Can you tell us a little bit about your latest book? When did it come out? Where can we get it?
The latest book, SHOW UP DEAD, is
available now on Amazon for Kindle owners. It's only $2.99 for a
Kindle version right now! As today is the release date, it should be available at all the online book
retailers in both softcover and ebook formats. I believe (keyword:
believe) you'll be able to get it in your local Barnes and Noble store (you'll
probably have to ask them to order it) around December 1st, but don't hold me to
that. It might be shortly afterward.
Is there anything that
prompted your latest book? Something that inspired you?
A couple of things did. First, when
I learned that there are people with the career of Lifestyle Manager or
Personal Concierge, I was intrigued, to say the least. I could only think about
all the crazy and funky little private tidbits about their clients personal
lives they'd garner on their average, ordinary working day. I starting thinking
about how cool it would be to have a character in a book be one and after
mulling over it for a little while, Peri's clients kind of came to me when I
was just free-writing. And then one day, I stood in the checkout line at Whole
Foods behind a drag queen who was only buying a bouquet of flowers. He turned
to me and said how it was a shame he could never find flowers in the right
shade of red. And poof! I had a fun and borderline goofy story.
Great! So, when did you know you wanted to write? Or has it always been a pastime of yours?
Writing has always been a pastime
and it's been a job. I've done freelance business writing and editing for years
knowing one of these days I'd write my own fiction.
Do you have any favorite authors?
Lots and lots! I read a little bit
of everything. I love Virginia Woolf, Salmon Rushdie, James Joyce, Toni
Morrison, Janet Evanovich, Alexander McCall Smith, Andre Gide, and on and on
and on. Did I mention I read a little bit of everything?
LOL. Do you write in a specific place? Time of day?
Every time I try to do the scheduled
writing thing, it never works. I would love to be like Nora Roberts and sit
down and do nothing but write from 9 to 5 everyday. But, you know how some
people work the evening shifts and others work on the weekends? I think I'm one
of those. So I've given myself to be less disciplined in my approach. I just
make sure I write every day for as much as possible. It's a key priority (in
part because I still write and edit for a living) so I make sure I write before
I do anything else. The big thing for me was to make sure that my family
honored my writing time whenever I happened to be doing it.
That sounds like a great plan!
Are there any words you'd like to impart to fellow writers? Any advice?
Being a writer, like most creative
endeavors, can be a very freeing job. However, you should always keep in mind
if you want other people to read your stuff and like it too, you need to get
feedback. A good critique group is imperative (or at least a good critique
partner). Not all critique groups are created equal, though, so don't settle for
one until you are comfortable. And remember, a good critique partner is someone who
will help you make your writing better -- not just tear you down or pat you on
the back. I recently opened my own small publishing house and I can't tell you
how many people have already approached me with their manuscript telling me
everybody who has read it loved it. I always take that as a bad sign. Because
that tells me that no one has tried to make this person be the best writer he
or she can be. Every writer who is deemed one of our greats from any generation
has a good editor and/or good critique partners. We all need someone else to
look at our work with a different perspective and help us make it the best we
can.
Oh, I agree. It's always good to get a second or third, or even fourth opinion.
Thank you for stopping by, Lisa! :)
Readers, here is the blurb for Shop Up Dead: A Sweet Murder from the City of Brotherly Love.
When people call her a control
freak, Peri Milano takes it as a compliment. As the preferred go-to special
assistant to Philadelphia's rich and almost famous, having everything under
control is part of her job description.
With the organizational skills of a
data processing program, the discretion of the CIA, and the creativity of an IKEA
research and design engineer, Peri fulfills whatever whim her customers fancy
and finds methods for their madness.
Never has she received a request she
couldn't complete nor a problem she couldn't solve.
But then one day she finds the dead
body of one of her clients and land smack in the middle of a murder
investigation. While not something that's typically part of her daily work,
it's nothing she can't handle.
But when another client receives a
blackmail letter, her son's type-1 diabetes nearly kills him and her mother
ends up in jail (again), Peri starts to doubt whether anything is truly ever
under control. She can't help but wonder just who will be the next to Show Up
Dead.
Here is an excerpt.
Chapter
1: Once Vertical
I’m pretty sure my eyes had been open for
several minutes before I realized I could see. I remember darkness. Then light.
Then blurred masses of color. Eventually the colors became distinguishable and
detailed enough that I knew I was staring at a highly polished, mahogany
ball-and-claw foot of a table leg. The points of the claws were painted with
red lacquer. The table leg was standing on a Persian rug. The same Persian rug
my face appeared to be resting on.
It
was Mr. Wooley’s Persian rug, which made sense since I was pretty sure I had
gone into Mr. Wooley’s house that morning.
