Welcome to the blog tour of You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet by Juliette Harper! This is the first book in A Study Club Mystery series and it's now available for sale on Amazon and Smashwords for only .99 cents!
This tour runs June 15-26 with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for the full schedule.
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About the Book:
Wanda Jean Milton discovers her husband, local exterminator Hilton Milton, dead on her new shag carpet with an Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest. Beside herself over how she’ll remove the stain, and grief-stricken over Hilton’s demise, Wanda Jean finds herself the prime suspect in the case. But she is also a member of “the” local Study Club, a bastion of independent Texas feminism 1960s style. Club President Clara Wyler has no intention of allowing a member to be a murder suspect during her administration. Aided by her younger sister and County Clerk, Mae Ella Gormley; Sugar Watson, the proprietress of Sugar’s Style and Spray; and Wilma Schneider, Army MASH veteran and local RN, the Club women set out to clear Wanda Jean’s name — never guessing the local dirt they’ll uncover in the process.
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My So-Called Review:
Excerpt:
My So-Called Review:
Since I tend to read a lot of books that fall under the darker side of thrillers and mysteries I like to lighten it up every so often with either a good romance or something quirky and funny. You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet was the perfect choice and an excellent cozy mystery that I devoured in just one sitting!
The story is set in the 60's and centers around a group of Texan women who belong to a Study Club, what do they study? I still have no idea! When one of the members is accused of killing her husband, club president Clara Wyler states that NO member of her study club will be going down for murder as long as she's in charge! The women decide to take matters into their own hands and investigate the local townsfolk and neighbors to determine who really stabbed Wanda Jean's husband with her Old Hickory carving knife. As their list of suspects continues to grow they soon learn that almost everyone in town is hiding some sort of sordid secret!
This book was absolutely hysterical right from page one! I'm not from the south but OMG I totally wish I was after reading this book :) I was so glad I didn't have to go anywhere the day I read this because I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes! Besides being truly funny You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet had several surprisingly good mysteries behind it. In the beginning I thought the outcome of the murder mystery was going to be fairly predictable as I was sure I knew who did it and why. As the story continues you realize there is SO much more going on than what you initially thought and I ended up being truly shocked once everything was revealed.
This is the first book in The Study Club cozy mystery series by Juliette Harper and I already can't wait for the next installment! If you're in the mood for a good old fashioned mystery with some seriously funny characters then this is definitely the book for you! I would absolutely recommend this to anyone and it would make a great Book Club read as well, I'm rating it 5/5 stars!
Sugar Watson took a
long drag on her Camel and critically appraised the height of Clara Wyler’s
black bouffant. “You want me to go a little higher, honey?” she asked,
punctuating the question with a well-developed smoker’s cough. “If I rat it up
real good, I can get you another 2 or 3 inches on top.”
Clara squinted at
herself in the mirror. “I think I’m good, Sugar,” she said. “What with Wanda
Jean finding Hilton dead in the living room, I don’t want to look insincere at
Study Club.”
Sugar leaned in conspiratorially.
“I know we don’t ever throw anybody out of the Study Club, but my Lord, what in
the world are we gonna do if she really did kill him?”
Clara glanced
around to confirm that all the other women in Sugar’s Style and Spray were
safely tucked under the dryers. “Well, she called me herself to assure me that
she didn’t do it,” Clara said. “She owned up to wanting to, but she didn’t do
it.”
“Well, hell,” Sugar
said, “we’ve all thought about killing our husbands. That’s just part of being
married. But nobody’s ever walked in my house and found Slim laying there with
an Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest. What did Wanda Jean say
about finding him?”
“She told me the
first thing she thought about was how hard it was gonna be to get the blood out
of that new shag carpet they put in last month,” Clara said. “You know they
went with the deep pile.”
“I know,” Sugar
said. “I looked at it too when T.J. put the ad in the paper, but my vacuum
cleaner just won’t suck up dirt good enough for that. Is it a light carpet?”
“I didn’t think to
ask her,” Clara said, unclipping the plastic cape around her neck and handing
it to Sugar. “Anyway, she said she just stood there thinking about how you
can’t get blood out of shag carpet. Then it dawned on her maybe she ought to
check him for a pulse.”
“I hope it wasn’t a
light carpet,” Sugar said, rearranging cans of Aqua Net on the counter. “Those
boys from the ambulance service never think to wipe their feet before they go
in to get a body. You should have seen the mess they made when Blake Trinkle
died. They just ruined Maybelline’s carpet. She spent as much getting it
cleaned as she did on the funeral.”
“That’s so
inconsiderate,” Clara agreed. “People just don’t think. Now you’re not gonna be
late this afternoon, are you?”
“Of course not,”
Sugar said. “Flowers knows not to book me on the third Thursday at three. Study
Club day is sacred.”
“Good, I have to go
by the bakery and . . . ”
The look on Sugar’s
face stopped Clara mid-sentence. “Good Lord, Sugar,” she said. “You look like
you swallowed one of your Camels.”
“I think we’re
gonna be one short for Club,” Sugar croaked. “Look.”
Clara glanced out
the front window in time to see Sheriff Lester Harper helping a handcuffed
Wanda Jean Milton out of the backseat of his car. “What is that man thinking!”
she exclaimed. “Parading her in front of God and everybody on the courthouse
square!”
About the author:
Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson. You Can’t Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet is the first installment of Harper’s debut cozy Study Club Mysteries, an hilariously funny look at the often absurd eccentricities of small town life. The second book, to be released in coming months, is called You Can’t Put a Corpse in a Parade.
The droll series, set in the 1960s, is a light-hearted spinoff of Harper’s Lockwood Legacy a nine-book chronicle of the lives of three sisters who inherit a ranch in Central Texas following their father’s suicide. Three of the novels are currently available: Langston’s Daughters, Baxter’s Draw, and Alice’s Portrait. The fourth book, Mandy’s Father, will appear in Summer 2015.
And don’t miss Harper’s first foray into the world of the supernatural, Descendants of the Rose, Book 1 in the Selby Jensen Paranormal Mystery series. The second Selby Jensen book, Lost in Room 636 is also scheduled for a Summer 2015 release.
Pauletti, an Easterner of Italian descent, is an accomplished musician with an eye for art and design. Williamson, a Texan, worked as a journalist and university history instructor before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 2002.
Giveaway:
One (1) winner gets a $50 Amazon Gift Card (INT), one (1) winner gets Langston's Daughters, Baxter's Draw and Alice's Portrait in paperback (US) and one (1) winner gets Descendants of the Rose in paperback (US)
One (1) winner gets a $50 Amazon Gift Card (INT), one (1) winner gets Langston's Daughters, Baxter's Draw and Alice's Portrait in paperback (US) and one (1) winner gets Descendants of the Rose in paperback (US)
Ends June 29th
a Rafflecopter giveaway
This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.
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