Are YOU This Week's Winner? + How the Book Club Came To Be

AS YOU KNOW to celebrate the launch of my latest cozy mystery, I've been selecting a subscriber each week to win an earlier book in the series (or any of my eBooks if you've read them all). And this week I'll get straight to it. Drum roll please…

THE WINNER IS:

Elaine Hall

Woohoo! Congratulations Elaine. I'll be in touch with you shortly to claim your prize.

Everyone else, you can download the Agatha Christie Book Club series here, or pre-order the new instalment at the links below. Until then, here's a preview…

AND THEN THERE WERE 9

REMOTE LYLE'S LODGE: Deep in isolated rainforest, the Agatha Christie Book Club gathers to meet four new members, each one hiding a secret from the group…

ONE IS AN IMPOSTER.
ONE HAS BEEN HERE BEFORE.
ONE IS HUNTING FOR SOMETHING.
AND ONE WANTS REVENGE.

With membership now at nine, the club settles in to discuss Christie’s best-selling mystery—the one about the madman bumping off his isolated guests.

VERY SOON, LIFE BEGINS TO IMITATE THE BOOK.

First one person is murdered, then another, and then a mighty bushfire ignites in the forest below, cutting them off with their own "madman" on the loose. Employing the wisdom of Poirot and a trusty bushfire survival plan, they must unravel each new member's secret to unmask the real killer and survive the book club from hell.

But this time not all of them will get out alive.

@AMAZON       kobo  

Apple iBooks   B+N nook     

How & Why I Started this Series

(an excerpt from Book 3)

"IT WILL COME AS no surprise to hear that I have been an Agatha Christie fan since I can remember (no, really), and yet I feel the need to mention it as I am often asked how I came up with the idea of the Agatha Christie Book Club series. Did a marketing dynamo whisper it in my ear? Am I just riding on Dame Agatha’s tails? Who do I think I am?

So let me answer the question once and for all.

Yes, I adore Agatha Christie, but it goes deeper and farther than that—all the way, in fact, to a secluded island in remotest Papua New Guinea. 

I was holidaying with my family. I was not yet ten. There was no television, no radio, nothing to tempt a bored tweenie at night but a termite-infested bookshelf bursting with pulp fiction and Agatha Christie novels.

I scooped one out. I dusted it off. I opened the pages… You know the rest.

It was that first book—Evil Under the Sun, as it turns out—that planted the seed that eventually grew into a love of mysteries and a flourishing writing career.

This series is my homage to the greatest mystery writer of them all.

Each and every book is in honour of Ms Christie, and yet I’m not trying to write an Agatha Christie novel—I wouldn’t dare. Nor am I trying to recreate her extraordinary characters in my own. Instead, I’m simply extending the joy to a new group of fans, my book club friends, and exploring what happens when you take a bunch of amateur sleuths, plonk a complex puzzle in their laps, and let the words of Miss Marple and Monsieur Poirot guide them home.

I hope you enjoy these modern adventures as much as I have enjoyed writing them, and I hope they renew your love for all things Agatha Christie. "

Happy reading, everyone.

xo Christina

Pre-order My New Cozy + Another eBook winner, below

At last! Here's a sneak-peek at my new Agatha Christie Book Club mystery, which is now available as a PRE-ORDER at Amazon. (Hurrah.)

To lock in your copy, just click HERE. And don't hesitate to get in touch and let me know your thoughts on the new cover (above).

ABOUT THE BOOK

And Then There Were 9

(The Agatha Christie Book Club 4)

By C.A. LARMER

REMOTE LYLE'S LODGE: Deep in isolated rainforest, the Agatha Christie Book Club gather to meet four new members, each one hiding a secret from the group…

ONE IS AN IMPOSTER. 
ONE HAS BEEN HERE BEFORE.
ONE IS HUNTING FOR SOMETHING.
AND ONE WANTS REVENGE.

Now with nine members and blissfully unaware, ACBC Mark 2 settle in to discuss Christie’s best-selling mystery—the one about the madman bumping off his isolated guests. 

Very soon, life begins to imitate art…

First one person is murdered, then another, and then they find themselves cut off by a giant bushfire that's roaring up the mountain towards them.

