Print Length: 252 pages
Publication Date: June 15, 2020
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
Murder Ahoy!
Famous crime writer Bella Tyson is hired to
co-host a Murder Mystery cruise, on a luxury liner sailing from Southampton to
New York. She’s expecting an easy ride; fun and games, surrounded by amateur
sleuths and fans of her books, all the while staying in a deluxe cabin and
enjoying the spa and the amazing restaurants on board, culminating in a visit
to one of her favourite cities in the world - the Big Apple.
She’s NOT expecting to be stuck on a boat in
the middle of the Atlantic with her two least favourite people in the world,
her hot but unfaithful bastard ex-husband Joel Quigley and fellow crime writer,
bitch goddess and Twitter frenemy, Louise Meyers. And when real live dead
bodies start turning up - as well as fake not-really-dead bodies - Bella’s dreams
of being pampered on the high seas turn sour.
Accused of a murder she would have liked to
commit but didn’t, and helped (or hindered) by a gang of unlikely detectives,
can Bella find out who the real murderer is before the ship reaches its
destination and New York’s finest drag her off?
THOUGHTS/REVIEW
Purchase Links - mybook.to/Ahoy
Author Bio – Fiona Leitch is a
writer with a chequered past. She's written for football and motoring
magazines, DJ'ed at illegal raves and is a stalwart of the low budget TV
commercial, even appearing as the Australasian face of a cleaning product
called 'Sod Off'. After living in London and Cornwall she's finally settled in
sunny New Zealand, where she enjoys scaring her cats by trying out dialogue on
them. She spends her days dreaming of retiring to a crumbling Venetian palazzo,
walking on the windswept beaches of West Auckland, and writing funny, flawed
but awesome female characters. Her debut novel and first in the Bella Tyson
series, ‘Dead in Venice’, was published by Audible as one of their Crime Grant
finalists. Fiona is represented by Lina Langlee at the North Literary Agency.
Social Media Links – https://twitter.com/fkleitch www.fionaleitch.com https://www.pinterest.nz/fionakleitch/
EXTRACT FROM ‘MURDER AHOY!’
Crime writer Bella Tyson has been invited to help host
a murder mystery cruise on a swanky liner, during a crossing between
Southampton and New York. She’s looking forward to meeting up with her co-hosts
and old friends, fellow crime writers Peter James and Mark Billingham. But
they’ve both dropped out and, to her horror, been replaced at the last minute
by her nemesis and Twitter frenemy, Louise Meyers, and this man - her bastard
unfaithful ex-husband, Joel Quigley…
If you’re a woman, you’ll know The Look. It’s the one
that turns your knees to jelly and involuntarily loosens your knicker elastic,
the one that starts a fire in your nether regions and travels all the way up to
your cheeks (the facial ones). Not all men have The Look - Will has A Look,
which I love, but it’s not the same thing. The Look comes in different
variations - it can be a knowing smile, a twinkle in the eye, even an arrogant,
slightly disdainful sneer (Joel’s Look was definitely closest to the latter).
But the one thing that all Looks have in common is that the only men who really
have them are the ones who have already broken your heart at least once.
So
there stood my bastard unfaithful ex-husband, the one who had already broken my
heart several times, giving me The Look. And I’m ashamed to admit that for one
moment, it worked. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to smack him so hard in the mouth
that his teeth landed in someone’s drink on the other side of the room, or rip
his shirt off and lick him like a testosterone-flavoured lollipop.
“Are
you alright?” said Will next to me, and I flushed with shame this time rather
than lust. I was disgusted with myself for giving into carnal thoughts of Joel
for even one second when my wonderful, loving and sexy new husband stood beside
me.
“Absolutely
fine,” I said, not believing quite how calm I sounded.
“You’d
better be, because he’s coming over,” said Will, looking worried. I squeezed
his hand and smiled at him, then grabbed another drink off a passing waiter and
downed half of it in one go.
“Bella!”
I looked up and there he was, the big beautiful bastard… I tried not to
remember the first time we met, when we’d ended up having a drunken shag in his
trashy hotel room the night he’d beaten me to a Smoking Gun crime writer’s
award. And then I burped, because I’d drunk my glass of bubbly too fast.
He
leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. “You look great, the extra weight suits
you.” And just like that I was cured. He was still an absolute wanker. I looked
around; our messy and acrimonious divorce was common knowledge, of course, and
had filled a few column inches at the time as news of his numerous infidelities
and my subsequent withdrawal from writing (and life) had spread. Sure enough,
the passengers around us were looking over, watching to see how we would react
to each other. Let’s give them something to watch, I thought.
“Oh
my god!” I cried. “I’m surprised to see you looking so well. They treated the
syphilis, then? Did they manage to save your penis?” Will guffawed loudly
before clapping a hand over his mouth, while Joel’s wide smile faltered for a
moment and he looked around to see who had heard before he could stop himself.
I looked penitent. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.” I turned to the watching
crowd. “It’s a sore point,” I explained to them.
He
was silent for a second, then forced a loud, hearty and unconvincing laugh. “Still
the same old Bella,” he said, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His gaze
flickered over to Will, who was still standing patiently next to me, grinning.
Will wiped the smile off his face abruptly and put his hand out to shake.
“I’m
Will. You must be Joel?” he said, in a friendly, man-to-man tone. “Bella’s told
me so much about you.”
Joel’s
lip curled slightly as he looked back at me. “I bet she has…”
“Yes,”
said Will. “I thought she was joking, though.” He looked Joel up and down, then
held his arm out to me. “I believe they’re about to announce dinner. Shall we?”
“I’d
be delighted,” I said, smiling at him. God, he was just The Best. Forget The
Look, what every woman really needs is a man who sticks up for her,
makes her laugh and buys her sanitary products without complaining. I took his
arm and we headed for the door.
“You
are so getting lucky tonight,” I murmured to him.
“Was
there ever any doubt of that?” he asked, smiling, and I had to admit there
wasn’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment