#NewRelease from Susie Black - DEATH BY DREIDEL - #CozyMystery
- Aug 8
- 4 min read
Susie Black visits with another #NewRelease - DEATH BY DREIDEL. Susie is a very busy, prolific author! And a funny one. She tells us where she believes she gets her gift for storytelling. Thanks for being here, Susie!
Nana the Storyteller
If there is an inheritable gene for storytelling, mine came from my mother’s mother. My nana should have been a writer. No one could tell a story like her. She was the eldest of six children of a modest immigrant family from Eastern Europe that settled in Boston at the turn of the century.
My great-grandfather was a tailor who managed to clothe, feed, and shelter his children, but there was precious little left over for extravagances like a day at the cinema for one child, let alone for six. Nana had a cousin, Jenny, who played piano at the local silent-movie house, and she was able to get a free pass for relatives. Nana and her next-oldest sibling traded off weeks, going to the serialized show every Saturday afternoon and then coming home to tell the story to all the other kids.
The other kids hated it when it was my great-aunt’s turn, because she gave a short synopsis and called it a day. They were thrilled when it was Nana’s turn. She set up two rows of chairs in the parlor like in the movie house, served popcorn, dimmed the lights, and played background music on the Victrola as she recounted the episode of the serial. Nana would take her time, slowly build up to the cliffhanger, and stop talking right before the finale. Nana would wait until my great-uncle Murray would yell, “Go on, Rae, go on!” before she’d finish telling the story. Talk about pacing and how to build tension to the finale? Nana had it down pat.
I kept Nana’s storytelling skills in mind while writing Death by Sample Size, my debut humorous cozy mystery. Somewhere in the great beyond, Nana is smiling her approval.
Blurb:
Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik attends an industry Hanukkah party to honor
Rapido Swimwear CEO Leni Waxman as the Mount Cedars Hospital Woman of the Year. The guest of honor collapses and dies in the middle of the event. An autopsy confirms that Leni expired as a result of poisoning by coming in contact with a purposely contaminated dreidel. There is no shortage of suspects—Leni had no problem destroying anyone who threatened her top-dog swimwear industry position. When Holly’s business partner is wrongly arrested for Leni’s murder, the irreverent sales exec can’t mind her own beeswax. The wise-cracking snoop sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster and nothing turns out
how Holly thinks it will as she takes on a ruthless killer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
Two spinning whirls of freezing air I’d become a tad too familiar with spun counterclockwise as twin tornadoes swirled down.
Ghosts Marie and Justine LaValle bounced around like a couple of runaway beach balls and did their high-step version of the happy dance, replete with a synchronized wave and an ass-shaking hokey-pokey-style finale.
Once they finished their routine, Marie put her thumb and index finger between her lips and blew out an ear-splitting victory whistle. If she wasn’t already an apparition, her whistle would wake the dead. She raised her arms above her head and squealed, “Praise Heaven above and Hallelujah! Our prayers have finally been answered.”
She skidded her palms across one another. “Ah, say, goodbye and good riddance. It’s about time the damned fool realized the error of his ways and said adios. What took him so long to figure out he had no chance of winning your hand as long as I am around is simply beyond me.” She wagged her index finger at me. “Ah declare, that man is almost as slow on the uptake as you, and hand to God, Ah didn’t think it possible.”
Marie rubbed her hands together. “Well, as Mee-maw always said, the good Lord screwed our heads on lookin’ forward for a reason.” She clapped twice and grinned. “You better hustle your bustle, Missy right fast, because we don’t have a lot of time to make all them arrangements and a proper weddin’ takes some plannin’.”
I jutted my chin. “Hold on a Cincinnati minute, lady. We’re a long way off, if ever, to making wedding plans.”
Marie smiled wickedly. “Listen up, girlie—that’s all well and good. But you'd better understand this: it’s no use you fighting the inevitable. Time isn’t on your side. Justine and I have an eternity to wait around here until you and mah Cajun Boy tie the knot. So, rest assured, we’ll encourage you in our special way to goose the process along…for however long it takes.”
Author Bio:
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
Social Media Links:
Blue Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1/
Thank you so much for the wonderful blog post and the opportunity to introduce my newest release to your followers. Susie.
Thanks for being my guest, Susie!