Plain Jane's Dirty Little Murder!

When we last saw Jane Adler she had managed to just barely escape being kicked out of Bible School, and there was a young man in her life she wanted to see quite a bit more of. (And another young man she was glad to see the back of!) She had solved her first murder (and likely hoped it would be the last!)

But things aren't easy for stubborn young women with lofty ambitions!

A year after Good, Clean Murder we find Jane cleaning houses and enjoying a relaxing summer. Her boyfriend (is it Isaac or Jake? You must read to find out!) is out of town for the summer, the only flaw in an otherwise perfect break.

The great news is that her church has included her in a group of future missionaries they are interested in supporting.

The bad news is she finds another dead body.

What ought to have been a summer of saving up money, impressing her church, and mooning over her long distance boyfriend becomes a haywire adventure filled with competitive future missionaries, boy troubles, and very jealous wives and widows.

If Jane can't clean this mess up quick she might just crack under the pressure!

For a brief period Good Clean Murder and Dirty Little Murder will be exclusive at Amazon! If you're a prime member, you can read them for free!

Mystery Solved!

You know what's a mystery to me? How my house can get so messy when the kids are at school all day! I drop them off at 8:30 (or 8:20 if I'm on time) and I don't pick them up until 3 (or 4, depending.)

They spend the whole afternoon doing homework, playing video games, and fighting with each other. I don't remember the last time I saw them take out a toy--AND play with it. I mean really, when do they make these messes?

For example, we have a cushioned bench under the picture window. The dog (Dr. Watson) likes to sit on it and stare mournfully out the window while we are gone. I would stare mournfully too, because in addition to the couch cushion, he's lying on top of two kiddy laptops, three paperbacks, a backpack that lights up when you touch it, a stack of papers from school, a sample sized bottle of hair detangler, my embroidery scissors and pin cushion (that's where those went!), a pink chicken purse, Fun With Ballet in library binding, a hairbrush, a hat, and a mechanical pencil.

Their rooms are no better. (You don't look surprised.) Dave Ramsey wants us to teach them about money so they have their childrens' version of the envelope system and all they have to do to earn their commission is take their laundry to the laundry room, keep the books off of the floor (they are the daughters of an author, after all,) pick up the debris, and feed their pets (one feeds the dog, the other the chicken and ducks.) It's really not onerous work.

The girls were tasked with making their floors "clean enough to vacuum" this evening. As I walked passed one door I over heard my eldest moaning, "It's just too hard."

Well, yes. I said to myself. Why do you think I am making YOU do it? I don't have the time to clean that mess up!

I was an awful mess as a kid too. My mom managed to keep the house nice and clean. She did some after school babysitting when I was little so she even had more kids making a mess than I do, but...she didn't have the internet. I'm thinking if she had had the internet she wouldn't have kept such a clean house.

So maybe the mess isn't such a mystery...between authors groups, keeping up with industry news, negotiating things like audio books and editors, planning marketing campaigns, and eventually getting around to writing fiction, I don't have much time for little things like laundry, dishes, or general tidying up...;)

Once I made a joke to another mom about how I was a terrible housekeeper. This woman looked me square in the face and said, "Oh, I believe that!" which goes on the long list of rudest things people have ever said to my face.

She might be right.

But who wouldn't prefer pursuing their dreams with passion and zeal to finding all of Polly Pocket's teeny tiny accessories?

I wouldn't!

So in a way, Jane Adler, the detective of my Plain Jane Mystery Series is the anti-Traci. I make my dreams come true instead of cleaning my house, and she cleans houses to make her dreams come true. And the mystery she has to deal with isn't "Where did all this junk come from?" but "Where did this dead body come from!"


Good, Clean Murder is available everywhere fine eBooks are sold--and the next Plain Jane will be out soon too, that's why this house is still such a mess!










Traci Tyne Hilton is an award winning author and playwright from Portland, Oregon. Her newest book

Good, Clean, Murder won the Mystery/Suspense category in the Christian Writers of the West Phoenix Rattler Contest, and was a finalist in the Write Integrity press Books of Hope contest. Traci has a BA in History from Portland State University and lives in the rainiest part of the Pacific Northwest with her husband the mandolin playing funeral director from Kansas, their two daughters, and their dog, Dr. Watson. More of Traci's work can be found at tracihilton.com

Production Notes

*Post Blog Publication Note: THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM! Good, Clean, Murder is Now Available*

Since I am inches away from publishing Good, Clean, Murder, I thought I'd share some of the steps it took to create it!

