This week’s guest post and giveaway comes from Melissa Yi. She’ll be our next guest on the Crime Cafe podcast.
As part the giveaway, I’m adding in a free digital copy of my first Erica Jensen mystery, Damaged Goods. (It was nominated for a Shamus, you know. Oh, you didn’t know? 🙂 )
Just to give you an idea, here’s the back of book description!
Unlicensed private eye and Marine veteran Erica Jensen works as a “researcher” on various dubious assignments, while battling PTSD and an opioid addiction. But when a wealthy man hires her to find his missing daughter, Erica ends up with more than she bargained for: a murder victim and unwanted attention from the killers. Erica may have survived combat, but will she survive this case?
And the cover! 🙂
To enter the contest, just follow the directions below.
Melissa’s giving away a gift basket!
- Sugar and Vice (Hope’s Seven Deadly Sins 2: Gluttony) ebook
- Sugar and Vice (Hope’s Seven Deadly Sins 2: Gluttony) signed paperback
- The Red Rock Killer, an award-winning YA mystery ebook
- Plus a recipe ebook that includes seven fiery recipes related to the sin of wrath!
Giveaway rules
- Email olobooks[at]gmail[dot]com
- You have to remove the [dot] and turn [at] into @
- That’s the hardest part
- Please mention if you’re willing to join Melissa’s mailing list
- One lucky winner will receive a gift basket!
Sugar and Vice opening
I’ve always known that if someone wants to murder me, the easiest way is through my stomach.
I just hadn’t expected anyone to kill me today.
My grandfather jokes that Chinese people, especially Cantonese ones like him, will eat anything with legs except a table, and anything that flies except an airplane. I’m a bit more squeamish after the whole born-and-raised-in-Canada thing, but don’t step between me and my plate.
I may not be a jacked woman like some of these dragon boaters, but I am a doctor. I know how to use a knife.
Just kidding about the knife. Sort of.
Yesterday’s text convo with Tori had set me on edge:
Tori
You have to come to Dragon Eats
Me
Why?
Tori
Someone’s going to die
My mom told me I could do whatever I wanted the whole summer I turned fourteen, so I decided to find the Red Rock Killer.
Let me back up. I sure hadn’t expected to find death the morning that me and my two best friends hiked the Red Rock Canyon, a conservation area 15 miles west of Las Vegas.
That Saturday morning, Callie Yang woke up me and Barstow right after rolling up her sleeping bag. “Let’s do Red Rock! Please.”
“No thanks, Cal. I downloaded a new game on Steam, and Edan wants to play Terraria.” Barstow Ness glanced at me for support while he hooked his glasses back behind his ears.
Now, I am NOT a hiker. I read, I game, I dance/flail with 1 Million Dance Studio’s online tutorials, and I research the Civil War for fun. In other words, I run away from fresh air and trees.
“‘We need the tonic of wildness,'” said Callie, wrapping her silky black hair in a bun. She’s a swimmer and likes running 5K’s for fun and crap like that.
I gave her the side eye, even though it’s hard to get mad at her when she looks like a ballerina with more shoulder muscles. “Is that a Mr. Carver quote?” Our history teacher writes a quote on the blackboard every day, using real chalk. He’s old school.
“No. I read it myself. It’s Henry David Thoreau.”
Barstow and I both raised our eyebrows at her.
“Okay, I read it on Goodreads. So what? It’s still true. I hate being cooped up in school all week and then gaming with you two all weekend. It’s my birthday in nine days. I need to get out with my Garden of Eden and my Barstonia.”
I groaned. My name is Edan Sze. Edan is Celtic for fire, which Mom says is perfect for a baby born in the desert.
It’s pronounced Eden, as in the Garden of. Since Sze sounds a bit like the letter Z, a few kids call me E-Z. Whatever works.
Callie had invoked the birthday rule. The birthday girl or boy gets to choose what we do on the big day. So we all got suited up for Red Rock, which meant sunscreen, socks, and running shoes.
And that was how we first got mixed up with the Red Rock Killer.
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Melissa Yi is an emergency physician and author whose heroine, resident Dr. Hope Sze, leaps from fixing ingrown toenails to solving full-blown murders while facing the seven deadly sins, most recently gluttony (Sugar and Vice), with sloth next (Killing Me Sloth-LY). Hope’s cousin, Edan, fights crime in Las Vegas. Melissa won the 2023 Derringer Award for the best short mystery in the English language and the Prix Aurora Award for the best speculative poem in Canada. Melissa also loves dogs and snowflakes. Please join her mailing list at http://www.melissayuaninnes.com and https://melissayi.substack.com/ for a free gift, or say hi on social media at https://linktr.ee/melissayi.
