One of this month’s featured authors is Laura Benedict
I was introduced to Laura Benedict’s books through the Familiar Legacy Series. The combination of mystery, romance and the point of view of the cat Trouble make these books, so fun to read.
Laura Benedict has written one Trouble books and a short. She adds a bit of psychological thrill to the mystery. Laura also has some gothic fiction, ghost thrillers, psychological thrillers types of books. She likes to read on the dark side so to speak.
So, let’s get to know her better.
Personal
Tell us a little about yourself? Perhaps something not many people know?
My ADD went undiagnosed until I was in my early forties. I collect hand-carved shore birds, and ceramic vases from the 1930s. I killed a young copperhead snake in my bathroom with a hammer.
What inspired you to start writing?
I love stories, and was looking for a new challenge. Writing fiction is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Who is your favorite author?
Louise Penny or Cormac McCarthy. Whichever would win at arm wrestling.
What is the first book that made you cry?
Black Beauty. I’ve never read it a second time.
What book are you currently reading?
Good Girls Lie, by J.T. Ellison
If you had a superpower, what would it be?
To know when someone is lying.
Where is one place you want to visit that you haven’t been before (real or imaginary)?
Scotland
If you looked in your refrigerator right now, what would you find?
12 different kinds of cheese
Are you a better baker or cook or take out connoisseur?
I bake and cook. Takeout is tough because we live in the country, anyway.
Which do you prefer?
Tea or coffee: Tea in the morning, coffee in the afternoon
Hot or cold: Both
Movie or book: Audiobook
Coke or Pepsi: Iced tea
Writing/Books
What do you love most about your writing process?
Having written
Do you like music or silence?
I prefer to write in silence
Do you have goals of certain # of words a week or when inspiration strikes?
Monthly goals
Do your characters seem to hijack the story or do you feel like you have the reigns of the story?
The story has control of itself. Sometimes it lets me make suggestions.
What is your writing Kryptonite?
Internet rabbit holes
Is anything in your book based on real-life experiences or purely all imagination?
The Stranger Inside came out of nightmares about people invading my house.
If you could spend time with a character from your books whom would it be? And what would you do during that day?
Kiku, from The Abandoned Heart, so she could tell me all about her life in Japan.
What genres do you write?
Suspense, mystery, supernatural thriller, cozy, straight crime, and short stories of all kinds.
What project are you working on now?
A novel about a kidnapping.
Do you have any other books coming out this year?
A short story called This Strange Bargain, in the anthology At Home in the Dark, by Lawrence Block in April 2019.
To learn more about Laura and her books:
Familiar Legacy book by Laura Benedict
Small Town Trouble by Laura Benedict
Familiar Legacy #5
Publication Date: January 8, 2018
Genre: Mystery and Romance
SUMMER SECRETS…KIDNAPPING AND MURDER. Erin Walsh arrives home to tiny New Belford, Kentucky from college only to clash with her young stepmother, Shelby Rae. When Shelby Rae is kidnapped and a dear friend of the family is murdered, Erin discovers that both victims had secrets connected to the violent death of her mother seven years earlier. In a small town the pool of suspects is limited, but it also means the danger to Erin’s own life is deathly close.
Noah Daly, an old high school friend, is the son of the man everyone blames for the violent death of Erin’s mother. But he’s also the one person Erin feels she can trust to help her find Shelby Rae’s kidnapper and her friend’s murderer. Or is her sudden attraction to him blinding her to his true nature?
Enter Trouble, the wise and wily black cat detective. His paws have barely landed in the bluegrass when he realizes Erin is about to put herself in danger. Can he lead Erin to the truth before she becomes a victim herself?
Other books by Laura Benedict
The Stranger Inside
Publication Date: February 5, 2019
Genre: Women’s Psychological Fiction, Sisters Fiction, Psychological Fiction
What if you came home to find a stranger living inside your house? An “oustanding, ever-twisting, surprise-filled” psychological drama (Publishers Weekly), in the tradition of Shari Lapena and Liane Moriarty, from Edgar- and Thriller Award-nominated author Laura Benedict.There’s a stranger living in Kimber Hannon’s house. He tells the police that he has every right to be there, and he has the paperwork to prove it. But Kimber definitely didn’t invite this man to move in. He tells her that he knows something about her, and he wants everyone else to know it too.“I was there. I saw what you did.”These words reveal a connection to Kimber’s distant past, and dark secrets she’d long ago left buried. This trespasser isn’t after anything as simple as her money or her charming Craftsman bungalow. He wants to move into her carefully orchestrated life–and destroy it.