With their own "madman" on the loose and the flames getting closer, they must employ the wisdom of Poirot, to unravel each new member's secret and unmask the killer.

But this time not all of them will get out alive.

Once there were nine… Soon there will be six. But which six will survive the Book Club from hell?

ARE YOU THIS WEEK'S WINNER?

AS YOU KNOW… I've been celebrating the upcoming release of my latest Agatha Christie Book Club adventure and am handing out an eBook prize every single week until it hits the stands.

TO WIN: Just keep reading these newsletters! I'll pick a subscriber randomly from the list and announce the name each week until it's published. If that's you, I'll contact you directly to find out which book you'd like.

*Don't panic if you've already read ALL THREE in the series. You're my favourite kind of subscriber and will get a chance to choose from any of my other cozy mysteries (see here).

THIS WEEK'S WINNER IS...

Jane Starcher

Congratulations Jane! I will be in touch with you shortly to discuss your eBook prize.

Everyone else, please don't despair, there's at least one more free eBook to be given out. Check the next newsletter to see if your name comes up. And catch up on the Book Club's back story via the links, below.

xo Christina 

@AMAZON online

Apple iBooks

B+N nook

kobo

Aussie Bushfires, A Real-Life Mystery + 3 Festive Gifts!

It's been a big year for me on a personal level and while I only published one book in 2019—After the Ferry: A Gripping Psychological Novel (see more on that and whether you've won a copy, below)—I want to say a very big THANK YOU for all your support in 2019, and APOLOGIES for not getting my seventh Ghostwriter out in time for Christmas as planned. 

I do have a pretty good (well, bad!) excuse

My eldest son finished school this year, which was whopping for him and us, but it wasn't the biggest event of 2019. As you may have seen on the news, large swathes of Australia have been burning now for months, and we have had our own battles in my immediate area, in the hinterland beyond Byron Bay. We had to evacuate our property at one point and while everything is okay for now, it has been extremely unsettling and, as you can imagine, a major distraction. But that's not the worst of it.

To date, across Australia, almost a million hectares of bushland and forest and about 1,000 homes have been destroyed, several lives have been lost as well as countless wildlife, including our precious and already endangered koalas. It really has been a horrendous start to our summer season here and, with no leadership at a political level, sadly, things remain very grim.

That's why, in 2020, I'm hoping for rain and lots of it! I'm also hoping for relief for our beautiful 'firies' - the unpaid, volunteers who leave their own homes, families and jobs to fight the fires for the rest of us. Many of them have been working for two months solid and THEY are the real heroes in all of this.

To them, I say THANK YOU,  and to you, my beloved readers, I say, here's to a calmer, cooler, happier year ahead—not so I can write more books, but so the firies can finally find time to put their singed boots up and read some!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS everybody.

For more on my books and other news, visit: calarmer.com

Why I Love My Latest Book

As some of you may know, I conjured the idea for this psychological thriller many decades ago, and have been itching to write it ever since. 

Back in the 1990s—pre-mobile phones—I really was a young Aussie backpacker travelling with a group of guys and girls making our way on a ferry to Santorini in Greece.

During the long, sunburnt voyage, one of the guys in my group—a handsome American lacrosse player—fell head over heels for a woman from a different group. I think she was a Kiwi but I'm not 100% sure. In any case, he fell hard and literally jumped ship with her long before we got to our destination! He threw caution to the wind and deserted all of us for someone he had only just met.

There were no mobile phones back then. No way to track each other down, and I often wondered how things turned out. WAS it true love and are they now living happily in New Zealand? Did he realise his mistake and get the next ship out? Or did something untoward happen? I certainly never saw him again and have wondered about him ever since. Hence the book. 

In my story, I upped the ante by turning the traveller into a naive young woman and her love interest into a dark, Greek stranger. Then I wrote two versions of what happened—a parallel story, with a startling murder thrown in.

The result is my fictional suspense/thriller AFTER THE FERRY and, while it's a lot more complex than my other books, it's also richly rewarding and those who have made it to the end agree that it's the best thing I've ever written. 

Which is why I'm handing out free copies as a festive gift!

