Welcome to one of the May 17th stops on the blog tour for Tying the Knot by E.C. Bell, organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to check out other stops on the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts & interviews, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means there is no additional cost to you if you shop using my links, but I will earn a small percentage in commission. A program-specific disclaimer is at the bottom of this post.
Author Guest Post
The Marie Jenner Mystery series takes place over a span of time, so what did I do to show the passage of time in Marie’s life?
Even though all the books in the Marie Jenner Mystery series are good standalone stories, the books in the series follow each other chronologically. So, what did I do to show the passage of time? I followed Marie Jenner, the main character.
Marie starts the series as someone who can see ghosts, but just wants to be “normal.” When the series started, she had recently escaped from an abusive relationship, and a dysfunctional family, so she was highly motivated to hide her “skills,” so she could survive. (And by survive, I mean she needed to get a job and an apartment, and actually live her life.)
But simply surviving isn’t much fun, so in Seeing the Light, the first book in the series, she’s looking for a new job that pays better than the one she had. This is where she meets a ghost who convinces her to help him prove to the police that someone had murdered him. She reluctantly agrees, and the series was born.
A a writer, the biggest problem I had writing the series was the fact that usually there are only days between the end of one book and the beginning of the next. And the books themselves usually only cover (at the most) a month from beginning to end, so… chronologically, Marie doesn’t get much older through this series.
However, she had to grow and mature, so I decided to use two things. Her growing into her power, and romance. (hey, a little romance never hurts!)
Through the series, she had to learn to accept her power, and then learn how to use it. The easiest way for me to to show that was for her to tell the people around her about her gift, and then eventually decide to build a business around her ability to interact with ghosts.
And then there’s her growing romance with James Lavall. She first had to learn to trust that he wouldn’t turn away from her when he found out that she wasn’t normal, because she could see and interact with ghosts. And then, she had to learn to trust him as a man. (Abusive relationships sure can wreak havoc with trust, and she’d managed to get out of a doozie before the beginning of the series.)
There is only one break chronologically that’s more than a month long. it is after Book 3, Stalking the Dead. There are reasons why this happens story-wise, but the real reason I had an eight month break was—I’d decided that none of the books would be set in the winter. Most novels set in Edmonton are set in the winter, and I didn’t want to do that. So… an eight month break to get her back to spring/summer!
About the Book
Tying the Knot
Marie Jenner Mystery Book Seven
by E.C. Bell
Published 27 April 2021
Tyche Books
Genre: Paranormal Mystery
Page Count: 305
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
Marie Jenner just wants a Vegas holiday.
When psychic Crystal Demoines tells James Lavall that his uncle’s spirit is trapped in Las Vegas, Marie is thrilled. All she’ll have to do is help Jimmy “anything for a buck” Lavall move on to the next plane of existence, and then she and James can have the holiday of her dreams.
But she never dreamed that a lieutenant of the drug kingpin from Edmonton would be staying at the same hotel as her and James, and that James would become his new best friend. Or that she’d have to find Jimmy’s girlfriend Rita—who disappeared the same night Jimmy died—before he would finally move on. Or that the most powerful man in the hotel would be looking for Rita too. To find the money she stole.
And Marie never dreamed that she’d be planning a Vegas wedding in the middle of it all. But she is.
Looks like her dream vacation is about to become a nightmare.
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK
Excerpt
WHEN I RESEARCHED Crystal Desmoines and found out she was running a booming little psychic business in Vegas, I expected to find her living in a house in the suburbs or something. But that was not where the GPS took us.
James pulled the vehicle into the parking lot of what looked like a rent-by-the-hour motel. We parked beside a swimming pool covered in algae blooms, with a couple of people asleep on deck chairs by it. It looked like they’d slept there all night.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked.
“What were you expecting?” he asked.
“Something better than this.”
We walked up the cheap carpet-covered stairs to the second storey and searched for Crystal’s apartment.
“Why would she live here?” I asked. “Maybe it’s all she can afford,” James replied.
“I thought she’d be doing better than me,” I said. “After all, this is Vegas.”
“Not everybody hits it big here, Marie,” he said.
We walked through a door to an open hallway that looked down on the back alley. Through the apartment doors I could hear TVs and music blaring, and from somewhere, a child cried.
“This is depressing as hell,” I said.
He didn’t answer me, just walked the hallway, looking for 204. Found it, and stood, staring at the scarred wooden door for a long moment. Then he rapped on the door twice. Hard.
We could hear noises behind the door, but no one answered. “It’s James Lavall,” he said, and knocked again. “We have an appointment.” More noise, and I realized we were hearing cats meowing. Sounded like lots of them, and then a woman’s voice.
“Move your little fuzzy asses,” the voice said. “I gotta get the door.”
“She’s a cat lady,” I whispered.
About the Author
E.C. Bell is the author of the award winning paranormal Marie Jenner Mystery series. She lives in Alberta, Canada, and when she’s not writing, she’s scouting out new locations for her upcoming novels or renovating her round house where she lives with her husband and their two rescue dogs.
That’s right. Her house is round.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads
Giveaway Alert!
E.C. Bell will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway| May 10 | Rogue’s Angels |
| May 11 | Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews |
| May 12 | Long and Short Reviews |
| May 13 | Sandra’s Book Club |
| May 13 | Welcome to My World of Dreams |
| May 14 | Kit ‘N Kabookle |
| May 17 | The Key Of Love |
| May 17 | Westveil Publishing |
| May 18 | Author C.A.Milson |
| May 19 | Fabulous and Brunette |
| May 20 | Novels Alive |
| May 21 | All the Ups and Downs |
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Thanks for hosting!
Thank you so much for having me and Tying the knot over for a visit!
The cover of your book is very engaging.