My new book, Dead Man at High Tea

Dead Man at High Tea,  By Mystery Writer, Liz LaMac     

****Hi, this is Liz LaMac, I am writing to tell you about my new book. The title is Dead Man at High Tea. It is a mystery involving the finding of a dead body in the stately Victorian mansion and home of Lucy Conley on the morning of one of her fancy, high society gatherings which she calls "High Tea". The body comes up missing several times, and Lucy, along with some of her other friends, battle against time to solve the case before one of them is arrested for the crime.

Dead Man at High Tea is my latest book. It is on Kindle and you can order a copy from Amazon.  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GSGVQZ8. Thanks for reading this, and please go take a look on Kindle. Liz LaMac

 You can order Dead Man at High Tea from my  Ebay store and see all the other books by Liz and more:  
  http://stores.ebay.com/Lady-Lizs-Victorian-boutique

A little bit more about the new book: Lucy Conley, who is a columnist for a women’s magazine, High Tea and Garden Parties is giving a high tea for 75 prominent women, in Virginia, including the Governor’s wife. It is just minutes before time for the guest to arrive when Lucy discovers a dead man in the music room. There isn’t time for her to involve the sheriff, so to save the tea and not disappoint the women; Lucy tries to hide the dead man in the armoire.  But she can’t get one of his legs to go in. The door bell is ringing. She locks the music room doors and tries to keep calm as she goes on, as planned, with the High Tea.  But during the tea, Leroy the butler finds the body and not wanting to spoil Lucy’s special day; he drags the dead man into the hall closet. However when the handsome High Sheriff arrives the body is gone. This mystery has some very serious moments alongside the humor that is always there, when Liz writes. 
      Lucy’s two best friends, Mary Lou and Inez arrive to help Lucy with the High Tea and soon become aware that something is wrong. Lucy is nervous and shaky. Lucy doesn’t tell them about the dead man until after the tea is over and the quests are all gone. They call Sheriff McKown and when he arrives he becomes very upset when he doesn’t find a dead man in the armoire or a body in the hall closet.

      He said it was hard to make a murder case without a body. But it soon becomes apparent to the Sheriff, that there actually had been a dead man in the armoire and in the hall closet. And three different people confess to killing the man. There was still no body. And the three ladies seem to be targets when they try to help find the killer.

      Mary Lou and Inez stay at Lucy’s house to help protect her; after a note leads the Sheriff to believe the dead man knew Lucy many years ago and was holding a grudge against her and was in her house to kill her. Afraid she was still in danger the Sheriff assigned a deputy to stay with them. Nellie, the cook became a prime suspect when she disappeared. However, her secret life was discovered and she was forced to relive some of her heart-breaking tragedies that took place during the Korean War.   

      Then the story takes a bizarre twist when a body is found in a freezer in a nearby town, then disappears again before it can be identified. Lorie, a little whisky guzzling white headed lady gets into the picture and then funny things begin to happen. The sheriff doesn’t know quite when to believe her. But, when the tables turn and darling Lucy becomes the prime suspect, the sheriff is saddened. Somewhere during his investigation he became aware of the fact that he was paying more attention to Lucy, than he was to solving the crime. Some things he doesn’t know; does Lucy feel the same about him? And did Lucy kill the dead man? Or did little giggly Mary Lou kill him.

       As Nellie cooks and watches every move the rest of them make; she is convinced the killer is a visitor and not one of the people that actually live at the Conley House. However, every suspect has a different theory. And the list of suspects includes the 75 prominent lades that came to High Tea. Leroy leans toward the baker who did confess. But until they have a body and the autopsy comes back no one will even know what killed the dead man; let alone know who killed him. At the finale of Dead Man at High Tea, the reality of who actually killed the dead man is unbelievable.

I took A Different Path

Many, many times in life things don't work out the way we plan. I never let it throw me. I don't give it another thought. As soon as I realize something is not working. I stop. Change my plans and go on. I don’t go down the wrong road too far. I take a different path, and that is just what I had to do.

I had my own e-Bay store. It was a razzle dazzle pink store. However, something was wrong. I wasn’t making enough money for what I had to spend for the store.  I called eBay for help. The lady that answered was very helpful. She said I had opened my store too soon. That I should have 75 – 100 items to sell before opening a store. She proceeded to help me close the store. Now I am just selling online through eBay.  

