Yet Another Great Review for Deadly Currents!

The spring issue of Mystery Scene Magazine arrived at my house today, and I was thrilled to see that it included a wonderful review of Deadly Currents! I'd been crossing my fingers that one would appear in the magazine ever since the reviewer, Leslie Doran, caught me at the Left Coast Crime conference in Santa Fe in March and introduced herself. She asked me to sign her ARC (Advance Review Copy) of Deadly Currents, told me she enjoyed reading the book and had just sent in her review, though she couldn't guarantee it would be accepted.

Thank goodness it was accepted! Leslie's review appears on page 59, right after the review of Michael Connelly's The Fifth Witness. Great placement! The last line of the review makes a beautiful pull quote:

"The amiable cast, along with Groundwater's fascinating firsthand knowledge of rafting, makes this a series worth watching."

((blush)) Thanks so much, Leslie! I hope my blog readers have a chance to get their hands on a copy of Mystery Scene and read the review for themselves. It's a great magazine for and about the mystery community, and I always look forward to reading the issues--even when there's no mention of me and my books. :)

Final Stops on my East Coast Book Tour

After my Tuesday stop in Charlottesville, Virginia, last week to visit my sister and sign at the Barnes & Noble store there, I drove down to Hampton, Virginia to spend four days with my parents. I used their home as a base of operations for various events in the Tidewater area of Virginia. The photo below was taken at the William & Mary Bookstore. They are excellent hosts to alumni who have published books!



The next photo is of participants in my workshop to the Hampton Roads Writers on "Realistic and Effective Dialogue in Fiction." I'm goofing off taking their photo while they're hard at work on an exercise. It was a great group, with lots of interesting and intelligent questions.



This last photo was taken of my parents' good friends, Bill & Judy, at the Newport News Barnes & Noble store. Unfortunately we caught Judy with her eyes closed, but I like her smile.



I arrived home just before dinner on Mother's Day. My wonderful husband cooked me a filet mignon dinner while I sat with my feet up and sipping limoncello. Yes, I'm keeping him and you can't have him!

Today, it's back to reality, with laundry, grocery shopping, and piles of mail and email to catch up on. My next event is a signing at the Chapel Hills Barnes & Noble store in Colorado Springs on Saturday, from 2-4 PM. But I have no promotion events scheduled for the next weekend, because that's when my son is graduating from college. I'll be too busy celebrating that happy milestone to think about writing or promoting.

A Charlottesville, Virgina Booksigning

After the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, Pennsylvania on Monday, I drove down to Charlottesville, Virginia for a signing at the Barnes & Noble bookstore there. I stayed with my sister that evening. The next photo shows me with her, between my former sister-in-law and her daughter. The next two photos show me with women who bought copies of my books. It was a busy event, with lots of chatting, and I enjoyed catching up with my sister afterward.




The last few days of my tour will be in the Tidewater area of Virgina, and I'll post photos of those events most likely after I return home on Sunday. It will be nice to be back home on Mother's Day!

Annapolis and the Festival of Mystery

Continuing on with impressions and photos from my east coast book tour, five of us mystery authors sneaked out of the Malice Domestic conference closing tea a little early to pile into cars and drive to author Marcia Talley's beautiful home in Annapolis. She showed us to our rooms and we relaxed a bit before heading over to the Annapolis Barnes & Noble bookstore for a panel discussion and signing. The photo below shows us: Kristy Montee (half of the P. J. Parrish writing team), Rhys Bowen, Marcia Talley, me, and Elaine Viets.


After the signing, we went to dinner at Cantler's, where I indulged in one of my favorite meals, Chesapeake Bay blue crabs (see photo below).


We returned to Marcia's house for the post-signing pajama party and watched President Barak Obama present the news of Osama Bin Laden's death before heading off to bed. The next morning we drove in two cars up to the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. The rest of the photos below are from that event.


Below, I'm with Annette Dashofy and Daryl Wood Gerber (Avery Aames). All of us have short stories in the new anthology, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology.


Here I am with Mary Jane Maffini and Nancy Martin.


The next photo shows me with Rhys Bowen, who was my roommate in the hotel that night after the author pizza party at the Mystery Lovers Bookshop. She also rode up to Oakmont with me in my car, and I had a great time getting to know her better--turns out our husbands are very similar in many ways. :) Isn't her jacket smashing?


Below I'm with Leann Sweeney and Marcia Talley.


And here I'm with Elaine Viets and Wendy Lyn Watson.