CONGRATULATIONS…

* Lesa Neace

* Thomas Palmer

* Joann Lord

I'll be in touch shortly to offer your free ebook. For everyone else, thanks again for all your support in 2019 and happy (calm!) reading, everybody.

xo Christina

Survey Results + E-book Winner + Discount Mystery Sale

So, last newsletter I posed the proverbial question: are you a 'glass-half-full' kind of person or, like me, is your glass not even half-empty, it's well on the way to running dry?

As a crime writer, it seems only natural that I look at the dark side of life, but as a human I know I do this to shine a torch in the shadows and restore order to the world (or at least, that's the excuse I'm sticking to!)

How about you?

Well, thanks to your overwhelming input, now I know! What an intriguing bunch you are. I received hundreds of responses from right around the world and so many of you had such thoughtful insight into why you love crime books and what your outlook is like. And — here's the bit that surprised me — so many of you (about 60%) admitted to being empty glassers, like me. And you're fiercely unapologetic about it!

I also got some interesting reasons why you love and devour crime novels, including this from an Irish reader who told me the Irish are naturally both light and dark: "I read crime because I want to know why we are dark and why crime happens."

Another reader said she believes us half-empty types are there to "give some color, dimension, and depth to our glass is half full pollyanna people!"

One half-full respondent told me she reads crime for "the thrill of the chase" and another because she likes the "happily ever after" that comes with the final denouement.

Many of you read both 'cozy' and "hard core blood and guts mysteries", as one reader described it, while another said she can't read anything too dark or she's up all night (and by the sound of it, she's in good company). 

And I particularly liked this comment from a 'glass is three-quarters full person': "I read crime because I enjoy a puzzle, I enjoy the intrigue and it's good to see the bad guy get caught. I do enjoy humour in my reading so some levity is appreciated."

I hearily agree, which is why I always add a few laughs to every mystery I write. 

Now For the Winner! (Drum roll please…)

This is the fun part (and the hard part for me, because there were lots of names to pop in the hat this time!) This fortnight's winning respondent is: Renee*! If you're the winnng Renee, I'll be in touch via email shortly.

As for the rest of you? A giant THANK YOU for taking the time to share your thoughts, however dark or light. I do read each email that comes in, and I value each and every comment. They inform me as a person and they most definitely inform my writing!

Thanks again, everyone, for taking part and happy (dark or light) reading.

xo Christina

* Full name has been reserved for privacy reasons

Discount E-Book Deal (99c Now!)

This week I'm putting my latest e-book, Do Not Go Gentle, on sale for just 99c, starting from today. It'll be discounted at all good e-stores for two weeks, or just click on the links, below.

DO NOT GO GENTLE is a fun, fast-paced DIY mystery that implores the reader to help solve the crime before the victim is dragged, kicking and screaming, to the light. (She has a dreadful, sinking feeling her beloved 13-year-old son is the culprit and wants to know for sure before she heads off to eternity thinking she spawned a killer!)

This lightly written yet deeply moving whodunnit/coming of age story will be on sale for just two weeks, with the follow-up—Do Not Go Alone— on the stands in August.

COST: 99c  FROM: June 16—June 30

LINKS: @Amazon

@iBooks

@kobo

@nook

@smashwords etc

Yep, You CAN Judge a Book By Its Cover—Your Verdict Is In! + Prize Winner Announced

Photos? Illos? Naked Torsos?

Wow, what a response. Earlier this month, I discussed the various styles of cover design and asked you which you preferred: covers with illustrations, photographs and/or naked torsos?

AND THE COVER-STYLE WINNER IS…

The Ghostwriter Mystery series

Illustrated covers won hands down! Of the 100+ responses I received, 65% agreed that illustrated covers were ideal. 10% preferred photographs, 23% were happy with either/both and just a tiny handful of respondents thought a bare bod' was the best way to go. (Va-va-voom.)

