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GETTING AWAY IS DEADLY is the third book in the mom lit mystery series about a military spouse who runs a professional organizing business.


It was the perfect vacation until murder rearranged the itinerary


With swollen feet, pregnant Ellie joins the nation’s tourists in seeing the sights in Washington D.C. But a fatal incident at the Metro station convinces Ellie that something is rotten in the capital city. Should she do the safe thing and pack her bags? Not likely when too many people are telling lies, hiding secrets, and acting suspiciously. Luckily, Ellie Avery is just the right woman to clean up the most mysterious cases of murder—even if she has to brave the most dangerous byways in the corridors of power . . .


Reviews for Getting Away is Deadly:

Publishers Weekly: “…sparkling….”

The Mystery Gazette: “Fans of amateur sleuth mysteries will relish GETTING AWAY IS DEADLY as the tale contains a delightful whodunit that serves as a tour of Washington DC.”

Reviews for the Mom Zone series:

Publishers Weekly: “The author, also the wife of an air force pilot, includes practical tips for organizing closets, but the novel's most valuable insight is its window into women's lives on a military base.”

Romantic Times: “Thoroughly entertaining. The author’s smooth, succinct writing style enables the plot to flow effortlessly until its captivating conclusion.” (Four stars)

Armchair Interviews: “If you like cozy mysteries that have plenty of action and lots of suspects and clues, Staying Home Is A Killer will be a fun romp through murder and mayhem.”

Kathie Hightower, military spouse and coauthor of Help! I’m a Military Spouse — I Get a Life Too!: “Rosett brings us someone just like us — a military spouse carving out her own unique life as she deals with military life, moves, and deployments. Get yourself a cup of tea and settle in for a good read!”

Getting Away is Deadly will appeal to fans of Jill Churchill,
Ayelet Waldman, Leslie Meier, and Rett MacPherson.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Amarillo, Texas, Sara Rosett has always loved to curl up with a good book. Her marriage to an Air Force pilot has taken her to central and southern California, Texas, Washington state, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Maryland. Sara has worked as a credit processor, a reporter for two Air Force base newspapers, and a researcher and writer for the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to People International. Currently, Sara and her family live in Maryland where she combines full-time parenting with writing. Her work appeared in Chicken Soup for the Military Wife’s Soul, Simple Pleasures of Friendship, Simple Pleasures of the Kitchen Romantic Times Mystery Scene, Mystery Readers Journal, The Writer, and Georgia Magazine. Please visit her website, www.sararosett.com.



Website: http://www.sararosett.com/
Blog: http://www.rosettwrites.bravejournal.com/
Second Blog: http://www.good-girls-kill.com/
Link to Amazon page http://www.amazon.com/Staying-Home-Killer-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/0758213387/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-2824190-8166306?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176216163&sr=1-1

I celebrated the arrival of spring, dear reader, --the kind that finally grudgingly comes to us here in New England with tree buds and pastel blossoms and swarms of killer ants-- by allowing a wasp to sting me twice. HERE! TAKE ME! STING ME! REMIND ME HOW LUCKY I AM TO BE FREE OF PAIN!
As I took my deserved repose after a long day of reading arguments about the death penalty (pro and con), abortion (likewise), gun control (same), and legalization of marijuana (completely and overwhelmingly pro), I felt something in the sleeve of my sweater, moving on its own. Now I am a hopeful person by nature. Ah, it's my pencil, I may have thought. Gosh darn it, what's it doing in there? Or an errant thread perhaps. This sweater is the one I wear all winter for warmth. It's on the raggedy/pathetic side. Or maybe I thought it was a ladybug or some benign insect. It's hard now to reconstruct what I thought in those few fleeting seconds. Because almost as soon as the thing moved,

IT STUNG THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME AND THEN DID IT AGAIN. I ripped the sweater off and crushed the wasp. CRUSHED it, I tell you, with a student folder [don't tell] Then I further smooshed it by enveloping it in the bedsheet and pushing hard. When I was finally satisfied that the thing was dead, I opened up the sheet and it flew away. It's still in my room.