The Abandoned Heart: A Bliss House Novel
Publication Date: October 11, 2016
Genre: Historical Thrillers, Gothic Fiction, Ghost Thrillers
Three women. A cursed house. Generations of lives at stake. The third novel in the acclaimed Bliss House series reveals the secret that started it all.
There is no bliss to be found in Bliss House.
In Old Gate, Virginia, stands a grand house built by Randolph Bliss, a charming New York carpetbagger who, in 1878, shook off dire warnings to build his home elsewhere. For the ground beneath Bliss House is tainted with the kind of tragedy that curses generations, seeping through the foundation and sowing madness in its wake. His first and second wives, and his young Japanese mistress, Kiku, bear witness to Randolph’s growing insanity with stories of his cruel manipulations and their desperate struggles to find happiness for themselves and their children.Their desire to live and love and even take revenge also fills the house, triumphing even over death. Spanning half a century, The Abandoned Heart is the prequel to Charlotte’s Story and Bliss House, forming a trilogy of southern Gothic novels in which one haunted house begets haunted lives that echo over centuries. A haunting so powerful that even Bliss House’s destruction cannot kill it.
Charlotte’s Story: A Bliss House Novel
Publication Date: October 8, 2015
Genre: Historical Thrillers, Gothic Fiction, Ghost Thrillers
Step back into Bliss House, the yellow-brick Virginia mansion with a disreputable, dangerous past, that even the sheen of 1950’s domesticity cannot hide…
The fall of 1957 in southern Virginia was a seemingly idyllic, even prosperous time. A young housewife, Charlotte Bliss, lives with her husband, Hasbrouck Preston “Press” Bliss, and their two young children, Eva Grace and Michael, in the gorgeous Bliss family home. On the surface, theirs seems a calm, picturesque life, but soon tragedy befalls them: four tragic deaths, with apparently simple explanations.
But nothing is simple if Bliss House is involved. How far will Charlotte go to discover the truth? And how far will she get without knowing who her real enemy is? Though Bliss House may promise to give its inhabitants what they want, it never gives them exactly what they expect.
Bliss House
Publication Date: June 8, 2014
Genre: Historical Thrillers, Gothic Fiction, Ghost Thrillers
Death never did come quietly for Bliss House . . . and now a mother and daughter have become entwined in the secrets hidden within its walls.
Amidst the lush farmland and orchards in Old Gate, Virginia, stands the magnificent Bliss House. Built in 1878 as a country retreat, Bliss House is impressive, historic, and inexplicably mysterious. Decades of strange occurrences, disappearances and deaths have plagued the house, yet it remains vibrant. And very much alive.
Rainey Bliss Adams desperately needed a new start when she and her daughter Ariel relocated from St. Louis to Old Gate and settled into the house where the Bliss family had lived for over a century. Rainey’s husband had been killed in a freak explosion that left her 14 year-old daughter Ariel scarred and disfigured.
At the grand housewarming party, Bliss House begins to reveal itself again. Ariel sees haunting visions: the ghost of her father, and the ghost of a woman being pushed to her death off of an upper floor balcony, beneath an exquisite dome of painted stars. And then there is a death the night of the party. Who is the murderer in the midst of this small town? And who killed the woman in Ariel’s visions? But Bliss House is loath to reveal its secrets, as are the good folks of Old Gate.
Enter here to Win:
Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoy learning more about Laura Benedict and her books.
Don’t forget to enter both the above giveaway for (1) set signed copies of The Stranger Inside and Small Town Trouble by Laura Benedict and (3) Kindle Editions of A Box of Trouble.
And look for my reviews of the Familiar Legacy Series throughout the month.
#MarchOfTrouble
Until the next time,
Happy Reading!
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