It didn't really matter where you came from—most respondents were from the US, but I had replies from the UK, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and even one from Slovenia—the general consensus was this:

• ILLUSTRATIONS are perfect for cozy mysteries: "They're softer, gentler and feed my imagination more," said one reader. "I like to let my brain run wild!" wrote another. And this little nugget: "It illustrates the lighthearted, more laidback, quick-read nature (of cozies)."
• PHOTOS are more suited to gritty crime and realism: "I like my covers to look more realistic," said one. "Not too cartooney," wrote another, while most agreed: "(Photos) feel more serious but not as much fun to read."
• NAKED TORSOS are taboo. It's "pornographic" or "just plain yuck!" said some, while one reader implored: no "disconcerting" Fabio-style images, please! That one made me laugh. :-)

Many of your views mirrored my own but one comment got my 'leetle grey cells' churning:

"My ultimate favorite cover style is what you have done with the Agatha Christie Book Club covers: photographs, not with people, but with objects that relate to the story and actually enhance the prospective reader's mental images. The perfect blend!"

I hadn't thought of that extra option but, thanks, I heartily agree! I love that style, too (see the aforementioned covers below), and often pour over similar covers, wondering if the objects pictured will unlock the mystery for me.

But enough of all that. Let's get to the exciting bit! Envelope please…

AND THE E-BOOK PRIZE WINNER IS...

Congratulations Andree P. from Canada! You've just scored yourself an e-copy of all six of my Ghostwriter Mystery series. (Woo-hoo!) I'll be in touch with you via email directly. Until then, thanks to EVERYONE who shared their views. It was so lovely to meet you, discover where you're from and hear what makes you reach for a book.

Now I'd like to leave you with perhaps the savviest quote of all:

"I DO judge a book by its cover but it's the content that really matters."

I think we can all agree on that.

Happy reading everyone (regardless of the cover!)

xo Christina

The Agatha Christie Book Club series

PST! While I've got your undivided attention...

A BRIEF WORD ON BOOK REVIEWS: It's not just about the cover and the content—YOU also make a big difference to an author's ability to reach more readers and, therefore, write more books. Readers' reviews really matter, so if you find the time and can manage it, don't ever hesitate to rate and/or review. We appreciate the effort and love to hear your views! :-)

Photos, illos, naked torsos? What's Your Favourite Cover? Tell Me & Win A Prize!

I attended an authors' conference recently where a design expert informed us all that, globally, different nationalities have very different preferences when it comes to what book covers they like and which ones make them run, gagging. 

According to the expert:

• American readers adore illustrated covers while the Aussies won't have a bar of them
• Don't even think about splashing a naked torso on a British cover but if you're selling in Europe, go hell for leather!
• And you may have won every award in the book, but readers just don't give a toss

What do you think about all of that?

I have always known that tastes vary from place to place. Really, it's just common sense, and the reason many products have completely different branding (names, packaging…) in different countries. But I never knew the differences were that stark, and I certainly didn't expect it was a nationality thing.

I thought it was simply a matter of personal preference and would make little difference to sales.

That's why I've decided to run a bit of an experiment with my Ghostwriter Mystery Series. This month I've gone back to the future—to my very first covers which were designed with illustrations (below) and later updated with photographs (see further below). You can check out the original and updated covers here or see the full set of illustrated covers now available exclusively at Amazon.

        
 

Which ones do you prefer? When I posed the question to some of my fellow cozy author/reader friends recently, I was surprised to find that the majority prefered the illustrated covers—even though they are all Australians. When I asked them why, many couldn't really articulate the reasons although some felt it was more about genre than nationality—cozies usually have illustrated covers, after all—while another told me photographs were too life-like and she wanted to create her own images in her head.

That makes sense to me. How about you?

I'd love to hear your thoughts—and give you a chance to win a prize!

QUESTION: Where are you from and which covers do you prefer?

WIN: The full e-book set of my Ghostwriter Mystery Series

Please drop me a line or send me an email and let me know what type of cover you prefer—the illustrated version (above) or the ones with photographs (below)? I'll be placing all the respondents' names into a hat and selecting one winner who will receive a full e-book copy of all six of my GHOSTWRITER MYSTERY series.

Respond to this message or email me now at: christina@calarmer.com
This offer closes at the end of the month, so don't hesitate to get in touch!

Happy (well covered) reading everyone...
xo Christina