An Intimate Murder NBTM Tour! (+$50 Amazon GC Giveaway!)

Title: An Intimate Murder

Author: Stacey Verdick Case

Series: Catherine O'Brien #3

Pages:  288

Date Published: October 7th, 2014

Publisher: Before the Falls Books

Format: eBook

Genre: Contemporary Mystery

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours

Synopsis:

A Catherine O'Brien Mystery: When Jonathan and Susan Luther are murdered in their home, St. Paul homicide detective Catherine O'Brien and her partner Louise discover this isn't the first time the Luther family has been visited by tragedy. Is it a case of bad family luck or is there something more?

~It's a Human Thing~

There was once a comment made during the tour for A Grand Murder by a commenter from the UK in which she said that US author’s characters always seem to have marital problems. This surprised me since I don’t think Catherine and her husband Gavin have marital problems.

On the contrary, I think their relationship is exceptionally supportive of one another. Their relationship is playful, fun, and sexy. There’s never been any doubt in my mind that these two are in love and 100% committed to one another.

The conflicts that ruffle the two of them come from Gavin’s desire to protect her from getting hurt in a dangerous job.

Most of the conflict for Catherine is with herself and her own feelings. Catherine loves her job, and her husband, and struggles to balance the two.

This type of conflict feels universal to me (not just a problem for those of us in the USA). And I don’t believe the conflict is just female-centric. I believe men struggle just as hard with the conflict between family and work. At least I know my husband and I both struggle to maintain a balance and on most days fail miserably.

The story lines between these two, as a couple is more about how Catherine and Gavin come to terms with their struggles. The reader gets to experience Gavin and how he reconciles his desire to protect his wife with her inherently dangerous job.  The reader also gets to feel for Catherine as she struggles to  balance her desire to see Gavin happy without sacrificing what she’s worked so hard to achieve.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

I bet it does especially if you have kids.  How can I give enough time and attention to my kids and see them happy without my needs being completely unmet. I bet there’s a few nodding heads now.

Ultimately Catherine and Gavin are not having “marital problems” they are navigating human problems.  Yes, these problems take place in the confines of a marriage, but the marriage is secondary to the human side of both of these characters.

Fortunately, Catherine and Gavin have been able to ride the rapids with grace and humor and without tearing one another apart.  To my mind, their love affair is the stuff of legend.

~Try an Excerpt!~

I locked eyes with her and wished, not for the first time in my life, that I had telekinetic abilities. If I had, I could mentally disembowel Jane Katts. That’s probably why God never blessed me with that particular gift.

“Hello Detective.” Jane Katts’ tone was overly pleasant. She must have trumped me in some way and now she’s was just waiting for me to concede the trick.

“Close the door behind you, O’Brien.” The chief rocked back in his chair and smiled.

There was nothing in his smile except pleasantry, which made me more nervous than the one Jane Katts had given me. A broad smile was so alien on the Chief’s face that I was certain that Jane Katts had managed to pull a switcheroo and replace the chief with a pod person of her own design; one who is not hard-edged and sand-papery as I have come to expect but instead soft, with as much grit as a nail file.

“I’m afraid there’s not enough chairs so one of you will have to stand.” The smiley version of our chief of police said.

I braced my feet a shoulder width apart and crossed my arms over my chest, I preferred to stand for whatever nasty surprise Jane Katts had in store for me.

Louise sat and introduced herself to Jane. They exchanged a handshake.

“Ms. Katts is the reporter who asked for the exclusive interview.”

He glossed over the detail about her being the reporter who had engaged in a calculated smear campaign against the department.

“She would like to change the angle of her story to get more of an inside view.” The chief’s eyes cut to my face and I saw a hint of the real chief behind whatever hoodoo Jane Katts had performed on him.

~Meet Stacey!~ 

Stacy Verdick Case was born in Willmar, Minnesota.  After a brief stint as a military brat, where she lived in Fort Sill Oklahoma and Fort Campbell, Kentucky, her family moved back to Minnesota.

Stacy has written all her life earning a High School Writer Award and a Daphne Du Mauier Award for excellence in Mainstream Mystery/Suspense.

Stacy currently lives in a suburb of St. Paul with her husband of twenty-years, her five-year-old daughter, and their two cats.

An Intimate Murder is the third book in the Catherine O’Brien series.

Visit Stacy on the web:

www.StacyVerdickCase.com

Stacy will award a $50 Barnes and Noble GC to one winner, and a signed ARC of An Intimate Murder (US only) to two randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during this tour and her standard tour.

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