Blog Tour: Lucky Catch by Deborah Coonts (Spotlight/Guest Post/Giveaway)

About the Book

LUCKY CATCH

The fifth Lucky O’Toole Vegas Adventure

By Deborah Coonts

Trouble always comes in threes. At least that’s what Lucky O’Toole, the VP of Customer Relations for Las Vegas’ primo Strip casino/hotel, the Babylon, has heard for years from her mother. So, tonight, when Teddie, her former lover shows up at her office unannounced and very unexpected, her father offers Teddie a job at the Babylon, she is called to deal with a pig in residence at one of the hotels most exclusive and opulent suites, and Lucky’s current lover, Jean-Charles Bouclet stops answering his phone leaving Lucky to handle his five-year-old son, Lucky figures she has tonight’s compliment of chaos covered.

As usual, she is a tad optimistic.

With a cadre of celebrity chefs with the maturity of teenagers in Vegas for a televised cook-off, a prized Alba truffle in the Babylon’s care, and her mother’s pregnancy racing toward the inevitable, what could go wrong?

When the truffle is stolen from the walk-in in Jean-Charles’ gourmet burger joint at the Babylon and a young chef apparently killed with a smoking gun is found in Jean-Charles’ food truck on the back lot, trouble takes a sinister turn.

And Jean-Charles still isn’t answering his phone.

Another body is discovered. This one stuffed in an oven at Jean-Charles’ eponymous restaurant and set to broil.

Desperate to put a lid on the body count and more than frantic over her AWOL lover, Lucky uses her Vegas contacts to search in places and in ways the police wouldn’t or couldn’t. Teddie insists on riding shotgun. Lucky hasn’t the time nor the resolve to say no. She’s never been able to resist Teddie … not really. With danger dogging their heels, Lucky finds herself falling once again under his spell as they traverse Vegas, being drawn deeper and deeper into the highly competitive world of high-end eateries and the battle for the very rare, most highly prized gourmet foodstuffs.
Would somebody really kill for a truffle?

In a heartbeat.

And when Lucky’s path crosses the killer’s… will her goose be cooked?

Watch the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJsrREAHLho&feature=youtu.be

Author Guest Post

By: Deborah Coonts

How did the Lucky series begin? With men, romance, and the Adult Video Awards. You see, I live in Vegas and these lines often get a bit blurry.

But they make a great story….

So anyway, men. Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them with a gun—although I’m from Texas where that sort of thing, if not tolerated, is at least spoken about with a bit more wistfulness. Yes, my life, until recently, has been a series of romantic misadventures. Great for a novelist, but not very satisfying to the me who has to spend some time, albeit very little, in the “real” world. And, while the real world has its limitations (homicide being one of them), the fictional world offers limitless possibilities.

I can write men the way I wish they were.

And when they don’t behave, I can kill them.

A huge perk to being a professional liar (no, I’m not a lawyer… well, okay, I’m a recovering lawyer.) Some of the men go quickly, some not so much. And it’s all meant in good fun. See, I love romance and I love humor—to the extent those two are not synonymous.

I’ve had folks ask me how I make murder funny. I tell them to read the books :)

In all honesty, some of the murders aren’t “funny.” But, while they might that that humor element, they are gratifying… and sometime ironic, if not poetic. And, in case you’re worried, nobody gets killed if they don’t deserve it—a gal’s gotta have standards, you know.

So, romance. Actually Lucky was born from an affair I had with the City of Las Vegas. I know, not quite the salacious tidbit you were hoping for, but bear with me. When I first started writing commercial fiction, I thought I wanted to be Sandra Brown and spin a romantic suspense tale. Turns out that isn’t where my “talents” lie. And, quite honestly I didn’t want to “be” Sandra Brown, I just wanted her clothes…. Not that I could fit in them, but hey, I’m into fantasy, remember? So, I tossed those manuscripts (there were two, both buried in the backyards of places I used to live) and sat staring at the blank screen, taunted by the blinking cursor.

So, what to write?

I’d just landed in Sin City, a result of letting my then fifteen-year-old male child choose where we were going to live. So, looking for stories, I set about exploring our new home.

And I became enamored. Vegas, a city of reinvention, of second chances, is filled with fodder for stories. Great! Then cam the conundrum of how to tell this story. So, I invented Lucky O’Toole, a young woman who is, as she describes it, the Chief Problem Solver at the Babylon, one of those mega-resorts on the Strip, opulent, and over-the-top. Her job is to ride herd on the thousand of folks who stay, work, entertain at the Babylon every day, and help them with the mischief they invariably find. Fun stuff.

