Guest Author Evelyn Cullet

I am pleased and honored this morning to present guest author Evelyn Cullet. I was privileged to be guest author on Evelyn’s blog last week. Her author bio and why she is a writer are most interesting. Guess what? Some of her favorite authors are my favorite authors too, and I’ll bet they are yours. Enjoy reading about this prolific and talented author and her newest book, The Tarkington Treasure.

Author Bio

Evelyn Cullet has been an author since high school when she wrote short stories. She began her first novel while attending college later in life and while working in the offices of a major soft drink company. Now, with early retirement, she can finally write full time. As a life-long mystery buff, she was a former member of the Agatha Christie Society, and is a current member of the National Chapter of Sisters In Crime. She writes mysteries with warm romance and a little humor. When she’s not writing mysteries, reading them or reviewing them, she hosts other authors and their work on her writer’s blog. www.evelyncullet.com/blog. She also plays the piano, is an amateur lapidary, and an organic gardener.

Why Did I Become a Writer?

Does anyone choose to become a writer? Rather than choosing it, I think it chose me. From early in life, I enjoyed writing, whether it was skits or short stories, mostly involving friends and family. After high school, I didn’t write much in the way of stories. But in the back of my mind, I always knew I would write a novel, so I kept spiral notebooks around and filled them with story ideas, plots, character sketches, dialog… well, you get the idea. It wasn’t until I attended college, later in life, when began writing my first novel. This was about the time that word processors first went on the market.

I’d always loved reading mysteries. I still do. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Author Conan Doyle have all influenced my decision to write. My first novel started out as a cozy mystery, like the Agatha Christie novels, but being a hopeless romantic, my muse wouldn’t let me keep the romance out. While I realized that all mystery lovers enjoyed the puzzle aspect, I also felt that adding romance made the reader’s ties to the characters even stronger, and a love interest spiced up the plot, adding another dimension to the story. That’s why I decided to write cozy mysteries with warm romance and a little humor.

The Tarkington Treasure is the 4th novel in my Charlotte Ross Mystery Series. The previous novels in order are, Love, Lies and Murder, Masterpiece of Murder, and Once Upon a Crime.

The Tarkington Treasure

A spooky old house, rumors of a hidden Civil War treasure, a neighbor’s murder, and an ex-fiancé falling unconscious at her feet—Charlotte Ross has her hands full when she’s invited to stay at her friend, Jane Marshall’s home while her apartment is being renovated.

Jane and her new fiancé have sold everything to move to the large estate she’d just inherited near the small town in Illinois, where she grew up. She’s always loved the house, but the cost of living in, and fixing up, a deteriorating old mansion is more than both their incomes combined. If she can’t come up with the money for the next property tax payment, she’ll be forced to give it up.

Charlotte is intent on winning back her ex, but her efforts are stymied when he’s suspected of Jane’s neighbor’s murder.

The two couples soon discover the rambling old house holds more than one secret when they join forces to find the real killer—and the elusive, Tarkington treasure.

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of The Tarkington Treasure

 Outside, the sky had darkened, and the rain fell in torrents. The wind whipped it hard against the windows as the warmth drained out of her. Shivering, she abandoned the flowers and went to the library. As she crouched on the hearth to build a fire, the suspicion grew that someone was in the house with her, and it wasn’t her cousin.

It’s only the wind and the rain playing tricks on my imagination. But second thoughts had her reaching for her cell phone. She searched her pockets before she remembered it was on the dining room table. Darting for the door, she froze at the threshold. What if…?

No matter how she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to leave that room. So she closed the door and went back to the fire, which somehow failed to warm her. Grabbing a fireplace poker, she scrunched deep into the leather wing chair while keeping her gaze glued to the door, in case someone tried to open it from the other side.

The wind blew harder, whistling a sinister tune through the hollow eaves as the rain swept down in sheets against the old house. Sitting there, gripped by a paralysis of fear, she waited.

The Tarkington Treasure is available on Amazon. com for your Kindle or in paperback: http://tinyurl.com/hr53k6p

Website and Blog: http://evelyncullet.com/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EvculletsAuthorPage

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EvelynCullet

Goodreads- http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3425303.Evelyn_Cullet

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/ecullet/