Cozies, cats, and a giveaway

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Today I start on a 7 day Cozy Book Tour, and I am visiting Melissa’s Mochas, Mysteries & More with a post entitled Can it be a Cozy without a Cat (or a Dog)? This post expands upon the ways that my Victorian San Francisco mysteries are cozies. Please come on over and leave a comment so you can participate in the giveaway of a print or ebook copy of Maids of Misfortune. M. Louisa Locke, October 2, 2013 October 2 – Mochas, Mysteries and More  – Guest Post, Giveaway October 3 – Brooke Blogs –  Review October 4 – rantin’ ravin’ and reading – Review, Guest Post, Giveaway October 5 – Shelley’s Book Case – Review October 7 – Books-n-Kisses – Review, Guest Post October 8 – Cozy Up With Kathy – Interview October 10 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – Review, Giveaway


Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series––Cozy-style

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When I first published Maids of Misfortune, book one in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, I placed it in the historical and women sleuth mystery categories on Amazon. Since the book was set in the Victorian era, and the main protagonist was a woman who acted as an amateur sleuth, this was perfectly appropriate. At the time there was no “cozy mystery” sub-category in the Kindle store, and I didn’t use this term as a key word because I tended to think of cozy mysteries as contemporary mysteries with some sort of theme: like baking, quilting, or cats. To a degree, I wasn’t wrong, since when Amazon created the cozy mystery sub-category a few months ago its three sub-divisions were: animals, crafts and hobbies, and culinary. Nevertheless, as I began to understand my audience and discover what people liked Read more…


Guest Post at Historical Fiction eBooks

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Today I am over at my home away from home at Historical Fiction eBooks but I thought some of you might be interested in my post about When Truth is Stranger than Fiction. Here is the introduction: My Victorian San Francisco Mystery series features Annie Fuller, a widow who runs a boarding house, supplements her income as a clairvoyant, and investigates crimes. She fights hard to maintain her economic independence, and this independent streak gets her in trouble and causes personal and romantic difficulties. This is fiction, but it also is laced with historical fact. On occasion, the factual elements of my books are harder for readers to swallow than the fictional parts. For example, some reviewers, after reading my first book, Maids of Misfortune, complained that my protagonist, Annie Fuller, is “too modern” in her attitude and behaviors. Yet, some of the Read more…


What does it mean when your characters name themselves?

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This week I read an interesting post the importance of choosing the right names for fictional characters. One of the points the post made was that authors should avoid doing anything that might bring a reader out of the story, including having names that sound alike. I first ran into this specific problem when I was about to publish my first book, Maids of Misfortune. Most of you know the story by now: I published this book thirty years after I came up with the plot and twenty years after I wrote the first draft so, as you might imagine, I had grown very fond of the character names I had chosen. Then one of my beta readers pointed out that two of my main characters, my main protagonist, Annie Fuller, and Annie’s maid, who I had named Maggie, had Read more…


Bloody Lesson Goes on Sale today.

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Available in print and for the Kindle here! Bloody Lessons is the third novel in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, and in celebration of this launch I am making the first book in the series, Maids of Misfortune, free on Kindle for 3 days (9/15-17) and discounting the second book in the series, Uneasy Spirits, to 99 cents for a week (9/15-21) on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iTunes, and Smashwords. Do tell your friends that they can get the whole series the next 3 days for under $5! And a treat for those of you who have joined my Facebook author page, I will announce later today a contest with $5 Amazon gift cards as prizes that I will be running over the next two weeks. Thanks to all of your for your support and now go buy your copy Read more…