Title: Deadly Yours
Author: Cyndi L. Stuart
Genre: Mystery
Book Blurb:
This Killer Won’t Let You Run Away!
A letter, sealed with blood red wax, arrives in a small coastal town. Samantha’s hopes of a new, quiet life are shattered. The killer is back. Like years before, the crime scenes mimic classic mysteries Samantha once taught in her English Lit class—The Art of Detection. Is one murder staged from an Ellery Queen novel? P.D. James? Sherlock Holmes? Maybe more!
Five years ago, strangers died. This time—friends. As the body count climbs, this menace must be found, or the killings may never stop. What’s hidden in the tiny details? Why is the killer taunting her? As the killer closes in, does she once again cut and run or stand and fight? What will Sam risk to bring this nightmare to an end?
Excerpt:
Mike grunted his thanks, and Sam turned toward the flashing red light on the newspapers old nineteen eighties multi-line phone. She hit the speaker button and waited with pen and paper for the first message.
“Sam? CC! Call when you get a chance!”
Samantha’s whole body went still. Cornelia Cowan.
The next message played.
“Sam, CC again. I know I’m not supposed to contact you, unless…crap!…just call me.”
Droplets of sweat formed on her upper lip and her body shivered. She pulled out her cell phone. The words on her lock screen read, Emergency Calls Only. No cell signal.
The message light still flashed. She hit the button and CC’s voice cried out.
“Sam, I’m so sorry. Have you checked your mail? God, I screwed up. I hope I’m wrong. Call me.”
Mike poked his head from around the computer. “That sounds serious.”
Silence.
Mike’s brows furrowed when he caught sight of her pale face. “Hey, kid, what’s up?”
Samantha’s hands shook as she reached for her rucksack. It took three tries to get the zipper to move. She turned the whole bag upside down onto her desk. Pens clattered and rolled off onto the floor, her wallet slid across the desk, and mail landed in a pile.
Mike stood up. “What in the hell?”
Samantha reached out and grabbed the metal letter opener. She held the handle tight in her hand like a knife. With the tip, she moved each piece of mail aside. There, tucked part way under an ad for better cell service, lay a red wax seal. A seal with the imprint of a capital letter ‘M’ pressed into yellow parchment paper.
Sam winced, her hand jerked, and the opener clattered to the floor. White lights danced and twinkled along the edges of her vision. The sounds around her faded. Mike’s lips moved as he walked toward her, but a small buzzing filled her ears. Sam leaned forward over her desk and fanned out her hands, palms pressed into the wooden surface.
She shook her head back and forth. Bile filled the back of her throat.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, “not again, not again. I’m safe here.”
Images of dead strangers swam in front of her face. She sobbed, “Stay focused! You can’t faint now.”
Her eyes fluttered downward. Her outstretched hands no longer held her weight. The buzzing in her ears turned to complete silence.
“Samantha!” Mike shouted. He took two quick strides and reached out. “Oh, son-of-a—!”
Before her head hit the top of her desk, she thought, The killer is back.
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Do you fancy yourself a super sleuth? Yes? Then let’s see if you can find all the clues, put them together with the classic murder scenes, and piece together this puzzle before Samantha comes face to face with the killer. If you are looking for a good whodunit with plenty of twists and turns, Deadly Yours, is the mystery for you. Stuart isn’t kidding, This Killer Won’t Let You Run Away!
Giveaway –
Enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card:
Open Internationally.
Runs December 16 – December 31, 2024.
Winner will be drawn on January 2, 2025.
Author Biography:
Cyndi didn’t start out life as a mystery writer. But one day something unexpected happened—she became a woman of a certain age.
“What in the world are you waiting for?” said the voice in her head as she woke up on her fiftieth birthday. “That novel isn’t going to write itself! And YOU, sweet pea, are NOT getting any younger.”
So, after years spent as a naturalist on the north Oregon coast and PNW garden speaker, Cyndi dusted off her old Comm degree, left technical writing behind and got to work on short stories, flash fiction, and personal essays. But in secret she tapped away on her first mystery novel, Deadly Yours, which has now been published by The Wild Rose Press.
The challenge of creating stories from her own imagination, current events, history, and things she might have overheard at the local coffee shop is what makes her happy and where her passion for writing began. She now lives in Washington state on a small island in south Puget Sound. When not reading, writing, or procrastinating, Cyndi can be found hiking, biking, or swimming in the chilly waters of the sound.
Cyndi is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and Sisters in Crime.
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