Friday, December 9, 2011

Melissa Bourbon Shares An Excerpt and Copy Of Pleating For Mercy


What We Are Saying..Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, has been our guest this week. She says she gave up teaching middle and high school kids in Northern California to write full-time amidst horses and Longhorns in North Texas. She   is devoted to her husband and 5 kids, and can’t believe she’s lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams. She is the marketing director at Entangled Publishing, is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series with St. Martin’s Minotaur, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series with NAL, and is the co-author of The Tricked-out Toolbox with Turquoise Morning Press.
She teaches at a local university, runs Books on the House (http://booksonthehouse.com/)  is co-founder of The Naked Hero (http://thenakedhero.com/) and writes The Writer’s Guide to ePublishing (http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/). She is also Marketing Director for Entangled Publishing. The bottom line is she is a busy woman who loves writing. Today she sharing an excerpt of Pleating for Mercy. Don't forget to leave a comment and your name and email address to get a chance at winning a copy.

What Others Are Saying...
A seamless blend of mystery, magic, and dress-making, with a cast of masterfully tailored characters you’ll want to visit again and again.”~Nationally Bestselling Author, Jennie Bentley

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“Enchanting! Prepare to be spellbound from page one by this well-written and deftly-plotted cozy. It’s charming, clever and completely captivating! Fantasy, fashion and a foul play—all sewn together by a wise and witty heroine you’ll instantly want as a best friend. Loved it!” ~Hank Phillippi Ryan Agatha, Anthony and Macavity winning author
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“Cozy couture! Harlow Jane Cassidy is a tailor-made amateur sleuth. Bourbon stitches together a seamless mystery, adorned with magic, whimsy, and small-town Texas charm.” ~Wendy Lyn Watson, Author of NAL’s Mystery a la Mode series

Back Cover Copy...
All the Cassidy women possess special gifts. Harlow Jane Cassidy’s is creating beautiful dresses. But she’s about to discover secrets in her own family, and another gift—one that can reach beyond the grave…

When her great-grandmother passes away, Harlow Jane Cassidy leaves her job as a Manhattan fashion designer and moves back to Bliss, Texas. But soon after she opens Buttons & Bows, a custom dressmaking boutique in the turn-of-the-century farmhouse she inherited, Harlow begins to feel an inexplicable presence
One of her first clients is her old friend Josie, who needs a gown for her upcoming wedding. But when Josie’s boss turns up dead, it starts to look as if the bride-to-be may be wearing handcuffs instead of a veil. Suddenly Josie needs a lot more from Harlow than hemming a dress. Can Harlow find the real killer—with a little help from beyond?
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Excerpt...
Chapter 1

Rumors about the Cassidy women and their magic swirled through Bliss, Texas like a gathering tornado. For 150 years, the family had managed to dodge most of the rumors, brushing off the idea that magic infused their handwork, and chalking up any unusual goings-on to coincidence.

But we all knew that the magic started the very day Butch Cassidy, my great-great-great grandfather, had turned his back to an ancient Argentinean fountain, dropped a gold coin into it, and made a wish. The Cassidy family legend says he asked for his firstborn child, and all who came after, to live a charmed life, the threads of good fortune, talent, and history flowing like magic from their fingertips.

That magic spilled from the Cassidy women’s hands into handmade tapestries and homespun wool, crewel embroidery and perfectly pieced and stitched quilts. And into my dressmaking. It connected us to our history, and to one another.

Butch hadn’t wanted his family to be outcasts as he and Cressida had been, and so his Argentinean wish also gifted his descendants with their own special charms. Whatever Meemaw, my great-grandmother, wanted, she got. My Grandmother, Nana, was a goat-whisperer. Mama’s green thumb could make anything grow.

None of understood how these charms were supposed to endear us to our neighbors. No matter how hard we tried to keep our magic on the down-low–so we wouldn’t wind up in our own contemporary Texas version of the Salem Witch Trials–people saw. And they talked.

The townsfolk came to Mama when their crops wouldn’t grow. They came to Nana when their goats wouldn’t mind. And they came to Meemaw when they wanted something so badly, they couldn’t see straight. I was seventeen when I finally realized that what Butch had really given the women in my family was a thread that connected them with others.

But Butch’s wish had apparently exhausted itself before I was born. I had no special charm, and I’d always felt as if a part of me was missing because of it.

Being back home in Bliss made the feeling stronger.

Meemaw had been gone five months now, but the old red farmhouse just off the square at 2112 Mockingbird Lane looked the same as it had when I was a girl. The steep pitch of the roof, the shuttered windows, the old pecan tree shading the left side of the house–it all sent me reeling back to my childhood and all the time I’d spent here with her.

I’d been back for five weeks and had worked nonstop, converting the downstairs of the house into my own designer dressmaking shop, calling it Buttons & Bows in honor of my great-great grandmother, Loretta Mae, but Bliss was not the same without her. Maybe that’s the part of me that was really missing.

What had been Loretta Mae’s dining room was now my cutting and work space. My five year old state of the art digital Pfaff sewing machine and Meemaw’s old Singer sat side by side on their respective sewing tables. An 8 foot long white-topped cutting table was in the center of the room, unused as of yet. Meemaw had one old dress form which I’d dragged down from the attic. I’d splurged and bought two more, anticipating a brisk dressmaking business which had yet to materialize.

I’d taken to talking to her during the dull spots in my days. “Meemaw,” I said now, sitting in my workroom, hemming a pair of pants, “it’s lonesome without you. I sure wish you were here.”

A breeze suddenly blew in through the screen, fluttering the butter yellow sheers that hung on either side of the window as if Meemaw could hear me from the spirit world. It was no secret that she’d wanted me back in Bliss. Was it so farfetched to think she’d be hanging around now that she’d finally gotten what she’d wanted?

