Life gets in the way every now and then, which happened during a longer-than-expected break from my writing last year. First, Hubby D and I got caught up in a bit of traveling—from the Carolinas just for kicks to Central Florida for fresh water fishing to Wyoming and Idaho to visit Offspring #1 and family. Then in January another trip to Florida, this time on the Gulf Coast where D underwent a surgical procedure and required recovery, both of which went very well. Why Florida, you may ask. Don’t. It’s complicated.

While D was recovering, I finally finished Book 3 from the Savino Sisters Mystery Series: Not Worth Dying For. There’s something quite comforting about writing a series, dealing with a continuation of characters I created, but over time have taken on a life of their own. And letting my imagination run away with new characters who want things their way instead of what I’d originally planned for them. For instance, a minor character from Book 2 Regrets To Die For: Mike the Jerk who dumped Ellen Savino years ago when both were teenagers. She erased him from her life but now, twenty years later he wants back in. Although El’s heart tells her no way, her sister Margo takes a more pragmatic approach, what with Mike claiming to have information that could absolve their mother from charges of aiding and abetting her best friend. Ahem, that would be for the murder of a womanizer who’d been dating both of them.

Not Worth Dying For also gave me the opportunity to bring back characters from one of my other St. Louis mysteries, Lethal Play. Detectives Sam Reardan and Guy Winchester, still snarky as ever, now have two amateur sleuths to deal with, Margo and El Savino. What started out as polite give and take soon evolves into a test of one-upmanship—the wannabes vs. the pros.

As for a not-so-miner character from Regrets, I could not leave octogenarian Stefano Rosina back in Italy, pining for his lost love Clarita, El and Margo’s Americanized grandmother. So, I brought Stefano and his son Franco to St. Louis. All in the name of cringe-worthy occasions that promise an abundance of good wine mixed with bad memories, and heartfelt apologies.

Now for the best part. If you’d like a first-hand account of Regrets To Die For and the just-published, Not Worth Dying For, both books are available for a limited time at the bargain price of $.99 each.

For more information, check out Not Worth Dying For at Amazon.com and Regrets To Die For at Amazon.com.