Finis!

Hello fellow Roxy Parker fans,

You'll be glad to hear I have now finished book number three in the Ghostwriter Mystery series and it will soon be with my US editor, who does the fairy dusting. My talented designer, Stu, is also hard at work on the cover, so stay tuned for a sneak peek.

Called Last Writes, this story features all your favourite characters, including Roxy's slothful agent Oliver, her chirpy police friend Gilda, and the handsome Mr Farrell, who, you will be pleased to hear, has not quite given up on commitment-phobe Roxy. In this story, set about six months after book number two, Roxy finds herself in the middle of a series of baffling murders. Someone is targeting writers this time, and with three successful authors dead, panic begins to set in. Roxy's not so worried about herself as Oliver. He's just become Suspect Number 1, and he hasn't got an alibi to stand on.

As Roxy attempts to clear Oliver's name, she also finds herself embroiled in a love triangle with newcomer, David Lone, a handsome and successful author whose life may also be in danger. Lone has asked Roxy to write his life story and is proving surprisingly attractive. Will Roxy finally open her heart to a man? And how will Max react?

In this book we also meet Max's sassy sister, Caroline, are reunited with Roxy's nagging mother, Lorraine, and take a terrifying road trip up the north coast of Australia, where a ruthless killer is plotting Roxy's last rites...

Last Writes will be available as an ebook in December.

Happy reading.

xo Christina

SNEAK PEEK: Last Writes (a Ghostwriter Mystery)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

Dear readers,

I am currently half-way through writing the third in the Ghostwriter Mystery series. This one is called Last Writes and features a madman who is killing off some of Australia's popular niche writers, from a sci-fi writer to an erotic novelist. Roxy must hunt him down before he turns to his next target, a ghostwriter (gulp!) ...

I'd like to share the start of this book with you (see below) and thank all those who have been in touch via email (or commenting below) to tell me what they love most about Roxy Parker. It's always great to hear from readers, and to know I've struck a chord. Keep the comments coming, guys, and happy reading!

xo Christina

By C.A. Larmer

Prologue

The drugging had been relatively easy but it wasn’t over yet. He needed to leave a message, to make him pay. He searched around the room until his eyes settled on a butcher knife in the kitchen. Yes, that would do nicely. Slowly, methodically, he made his way over to it, picked it up with both hands and returned to the bed. His hands shaking, he picked up one thin, white wrist and began to slash at it, first this way, then that.

“This will teach you to mess with me,” he said. “Now you’ll be sorry.”

Then he let the blood-splattered knife drop to the floor.

Chapter 1 

A shrill sound blasted through a thirsty sleep and Roxy sat up with a start, glancing, bleary-eyed towards her clock radio. It was just after 8:00 a.m. and the phone was screaming like a demented catbird. She groaned and, feeling the full force of one-too-many champagnes, grappled for the hands-free receiver.

“Hmmm?”

“Roxy?”

“Hmmm.”

“Don’t tell me you were still asleep?”

Roxy located her black Rayban glasses on the bedside table, wedged them into place and rechecked the clock.

“Oliver, it’s 8:04 on Saturday morning, you’re supposed to still be asleep.” She sat up, a little more alert now. “What the hell are you doing up at this hour?”

Roxy’s agent, Oliver Horowitz was a classic insomniac. That meant late nights pacing his Kings Cross apartment and late mornings catching up on Zzzs. He rarely got to work before 10:00 a.m. and, it being Saturday, should not even be vertical for at least another three hours. “What’s going on?”

“Just had some bad news. Tragic, actually.”

“Oh?”

“One of my writers is dead.”

“Oh.” She digested this for a second. “Shit. Who? What happened?”

A deep groan. “Don’t really wanna go over it on the phone. Can you come meet me? For a coffee. I need to unload.”

Now it was her turn to groan. She liked death stories as much as the next person. Hell, a lot more if truth be told. It was her one true indulgence, her sick little fetish, as her friend Max would say. But it was 8:04 a.m. for God’s sake. She glanced again at the clock. Make that 8:06.

“Come on, Roxy, I’m down at Peepers, five seconds from your place.” A pause. “The death could be suspicious. Maybe even murder. Coppers have already grilled me.”

Now he had her hooked. Roxy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and said, “I’ll be there in ten.”

As she wrestled her way out of the sheets and into the bathroom, Roxy wondered which of Oliver’s clients had kicked the bucket. She hoped it wasn’t investigative reporter David Lone, she’d only just met the guy. She scowled at herself in the mirror.

I bet it bloody is, she thought. It would be just her luck.

Roxy had ben introduced to the luscious Mr Lone the night before, at his film premiere, and there had been an instant spark, or at least she had felt one. Of course it could have had something to do with the six champagnes she’d knocked back before he’d even caught her eye. Roxy didn’t normally drink a lot but last night she couldn’t help herself. Not only was the grog free, and who can resist free grog? But it had been weeks since she’d gone out and she was determined to have a good time, even if it killed her.