First, I brought pages and pages of the story to my critique group. My critique group is amazing, and led by none other than the man who wrote Writing Fiction for Dummies. They gave feedback on pacing, character, action, dialogue--and anything else they thought I was doing wrong.

While I was still writing it,  I polished the beginning to within an inch of its life, and sent it off to a couple contests. As the prizes included feedback from agents and publishing house editors I knew this would be invaluable for me. I finaled in both contests, and won the mystery category at the Phoenix Rattler. (You can read more about that here and here.) Contests and crit groups are a great way to help develop a story.

After that it was time to refine and polish. I sent the whole story to a couple of beta readers. Beta's give your book a "second" reading and give you feedback on weaknesses and strengths of the story. My romance beta let me know she thought my description of the male romantic lead wasn't handsome enough. I decided that was worth fixing! After betas my little baby went through three professional editors and then another reading by yours truly. I have to say, for that final read through the kindle and it's note taking function was a life saver! No more staring at a bright white screen and trying not to add more mistakes than I fixed!

With a clean document in hand, it was time to format. Like editing, many writers chose to hire professionals for this. I have done it both ways--though when I hired formatting help, it was for the paperback books which I find more challenging. This time I decided to do it all myself because there were certain features I wanted to learn. I won't give away all of my new tricks but I will say that the mobipocket app is a life saver, and I wish I had been using it all along.

Towards the end of the project I hired a graphic designer (Andrew Rothery) to create the cover. This is another aspect of the job I can handle myself, but prefer to hire out, as usually my vision is beyond my ability.

I began my story in June of 2012, so all in all, creating Good, Clean, Murder has been an almost ten month project!

Now I'm going to get really open, and share how much all of this cost. If you are a writer considering self publishing, this is the kind of nitty gritty that really comes in handy. Good, Clean, Murder is my most professional book to date, and also likely my most expensive to produce. The cost of the cover was about $80. The cost for the three editors was around $400. Entrance to the two contests cost me $50 total.  Prizes for the launch party will come in around $100. Advertizing for the release will be $60. We can round up and say that producing Good, Clean, Murder was $700. All of my other mysteries made a profit by their second month, but none of the others cost even close to this much to produce. We shall see if the prizes and advertizing do their job. *praying!* As for hiring three different people to each edit it, I will never regret spending that money. I know where my talents lie, and it isn't in self-editing!

To win some of these fun prizes, stop by my Facebook event on March 2nd! I'll have games throughout the day with prizes ranging from signed copies of the book to Plain Jane coffee mugs, to a gift certificate for a great online yoga studio!

Thank you all for being a part of this process!

Traci Tyne Hilton is the author of Good, Clean, Murder, The Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery Series, and one of the authors in the The Tangle Saga series of science fiction novellas. She was the Mystery/Suspense Category winner for the 2012 Christian Writers of the West Phoenix Rattler Contest, a finalist for Speculative Fiction in the same contest, and has a Drammy from the Portland Civic Theatre Guild. Traci serves as the Vice President of the Portland chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association.
Traci earned a degree in History from Portland State University and still lives in the rainiest part of the Pacific Northwest with her husband the mandolin playing funeral director, their two daughters, and their dog, Dr. Watson.
More of Traci's work can be found at http://www.tracihilton.com

Review - Good, Clean, Murder (A Plain Jane Mystery)

