June 6th, 2012 → 9:13 pm @ Robin Donovan
Great audience at the Millard Branch!
Last night I had the distinct honor of kicking off the Millard Branch’s Authors Series. Attendees were wonderful and supportive! They asked some excellent questions and gave me some feedback that made it difficult to fit my head through the door as I exited the building! Every “talk” should be so much fun – for me!
I also appreciate being able to trot out an excerpt from the second book in the Donna Leigh Mysteries series, I Didn’t Kill Her, But That May Have Been Short Sighted! It really helped to be able to share my plot and characters with a new audience, and hearing the laughter was music to my ears!
I want to thank all of the wonderful folks at the Millard Branch for being so welcoming and supportive!
I recently had an acquaintance laughingly ask me if I really felt like a “celebrity.” And to his surprise, I was able to respond that there are actually a few people who treat me as though I’m a celebrity. I count the great folks at the Millard Branch and their wonderful audience as some of those few!
May 29th, 2012 → 6:19 pm @ Robin Donovan
Last night I finished writing the second Donna Leigh Mystery: I Didn’t Kill Her, But That May Have Been Short Sighted. In this second novel of the series our menopausal protagonist gets a major shock; a former colleague from the Northeast has moved to Omaha and is telling everyone she and Donna are going into business together. She does all of this without Donna’s knowledge, and then she gets murdered. What’s worse is that when they did work together the murdered woman went out of her way to damage Donna’s career. Enough motive for murder? You decide. The following is an excerpt depicting Donna’s first conversation with the homicide detective in relation to this latest murder:
“This time you brought us our vic from your old stomping ground, eh? Were you worried that things might get a little boring for the old Omaha PD, eh?” Warren continued.
See, she’s got that lingo down too, though I suppose you’d expect that from a police detective, and eh, what was with eh? I guess the good detective had spent some time in Canada. The mind tends to wander when serious trouble appears imminent. As I thought that, I could feel my damn menopausal furnace starting to crank up in preparation for a full on power surge. Menopause has an uncanny ability to smell fear and ensure, by virtue of turning you into a wet dish rag, that you look even worse than you feel! That old ad campaign about “never letting them see you sweat” – HA! And don’t even get me started about bloating, weight gain, sleepless nights and on and on, but I digress.
Straining to regain focus on the issue at hand, the thought crossed my mind that Warren had a right to be concerned about my involvement. I certainly was. I only hoped that this second murder would not cause her to wonder if I were not, ultimately, the cause of all the problems after all. In our last encounter, she’d been surprisingly adept at sifting through the facts and eliminating elements that only circumstantially appeared incriminating. Not once, in the entire investigation, did she jump to ridiculous conclusions like the clownish TV cops always do. Her assumptions were always that I should be treated as a resource, a distinction that met with my utmost approval and gratitude. I’d hate for that to change with this untimely second murder cropping up and ensnaring me, in what appeared to be a far more damning way. No, I wouldn’t blame Warren if she turned on me, but I would deeply regret it.
Look for more excerpts in the months to come!
April 26th, 2012 → 9:36 pm @ Robin Donovan
Is It Still Murder, Even If She Was A Bitch? is a page turner! My initial thought was that it would in fact still be murder (even if she was a bitch) until I met Donna Leigh, the protagonist. A confident, hardworking, menopausal, tell-it-like-it-is kind of gal with those all-too-common hot flashes and sleepless nights, Donna is very easy to relate to from the get-go. The descriptions that Robin Donovan uses are so precise that you instantly understand Donna’s observations about people and situations, and especially about herself.
In addition to being a captivating murder mystery, the story is a great look into Donna Leigh’s character as the reader is welcomed into a mind filled with ideas and thoughts we can all identify with. Her thoughts are peppered with menopausal experiences, from the inconvenience of hot flashes to the familiarity of sleepless nights and the frustration of thinking that all memory lapses are a telltale sign of menopause. She knows who she is, she is a good judge of character, and she’ll make you laugh!
The twists, turns, gossip and dynamic characters lead to a surprising conclusion that will make your jaw drop! I very much enjoyed this quick read and look forward to reading more Donna Leigh mysteries!
-Ellen Dolgen, Author of Shmirshky: the pursuit of hormone happiness ellendolgen.com
April 25th, 2012 → 8:41 pm @ Robin Donovan
The Omni Mystery Book Review site invited me to be a guest blogger for the second week in April http://www.omnimysterynews.com/2012/04/please-welcome-crime-novelist-robin.html. Along with the guest post we held a book giveaway.
Guest Blogger Crime Novelist
Congratulations to our book giveaway winner in Las Vegas, Nevada! Just a few more contests and we should be able to state with certainty that we have readers in every state in the U.S.! Thanks for the support! And thanks to Omni Mystery for the invitation to guest blog.
For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out my guest post, the topic was how we arrived at the title: Is It Still Murder, Even If She Was a Bitch?
If you haven’t heard the story you might find the process interesting – I know I did!
And thanks to all of you who have supported Donna Leigh Mysteries by attending talks/signings/readings, buying the books for yourself or as gifts and a special thanks to those of you who have purchased books for your book clubs! I can’t express my appreciation enough!
Some of my biggest supporters will be featured as characters in Donna Leigh’s next murder case: I Didn’t Kill Her, But That May Have Been Short Sighted!
March 9th, 2012 → 8:20 pm @ Robin Donovan
Just some very nice folks who like to get together and talk about murder mysteries. On February 25th I had the good fortune to spend the evening with the “regulars” at the Mystery Bookstore on 13th Street. I met some interesting and very sweet people who asked very interesting questions, such as “How do you take something as serious as murder and turn it into a comedy?”
Robin L Donovan on Facebook