Tag: mainemystery

A Book Is Almost Born! Thank you all so much.

So, tomorrow, my little book THE PEOPLE WHO KILL will be in the world.

I’m not sure why I’m so haunted by this group of characters and why I get so much more anxious about these books than my others, but I really do.

Thank you so much for reading it. Your reading allows me to keep writing. So thank you. Thank you a million trillion times over.

This year was quite a year for me to get out there. It started as a love story for my husband and my little girl and my town and became something beyond any of us and especially beyond me. Fiction is so much fun that way. I hope you check it out. And thank you so much for your support. Being a writer means everything to me.

Xo

Carrie

It’s the second book in the Bar Harbor Rose Mystery series is called THE PEOPLE WHO KILL.

You can read an excerpt here. I had the best time writing it. You can order it here.

Sometimes it seems like everyone wants someone to die . . . .

After dealing with a serial killer and a long Maine winter, Rosie Jones is ready for a little bit of calm in her adopted coastal Maine town. Then Ernie Emerson, a ladies man and newly married cop, is bludgeoned to death outside a summer estate in what many think was a robbery gone wrong.

But Rosie soon realizes that a lot of people, including the fired town manager, had some pretty powerful reasons to want Ernie dead.

The death of Ernie brings a whole lot of repercussions for Rosie. She might be losing her reporting job. There’s all kinds of tension with her still-not-divorced, sort-of-boyfriend, Seamus Kelley, and her snooping is potentially making her the killer’s next target.

Hoping to solve the crime before she gets hurt any more, Rosie starts to put the pieces together. But that’s not that easy when nobody, including Seamus, wants her to do law enforcement’s job and solve the murder of one of their own.

My next book? It’s in July and it’s called THOSE WHO SURVIVED and it’s a YA murder mystery.

best young adult mysteries
New Carrie Jones Young Adult Mystery

New Book Coming Out Super Soon

So, I’m releasing the second book in the Bar Harbor Rose Mystery Series on June 1 and I’m super excited about it because:

  • I love writing adult stories, too.
  • It takes place in Bar Harbor.
  • It’s full of thrilling fun stuff.
  • I’m really into.
  • Independent publishing is so much fun.

The first book in the series came out last year. It’s called THE PLACES WE HIDE. You can read the first chapter here.

The second book is called THE PEOPLE WHO KILL.

You can read an excerpt here.

Sometimes it seems like everyone wants someone to die . . . .

After dealing with a serial killer and a long Maine winter, Rosie Jones is ready for a little bit of calm in her adopted coastal Maine town. Then Ernie Emerson, a ladies man and newly married cop, is bludgeoned to death outside a summer estate in what many think was a robbery gone wrong.

But Rosie soon realizes that a lot of people, including the fired town manager, had some pretty powerful reasons to want Ernie dead.

The death of Ernie brings a whole lot of repercussions for Rosie. She might be losing her reporting job. There’s all kinds of tension with her still-not-divorced, sort-of-boyfriend, Seamus Kelley, and her snooping is potentially making her the killer’s next target.

Hoping to solve the crime before she gets hurt any more, Rosie starts to put the pieces together. But that’s not that easy when nobody, including Seamus, wants her to do lawn enforcement’s job and solve the murder of one of their own.

The third book will come out October 1 and it’s called THE THINGS WE SEEK.

Here’s what it’s about.

Sometimes the treasure is not worth the hunt . . . .

Reporter Rosie Jones and Sergeant Seamus Kelley have dealt with two gruesome murderers in their short time together and are finally ready to focus on their romance. When a few random people go missing on their large Maine island, things seem like they’ve gone terribly wrong. Again. What at first seems like a fun treasure hunt soon turns into something much more sinister . . . and they learn that things are not yet safe on their island or in their world. If they want to keep more people from going missing, Rosie and Seamus have to crack the puzzle before it’s too late.

And between June and October, I’m going to be releasing a book a month (or so).

Most of them are YA, but they are all really fun. If you were a fan of my NEED books, I think you’ll really like these.

I’m really super excited about all of this!

If you’d like to know everything that’s happening and keep updated on all my book releases, you can subscribe to my blog on the button to the right (which would be super nice of you to do) and/or sign up for my newsletter.

Thank you all so much for your kindness and support! It means everything to me.

Upcoming Books:

July – THOSE WHO SURVIVED – YA murder mystery.

