The Val & Kit Mystery Series

Sunday, June 22, 2014

In the Beginning ...

Here's how we’ve started No. 5 in The Val & Kit Mystery Series (and now only about 200 pages to go!):

When I heard the loud rat-a-tat on my front door, I bolted up in bed at lightning speed. The bright red numerals on my digital clock read 1:05. I grabbed my reading glasses, as if they would offer some protection, and prepared to wait. For what? To get a closer look at any intruder? After a few seconds of silence I sucked in a big gulp of air, the kind doctors instruct you to do just before they shove one end of a cold stethoscope against your skin.

Okay, whoever was knocking had bypassed the super security system in the entrance of my building. But the dead bolt on my front door would keep me safe. If only I had remembered to lock the darn thing. If only I had remembered to plug in my cell phone for recharging, or, even better, had brought it into the bedroom with me.

Rat-a-tat-tat started up again, and my breathing was becoming dangerously shallow. I’d surely pass out before any would-be housebreaker, no matter how courteous, assumed there was no one home and kicked the door in.

When the knocking started a third time, I had a sudden burst of bravery, no doubt brought on by a lack of oxygen to my brain. I jumped out of bed and grabbed the aluminum baseball bat I kept in my closet, the one I’d found discarded next to the dumpster outside my building.

With the bat gripped tightly in both hands and held high over my left shoulder, I crept out of my bedroom and across the twenty or so feet to the front door. I did at least have a peephole in working condition, and stretching up the inch or so necessary to peer through it, I got a good look at my interloper.

Kit. Kit James. My best friend of over forty years. She was staring straight at the peephole, one hand on her hip, the other waving an envelope in my direction. She looked pissed.

“Will you open this door, for crying out loud? I know you’re standing there, Val.”


Saturday, June 14, 2014

The Versatile Blogger Award—and Seven Things About Us



We want to thank Christian Brown for nominating us for the Versatile Blogger Award. In accepting it, we in turn nominate the bloggers listed below, in no particular order, for the VBA, and we'll also share seven things about ourselves. It's nice to know people are reading our blog and are interested in getting to know us better!


And now for SEVEN THINGS ABOUT US you might not know:

1. In our Val & Kit Mystery Series, we begin without a plot. We not only don't know whodunit, we don't know why or how. Talk about character-driven.
2. We met about 40 years ago (yes, we've been friends as long as Val and Kit have, although we started at a slightly older age J) and have been writing partners for about 30 years.
3. Roz relies on Patty to translate her work from English English to American English. Even though Roz has lived in the United States for over forty years, she sometimes lapses (e.g., windscreen instead of windshield).
4. We both consider ourselves directionally dyslexic, but didn't confess this to one another for a couple of decades. No one appreciates—or needs—the GPS more than we do!
5. Even though we take our Skype sessions in the end stages of a book very seriously, there is always a lot of laughing.
6. We lived in the same state only briefly before moving apart and becoming besties via letters (making us more appreciative than most of the written word).
7. Although our first job, always, is to please each other, we have been blessed by many five-star reviews, and nothing feels quite as magical as reading praise from a total stranger.




Sunday, June 1, 2014

Are You Val or Kit?


Your favorite designer is
Valentino
Hanes

The last book you read was
Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason
Chanel: The Vocabulary of Style by Jerome Gautier

Your favorite vegetable is
Turban squash
French fries

Your favorite TV show is
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Antiques Road Show

Your favorite meal is
Massaman curry
Cheerios

Your favorite pastime is
Shopping for clothes
Watching Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

Your favorite sport is
Ice skating
Shopping for clothes

Who would you pick to be stranded with on a desert island?
Kit
George Clooney

We’ll leave you to sort out the reds from the blues.  You know who you are!

Now out, LETHAL PROPERTY, No. 4 in The Val & Kit Mystery Series.