The really eerie part is that I was wearing that sweater for hours. I'm pretty sure that wasp didn't crawl in after I put it on. I think it was in there all the time, walking around with me, going downstairs, into the bathroom, eating lunch. I wonder if I disturbed its wasp dreams.


I considered putting a photograph of my forearm here, but I do have some scruples, dear reader. Geez, think how far we've come from the early days of the internet where stories of real worth and importance could be read, and a blog where someone puts their pus-oozing wasp wound.

I dunno.

Anyway, I'm getting some good bloopers and I'm saving them. But here's one that comes from my own manuscript (just to prove that I am no different from my students):
"Patsy Lopez was wearing as much eye makeup as a raccoon."

Yes, I wrote it. There's a small part of me that thinks there could be some raccoons who wear eye makeup, the more civilized ones maybe, not the ones out in the forest but the ones close to the garbage cans, where they could probably find thrown out Revlon mascara wands, but I know my case is weak.
A bientot
love,
becky

My address on the electrical grid of the United States is Pole 8 in my town. This gives me pause. I have always thought of myself in terms of different numbers. Starting from childhood my street numbers have been (get your Keno cards ready): 825, 3219, 5600, 7714, 1016, [I forget one in Pennsylvania], 22, and 48. I can recite my old phone numbers too--anybody want to hear them? Yeah, yeah, okay, you're not supposed to have blunt objects in here, so put them down, okay? Anyway, now I can add plain old 8 to my collection. [choral music up] As some might say, BFD.

Don't think Pole 8 has it easy. It's chewed by squirrels and riddled with all those shredded Dixie cups that connect my internet dial-up service. Here is a picture of the inside of my computer.
I don't know how much stress little Chadwick puts on the electrical system, but he's a go-getter. Pole 8 knows he's there, serving goold old 48 with honor and dedication.

GO CHAD!!!




In other news, I'm back in the swing of daily walks around the track. One of the fun parts is witnessing the practices of the various high school teams as I go by. One is the boys' baseball group and they look so winsome in their uniforms.

I love to hear the coach telling them what to do. Murray! That's your ball! Stay in the basepath, Iggy! The other day I watched them doing a drill where they practice diving back to first if the pitcher tries to throw them out. In professional games, those runners take a huge lead.

There were four of these high school boys and as I rounded the 440 mark on the track above them, I watched them jump back, leap back, scrounge back to first in time to beat the throw.
Very cool.

Only a few bloops so far and one includes a persuasive bit of homespun logic. On the subject of legalization of marijuana:
"The affects of the drug are sleepy, hungry, and happy. Now what is wrong with that?"

Not sure I have an answer, dear reader.
I will be buried in papers for a few days, but Pole 8 is tingling with an end-of-semester surge.
A bientot
love,
becky

I stay at my local track during the BMAR, far away from the traffic and power bar wrappers. If they ever have a Costume sub-group, I would consider entering, though I would have to be carried in a rickshaw or ride a bike. I'm actually not sure I could ride a bike for 26 miles. My nun's outfit would look good, though, I think, although it's easy to replicate and others could outdo me. To really do it right, I'd have to wear my Indian princess getup, and then there'd be no outdoing. I'm sorry to say it's quite tight under and around the arms, since my mother made it for me in third grade. Here it is.









Can you see the hand stitching? It must have come to the floor on me in third grade, but now it's a bit of a miniskirt, though tasteful in all respects (fabulous fringe at the hemline). Maybe I could put patches under the arms. OH YEAH, RIGHT. MAYBE I COULD TAKE UP NEEDLEPOINTING TOO. It wouldn't look bad with the girly shoes I just bought [see previous post, dear reader]. I should also show you that the costume features a red-skinned papoose that goes around the neck, which I don't think I would wear.












Too constricting and I would hate to be bothered by it on Heartbreak Hill. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THAT WOMAN?
SHE'S CHOKING ON A POLITICALLY VERY INCORRECT REPLICA.
WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK OF NEXT? LET HER CHOKE.

