Thursday, July 19, 2018

Remembering Your Book Is About to Be Published: A Guest Post from LAST CALL Author Paula Matter


We welcome Paula Matter, author of the new Last Call (the first book in the Maggie Lewis Mystery Series), to Midnight Ink's blog today! Here she shares some insight into remembering that she has a book coming out.

Last Call, my debut mystery, is going to be released on July 8th. I've been practicing saying those words lately. In the past several months when asked where I'm working, I responded with, "I’m retired. No, wait! I mean, I'm an author now. My first book, Last Call, comes out in July. It's a Maggie Lewis Mystery. She's a VFW bartender who gets framed for the murder of her least favorite customer. I started writing the book after I got fired from my bartending job at the VFW."

I really suck at self-promotion. But I'm getting better. I'm even remembering to tell people that the book is available to pre-order on Amazon and Midnight Ink.

Now that the release date is getting closer (ack!), I'm coming to terms with the fact that I HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT! Sorry for shouting. This whole experience is fresh, so I get a little excited when I remember that it's actually going to happen. Me, an author. I know it must be true because I have an ARC of Last Call sitting right here on my desk. I'm getting reviews from Goodreads, NetGalley, and Kirkus. Fabulous, best-selling, award-winning authors have graciously written blurbs for me. I'm getting invitations from wonderful bloggers to contribute a post. I have bookmarks. I have a contract. I have emails from my agent, editor, publicist. I HAVE A PUBLICIST! Oops, sorry.

So. I guess it's real. I do have a book coming out. Last Call, my debut mystery, is going to be released on July 8th. I hope I remember to breathe. And to tell people it's available.

***

Last Call A bartender at a Florida VFW has to clear her name or she'll be serving time instead of drinks

Bartender Maggie Lewis can't hold her beer, her tongue, or her temper. On a bad day at work she'd love to kill a customer or two. On a very bad day she becomes the primary suspect accused of doing just that.

Suspended from her job after being set up for the murder of Korean war veteran Jack Hoffman, Maggie has no intention of letting herself be framed. And since the police have yet to arrest anybody for the last major crime in town—the murder of Maggie's husband—she's sure they won't try too hard to collar the real culprit. So Maggie must produce enough evidence to clear her name, get her job back, and find the killer before she ends up behind the wrong kind of bars.


Praise for Last Call:

"Matter's debut provides...a heroine who's not only feisty, but...downright funny as well."
Kirkus Reviews


"Fans of Terry Shames, Bill Crider, and Steven F. Havill will want to get to know Maggie."
Booklist

"You will love Paula Matter's delightful debut mystery. Her misfit heroine will win your heart and keep you guessing with her determined efforts to find the truth and clear her name."
—Victoria Thompson, bestselling author of Murder on Union Square


"Last Call is 'Cheers' with bodies, set in North Florida, with Carla tending bar. Smart, funny. You'll want to run a tab."
—Hallie Ephron, New York Times bestselling author of You'll Never Know, Dear


Paula Matter (rhymes with otter) is the author of the Maggie Lewis mysteries, which take place in a small town in North Florida. Paula's short stories have been published in anthologies in the US and Germany. Originally from Miami, Florida, Paula kept moving north until she arrived in north central Pennsylvania, where she lives with her family.

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