The
good news was that it didn’t seem like I was alone. A woman’s stilted voice
pierced the air, someone was tapping my cheek and I sensed movement around
me.
I
rolled onto my back and found a man hovering over me, his blond head only about
a foot above mine. And even though his face was upside down from my
perspective, it was still quite pleasing to look at. His sapphire blue eyes
peered at me with such intensity, I wondered if I were asleep and dreaming.
Traditionally, I’d never been the kind of girl with charming knights at the
ready for her rescue, but I never thought it a detriment to be one.
“Are
you okay?” he asked. The unimaginative question disappointed me.
“I
don’t know.” I leaned up on one elbow. “What happened?”
“I
was hoping you could tell me,” my handsome hero replied. He glanced up as
another man, a dark-haired one who wasn’t all that delicious to look at, knelt
opposite him and took my free hand.
Looking
beyond them, I confirmed I was in Mr. Wooley’s townhouse, as were several of
Philadelphia’s finest men in blue. They were keeping company with a few other
sundry people whose presence, I learned later, was useful whenever a dead body
was found.
“Are
you in any pain?” asked the man holding my hand. It turns out he was in an EMT
uniform, and was actually taking my pulse.
“I
don’t think so,” I said. “I—”
“Peri!”
shrieked Mr. Wooley’s daughter. She ran across the room and dropped to the
floor, bursting into my personal space before I was ready to deal with her. I
fell back against my blue-eyed guardian angel. He righted me.
“What’s
going on?” I asked.
“My
father!” Jacqueline’s breath shot in and out. She shoved the EMT away and
gripped my arms as if she were preparing to throw me over a balcony. “He’s
dead!”
“What?”
I pulled my face back. She leaned in closer. My blond defender reached from
behind me, touched Jacqueline’s shoulder and gently moved her away.
She
released her hold on me and flung her long wavy brown hair over her shoulder.
“My father.” She placed the back of her hand on her forehead. “He has passed.”
“Is
this . . . are you rehearsing?” I asked.
I still wasn’t sure if I were awake or not. But if I was, the only thing
that could rationally explain the situation was if Jacqueline–pronounced with a
soft Zha at the beginning and a long eeeeen at the end–was holding an acting
workshop in her father’s home. She did that periodically. She called them
impromptu performances and expected thunderous applause whenever you were
victimized into a being a happenstance audience.
“What
have you done to him?” Jacqueline clasped her hands in prayer position as her
eyes pleaded with mine.
“To
who?” I asked.
“I
need to look at her.” The EMT bent in front of Jacqueline to shine a light in
my face. “Your vitals check out okay. Do you think you can stand?”
I
nodded.
“It
wouldn’t hurt to get evaluated at the hospital,” he added.
“I
don’t like hospitals,” I said.
The
EMT smirked and stood. “I’m done here,” he called out to someone and walked
away.
Jacqueline
had disappeared, but my mystery man remained.
“I
have a few questions for you, if you’re ready,” he said as he helped me
up.
Once
vertical, I looked around the room again. From that angle, I was able to see a
stretcher, and a large black bag on the floor. I turned around and saw Mr.
Wooley in the never-used wingback chair in the corner of his dining room. A
team of people inspected him.
“Oh
my God.” I pressed my fingertips against
my temples almost able to remember why I was in Mr. Wooley’s townhouse.
“Do
you need the EMT again?” the man asked.
“No.
I’m, I think I’m okay.” My face scrunched as I looked at him. “Did I already
ask what happened?”
“You
did.” He nodded. “Where did you come from?”
I
took a long inhale while I thought about his question.
“The
back door,” I said as I pointed to the rear of the townhouse. Mr. Wooley’s home
stretched a half block. The front door opened to the street and the back to a
narrow alley. “Yes, that’s right,” I continued. “I parked behind the townhouse
and . . . I knocked.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Mr. Wooley didn’t
answer. But he was expecting me. So I waited and then I just came in. I had
flowers for him.”
“Are
you the one who brought the funeral flowers?” His eyes took on a steely
quality, somewhat akin to how my accountant’s look when he challenges my claims
for deductible expenses.
“Yes.”
My voice cracked. Stark memories from the morning emerged from the fog in my
brain. “Is Mr. Wooley really dead?” I asked, although I knew the answer.
“The
body of Shelby Wooley was found by his daughter this morning. She notified the
police and waited for us at the front of his home. When she brought us to him,
you were lying on the floor next to his chair. How did you get there?”
“Like
I said, I knocked—”
“I
got that. But how did you get in? Do you have a key?”
“I
do. But the door was unlocked.”