And Lucky in a way is the personification of the part of Vegas I love. She is accepting, non-judgmental, and looking for substance in a world of superficiality. Okay, that substance part isn’t really Vegas…that’s just Lucky. She, much like somebody else I know rather well, is fairly competent in her business life, but if not completely clueless, she is often taken by surprise in her personal life.

And her story starts with some friends in town to accept awards at the Adult Video Award ceremony.

That book, WANNA GET LUCKY? Started it all. The new book, LUCKY CATCH, set against the backdrop of the gourmet food world in Vegas, which has become quite the foodie Mecca, involves a chef completion, a missing truffle, and Lucky’s lover being implicated in in the murder of another chef. She’s killed with a smoking gun….

I know, I couldn’t resist.

Bon appetit.

About the Author

I am proof positive that sex sells…and persistence pays off. After fifteen years learning the craft of writing, I am now officially, an overnight success. And it’s been a long road to get here…

My mother tells me I was born in Texas a very long time ago, but I’m not so sure—my mother can’t be trusted. These things I do know: I was raised in Texas on barbeque, Mexican food and beer. I’ve lived in every time zone in the U.S.; the most memorable stint being the time spent in Las Vegas, where I currently reside and where family and friends tell me I can't get into too much trouble...silly people.

The only constant in my life (besides my family, who deserves hazardous duty pay for sticking with me) has been change (my mother is still waiting for me to grow up). Silly woman.

But all of this career ADD made me incredibly unemployable. Hence the whole writing thing.

Actually, I’ve known from a young age that somehow stories would be a large part of my life, but my path to telling lies for a living (okay, not lies per se, but variations of the truth, for sure) has been circuitous. If someone had just told me when I was a kid that I could actually be paid to daydream for a living, life would have been soooo much easier. But they didn’t. And I never saw a ‘daydreaming’ booth at all those Career Days I attended.

So, initially discouraged when unable to locate anyone willing to pay me to read books, go to the movies, or attend the theatre, and in need of providing for the best child in the world, my son Tyler, I spent years being someone else—an accountant (blech), a business owner (pretty fun), a lawyer (loved law school, hated practicing law), a pilot (giddy and terrifying at the same time). But through it all, I wrote. Along the way I wrote the world’s worst novel, a slightly more well-crafted but equally as poorly plotted novel, several non-fiction feature articles (my first sales!), multiple humor columns for a national magazine (more sales!), and, finally, the novel that sold, Wanna Get Lucky?, the first in a series to be published by Forge Books. The series is a Sex and the City meets Elmore Leonard in Vegas kind of thing, if you can imagine that. Okay, have several glasses of wine, then think about it…makes imagining easier. Anyway, the books are sexy, wry, romantic, and slightly naughty mixed with a little murder and mayhem—shaken, not stirred—then illuminated by the bright lights of Las Vegas—one of the truly magical cities in the world.

Many of my friends have asked me how in the world I came up with the Lucky series. The way they asked led me to believe they thought mind-altering substances might have been involved even though they knew the worst I do is a glass of fine Pinot-Noir. The answer to their question is actually very simple: let your fifteen-year-old male child pick where you live, follow his dream to Vegas, then keep your eyes open.

Hey, it worked for me!

BOOK GIVEAWAY!!!!

Thanks to the author, I can giveaway one e-book copy of Lucky Catch by Deborah Coonts?

Just a few simple rules...

1) You must fill out the rafflecopter form below.

2) Contest is open to anyone over 18 years old

3) All you need to do is leave a comment for the author.

No purchase necessary.  Void where prohibited.

The giveaway begins on September 5th (midnight est) and ends on September 12th (midnight est).

The winner will be chosen randomly by Rafflecopter. The winner will be notified by email and has 48 hours to respond, otherwise a new winner will be chosen. I will announce the winner here on my blog.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Tour Participants

8/24/2014           The Literate Kitty Blog

8/25/2014           A_TiffyFit's Reading Corner

8/25/2014           Deanna's Tidbits

8/26/2014           The Book Bag

8/27/2014           Lesa's Book Critiques

8/27/2014           Patti's Pen and Picks

8/28/2014           Literary Nymphs

8/28/2014           Fallen Angel Reviews

8/29/2014           You Gotta Read Reviews

8/29/2014           Authors & Readers Book Corner

8/31/2014           Sizzling Hot Books

9/1/2014             An Avid Readers Haven

9/2/2014             Chick Lit Plus

9/3/2014             Stacy Alesi's BookBitch

9/4/2014             Wicked Lil Pixie

9/5/2014             Socrates' Book Reviews

9/9/2014             Ramblings of a Daydreamer

9/11/2014           Lisa's World of Books

9/18/2014           Bookfan

9/19/2014           Bless Their Hearts Mom