When a hiker near Ithaca stumbles across an old skeleton buried with a rusty buttonhook and a locket full of pictures, Inspector Frank Conley knows he’s looking at a tough case. What he doesn’t expect is having to solve his own aunt’s murder.
In 1916, when high-society debutante Libbie Morgan decided to balance her time between Ithaca’s rich-but-dull golden boy and a heart-poundingly handsome farm boy, she unknowingly launched an ever-widening web of deception and jealousy.
Frank must peel away layers of history as he deals with his own demons and races against time to find the answer before his mother goes to the grave never knowing the truth about her sister. With the help of the town historian and an attractive aspiring writer, can he piece together a seventy-year- old mystery and discover how love ended up bleeding in a shallow grave?
This novel was published as an ebook through Musa Publishing in 2013, and did abysmally, as did most of Musa's books. They are now defunct.
Since I regained my rights and self-published it, it sold more in one month than it had in the two years it was with Musa.
Currently, it is sitting at #96814 in Genre Fiction > Historical on Amazon. For my 2nd novel, The Forgotten Flapper, I spent far more time, effort, and money promoting, so it has done better. Love Lies Bleeding still earns me a few extra dollars a month, so that helps me to concentrate more expenditures on my Forgotten Actresses series.
“Everybody else goes to Hawaii for vacation. But I followed Joni Mitchell to New York on a nature walk from hell,” Nicole muttered to herself.
She clutched at the stitch in her side. She was losing momentum as she limped down the trail. With each successive curve she rounded, she figured Kathy would be waiting for her. But each time, Kathy wasn’t there.
As with their visit to Letchworth last year, Kathy had already disregarded safety and outdistanced her. Nicole was tired of Kathy’s whole earth mother routine in general, and now she was just tired. And seriously pissed off.
Her shins hurt and the new hiking boots she'd purchased a few weeks ago were rubbing, even with the pillowy hiking socks she'd bought to go with them. She sat down on a downed hemlock log to one side of the trail and rubbed the junction of her heel and ankle where a blister was developing.
Her makeshift bench was huge and looked like it had been there for years. Fallen leaves, rocks, and old rodent nests formed an earthy carpet all around it. On the ground between the tree and the path, Nicole saw a scrap of blue nestled in the brush. Cloth?
Nicole yanked the large chunk of what appeared to be blue wool loose from the earth. She crouched in front of the log. After breaking a nail scraping at the ground, she pulled away leaves and twigs, revealing more blue. The rich smell of earth and decay hit her nostrils. She ground her knees in the soil as she tried to gain a little traction.
She tugged at the fabric some more, then wiped her hands on her shorts to rid them of some of the filth. As she pulled, the resistance gave way, along with compacted earth. She was confronted with a small glimpse of white. Well, off-white. And then a skull rolled through the moss and leaves and settled against her thigh.
| Language | Status |
|---|---|
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Portuguese
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Bárbara Vilela
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