And it had been a good time, Roxy thought, as she surveyed the damage in the mirror in front of her: smudged mascara, a pillow crease across one cheek, blood-shot eyes.

Bloody hell, she was going to need more than 10 minutes to smooth this mess out. She turned the tap on, squirted some cleanser onto her face and got scrubbing, erasing the remnants of the night while the memories flooded back...

A (2ND) NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

Dear readers: If you enjoyed that excerpt and haven't read any of my Ghostwriter mysteries, please head straight to Amazon where you'll find the first two books in the series:

Killer Twist - a free ebook

Plot to Die For - available for just 99c

You can also download my other crime series: The Agatha Christie Book Club 


Thanks for all your support
xo Christina

To push or not to push

He'd spent weeks psyching himself up for the 2 km cross country race. Was determined he'd run well, hell he might even qualify for Regionals if he gave it his best shot. So when my eight-year-old suddenly choked a minute before the race was due to start, refusing to go in, refusing to run the race, I was surprised and disappointed. But mostly, I was disappointed for him.

Suddenly the proud little boy who'd won the Small Schools Championship, entered District and qualified for Zone, and who had his shoes on and legs limbering up, had a minor meltdown. He looked terrified, wounded, unable to cope.

"I don't want to run Mum. You can't make me. I won't!"

He was right, I couldn't make him. I also didn't know whether I should even try. What was the right reaction here? What was the reaction that was not going to turn my boy into a reluctant sportsman or a quitter for life?

Should I have insisted he step up and run the bloody race? Was that too harsh? Too 1955? Would he come away with a fierce hatred for competition after that?

Should I have given him a cuddle and told him it was all okay, it didn't really matter in the great scheme of life? Was that too soft and flippant, and so typical today? We're so keen to bubble-wrap our kids now, we often don't push them into taking risks that help them grow into bold and confident adults. Would this one day lead to him walking out before the HSC, quipping, "It's too hard, I don't want to do it, you can't make me!"

Or should I have made light of the whole thing and left it at that?

It's hard to know how to react to our children's little meltdowns and it's hard to react naturally when there are scores of other parents and children watching, intrigued and judgmental from the sidelines. But I tried to cajole him into running, I tried to walk him to the start, and when that failed, I bent down and told him he would regret this decision, that he was letting his team and, more importantly, himself down. "It doesn't matter if you come first or last, you're a winner just for entering the race," I spurted. The usual cliches.

It didn't make a jot of difference. He wouldn't budge. And so we left with our tails between our legs and felt flat for the rest of the day.

How to publish on Amazon—an amateur Aussie's guide

I'm no tech expert, don't purport to be, but I have become an amateur expert in my own right and I might be able to help you if you're as eager to self publish as I am.

Over the past few months I have put three ebooks on Amazon and Smashwords (122 sales and counting...) and am now making them all available as paperbacks via Amazon's CreateSpace print-on-demand option.

What an amazing option! Did you know it costs about $4 to get a paperback proof dummied up and another ten to get it posted, express, across the sea to Aus? How insanely cheap is that?

Did you know the whole process took just two weeks? Two weeks, people! That's incredible, and a far stretch from the old days of spending thousands and waiting months...

It's so easy I can't believe more people aren't doing it. All you need is a cover with spine and back cover (a cinch with the right skills or designer on board), about two hours to cut and paste your copy into the template, and Bob's your uncle!

The hardest bit for me was determining what to sell the paperback for. Some books sell for $5.99. Some for $21.87... I chose somewhere in between, and my first crime novel will be available as a paperback for $10.99 very soon.

Wanna know how I did it?

Wanna just get that beloved novel out of the hard-drive and up on the internet? 

Tackling with formatting problems or looking for design/editing tips and contacts?

Get in touch. I look forward to sharing all that I have learned. Us DIYers need to stick together...

Invisible? Moi?

I tried not to take offense. Hell, I needed the money so I could swallow my damn pride. But when an editor of a glossy women's magazine asked me to write a story about Invisible Women Syndrome - that strange phenomenon where you kind of fade away once you get in your mid-late 40s, being ignored by waiters, sales assistants and builders alike - I couldn't help feeling a little irked.

Had I really got to THAT stage in life? Do people really look through me, not seeing me anymore because I'm aging? My friend Amanda says it happens to her, regularly. She's older than me and even more beautiful, so I was surprised by this but grateful for her honesty which I use in my piece.

I did come up with examples of my own, but it's early days for me. I know it will be more obvious (and I less so) as I age. But I also know it doesn't matter. In the story I write about the liberation of middle-age, of not being on constant show, of laughing at the young chicks in stilettos at muddy music festivals while I trudge happily through in biker boots.

There's lots to love and loathe about getting older. But there's one thing I really look forward to—not having to brace myself every time I walk past a building site.

