Laura with a seemingly simple request: check out Simon, estate agent and new boyfriend, to make sure he really is interested in Laura and not the solicitor help she can provide. Clarry is no detective, unless you count tracking down where her next tip is coming from. Still, what harm could a little amateur sleuthing do?
With the aid of Flan, a glamorous septuagenarian, Flan’s lover, and a cast of colorful characters from the restaurant she works at, Clarry plunges into the investigation with a few pitfalls, pratfalls and a dodgy moment where she’s mistaken as a pole dancer (and not in a good way). It isn’t until 1) she discovers that Simon’s a two-timing creep, and 2) in a sinister turn, she uncovers an evil criminal enterprise, that she realizes amateur sleuthing is not for the faint of heart!
Cynical and yet romantic, Clarry is an unlikely heroine that readers will both identify and fall in love with. Her misadventures and comical outlook mesh brilliantly with a thrilling story that will appeal to readers of romance, crime and chick lit. Set to be the first in an entertaining new series, you don’t need to follow the clues to know The Love Detective is one book you don’t want to miss out on!
Book Video
Angela Dyson reads from The Love Detective.
Excerpt
Allowing a couple of cars to get in front of me, I eased out into the traffic behind him. Now I’ve seen it in films and on TV of course, but actually following another car without drawing attention to oneself is no easy thing. There’s a lot of weaving in and out. The driver of a silver Toyota whose passenger side door I narrowly missed colliding with, probably thought that I was driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol or mental impairment. This last may be close to the truth.
Simon was an aggressive driver. Sweating under my cap, I concentrated on keeping the BMW in sight and wondered what on earth I was doing. What was I expecting to discover? Fighting down a growing sense of the ridiculous, I followed him along the Broadway, past South Wimbledon Tube and out on to Merton High Street. Where was he going? Probably off to the gym or just home. A sudden thought occurred to me and I nearly veered off the road as the extent of my own stupidity hit me. I hadn’t thought to ask Laura for something as basic as Simon’s address. I groaned aloud (I seemed to have done that a lot today) and mentally beat myself up. I just knew I’d be crap at this. And I was surprised at how disappointed I was with myself. OK, so I could turn around, go home, phone Laura and tell her that it was no good, she’d just have to abandon the whole insane idea …, or … I could for once, finish what I’d started.
Now is probably the time to admit to a whopping character flaw: I have a history of giving up. Yes, I know it’s a sign of immaturity and I’m not in the least proud of it. The thing is, I’m always madly keen at the start of things; a new job, new relationship, classes in this or that, but when the first flash of enthusiasm has waned and determination, self-discipline and … well, courage, are needed to go on, then I have nearly always taken the easy way out and quit. Not good. So, it’s taken me a while to face up to the fact that I am not exactly the queen of the follow through. Somewhere inside me I have a suspicion that this is the real reason Grandma P. left me the house. She knew I needed its security. I felt a prickling of shame and then looked anxiously ahead for Simon. There was the BMW, five or six cars ahead now. Keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel, I followed him as he indicated right and pulled out on to Tooting High Street. Without conscious thought my mind, it would seem, had made the decision without me.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
“Pacy, funny and exciting. Cynical yet romantic at heart, Clarry is a girl that you can't help but like - and root for ...” ~ Independent Reviewer
“… if you like the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich stop reading this review and just buy this book! This novel, which looks to happily be the first in a series, is the tale of how Clarry gets involved in being a private investigator. […] This book is fun, fast, and still has feelings and growth of the character. I would definitely recommend it!” ~ Jennifer Solak
“this book was a great mystery read that found the balance between keeping the reader guessing, while still giving enough clues that they felt they might have an idea of what was to come. This book is filled with action and danger as well as humor and fun (if you enjoy Janet Evanovich or Sue Grafton’s books this story will be right up your alley).” ~ Nicole
“This book had the right amount of humour and mystery and quite honestly I couldn’t put it down. […] I’m so looking forward to the next book in the series.” ~ Oriana Blyth
“The Love Detective by Angela Dyson is a very good thriller deceptively hidden behind the cozy cover.” ~ Sandra
Guest Post by the Author
How My Life Experiences Affect My Writing (and Vice Versa):
The summer I lost myself and gained 10lbs
The summer I lost myself and gained 10lbs
It doesn’t do to live too much in your head. I’ve learnt this the hard way. My clothes no longer fit me, and my cheekbones have all but disappeared. I think I’d better start at the beginning. So, here goes:
I’m not a big fan of reality. It’s just too, well, real. It’s constantly challenging (I know that’s supposed to be good for you but, honestly, when do we ever really enjoy what’s good for us? Kale being a case in point) and it can be scary. And irritating.
For example, over the years I’ve discovered that the scripts I write in my head for whoever is the current man in my life, are so much better than the real exchanges. For a start, he actually talks, instead of all that grunting men so often hide behind. And when I say talk, I mean … about his feelings. And yes, of course, there’s been some wonderful romantic moments, including two proposals of marriage, but I can’t help feeling that if I’d written the scenes then the colours would have been brighter, the dialogue way more poignant, and that I would definitely have chosen a more appealing location than in the car whilst driving him to the station one early morning when I hadn’t even had time to wash my hair. Still. I’m not complaining. It’s always nice to be asked.
So, when feeling particularly disappointed after a lack-lustre affair with a guy who it turned out had no intention of ever leaving the comfort of his parents’ home, I decided to put real men on the back-burner and create irresistibly complicated fictional ones. With their own apartments. There would be tension and there would be drama (I had a deep longing for drama), there would be obstacles to overcome and sacrifices to be made, but there would also be moonlight and ardent declarations and highly flattering outfits.
Oh, and there would be sex, of course.
Glorious Hollywood-Style Sex.
And for two months, fuelled by chilled white wine on a drip and a constant supply of chocolate biscuits, I wrote story after story. Every spare moment was devoted to creating a heightened version of reality, shaping my own life experiences into a dreamscape.
At last, drained, and beginning to develop headaches from all that sugar, I stepped away from the laptop. And away from the chilled white wine. And away from the biscuits.
I was ready to re-join the Real World. But I was in for a shock when I took a close look in the mirror. I can’t have, I thought. Then I stepped on the scales and did a double-take. How could I have become so lost in my writing that I hadn’t noticed I’d put on nearly a stone? Perhaps, I decided, when fiction and reality collide, something just has to give?
And in, this case, it was my waistline. Well, it was definitely time to get out of my head and back into my jeans.
About the Author
Angela Dyson ditched her London life and downsized her home to move to the sticks in Surrey, to follow her dream to become a professional author. She loves to write but to pay the bills (Angela soon discovered that utility companies, bank managers and landlords aren’t known for their generosity and understanding natures,) she had to squeeze the writing in with working for a living. Some of the jobs to which she only gave half her attention have included working for a recording studio and a record label, running a building maintenance company where pretty much the only upside was getting to boss a lot of men about all day, doing a bit of plus size modeling (strictly clothes on) and, for one memorable summer, making a living reading palms on a Greek Island.
Links