The costume also has a squaw's headband, complete with long braids and feather. What do you think?






Can you see the feather? This is wrong on so many levels, including fashion, that I fear I'd better return this entire get-up to the closet.

GET OUT THERE AND RAKE LEAVES!

NO!

Last round of papers coming in, dear reader. Should be some good bloops.
A bientot
love,
becky
The Girlfriend Cyber Circuit, a virtual tour for female authors, currently has openings. If you're a published author with a blog you might be eligible. Here's the link with more information:
http://www.karingillespie.com/page0014.html

Contact Karin Gillespie at kgillespie@knology.net if interested.

It's a sloth. Yikes. I thought they were supposed to be lazy. And yet here's one trying to cross the road. Which of course brings up the more deeply philosophical question: why? Unlike the chicken, which is stupid and just wants to get to the other side, I'd like to think the sloth has other reasons. Sometimes it's worth putting the effort in for a new place to be lazy. You know? Lounging around the same old tree gets boring as all fk. You can be lazy but still have high standards.

I'm still in the spell, dear reader. Now that's what you call a good museum, when it gets inside the viewers' heads and stays there. A few notes left over:
The Impressionist paintings are a marvel and slightly more, well, pastel than I expected. I mean when you stand in the doorway to the room you notice a sort of, I don't know, a pinkness.

Some pretty famous names in there, including Monet and his Water Lilies, and those names pull you up. Wow. The guy himself stood right here looking at this thing. You can sense him looking over your shoulder. Imagine Van Gogh, or as one of my students called him, Van Gosh, skulking around amidst the viewers.


This charming picture of what I would call produce, by Gustave Caillebotte, Fruit Displayed on a Stand, got me to stop. Hannaford's doesn't use the lovely tissue paper or actually any paper with its fruit and maybe they should.
Then you get into the heavier stuff, such as Velazquez and all the religious darkness. This one is by Caraggio.

It's called The Taking of Christ and of course it's all about the betrayal by Judas, etc. Not surprising that it's so dark, and there's almost a cinematic quality to it, the action seems so real and true.
I loved seeing the art students drawing the masterpieces and I guess this is a strategy for them to practice the techniques of the masters. I guess we can't really do that with novels. I mean it would take so long....YEAH, I'M STILL WORKING ON THIS WRITING EXERCISE AND I THINK I'M GETTING THE HANG OF IT.
WHAT PART ARE YOU ON?
THE PART WHERE SHE SINKS TO HER KNEES AND CRIES I'LL NEVER BE HUNGRY AGAIN.
OH YEAH, THAT'S A GREAT PART. KEEP GOING.
I WILL, BUT I KEEP WANTING TO PUT PRODUCE IN IT.

News flash, dear reader. I am going to ENGLAND next month. I will definitely visit the Tate while there, as well as Charleston Farmhouse and other Virginia Woolf sites.

LAH DEE FREAKIN' DAH, BABY.
A bientot
love,
becky

I stood in front of this painting today. Not a print, dear reader, but the real, original giant work by John Singer Sargent. It's enormous and awesome and I don't like to use that word. The artist certainly stood on a ladder to work. I'm glad I don't have to do that, though maybe I could teach class on a ladder. Anyway, the painting is called Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. People stared at it. Some stood for their staring, some sat on a bench. I tried both. The girls are fascinating, aren't they? You'd think those two hovering in the doorway were servants, but they are the older sisters. Everyone is sticking to herself. The two big Japanese urns shown in the picture are also in the gallery as you look around. They are huge and taller than a person, as you can see. They traveled with the Boit family back and forth to Europe numerous times.

It was my first time visiting the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I'm ashamed to say. I also stood in front of this one:

As rendered by John Singleton Copley. It was a lot smaller than the Sargent, which of course I know I have not replicated here, and hung in a room of eighteenth century American luminaries. The lighting was just so on the faces that it gave you kind of, how shall we say, a frisson? Ah yes, Paul Revere. My buddy.