Being a ventriloquist most of my life and living with dummies and magic has warped my outlook on life. I sort of live in my own little fantasy world. For example: If I don’t have rhinestones on my clothes, I don’t feel like I am dressed to go out.  I try to keep sad or bad stuff out of my life. I rarely watch the news. I don’t send out my manuscripts. I don’t know how to do that. So for that reason I have had very few rejection slips. Hahaha. I just write my stories or collect the information for a book and then print it and sell it. So please don’t do as I do. Do what the people at WVWriters tell you to do. Bye. Liz

Hi, I am back and I wanted to tell you that I was looking for a place to sell my books and I decided to try eBay. I created an eBay store online.  I believe the letter that I include in each order explains it all. So I am printing it here. It has a picture, however for some unknown reason I am unable to get it on here. I will try that latter.

                                                                                              

                                                          my eBay store

                                    Books to Baubles and Antiques  

                                                             Maintained by Ladyrazzledazzle

       Let me introduce myself as one of the Rowdy Writers.  I am Liz LaMac. I have been writing for many years and I have published work in many, many magazines and newspapers.  I wrote a syndicated newspaper column for children called Frogs and Spices.  I hosted a syndicated radio show titled, Liz LaMac's Roving Studio.  I produced and hosted live Country Music Shows, The Liz LaMac Show.  I wrote the joke book for Winn Miller’s Mopkins,  and I have written jokes, show scripts and songs for my own syndicated television show, King Joe's Palace, that delighted children in this country and other countries as it was on satellite for several years..

     I still have people coming up to me and asking, "Are you the Lady Liz that I watched on television when I was a kid?"  My best story however happened recently when a young man walked into an Antique Store, saw me, and voiced his astonishment.  He told me that one of the silly songs my dummy Rag Mop sang was what got him through a very rough and scary situation while on duty in Iraq.  He said he kept singing the little silly song and doing the "Rag Mop Dance" to calm his nerves and keep him sane while being completely terrified under enemy fire.
 
     We all need ‘bread and butter money’ from time to time and mine comes from my 32 page "peg board" books. I have written over 80 of them on every subject from out-houses to fresh butter recipes. I am having so much fun selling these little books on my eBay store, Books to Baubles and Antiques. And I am adding the finish torches to one now on High Tea. Watch for it and my other books that will be for sale in a little while. And watch for all the exciting items to come.

I appreciate you stopping and shopping in my store.

Thank you and please stop again.

Liz  LaMac (Ladyrazzledazzle)

I Love My Ironing Board

I Love My Ironing Board
By Liz LaMac

Most of my life, l have lived in large houses. When I was five years old we moved from Parkersburg, West Virginia to Spencer, West Virginia. We didn’t have a bath room or an out-house where we lived in Parkersburg, but we had a big house. In Spencer we lived in a ten room house. After I was married and we had children of our own, we raised them, part of the time, in parsonages, but the place they called home was our 23 room mansion in Huttonsville, West Virginia. We named our home, the Hutton House, and it is in the National Registry of Historical Homes. Of course there have been a few small spaces in the course of time.
Later, because of our involvement in Country Music and entertainment, we moved to Nashville, TN. We spent many happy years in Nashville and when my husband became ill, we moved back to West Virginia. We bought his Mother’s 100 year old home. Together we turned it into the Vintage House Bed and Breakfast. We didn’t get to enjoy the house very long. His cancer worsened. And soon after that I was living at Warm Hearth villages alone.
What I am trying to say here is this: I am used to living in homes with plenty of room. I have always had a laundry room or a place in the basement set up to wash and iron the clothes. I love to leave the ironing board up. I love to pick out something to wear and run in and press it.
When I moved to Warm Hearth that all changed. There was no place for an ironing board. I tried leaving it up in the small kitchen. That didn’t work. I bought one of those silly little ironing boards that hang on the back of the door, and let down for you to iron. No good. Something had to be done. I have even been guilty of folding and putting away table napkins without ironing them. I have also worn jeans and tops out in public ‘not ironed.’

