Wined and Died Cover

Cricket McRae

Something Borrowed, Something Bleu, my fourth Home Crafting Mystery, hit the shelves last July. I recently noticed that the fifth in the series, Wined and Died, is already available for pre-order on Amazon. But there wasn’t an image up until this week.

Here’s the final cover:

I have our own Keith Raffel to thank for his off-the-cuff title suggestion. Once I began using Wined and Died as a working title, it stuck. Before, I’d been calling the book A Drink Before Dying.

Meh.

So thanks, Keith! And expect another thank you in the acknowledgements come publication.

The “died” in the title is pretty self-explanatory, but the “wine” isn’t your usual stomped grape variety. It’s honey wine, commonly known as mead. The blue bottle is from a meadery in Boulder, Colorado. I had to do a bit of research, right? And so did Lisa Novak, my fabulous cover designer. So I had them send her a bottle. Full, of course.

I love the logo she created for the fictional Grendel Meadery in the book. The rough-hewn stone monster is perfect. So is the pewter skull wine charm. Subtle and, well, charming.

This book doesn’t start with a death – it starts with a death threat. Newlyweds Sophie Mae and Barr Ambrose are acting as surrogate parents to eleven-year-old Erin while her mother is away. When Erin stumbles into a dead psychologist’s notes regarding a homicidal client, Sophie Mae races to discover the identity of the potential killer. Clues lead her to the Grendel Meadery, a traditional honey winery operated by the tight-knit Swenson clan. Everyone has a secret, and soon Sophie Mae is up to her neck in deadly herbs and drug dealers while trying to juggle a handsome lothario, her responsibilities as a temporary parent, a major contract for her soap making business, and a strangely distant husband.

Despite the pre-order status of Wined and Died, it won’t be released until July 11, 2011. That’s eight months away, for Pete’s sake. So I’ll hush up about it for a while. Promise.

In the meantime, though, early orders usually show up in your mailbox a few weeks before the official release date. I’m just sayin’. ;)