I stood in front of Renoir's Dance for quite a while:

I actually thought the man looked a bit theatening sticking his jaw out like that, but my daughter said nay nay. You know how I like to go into a painting, dear reader, so I have to look carefully and make my time machine decisions with all judicious deliberation.

My pick for the day was this one by Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Mouth That Has Just Been Kissed.

Can't argue with that, huh?

It was a lovely afternoon, though the weather, as they say, sucked. We saw a couple of Mary Cassatts but seemed to miss the wider collection of hers.

People were cheerful walking around. It was delightful to see all the art students with notebooks, drawing the masterpieces for themselves. Art is not dead. The guards and helpers in the MFA are exceptionally nice, though several don't seem to know where anything is. "Hey, we don't know what you're talking about, but this is still a great place, isn't it?" Their smiles were infectious. I hope the hummus in the the basement cafeteria was not, being a bit watery. Two small salads, twenty bucks. Hey, it's only money. BURN IT, BABY.

After a surprisingly short time of being immersed in such riches, one gets inured. Oh, another priceless work of art? Yes, very nice. I wonder where my cell phone is.

Culture up to my eyeballs, dear reader,

A bientot

love,

becky

Good title? Yeah, I think so too. Here's the dope on the latest Girlfriends' treat:

What happens when a young woman, fresh from Japan and too independent for Japanese society, finds herself suddenly lost in translation in San Francisco as she searches for her American Dream and the perfect dessert?

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga answers this question and more in her poignant comic novel, MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT, where we meet thirty-year-old Midori Saito, whose dream seems about to come true. A strong independent streak has always made her feel like a stranger in a strange land in her native Japan, but now she’s embarking on a new life in San Francisco. She’s about to marry Kevin, the perfect American man—six feet tall, with curly hair the color of marmalade. Unlike a Japanese guy who’d demand she be a housewife, Kevin doesn’t mind if Midori follows her dream of becoming a master pastry chef. Her life is turning out as exquisitely as a Caramelized Apple Tart with Crème Fraiche, until Kevin dumps her at their engagement party in favor of his blond, ex-fiancée, whom Midori never even knew existed.

Now Midori is not only on her own—with just a smattering of fractured English in her repertoire—she’s entered the U.S. on a fiancée visa that will expire in sixty days. Unable to face the humiliation of telling her parents she’s been dumped, and not wanting to give up on her American dream, Midori realizes she’s “up the creek without a saddle.” Her only hope is new acquaintance Shinji, 30, who long ago escaped Japan after a family tragedy, is a successful San Francisco graphic artist and amateur moon gazer, and who lets her share his apartment as a platonic roommate.

Soon Midori finds herself working at an under-the-table hostess job at an unsavory Japanese karaoke bar, making (and eating) way too many desserts, meeting a charming and handsome chef with his own restaurant who may be too good to be true, and trying to uncover the secret behind a mysterious bar hostess who looks strangely familiar. But Midori’s willing to endure almost anything to hang on to her American dream, and she just might find that the love she’s been searching for far and wide is a whole lot closer than she thinks.

Here's what some have been saying about M BY M:

“Tokunaga depicts Midori's determination to create her own version of the American dream with exuberance [in this] delectably frothy debut.” – Publisher’s Weekly

“Tokunaga suffuses the book with warmth and lightness. . .Just as the right dessert hits the spot, reading this delicious slice of escapism makes for a perfect afternoon. But instead of suffering a sugar crash afterward, you'll muse for days about the characters you've left behind and why they matter so much to you.”—San Francisco Chronicle
"A great little romp on both sides of the Pacific." —Asian Review of Books


"A delightful debut novel." —Tokyo Metropolis

“[Midori by Moonlight] draws upon vivid imagery when defining traits of Japanese culture and really hits the nail on the head when depicting some American attitudes toward others.... witty and charming."—Charleston Gazette
“A surprisingly pleasurable read.”—Daily Yomiuri


“Midori is endearing, feisty, and funny: the novel is a delight.” – Ellen Sussman, editor of Bad Girls and author of On a Night Like This

“A delightful fusion of East meeting West, as if Banana Yoshimoto and Meg Cabot got together to create a romantic comedy.” - Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Vertigo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga was born and raised in San Francisco. She attended Lowell High School and San Francisco State University, and is now finishing up her MFA in Writing at University of San Francisco. Her short stories have appeared in The Abiko Literary Quarterly Review, The Plaza, and Yomimono among others.