Then last week my daughter Sheree bought me a book about prettying up your home, and arranging it to suit your own needs. Not having a real house anymore – nothing in the book applied to me. But I kept leafing through it. I saw an ironing board sitting in a hall. That picture stuck in my mind. I don’t know why. I don’t have a hall that big.
The other night I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the book, the picture of the ironing board in the hall and the statement – make your home work for you. So here I was wide awake at three o’clock in the morning. I was thinking, I know this apartment is no bigger that a postage stamp, but I want a place to leave up my ironing board set up. So in my mind I went over every inch of the apartment, trying to find a place. There wasn’t any.
Wait! I said to myself, Wait a minute! Maybe, just maybe, I have a spot for the ironing board. I sat up in bed. What if, yes, just what if the storage closet is big enough for the ironing board? If it is, then it will solve two of my problems. I could leave my ironing board set up and I would have a place for my linens. I jumped out of bed and ran to get the measuring tape. First, I measured the ironing board. Then I ran to the storage closet and measured the length of it. It was a perfect fit. There was a slight problem. The storage closet was packed. And besides that, there was a clothes rod close to the door, and when you opened the door the coats were right in your face. You had to part them and squeezed through to get anything out of the closet.
I wanted a place to iron more that I wanted a place to store stuff. I was going to give it a try. Soon as morning came I went down to the second floor and asked Arnold Meadows if he could take the clothes rod, from the front of the closet, and put it down under the shelves at the back of the closet. Arnold said he could move it and he did just that. He moved the rod to the back of the closet and under the shelves. Now the rod could be used to hang a few clothes on as I ironed them. Then I would put them away.
All the coats were still piled upon my bed. For now, I had to leave them there. I started taking the other things out of the storage closet. I threw away stuff I didn’t need and I gave away many things. It was slow going. I had to sleep on the couch for three nights. But it paid off. Things started going into place. I took all the table clothes, table napkins and dollies out of the large buffet drawers and put them in the ironing room on the shelves. I took the summer clothes that were hanging in the bedroom closet, and I folded them and placed them in the buffet drawers. Now there was room to hang up some of the jackets.
Items moved from one spot to another. The free standing shelves in the storage closet were placed in the bath room. The bathroom shelve went beside my desk in the bedroom. Now they held notebooks and paper. Soon it all started felling in place.
And suddenly, wham- the ironing board went up. And you won’t believe it until you see it: in my tiny apartment I have a room just for linens and for ironing. My ironing board stays up all the time. I can walk in and iron any time I feel like it. Then walk out and close the door. I may be prejudiced, but I think I have the prettiest ironing room in the Warm Hearth Village apartments. However that may be, I love my ironing board.

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Some of the First Times in my Writing Career

Some of the ‘First Times’ in my Writing Career
By Liz laMac

Today is Tuesday, October 19, 2010. It is the night that our Writers Group meets in the Karr Activity Center in Warm Hearth Village, Blacksburg, Virginia.
This is a very special Writers Group meeting. It will be the first time some of the members have ever seen their writing printed in a book. Some of the members will be published for the first time. No longer are they amateur writers. Everyone is now a published author. And since the books are being sold and money is being exchanged, that makes everyone who has a story in the book, Stories from the Hearth, a professional writer. In spite of the fact that our part of the sales goes to the Warm Hearth foundation with our permission, we are all, now, professional writers. Therefore we should be very proud and stand a little taller.
And for some of the members, it will be the first time anyone has said to them, “Would you sign my book, please?” That is a good feeling. I have signed hundreds of books, but it is still gives me a thrill every time I am asked to sing one of my books. I love it. I have had many wonderful first times in my writing career. Of course in show business these times are too numerous to mention . . . with all the television shows, the live shows, the radio shows, and then there was the mingling with the stars-all that was great. And I wouldn’t forget my first dummy and the ventriloquist conventions. But now I am thinking only of my writing career.
One first time that I will never forget was the first time I walked into a Nolan’s Book Store and saw a row of my books on the shelf, and then I saw the long table set with flowers and with stacks of my books ready for me to sign. And the people were waiting for me and, and my dummy, Little King Joe. It was my first book signing. And it was the first stop on my first book signing tour. I’ll never forget it.
Then there was the first time I saw one of my books on a library shelf and watched as a young boy checked it out. That was inspiring. It gave me a burning desire to write more and more.
But, tonight is another first time, for me. It is an exciting time and a time to be remembered. It is the first time I have had any of my stories published in a book along with a group of associate writers and friends. I have had several books published, and I have had stories printed in newspapers, magazines, and various trade supplements, but never in book form along with other writer’s stories. And for that reason, I am very humbled, as I ask each of you that have a story printed in the book, Stories from the Hearth: “Would you please sign this book for me?”