WOW! Women on Writing Presents

Secrets Laid to Rest by Catherine C. Hall

Make sure you enter the giveaway @ The Muffin – click here to check it out!

The Secrets of Sutter Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance…

Fall is in the air, the scent of autumn leaves and apple pies, and now a brand new business is opening its doors in small-town Sutter, Georgia.

But not just any business. It’s the Golden Girls meet the Ghostbusters when four women find themselves in an unlikely career: Southeastern Paranormal Investigations. Ree Lane, a stylish widow, is more cynic than true believer, while her childhood chum Elle Harper has a knack for getting sensitive info with the help of her homemade pies. The preacher’s wife, Betsy Jones, can’t be seen with SPI unless she’s in her disguise as Nora, a psychic-in-training with a gift for Tarot. And the recently-returned-home Gillian Buchanan is a whiz at technology, especially of the supernatural sort.

Their first case lands on the doorstep when neighbor Doris Tucker is sure her prized vintage dolls are haunted. But there’s hardly time for ghost-hunting when the bank director’s wife mistakes SPI for a private eye venture. Now they’re also hot on the trail of a misbehaving husband. It’s a wild ride as the sixty-something sleuths start digging into the past. But have the Ladies of SPI gone too far? And how far will Sutter go to keep its secrets dead and buried?

5 out of 5 fairies

I flew through this book in record time, because I just couldn’t put it down once I started reading. (You ever really get into a book, and real life just becomes kind of annoying because it gets in the way of your reading? This is one of those books). I don’t know if I have a favorite out of the four investigators, they all have such unique personalities and play off each other so well. I don’t think the team would have worked out so well if you pared them down to a trio. While reading this, I found myself not only intrigued, but smiling and giggling quite a few times. The banter between the women and the situations they sometimes find themselves in will just keep you wanting to read more. I’ll definitely be recommending this to everyone in my life who loves mysteries and Golden Girls – it’s just too good to miss!

Purchase a copy of Secrets Laid to Rest on Amazon. You can also add this to your Goodreads reading list.

There’s a great song, “I’ve Been Everywhere,” made popular by Johnny Cash (and a couple commercials). If you put the song in Georgia, it would be about Catherine C. Hall, starting when she moved to the Peach State at eight-years-old.

She grew up in Savannah, Georgia, where you can’t throw a stick without hitting a ghost. Even when she was a little girl, Savannah was known for its haunted history and she was hooked!

Broadcast Journalism hooked her as well, so she studied at Valdosta State University way down in South Georgia where it is the heat and the humidity. She worked in a few radio stations but it was WNEX Radio in Macon that turned out to be life-changing. She met a cute deejay from Sandersville, Georgia, and married him a year later.

They moved above the Gnat Line (Oh, it’s real) to the Atlanta area, where they grew their family to two boys and a girl, and she took a turn in the teaching world. And then whoosh! She met the half-century mark wondering what to do? Maybe it was the merlot talking but after years of reading mysteries, Catherine thought it was high time she write one. And she did; it was awful. (And way too short. Who knew readers expected 70, 000 words?)

So she learned her craft, starting with flash fiction, then moving on to short fiction, where she won a few awards. She wrote essays that ended up in books like Chicken Soup for the Soul. She penned assorted humor columns and continued to freelance. And then one day, she wrote another story that wasn’t exactly novel-length but it wasn’t a short story, either. It was a children’s book.

She joined SCBWI, the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and had a wonderful career in children’s writing, including publishing six books. But in the midst of her last two book contracts, life changed unexpectedly when Catherine’s favorite deejay up and died.

When at last she wanted to write again, she heard four women of a certain age, each seeking purpose and joy in where they found themselves. Which for them was a small town in Georgia called Sutter. For Catherine, it was at home, still in the Atlanta suburbs, revisiting the ghost stories of her youth, and finally getting that mystery written. All 70,000 words of it!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551890907288

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathychall/

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Website (Psst! Sign up for Cathy’s Spirited Newsletter and get in on secret giveaways!): https://catherine-c-hall.com/