She is the author of the self-published novel, No Kidding, which won an award in the Mainstream/Literary Fiction category of the Writer’s Digest Best Self-Published Book Awards in 2002, and MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT, published in September 2007 by St. Martin’s Griffin. MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is a comic, cross-cultural novel, which tells the story of fresh-from-Japan Midori Saito, who finds herself lost in translation in San Francisco as she searches for her American Dream and the perfect dessert, and also is in a constant battle to improve her English and better learn her “idiotmatic” expressions.

Tokunaga lives by the ocean thirty miles south of San Francisco with her Osaka-born surfer-dude husband, Manabu Tokunaga and their Burmese cat named Meow. Drawing on her extensive experience in studying the Japanese language and culture; living, working and playing in Japan, and her cross-cultural marriage, she explores the theme of why some people feel the need to trade their native culture for a new one.


MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is available at your favorite bookstore or online at Amazon , etc. It is also available in Japan. You can get more info and read an excerpt at:

http://www.wendynelsontokunaga.com/

Think I'll give it a go myself.

A bientot

love,becky

I have to tell this story before doing anything else, dear reader.


In class recently we read various historical documents and examined them as pieces of writing only. How does Thomas Jefferson decide to open the Declaration of Independence? What rhetorical techniques does Martin Luther King, Jr. use in his "I Have a Dream" speech? It's instructive sometimes for students to realize that EVERY writer grapples with a beginning--how do I start this sucker? What do I do next?.

In lieu of the regular 250-word response analysis paper that they usually have to do, I offered the option of memorizing and reciting the Gettysburg Address to the class. It's short, I said. It won't take long. It'll be fun. "Define fun," somebody said. I've never tried this before, and you might say it's not a writing assignment and it's more like what a junior high class would do. But I put it out there anyway.

Only one student took me up on it, a young woman of soft-spoken demeanor, with freckles and glasses. A sweet girl and one I have trouble hearing sometimes. Further from Abraham Lincoln you probably couldn't get.

Well anyway, she had to put it off for one class because she didn't feel prepared. But she came in the next day ready to go. I made her stand up and she looked scared, but very brave. "Four score and seven years ago," she began. No eyes left the girl.

At first I think the students were impressed that she had done the memorization and so they listened. But as it went by, the speech itself took hold. She in her quiet careful voice held them in rapt attention. Lincoln's words came through this girl, simple and eloquent and moving. "All men are created equal," she said and we felt the truth and hope of that statement [those words borrowed by AL from TJ of course] "The world will little note nor long remember," she said, and of course those words are wrong. The world still remembers and we did too.

I don't remember a time of such great poignance in my class. When she finished, the ending moved us all. "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
Our ovation was long and loud and sincere.

Hats off to her.

I won't hold back, dear reader. I haven't got a clue. When I see all those tubes and jars and atomizers, I feel intimidated and awed. I feel pulled in several directions, mostly out the door.

Some of my best girlfriends love to get shanghaied and waylaid by those babes in the perfume/cosmetics counter. They get you when you try to walk through to get to the shoe department. Don't do this. Go all the way around. "Can I show you something?" they ask, looking gorgeous. Most of them do voodoo as well. If you look them in the eye, they can make a doll that looks like you and stick pins in it and give you a stomachache. That's why I look at the floor and keep walking. I can't deal with it.
It's ridiculous. There are so many things you can put on your face, you'd be weighed down by the poundage of it.









Let's start with foundation. That's the pancakey gloppy mess that spreads over the whole expanse of your face. It covers up imperfections like zits and freckles and earlier tattoos of Ricky the drug dealer that really were not a good idea.