Well here is my promised review of a new Cozy Mystery Series by Traci Tyne Hilton due for release whenever Traci says so, but it will be soon. The series is called Plain Jane Mystery and the first entry is entitled Good, Clean Murder.
Okay let’s get the disclaimers out of the way. I was provided a free copy of the book by the author for review purposes. I liked the book. Now it is also true that I have new covers for my books, and they are way cool (look under Cozy Book Store). Traci did them for me only because my previous book covers were truly pathetic and she loves to make book covers. I love to read and I needed a reading fix.
Just so you know, on with the review!
Jane Adler has a lot going for her. She’s hardworking and running her own cleaning service called Plain Jane’s Good Clean Houses. She has an apartment with a roommate. She’s attending Bible College to advance her ambitions towards becoming a missionary, and has met a wonderful man there with boyfriend potential. Ultimately though, Jane truly wants God’s Will for her life.
One problem, she’s 20 years old and thinks she knows everything.
Consequently over the past two years when her parents moved out of state and Jane decided to stay behind in Portland she made a series of bad decisions. All of which are now coming back on her at the same time. In a matter of days she will find that she’s homeless due to her less than ethical roommate, the man she’s attracted to is a teacher which may get her kicked out of school, and that may not even matter as the certificate she has worked so hard for is probably worthless.
Well at least her business is going well. That is until she finds one of her clients, the wealthy owner of Roly Burgers, in his bed, dead, with his wife in same condition in the master bathroom. And it’s payday!
Jane is having a tough week.
If that all sounds very entertaining it’s because it is, and yes I liked this book a lot. Jane is a heroine we can all relate to because if we are honest we have all been in her position. Young, making mistakes, okay a lot of mistakes, and learning the hard lesson (hopefully) that wanting God’s Will in your life is not the same thing as allowing God to do His Will in your life.
You see Jane has habit of doing first and praying later. God always comes through, not always the way she wants just the way she needs. Trouble is that Jane doesn’t always, scratch that, hardly ever, scratch that, NEVER listens to Him until it’s too late. She’s repentant, but she’s not as willing to let Him have control over her destiny as she would like to believe.
Jane’s misadventures are hilarious, especially when she decides she’s going to play detective and find out just who killed her employers. If anyone did. They could have been done in by one too many Roly-Poly burgers. She’s aided in this endeavor, when she can get him to pay attention, by her deceased employer’s son and former classmate the lackadaisical Jake Crawford. Who she finds herself a little too interested in despite the fact that he definitely Mr. Wrong.
Oh those bad boys, even Christian girls have a soft spot for them. Well, he’s not that bad, just lost.
During the subsequent “investigative” process, Jane manages to clear all of her suspects and is no closer to solving the crime than when she started. If there was a crime, remember those burgers. You will groan, in a good natured way, at Jane’s varying degrees of competence and naiveté. Jake too is surprising helpful, when he had a mind to do so. He may be lazy and have a lot bad habits but he really likes Jane. A lot.
Not to be forgotten is the ever steadfast and good looking Isaac Daniels, the teacher who almost got Jane kicked out of school. A lapse in judgment, nothing malicious about it because he also likes Jane. A lot. He is supportive, shares her faith, gives very good advice regarding the investigation, and tries to steer her towards more realistic life goals. Advice Jane can understand, but doesn’t agree with. Remember, listening is a skill she needs to improve on.
Jane does eventually solve the crime, yes there is a crime, but that is due more to luck, or the hand of God, then her deductive skills. Well she’s new to it, and besides how could she have foreseen all of the roadblocks that came her way?
Like her parents riding to rescue, the over enthusiastic fast food protestor that gets her father arrested, the roommate issue that just will not go away, trying to get her mind on the right man and off the wrong one, or the troubles with her car, not all of them mechanical.
Welcome to Jane Land, sit back enjoy the ride.

Mystery and adventure writer C.L. Ragsdale is the author of The Reboot Files a Christian Cozy Mystery Series, and a superhero story called Chasing Lady Midnight. A California native, she loves to "surf" the web to research plot details for her fun, quirky stories. She has a degree in Theatre Arts which greatly influenced her writing style. Working in various fields as a secretary has allowed her to both master her writing skills and acquire valuable technical knowledge which she uses liberally in her plots. A big secret from her past, which is not so secret anymore, is that she used to a major comic book geek. Nowadays she loves to crochet, but she is still a big fan of the old Scooby Doo cartoons.

Cindy posts on her own blog called Short Mysteries and Tall Tales at http://cozymysterymagazine.blogspot.com as well as The Cozy Mystery Magazine on http://cozymysterymagazine.blogspot.com

Her Facebook Authors Page is located at http://www.facebook.com/pages/CL-Ragsdale/219184744858421