New Laurel Highlands Mystery – Fatal Frost

Mary Sutton / @mary_sutton73

Just in time for Valentine’s Day – a story of love, with a little murder thrown in there.

If you’ve followed me on Facebook, you know that I’ve been working on a “bonus” story of sorts. One told by deputy coroner Tom Burns.

See, I love Burns. He’s a bit younger, got a slightly weird personality and says things that are rather inappropriate – and would sound really wrong coming from Jim Duncan. But hey, he works with dead people. What do you expect? So it’s okay if he says them.

Back in Death & Politics, Burns quips that he likes dead people because “live patients are so noisy.” And I really thought that was his story. Then, as characters do, he started talking to me. And he told me a secret, something he’s hidden from the others. Once I knew, well, I had to tell the story. I’d like to think he told me because he wants the story to be known.

That story is Fatal Frost.

I waffled a bit on how to release this one. I do plan on doing a collection, with all the Laurel Highlands stories to date, both in ebook and print. And I figured this could be a “gift” for buying the collection. But then, I started thinking, and eventually decided to release it as it’s own thing. Two reasons:

1. I know people who have faithfully bought every story I’ve written thus far, including Lucky Charms. It felt, well, smarmy I guess to make those folks re-buy everything just to get this one story.
2. I’m still working on the cover for the collection. Since I don’t have a very firm time frame for completing that, and this story is finished, why not push it out?

So I did. Fatal Frost is available on all platforms – Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks. Same price – 99 cents.

There will still be a collection. I promise. For you print aficionados, it will be a trade-paperback, too, as well as an ebook. When is it coming? Well, soon-ish, I hope. It’s all on the cover.

So if you haven’t begun reading about Jim, Sally and crew, you may want to wait. I’m sure I’ll price the ebook collection at less than what it would cost to buy each story individually (plus, Batter Down is still only available in Lucky Charms). Of course, if you’re the impatient type, far be it from me to discourage you from buying each story.

And if you’ve read any of them, and enjoyed it, feel free to leave a review, or even just a star rating, and any of the various retailers or Goodreads. Something else that feels smarmy, but those ratings really do help break through and millions of books out there.

Thanks to those who have read – and I hope Burns doesn’t disappoint you.

Edit: Thought I should mention that the timeline on this one is shortly after Death & Politics, so before Batter Down.