“I
see. So you came in. Then what happened?”
“I
put the flowers on the counter and called out for Mr. Wooley. He didn’t answer.
So I went to look for him. That’s when I saw the wax figure. I mean, I thought
it was the wax figure. But, then I, I . . . touched . . . his cheek and it . .
.” My ears rang. “I think I need to. . .” was all I got out.
I
awoke in the man’s arms as he dragged me to a sofa at the front of the house.
Mr. Wooley was out of sight.
“Do
you need water?” he asked.
“Please.”
He
left me for a few minutes and returned with a glass of water and the EMT.
“Thank
you.” I accepted the glass. “I feel silly. I haven’t fainted in years.”
The
EMT took my pulse again. “Do you think
it’s possible someone hit you over the head earlier?” he asked.
I
pulled out of his grip and reached around to feel the back of my skull. “I’m
not tender anywhere. I’m sure I fainted.”
“Do
you have a history of fainting?”
“Yeah.
I used to do it a lot as a kid.”
He
looked into my eyes again. “I think you’re okay. But it would still be a good
idea to get checked over by someone at the hospital.”
“It’s
not necessary,” I insisted. “Really. I’m allergic to hospitals.” I sipped the
water. “Actually, I’m allergic to their bills. They give me hives. Make me
hyperventilate."
“I
hear that’s a common side effect,” he said as he left.
“Sure
you feel better?” Mystery man asked.
“No,
but I’m conscious.”
“Good.
I have to ask you a couple more questions. I am Detective Collin Beatty. This is,” he tilted his head toward a
tall African American man who had just joined us, “my partner, Detective Micah
Jameson.”
“Hello,”
I said.
Detective
Jameson nodded.
“And
you are?” Beatty asked.
“I’m
Peri Milano,” I said.
“Why
are you here, Peri?” Jameson asked.
“I
was bringing flowers for Mr. Wooley.”
“The
ones in the kitchen with the ribbon that says In Sympathy,” Jameson said, or maybe asked.
“Yes,”
I offered in case it was a question.
The
men exchanged a glance.
“How
did you know Shelby Wooley was dead?” Beatty asked.
“I
didn’t.” I set the glass on a coffee table, suddenly aware of how bad the
situation looked for me. “I’m organizing a funeral-themed party for him. He is
very particular about the details. I brought the flowers to get his approval on
the red tips of the callas. The florist has been having a tough time getting
the right shade of red dye and—”
“Who
is the florist?” Beatty asked.
“Pearl
Slack at Custom Floral Designs.” I gave them poor Pearl’s number. She’d found
this event to be more of an artistic challenge than she was prepared for. I had
a feeling her stress level would see a cliff-dive once she realized the
pseudo-funeral was off.
“Why
did you come through the back door?” Jameson asked.
“I
always do when I’m bringing props. Mr. Wooley wants everything to be a
surprise. No one is supposed to know all the details. Not even Jacqueline.” I
glanced toward the back of the house, to where Jacqueline stood with her head
tilted and a hand over her heart as she spoke to someone.
Together,
the men grilled me over the events of the day, about my relationship with Mr.
Wooley, and then took my full contact information. I answered their questions
all the while straining my ears to hear what the others in the house were
saying. It seemed to me they were under the impression Mr. Wooley was put in
the chair after he had passed away.
Eventually
they sent me on my not-so-merry way, advising me it would be in my best
interest to stay in town.
Author Bio
Lisa Shiroff is a comedic fiction
writer celebrating the often unnoticed but beautifully bizarre in life. For
years, she worked professionally as a corporate freelance writer and graphic designer.
Not only can she Photoshop her way into a royal wedding, but she can write a PR
piece that will make a cat in a tattered wolf costume sound like a Westminster
Dog Show champion. But the struggle to keep her tongue out of her cheek was
giving her TMJ symptoms and she decided she'd had enough. It was time she
joined the ranks of those intent on using humor to balance out the negatives in
the universe. Now she is unleashing her comedic perspective on anyone willing
to take the risk to read whatever she writes.
Having spent her formative years in
small-town America, Lisa mastered the ability to amuse herself and others with
tales about people we all wished lived next door (and some who really did). Now
she’s bringing those stories to light in novels with funny characters
experiencing sometimes inane circumstances and always finding happy endings
(yes, she’s a sucker for them).
Almost living the American Dream,
Lisa lives in south Jersey with her husband, two kids, and a dog. Alas, she has
no picket fence.
Author Links:
Facebook: facebook.com/lisa.shiroff.9
Twitter: @LisaShiroff
Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/lisashiroff
Website: http://lisashiroff.com/
Very nice interview.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by, Debbie! :)
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