I'd love to hear YOUR experiences of this - get in touch! Comment below or email me: christina.larmer@gmail.com

xo

The Other One (a free quick read)

HEY GUYS: Here's an example of my short fiction (with a twist) that's available for free at:
http://freequickreads.blogspot.com.au/

The Other One
by Christina Larmer

My sister has always been more beautiful than me and I don't understand why. We're identical twins. We're supposed to look the same. But for some reason, men are more attracted to Kara. Hell, everyone's more attracted to her: old women, little kids, even the dog next door gallops across, tail wagging a million miles a minute when Kara comes around. He offers me not so much as a sniff, and it bugs me. Or, at least it did until last week, when Kara turned up dead.

They say a handsome young man found her body. Of course. He alerted the police, they called in the fire brigade who in turn called in the search and rescue squad. She was hard to get to, stuck in a tree, halfway down a cliff. Just dangling there, like a dead pig in a butcher's window. For all to see.

The irony of it hit me. Kara was always eager to be seen and death did not let her down. Of course if you spent as much time on yourself as Kara did, you'd probably be noticed, too. She always knew what to wear, how to do her hair. Subtle make-up, sexy shoes. I gather she spent all she earned at that glamorous PR job on her shoes. I've got them all now, of course, but they aren't taking me where I thought they would.

I'm thrifty. A mad saver, really. And not at all into fashion or lipstick or highlights in the hair. The 'plain one', I hear them say, sympathy edging out the disdain. They don't compare themselves to her, of course. Just me. Her other half.

I'm an accountant. Wealthier, wiser, lonelier. Had a boyfriend once. Until he met her. Of course Kara would not be tempted by someone so dull, but she might as well have. He was as good as gone after that; sex occasionally, the fire extinguished from his eyes. Unless he was thinking of her. I knew when that was because he was excited, animated, fervent. Alive. That's when I would slip off midway and leave him there, dangling.

Dangling. It's a funny word, isn't it? Ugly. Humiliating. Out of control.

Kara was never normally out of the control. She spoke well, she made friends easily, she drank just enough, never put on weight. She was School Captain and University President. She had been in love, but she never fell there like the rest of us. She sauntered up instead, opening the door to it, offering it a seat. And she always left them, a few expected tears, and happiness again.

"I love being single," she told me once. "I love being on my own." I'd noticed. Apart from our nine months wedged together early in the piece, we'd never been close. I laugh at the thought of poor, beautiful Kara stuck in the slimy environs of my mother's womb, her limbs entangled with mine, unable to get away.

Last week she got away from me. For good. She was pushed from a cliff. Then she really was all alone. And now in death as she lies rotting beneath the soil, she rests all alone. Except for the constant visitors of course. Mum can't bring herself to leave Kara's grave. Has practically set up a camp site. Old boyfriends have driven miles to pay their last respects, weeping over her marble plaque, leaving perfectly healthy roses to wilt without water and die. And I watch this all from a distance, disbelieving and distraught. I'm still here, guys! The other one. Give me a second of your time, hand the flowers to me.

One man has started paying me attention, though. A policeman by the name of Jones. Talks to me a lot, asks all sorts of questions, mostly about me. He discovers that I did it. He locks me up for life and throws away the key.

It's not so lonely in here. I have a room-mate called Sharon, and she's not going anywhere.

ends:
Read my latest short story at: http://freequickreads.blogspot.com

The end of your career

How's your career going? Soaring ahead, plodding along or stalled like an old bomb with a overheated radiator? Sadly, mine is the latter, and I have no one but myself to blame.

It's hard to keep working away when your heart is simply not in it. It's even harder for others to give you work when they can sense that very despondency, and you can't blame them. Not really. I've been a journalist for 24 years. I've edited magazines and run international bureaus. I've interviewed A-list celebrities and clueless psychologists. I've struggled through a move up north and the birth of two children, a time when keeping employers interested has been almost as challenging as the births themselves. You sort of drop off the planet when you have a baby, and often through no fault of your own. Employers (editors) just assume you're not available. Perhaps they're being kind, giving you some time out to bond with bub, but you want the work. Hell, you need the work if you're going to pay the mortgage and keep the bub in nappies. So you end up having to work even harder to get back on their books.

But you do. You crawl back in, you dazzle them with your ideas—menus and menus of tantalising feature story ideas— and the work pours in again. All is right with the world. But deep down you are bored, and you are not happy.

And so, slowly, almost without you even knowing, you start to falter. You've been doing this gig for so long, you have simply lost your spark. And with that loss of spark comes a loss of passion and of brilliance. You start sending mediocre story ideas, not because you can't think of any great ones, but because you actually don't want to write them. You don't want any work. You tell yourself you do. You know very well that you need it. But you are over it. And so your ideas and your performance reflect that. And editors see that. And so they give you what your subconscious wants—less work.

Eventually it turns into a trickle and then a drought. You get a wake-up call - usually after perusing your bank statements— and you snap yourself out of it. You find that spark, send in some better story ideas, get a little work again.

But a few months down the track the pattern resumes and the work dries up again.

Eventually those confused editors don't even bother responding to your emails. And why would they? You're unpredictable. They're not even sure you're keen. And so you have finally achieved what you really want. An end to your career.

And so the empty bank balance glares at you. How on earth will you fill it now?