Mystery
Date Published:1/13/12
Nadine Daniels’ life is a disaster. The security company that she owns is being sued, her mother is coming to visit for a week, and some unpleasant realities about her “charity” work are about to surface. She thought this was as bad as it could get, but she was wrong—dead wrong.
Someone believes she knows a secret – a secret worth killing for. With assassins tracking her every move, Nadine wishes the only thing she had to worry about was her mother pestering her to settle down with her suspected live-in boyfriend, Zeke, but she can’t think about the future when the present might end with her death.
Virtual Book Tour February 25 - March 10
February 26 - Waiting on Sunday to Drown - Review/Guest Post
February 27 - Books and Needlepoint - Review
February 28 - Book Reviews and More - Guest Post/PROMO
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March 2 - My Reading Addiction - PROMO
March 3 - Must Read Faster - Review/Guest Post
March 5 - Bless Their Hearts Mom - Review/GuestPost
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March 8 - Gimme the Scoop - Guest Post/PROMO
March 8 - Uttley's Take - Guest Post/PROMO
March 9 -Cozie Corner - Review
Hadena James
Author Bio:
Hadena James began writing at the age of eight. As a teenager, she had several short stories
published in literary magazines. She completed writing her first novel at the age of 17.
Hadena graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in European History with minors in
German and Russian studies. She has always wanted to be a writer so she also took several classes
in creative writing.
Hadena’s primary literary genre is action/thriller. She currently writes two series, both use action/
thriller. “The Brenna Strachan Series” uses fantasy and the “Dreams & Reality Series” uses murder
mystery as its secondary genre. She continues to explore and expand her writing and hopes to soon
produce a comedic action/thriller.
When she isn’t busy writing or running her business, Hadena enjoys playing in a steel-tip dart
league. She also loves to travel throughout North America and Europe. Her favorite cities are
Chicago, Illinois and Berlin, Germany. She is an avid reader, reading everything from the classics
like Jane Austen to modern writers like Terry Pratchett. One of her all-time favorite books is “Good
Omens” by Neil Gaimen and Terry Pratchett. She writes all of her books while listening to music
and the bands tend to get “honorable mentions” within the pages.
Buy Links
Guest Post
10 Things Readers Would Be Surprised to Know About Me by Hadena James
1.
I write with a Nom de Plume. Hadena James is not my real name, but a
twisted construct of it.
2.
I really do speak English, German and Russian
and I’m fluent in all of them. Although
my German language skills are much stronger than my Russian and German is
easier for me to speak.
3.
My history degree is in 20th Century
Military Conflicts, specifically World War II.
One could argue that my degree is in German History and Russian History
since I had to take culture classes in each of them for my history degree (and
that is incidentally how I managed to learn both languages and get minors in
them).
4.
My upcoming novel, Tortured Dreams, is my 10th
full novel written with the Cain characters, but only the first one I have been
willing to publish.
5.
The Life & Dysfunction of Nadine Daniels’
was written almost 13 years earlier. It
was edited for the first time eight years ago.
I chopped more out of it the day before I published because it was still
117,000 words.
6.
I was offered a publishing contract 10 years or
so ago for one of my Cain novels, but turned it down because I did not retain
the rights to the characters.
7.
I am incapable of writing a love scene. I am very good at lewd comments and vulgar jokes,
but I can’t sit down and write a steamy scene.
I consider it a weakness and have been working on a cure for the last 8
years.
8.
Most of my rejected novels are because they do
not have love scenes in them. Publishers
and agents alike have been telling me for years that if I’d just “put in a sex
scene or two” they would gladly publish.
9.
I create flawed characters because I have an
anxiety disorder (hence the Nom de Plume) and I feel they help people relate to
their mentally ill friends and family.
10.
The first story I ever wrote was a short story
titled “How the Raccoon Got Its Mask” and was a fable… I was one month from
being eight years old. My mother keeps
it framed. It is one page long and is
the only time in my life I had good handwriting.
My Review
I love a good mystery – especially when there is humor
involved. It is why I am such a big fan
of the Stephanie Plum books. I read a
lot of Kindle mysteries, some with varying degrees of goodness. One thing I often find is that they are too
short. That is not the case with The Life and Dysfunction of Nadine Daniels. The book is reasonably substantial length
at about 318 pages. Our heroine, Nadine,
has a lot going on in her life. I can
just imagine all the stress involved.
The poor gal is juggling a lawsuit against her company, dealing with
some soon-to-be public issues with her charity, and to top it all off her
family is coming to town. To make
matters worse, someone believes Nadine to know something, something worth killing
over. So how can Nadine juggle all these
things, avoid being killed, and keep her family safe? To make matters worse, her mother is putting
the squeeze on her about getting married.
I can totally relate to this, and while it sucks when it happens to you,
it can be fun to read about it happening to someone else. Makes you realize that you are not the only
one going through such things and that all families are crazy.
The plot moves along at a reasonable pace. There are some actions I would have done
differently, had I been Nadine, but she handles it in her own way. There is a great deal of humor and a fair
amount of romance mixed in as well. The
thing I feel Hadena James excels most at is character development. You really feel like you know each and every
one of these characters. They could be
your own family. Overall, I found this
book to be a fun and engrossing book, and I hope there is another one!
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1 comment:
Thank you for taking the time to read and review my book! It is great to hear other's input.
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