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The story behind the prologue: I originally titled this novel Murder by Marigolds, which my agent was concerned made it sound like a cozy. She suggested I write a prologue that was scary and left the reader wondering what would happen when they got to that part of the story. The following prologue was what…
1) Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be in the midst of such suspense. My name is Tom Parker. I was born in the US, but grew up in the Niagara region of Canada where my dad was a cop on the local force. I went to college in the…
2 teaspoons dried calendula flower petals 1 cup of boiling water Place calendula petals in an infuser and pour 1 cup of boiled water over the petals. Allow the calendula to steep for 10–15 minutes. Then enjoy. Calendula petals picked later in the year may be bitter; if so, sweeten with honey. Calendula can be…
1. Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be in the midst of such suspense. My name is Kate Adams and I’m a research scientist specializing in herbal remedies. My dear friend, mentor, and fellow researcher, Daisy Leacock, died recently, the police say by drinking the wrong kind of marigold tea….
Photos of the inspiration for “Port Aster” Click on an image to read caption and scroll through the enlarged images.
Click here to download PDF version of this page Reading Group Guide for Deadly Devotion: A Novel Port Aster Secrets, #1 by Sandra Orchard 1. Tom operates under the assumption that people are rarely what they seem. What problems arise from having this attitude toward everyone with whom you interact? 2. Having received conflicting messages…
Two blocks from the police station, Kate parked her car curbside. Her stomach was more scrambled than her morning eggs, and her hands hadn’t stopped trembling since she marched out of Parker’s office, vowing to find Daisy’s killer. Was she nuts? What did she know about tracking down a murderer? She could end up his…
By Sandra Orchard © 2011 Rick set to work scrubbing the wooden floors of his mother-in-law’s former bedroom. Cleaning out the house was not how he’d hoped to spend the first weekend home since his and Ginny’s honeymoon, but the buyers had offered the full price in cash if they could move in before Christmas….
I call this scene my Spy Teddy Scene. I wrote it in an early draft, but, in the end, opted to use a different tact. Tara’s conscience niggled over setting up the spy camera without running the idea by Zach first. Reaching for the door to her floor, she shoved the concern from her mind….
Ingredients: – 2 ½ cups flour – 6 tbsp. cocoa – ½ tsp. salt 2 tsp baking soda (Thank you, Dawn, for alerting me that I missed including this!) – ¾ cup butter (yes, butter) – 2 ½ firmly packed brown sugar – 3 eggs – ½ cup milk mixed with a ½ tsp vinegar…
1. Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be in the midst of such suspense. My name’s Kim and I work as a youth care worker at Hope Manor a faith-based detention facility for young offenders founded by my father. Recently there have been several drug-related crimes in Miller’s Bay that…
While several scenes from my original draft of Shades of Truth were extensively modified and others were added, only scenes in my villain’s point of view were deleted. The scene below was in Chapter Six. As explained in “Editor’s Cuts”, these scenes were deleted, because they gave away too much of the suspense plot, so…
