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Is the Coronavirus making you feel shut-in? Need something to do? Read a book or three, maybe. Right now through May 31st, all of my books and stories are 60% off or free at
SMASHWORDS
(Available in ALL eReader formats)
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Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? (Book 5)
Fourteen-year-old Tessa Ryker hears shots. Sees someone leaving her home. The sharp tang of gunpowder invades her senses as she enters the house. Before she understands what she smells or her eyes adjust from the outside brightness, she covers her mouth in horror. Her mother dead on the hallway floor. Her father dead in the living room a gun in his hand.
It looks like he killed his wife and then himself. But Tessa knows what she sees isn't true. She saw the killer. Knows who he is.
Who can she tell? Who will believe her?
Tessa Ryker’s running scared, seeking a place to hide, to disappear before the killer discovers she saw him and finds her. Now everyone’s after her: the killer, the police and Rachel Cord and her Confidential Investigations team.
Rachel Cord Confidential Investigations"Life isn't all hearts and flowers. It's pain, suffering and dirty little secrets."
The Rachel Cord Mysteries
“Nothing like this ever happens to Kinsey Millhone.” ~ Dianne K. Salerni, The Eighth Day
“(S)olid and complex . . . loaded with well defined and interesting characters.” ~ Rainbow Reviews
“(M)y favorite mystery authors are James Lee Burke, Dick Francis and Tony Hillerman. Conary brews a plot to compete with these three.” ~ Lloyd Lofthouse, My Splendid Concubine
“R. E. Conary writes a really cool series about a female PI.~ Jochem Vandersteen, White Knight Syndrome
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Queen of Tarts (Book 4)Thomas Wolfe wrote 'You Can't Go Home Again.' Something Rachel Cord believes and lived by for nearly 21 years. She'd run away from those she loved who wouldn't or couldn't accept her as she was. That was gone. Best forgotten. She has no desire to revisit it.
Until Wendy Devlin, the love of her life, the woman she wants most to marry, gives her an ultimatum. "Rachel, I'll marry you anywhere. But I'm meeting your family first. That's my deal."
Now Rachel must decide if she can face old demons, old prejudices, or lose Wendy. Is it possible to go home again?
"Remember, my love, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger."
Wendy held me. I felt safe and loved. It's that killing part that worries me.
Available now: Smashwords Amazon Apple Barnes&Noble Kobo
Hangman's Oak: A Confidential Investigations Short StoryOn Oct. 1, 1947, Paul Jasper Monroe, decorated WWII veteran, was murdered. He was Black and also gay. Were these the reasons he was lynched and left hanging at Hangman's Oak? Despite rumors, no one was arrested for the crime. However, 68 years later on the anniversary of Monroe's murder, George Armstrong Cutter was found hanging from the same tree. Cutter, from a well-regarded city family, was often suspected of being one of Monroe's killers. Was Cutter's death revenge or justice? PI Rachel Cord seeks the truth.
Order from SMASHWORDS or AMAZON
Bad Bitch Blues (Book 3)The hard-boiled detective with an attitude twice as large as her over-sized bosom returns solving cases and targeting bad guys. Now, someone's targeting her.
(R)ising toward my face was the muzzle of a semiautomatic pistol. I stepped back and tried to close the door deflecting his hand, but the closeness of the muzzle-blast partially blinded and deafened me. I . . .
Said, She got the Bad Bitch Blues
Oh, better take warnin'
Better take heed
Listen to me ~ I tellin' it true
Don't mess with no woman
Got the Bad Bitch Blues
Trade paperback at Amazon Barnes&Noble Booksamillion Powell's Books
Ebooks at Amazon Smashwords Apple B&N Kobo
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Still a Bitch (Book 2) Life isn’t all hearts and flowers. It’s pain and suffering too. It’s dirty little secrets buried deep in the muck and mire where the grubs and worms feed. Secrets I unbury. –-Rachel Cord
Life looks bright to private detective Rachel Cord. She has a new lover. Nasty memories are safely buried. A new job. The job seems simple enough: find a man and deliver some papers. But for Rachel Cord, life is never simple. Finding this man means crossing the river again and facing the demons of her personal hell. She does it to convince herself she's still in control; that she's still tough enough to take on Life's nasties.
