Peg Herring, Mystery Author

Winner of Yesterday's books: Victoria K. 3 Sleuths, 2 Dogs, 1 Murder Want 2 free copies of this book? Respond here or on Peg’s News on Facebook to be entered in the daily drawing. Book #1 of the Sleuth Sisters Series by Maggie Pill (AKA Peg) Setting: Allport, MI, a town seems a lot like a blend of Alpena and Rogers City When middle-aged sisters Faye and Barb start a detective agency in their small town, most people think it’s a joke. Only Baby Sister Retta wants to associate with them, and since she tends to be bossy and manipulative, she’s the one person they don’t want around.

The Dead Detective Agency Want 2 free copies of this book? Respond here or on Peg’s News on Facebook to be entered in the daily drawing. Book #1 of the Dead Detective series Setting: Grand Rapids, MI Tori can hardly believe it when she wakes up dead. The Afterlife is nice, but she really wants to know why someone would murder the secretary at an investments firm. The solution to her problem? Get a dead detective and launch an investigation. NOTE: This is one of the two that will be re-released this summer with a different cover. Same book, new edition, so watch the titles.

Tired of what, you might ask? (Even if you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you.) I'm tired of "must-read" books that depress the heck out of me. Families that are breaking apart. Teenagers who are going through hell. People in crisis who don't deal with it well. I know books have to have such characters to create tension, but in many recent bestsellers these are the protagonists; the people I'm supposed to keep reading on for. Last night I started one of the current must-reads. It's really well-written, and the hook was excellent. I read on, chapter after chapter. Things got worse for the main character, and as a result, he got worse, acting out, making his family suffer, cutting ties with those who might have helped him get through it. As page after page of humiliation and despair crawled by, I began to feel that I was wallowing in misery, the main character's and that of everyone around him. Now, I worked with teenagers for decades, and I

Taking the bull by the horns is dangerous, but I had to. The third of the Dead Detective series languished at my publishers for over a year. It had been edited, but that was as far as it got: no cover, no release date. So I asked for the rights back. Luckily they were great about it, and now the book can move on with a cover from Phillips Covers and formatting from Greenerside Digital. I took a guess at a release date and made it April 20. I'm guessing the e-book will come earlier than that, since that's a simpler process. The print copies might come later, since there's the whole "mail-me-a-copy-of-what-it's-going-to-look-like" thing. If there's something wrong, that would delay the release. Anyway, it's up for pre-order on Kindle right now, and I'll be sure to let everyone know when everything is in place. Here's the teaser: Dead Detective Seamus Hanrahan is bored on the ship that takes the dead from one phase to the next. It's

Today's writer is supposed to know computer stuff. If I run an ad, they'll ask for photos with so many DPIs. It's expected that I will know how to convert the ones I have into the size they want. When I send a manuscript to someone, it has to be in a certain format: PDF for some, .mobi for others, etc. Again, it's expected I'll know how to provide those files. My websites/blogs have domains, at least in theory. I have no idea how to control them or even who's in charge of them. So while I'm a writer, toiling away to create stories people will want to read, I had to learn the basics of computer use beyond word processing, and now I have to keep up with new developments as things change. IT I'm not. Things go wrong, and when they do, I'm likely to be helpless to correct them. What would be great is to have a person who'll show up at my house at a moment's notice and solve the problem I'm having right then. I don't want to haul my co

My home town in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula is so tiny it's easy to ignore it as you drive through--if you even do that. Since it's not on the road to anywhere important, most people never see it as they whiz by on I-75, miles away. Residents often field questions like, "Where's your Wal-Mart?" or "Why can't I find your McDonalds?" Answer: There isn't one. I don't even live in the "city." Our home is a few miles out, on a side road that has no name, only a number. The house is surrounded on three sides by trees, mostly big maples, that screen us from wind and sun except what comes from the south. People who don't know ask, "What do you DO up here?" They comment on living so far from cultural events, hospitals, and shopping. I've listed some things I do, though others could name more activities, maybe better ones to illustrate why we live in our chosen location. I enjoy the land. Any time of ye

In the minds of many, a book tour is a glamorous thing, but like most everything else, reality is more prosaic than poetic. There are authors who draw crowds of adoring fans, like Rick Castle always does on the TV show. (BTW, I wish I had a quarter for every time someone asked me if I think Nathan Fillion really writes those books. PulEEZE!) Most of us don't draw crowds; in fact, we're happy for every person that shows up. A speaker at Sleuthfest, the conference I attended in Florida last week, described arriving at a bookstore to find every audience chair filled, only to have them empty when it was announced over the loudspeaker that his presentation was about to start. He learned the homeless of the area were allowed to come in out of the cold and sit in the chairs, but they knew they had to leave when his talk began. Not only did he have an audience of only one person, he was responsible for the rest being tossed out into the cold! People also imagine that publishers arr