Book Tour Featuring *Tuesday Trash and Trouble* by Joanna Campbell Slan @JoannaSlan @dollycas #giveaway #guestpost

Tuesday Trash and Trouble: Friday Night Mystery Club Series
by Joanna Campbell Slan

About Tuesday Trash and Trouble

Tuesday Trash and Trouble: Friday Night Mystery Club Series
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Illinois
Spot On Publishing (October 10, 2022)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 332 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8357296788
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B9T64ZNY

Set in 1986, Joanna Campbell Slan’s latest cozy mystery—Tuesday Trash and Trouble–features a down-on-her-luck divorcée whose passion for solving crimes lands her in the arms of a secretive cowboy–and the cross-hairs of a vengeful killer.

The year is 1986, the place is…pitiful. It’s Decatur, Illinois, known for high unemployment, striking unions, the pervasive stink of soybean processing, and seven railroad crossings at one intersection.

A wrong turn along life’s marital highway has left Catherine “Cragan” Collins stuck in Decatur. With a mountain of post-divorce bills to pay, Cragan takes a job selling high-priced newspaper advertising. If she’s lucky, her commissions will cover the cost of her grandmother’s stay in a nearby retirement home.

After the divorce, Cragan swears off men, but she’s a sucker for a guy in a nice suit. She falls hard for a man who publicly snubs her. On the rebound, she accepts an invitation from Ross Gentry, a quiet hunk who favors pearl snaps and cowboy boots. Cragan reasons that her heart is safe, because she and Ross come from two different worlds. But one night in his arms might be enough to prove her wrong.

Without warning, everything blows up in Cragan’s face. Her boss threatens to take away her accounts, a friend’s little sister is kidnapped, and an overnight guest is shot. Cragan’s best friend, Pru, is accused of attempted murder. After all, Pru’s gun was used in the crime.

Cragan calls an emergency meeting of the Friday Night Mystery Club. These mystery-loving career women are a group of smart cookies. Can their combined talents prove that Pru is innocent? And will they find an answer in time to save Cragan from the wrath of a vengeful shooter?

It takes a club to solve a mystery!

Author Guest Post

She didn’t mean it as a challenge. We were talking on the phone about tropes and reader expectations. My friend, the USA Today bestselling romance author, Kat Mizera asked, “Can you write a sex scene? I’ve never seen you do it.”

Could I?

I wasn’t sure I had an answer.

Years ago, I wrote a sex scene and showed it to my then-husband and my then-best friend. The two of them laughed until they cried. Since then, I had never attempted another sex scene, although I did remarry and I’ve since made other friends.

But after we got off the phone, I took Kat’s question as a challenge. Being fiercely competitive is not always a flaw, is it? Not when it encourages you to reexamine the “truths” that hold you back.

At the time of the call with Kat, I was in the midst of writing Tuesday Trash and Trouble. The book needed a zinger, a surprise.

There was a romantic scene in the offing. How far could I take it? What would it look like? How could it define the characters as well as excite the reader? I thought about what I hoped to accomplish. I wanted to tease out the action, but I didn’t want to lose my more conservative readers, so I challenged myself not to use any “adult” words. At the same time, I wanted the tension between the characters to get meltingly hot. Oddly, each time I worked on the piece, I kept getting interrupted. (Hey, life goes on, even if you’re an author.) For days, I was cranky with, well, sexual frustration. And then…the scene jelled.

Best of all, it absolutely resonated with me.

Turns out, my readers liked it too. One specifically praised the book’s “toe curling attractions.”

Even Kat Mizera approved, saying, “Engaging and witty, Tuesday Trash and Trouble takes you on an entertaining jaunt back to the 80s with just the right amount of intrigue coupled with a dash of sexy. Bring on more Joanna Campbell Slan!”

I fully intend to!

About Joanna Campbell Slan

Joanna is a New York Times Bestselling, USA Today Bestselling, and Amazon Bestselling author as well as a woman prone to frequent bursts of crafting frenzy, leaving her with burns from her hot glue gun and paint on her clothes. And the mess? Let’s not even go there.

Otherwise, Joanna’s a productive author with more than 80 written projects to her credit. Her non-fiction work includes how to books, a college textbook for public speakers, and books of personal essays (think Chicken Soup for the Soul).

Currently, she writes six fiction series: The Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series (Agatha Award Finalist, contemporary, St. Louis setting, crafting), the Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series (contemporary, Florida setting, DIY, and recycling), the Jane Eyre Chronicles (Daphne du Maurier Award Winner, 1830s England, based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic), the Sherlock Holmes Fantasy Thrillers (late 1800s, based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s books), the Tai Chi Mystery Series (featuring a mature female amateur sleuth!) and the Friday Night Mystery Series (set in Decatur, IL in 1986 with a spunky female heroine.)

A former TV talk show host, college teacher, and public relations specialist, Joanna was one of the early Chicken Soup for the Soul contributors. She won a Silver Anvil for her work on the original FarmAid concert to benefit farmers.

In her ongoing quest never to see snow again, Joanna lives with her husband and their Havanese puppy, Jax, on an island off the coast of Florida. You can email her at jcslan@joannaslan.com or visit her website at https://linktr.ee/jcslan