This last photo shows me with Tara Whittle and Lois Winston. Many, many other authors were there, but I was too busy to catch photos with ALL of them!

Malice Domestic 2011 - Report Two

I finished the first report on the Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland with the Guppies lunch Saturday. After that I listened to Nancy Pickard's interview of Carole Nelson Douglas and the panel of nominees for the Nonfiction Agatha Award. Then I got dressed for the banquet and met the "Mystery Babes" at the bar. Con Lehane, standing behind Meredith Cole in the first photo graciously took the second photo--and many others. He and I also had a conversation about social networking at the pre-banquet reception, and we're now Facebook friends.



The following photos were taken at the pre-banquet reception, which got very hot and stuffy before the doors to the banquet room were thrown open. The first shows me with Linda Randig, the second shows Midnight Ink authors Kathleen Ernst, Deborah Sharp, and Alice Loweecey with editor Terri Bischoff (second from the left), and the third shows Midnight Ink authors Lois Winston, Jessie Chandler, and Jess Lourey.




The next few photos were taken at the banquet. The first shows my roommate Vicki Doudera with Alice Loweecey, the second shows Best First Novel Agatha Award nominee Alan Orloff with his wife, and the third shows our complete table.




Sunday morning, I attended the Sisters in Crime breakfast, then rode the Metro down to National Airport to pick up a rental car and drive it back to the hotel. I got back in time to check out, have lunch with my editor Terri Bischoff and some fellow Midnight Ink authors and attend the closing tea. The photo below shows some of my tablemates at the tea.


More events and more photos to come!

Malice Domestic 2011 - Report One

I finally have a day without an event (just driving) in my east coast book tour, so I'm posting my impressions and photos from the 2011 Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland. Friday morning, I took the Metro from Alexandria, Virginia, where I'd spent Thursday night with friends, and arrived at the Hyatt about an hour before Malice-Go-Round. I stowed my luggage, registered, and met up with my pitching partner, Five Star author friend Michael Allan Mallory. I gave a glowing blurb to his wonderful second book with co-author Marilyn Victor, Killer Instinct. He's with me in the photo below, and was a great pitching partner.


Worn out after Malice-Go-Round, I forgot to take the camera out for the rest of the day. I heard Louise Penny's delightful interview of Janet Rudolph and Dan Stashower's of Donna Andrews, and attended the Opening Ceremony and Reception. After dinner with some fellow Five Star author pals, I listened to the Best Novel panel, then collapsed in bed after chatting with my roommate, fellow Midnight Ink author Vicki Doudera.

Saturday began with the New Authors Breakfast, then I schmoozed until my morning panel, "Shot At, Robbed, Hypothermic and More: Travails Authors Endure to Get it Right." The photo below is from that panel, which included moderator Toni L.P. Kelner, Sandi Ault, Joanna Carl, Vicki Delany, and me. I decided I wanted Joanna's research gig--chocolate! The second photo shows me at work in the signing area, courtesy of Michael Allen Mallory.



Then came lunch with the Sisters in Crime Guppies chapter, and the remaining photos are from that. What a fun time that was!

A Fundraiser Booksigning

Thursday, April 28th, on the first day of my 9-events-in-10-days book tour, One More Page Books in Arlington, Virginia, hosted me for a fundraiser booksigning for American Rivers, a river conservation nonprofit. The first photo below shows me with store owner Eileen.


It was a fun event with a mix of conservationists, river paddlers, mystery writers and readers, friends of mine from when I used to live in Northern Virginia, and a niece and her boyfriend who attend nearby George Mason University.

Wilke Nelson, the Deputy VP of Resource Development at American Rivers, began the evening with a brief overview of American Rivers and what they do (he's with me in the first photo below). Then I talked about my former days as a "river rat," the research I did for Deadly Currents, and what the book was about (second photo below).



After that, we opened the floor for a free-ranging Q&A discussion that ranged from my writing process to the water rights subplot in the book, to characteristics of the paddling community.

After the Q&A session, we socialized over coffee and snacks and I signed books. What an interesting evening! It was a great kick-off for my tour, the store donated 10% of their sales that evening to American Rivers, and I bought some local Virginia wine and gourmet chocolates to give as bread-and-butter gifts to my future hosts on the trip.

My niece and her boyfriend are in the first photo below. followed by other attendees in the next two photos.




Here's the friendly staff of One More Page Books.


And here's a view of the bookstore, as the event wound down.