I adjusted my square-framed glasses before pulling a needle through the pant leg. Gripping the thick synthetic fabric sent a shiver through me akin to fingernails scraping down a chalkboard. Bliss was not a mecca of fashion; so far I’d been asked to hem polyester pants, shorten the sleeves of polyester jackets, and repair countless other polyester garments. No one had hired me to design matching mother and daughter couture frocks, create a slinky dress for a night out on the town in Dallas, or anything else remotely challenging or interesting.

I kept the faith, though. Meemaw wouldn’t have brought me back home just to watch me fail.

As I finished the last stitch and tied off the thread, a flash of something outside caught my eye. I looked past the french doors that separated my work space from what had been Meemaw’s gathering room and was now the boutique portion of Buttons & Bows. The window gave a clear view of the front yard, the wisteria climbing up the sturdy trellis archway, and the street beyond. Just as I was about to dismiss it as my imagination, the bells I’d attached to a ribbon and hung from the knob danced in a jingling frenzy and the front door flung open. I jumped, startled, dropping the slacks, but clutching the needle.

A woman sidled into the boutique. Her dark hair was pulled up in the back into a messy, but trendy, bun and I noticed that her eyes were red and tired looking despite the heavy makeup she wore. She had on jean shorts, a snap front top that she’d gathered and tied in a knot below her breastbone, and wedge-heeled shoes. With her thumbs crooked in her back pockets and the way she jiggled one foot back and forth, she reminded me of Daisy Duke–with a muffin top.

Except for the Gucci bag slung over her shoulder. That purse was the real deal and had cost more than two thousand dollars, or I wasn’t Harlow Jane Cassidy.

A deep frown tugged at the corners of her shimmering pink lips as she scanned the room. “Huh, this isn’t at all what I pictured.”

Not knowing what she’d pictured, I said, “Can I help you?”

“Just browsing,” she said with a dismissive wave. She sauntered over to the opposite side of the room where a matching olive green and gold paisley damask sofa and love seat snuggled in one corner. They’d been the nicest pieces of furniture Loretta Mae had owned and some of the few I’d kept. I’d added a plush red velvet settee and a coffee table to the grouping. It was the consultation area of the boutique–though I’d yet to use it.

The woman bypassed the sitting area and went straight for the one-of-a-kind Harlow Cassidy creations that hung on a portable garment rack. She gave a low whistle as she ran her hand from one side to the other, fanning the sleeves of the pieces. “Did you make all of these?”

“I sure did,” I said, preening just a tad. Buttons & Bows was a custom boutique, but I had a handful of items leftover from my time in L.A. and New York to display and I’d scrambled to create samples to showcase.

She turned, peering over her shoulder and giving me a once over. “You don’t look like a fashion designer.”

I pushed my glasses onto the top of my head so I could peer at her, which served to hold my curls away from my face. Well, she didn’t look like she could afford a real Gucci, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Meemaw had always taught me not to judge a book by its cover. If this woman dragged around an expensive designer purse in little ol’ Bliss, she very well might need a fancy gown for something, and be able to pay for it.

I balled my fists, jerking when I accidentally pricked my palm with the needle I still held. My smile tightened–from her attitude as well as from the lingering sting on my hand–as I caught a quick glimpse of myself in the freestanding oval mirror next to the garment rack. I looked comfortable and stylish, not an easy accomplishment. Designer jeans. White blouse and color-blocked black and white jacket–made by me. Two inch heeled sandals which probably cost more than this woman’s entire wardrobe. Not that I’d had to pay for them, mind you. Even a bottom-of-the-ladder fashion designer with Maximilian got to shop at the company’s end-of-season sales, which meant fabulous clothes and accessories at a steal, a perk I was going to sorely miss.

I kept my voice pleasant despite the bristling I felt creep up inside me. “Sorry to disappoint. What does a fashion designer look like?”

She shrugged, a new strand of hair falling from the clip at the back of her head and framing her face. “Guess I thought you’d look all done up, ya know? Or be a gay man,” she tittered.

Huh. She had a point about the gay man thing. “Are you looking for anything in particular? Buttons & Bows is a custom boutique. I design garments specifically for the customer. Other than those items,” I said, gesturing to the dresses she was flipping through, “it’s not an off-the-rack shop.”

Before she could respond, the bells on the front door jingled again and the door banged open, hitting the wall. I made a mental note to get a spring or doorstop. There were a million things to fix around the old farmhouse. The list was already as long as my arm.

A woman stood in the doorway, the bright light from outside sneaking in around her, creating her silhouette. “Harlow Cassidy,” she cried out. “I didn’t believe it could really be true, but it is! Oh, thank God! I need your help!”

 copyright by Melissa Bourbon

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Like this excerpt?  Want  a chance to win a copy? Send your name and email address in the body of the email  to kfwwriters@gmail.com.

Want to buy a copy? Go to amazon.com and Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.
Like to leave a comment? Scroll down to comments and share your thoughts.








6 comments:

thorneanderson@hotmail.com said...

Melissa:
Thank you for sharing an excerpt of your book. It has already drawn me in and can't wait to read the rest of the story. I'm headed out to try and find it today.

C. A. Szarek said...

VERY cool. Liked it alot, can't wait to read the rest!

Ruby Johnson said...

Melissa:
Thanks for being our guest. I love your excerpt. By the way do you sew? How did you come up with this concept?

Anonymous said...

I'd have to go along with with you one this subject. Which is not something I usually do! I enjoy reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to speak my mind!

Caroline Clemmons said...

Looking forward to reading this series. Thanks for sharing.

J. A. Bennett said...

Love the concept of this book! Thanks for sharing and can't wait to read more!

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