August – A YA paranormal

September – The sequel to July’s murder mystery! So YA/NA mystery.

October – THE TREASURES WE HIDE.

November – Adult paranormal

December – YA paranornal

Oh! And check out podcasts when you get a chance. There are writing tips and life tips on DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE and just a freer flow of weirdness on our very live LOVING THE STRANGE.

A Book Is Coming! A Book is Coming!

I am about to release a book.

Yep. Me.

Rosie Jones, small town reporter and single mom, is looking forward to her first quiet Maine winter with her young daughter, Lily. After a disastrous first marriage, she’s made a whole new life and new identities for her and her little girl. Rosie is more than ready for a winter of cookies, sledding, stories about planning board meetings, and trying not to fall in like with the local police sergeant, Seamus Kelley.

But after her car is tampered with and crashes into Sgt. Kelley’s cruiser during a blizzard, her quiet new world spirals out of control and back into the danger she thought she’d left behind. One of her new friends is murdered. She herself has been poisoned and she finds a list of anagrams on her dead friend’s floor. 

As the killer strikes again, it’s obvious that the women of Bar Harbor aren’t safe. Despite the blizzard and her struggle to keep her new identity a secret, Rosie sets out to make sure no more women die. With the help of the handsome but injured Sgt. Kelley and the town’s firefighters, it’s up to Rosie to stop the murderer before he strikes again.

You can preorder it here. Please, please, preorder it.

It’s an adult book. And I’m scared that:

  1. It will suck.
  2. Nobody will read it.
  3. People will think that because it’s self-published my career is over and I’ve failed.

I know! I know! I’m not supposed to write that because I risk:

  1. Alienating self published writers
  2. Putting ideas in people’s heads that I’ve failed.

But I care more about honesty despite all my fears.

This is why I’m self publishing a book.

It’s an adventure.

I’ve never done it before and I want to see what it’s like. I am all about new experiences and believe me – this is a totally different experience than traditional publishing.

Also, I’ve learned that I hate formatting things. So I’m learning?

It’s scary.

Being responsible for all your own words and edits and marketing is terrifying. I’m used to the world of traditional publishing where you have a whole team backing you up. Multiple people edit your book. These people are brilliant and skilled.

And it’s easy for us traditionally published authors to get big heads especially when our books do well. We get fan mail. People bite each other in line to get our book (True story). People cry when they meet us sometimes.

But we are not the only ones who make these books happen. There are agents, assistant agents, editors, assistant editors, proofreaders, copy editors, marketing teams, beta readers, publicists, booksellers, marketers.

So many people.

It’s scary to do it alone. I lean into the scary.

I’m impatient and I write too much.

Coming from the newspaper world, I write fast. I write a lot. I have so many manuscripts in so many genres on my laptop that my agent can’t keep up.

I’m impatient and I write too much and it’s a different genre.

This book is an adult book. It’s a bit like if you crossed Charlaine Harris’s less vampire-style books with Murder She Wrote. It’s not something my agent has read. I normally write children’s books and I love them, but I’m someone who started as a poet, became a reporter, won awards for nonfiction, became a kids book author and have written picture books, literary fiction, fantasy, science fiction and contemporary fiction. Which leads me to…

I don’t like boxes and labels.

I’m all about breaking expectations. It breaks expectations for a New York Times and internationally bestselling author to self publish and hopefully it breaks down the stigma about self publishing a bit more.

Why does that matter?

Because the point isn’t about being the best. Story is about communication and empathy. The world of books is a world where you build understanding, escape, go on adventures, but also become a better person. All the stories that people write? They are the stories that need to be told and the hierarchy of which stories deserve to get traditionally published is a bit subjective.

I’ve been so lucky. Andrew Karre pulled my first novel off the slush pile and published it. It won awards. I had a series that sold all over the world and hit lists. But not everyone is lucky and there are great authors out there who aren’t traditionally published.

They are authors, too.

Their books matter too.

So, um, please go buy it. I am being brave, but that means that despite all my reasons for doing this, I’m still terrified that nobody will buy it and I really, really love this book. A lot.

This week’s writing podcast.

Em Update

A lot of people have messaged me about my daughter, Em. She is not stationed in Iraq or deployed currently. Thank you all for remembering she’s an Army lieutenant and for worrying about her. It’s so kind of you.