One job leads to another--find another men--keeping Rachel on the wrong side of the river to become entangled with a sexy bartender thus endangering her budding relationship. Then, like a ghost from the past, the police are looking for Rachel's ex-lover, Karen Tanaka. Has Karen returned, and is she murdering other women? Rachel races to find the answers and prove, once again, that she's Still a Bitch!
Private detective Rachel Cord returns with a vengeance chasing multiple threads through a labyrinth of missing persons, buried bodies, kinky sex, new love, and an ex-lover who may be a serial killer. Threads that threaten to bind Rachel within a tight cord preventing her from getting the answers she needs and saving the woman she loves.
Life's a Bitch. So am I. (Book 1)
I stared into the dark. Far-off lights reflected, shimmered and danced on the roiling water. The river washed everything downstream while the lights sparkled in one place. It was all illusion. Somewhere, deep below, hidden within the weeds and muck, buried, lurked other things. Things that wouldn't, couldn't, be washed away. Unseen. Unknown. Waiting. Life had moved on, but, like the lights on the water, I was stuck in one place. And I dread the horrid things buried within.
Hard-boiled, private detective Rachel Cord pursues multiple threads seeking a runaway teen and why gay performers are being beaten at Miss Kitty's Kathouse Kabaret. Threads that twist and bind Rachel within a tight cord of lost love, child pornography, rape, murder and near insanity. Leaving her to question her personal credo that "Life's a Bitch. So am I."
PAPERBACK & LARGE PRINT
Available in multiple ebook formats: Smashwords.com
jxi
The mystery is solid and complex, and Conary does an excellent job of presenting several different threads...and painstakingly weaving them together, so that the resolve at the end is deliciously satisfying. The book is loaded with well defined and interesting characters, and the writing is clean enough to stay out of the way... Conary does a wonderful job describing the details of Rachel's investigations which are always my favorite part of a detective novel.
In Life’s a Bitch. So am I Rachel has been hired to track down a missing teenager and investigate
a series of assaults in the vicinity of a gay nightclub. She also works
periodically on a personal case – the disappearance of her lover Karen, who up
and left without explaining why several months previously. This third mystery
keeps to the background and promises to play out in future novels, while the
first two cases quickly dovetail into a tangled web of pornography, underage
sex trade, and shady real estate deals. Readers should be prepared for graphic
sexual violence and a shocking attack on the main character.
I have to say, the author, R.E. Conary took a big risk with
this novel. I was blown away by the surprising turn of events, and my first
thought was: “Nothing like this ever happens to Kinsey Millhone!” However, the utter predictability and
formulaic nature of Sue Grafton’s novels are why I gave up on them before she
got halfway through the alphabet. After reading Life’s a Bitch. So am I. I can say with certainty that R.E. Conary plans on
being anything but formulaic. I
could not have predicted in advance where she would take this book, and I have
no idea where she will take Rachel Cord in the future. In my mind, that makes R.E. Conary an
author to watch!
---Dianne Salerni
"one of the most memorable P.I.’s that I have ever encountered"
I have read many, many detective novels over the years and some are really good, but few have such well-developed characters as this one. The story was very well written, with lots of great detail and some huge surprises! It had me sitting on the edge of my seat to the very end.
Rachel Cord, P.I., is certainly one of the most memorable P.I.’s that I have ever encountered in a story. She has strong opinions, is surprisingly sarcastic, can be very funny and vulnerable and is completely frustrated when her oversized breasts capture the complete attention of people she is trying to question. She is very tough in her detective work, but shows a much softer side in her personal life. Throughout the story, she is still trying to come to terms with her live-in girlfriend leaving without a word several months before.
There are several storylines going on during Rachel’s investigations in “Life’s a Bitch. So am I.” The author does an excellent job of tying them all together. The story starts with a missing young girl and a series of beatings at a gay night club. The hunt leads Rachel to other brutal crimes, some real shockers and a very satisfying conclusion. The fast pace things happen in this story often left me breathless and unable to put the book down.
---Cherie Fisher
