Around the Fire with Susie Black recently released from the ether of my computer to talk about her newest release.

Poor Susie Black. You have no idea what I put her through to get this blog out. For some reason my email won't work for some. It must be a stupid filter. Doesn't put people like Susie or my editor ELF into spam, not that would be to easy. They just go to limbo and float in the ether. So, this may be a day late but, I hope you enjoy my guest today.
Nana the Storyteller
If there is an inheritable gene for story-telling, mine came from my mother’s mother. My nana should
have been a writer. No one could tell a story like her. She was the eldest of six children of a modest
immigrant family from Eastern Europe that settled in Boston at the turn of the century.
My great-grandfather was a tailor who managed to clothe, feed, and shelter his children, but there was
precious little left over for extravagances like a day at the cinema for one child, let alone for six. Nana
had a cousin Jenny who played piano at the local silent-movie house and she was able to get a free pass
for relatives. Nana and her next oldest sibling traded off weeks going to the serialized show every
Saturday afternoon and then came home to tell the story to all the other kids.
The other kids hated it when it was my great-aunt’s turn, because she gave a short synopsis and called it
a day. They were thrilled when it was Nana’s turn. She set up two rows of chairs in the parlor like in the
movie house, served popcorn, dimmed the lights and played background music on the victrola as she
recounted the episode of the serial. Nana would take her time, slowly build up to the cliffhanger and
stop talking right before the finale. Nana would wait until my great uncle Murray would yell, “Go on
Rae, go on!” before she’d finish telling the story. Talk about pacing and how to build tension to the
finale? Nana had it down pat.
I had no formal creative writing training when I decided to write my first manuscript. I had a story to tell,
but no clue how to tell it. I heard Nana’s voice in my head talking to me . My long-gone, full-service Nana
had given me all the tools I needed. I started writing, and thanks to Nana, I never stopped. I kept Nana’s
story-telling skills in mind while writing the books in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. Somewhere in
the great beyond, Nana is smiling her approval.

Death by Pins and Needles (Holly Swimsuit Mystery Book 2) 
by Susie Black 
Book 2 of 3: Holly Swimsuit Mystery
Amateur Sleuths
Cozy Mystery

The last thing Mermaid Swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik expected to find when she opened the closet door was nasty competitor Lissa Charney’s battered corpse nailed to the wall. When Holly’s colleague is wrongly arrested for Lissa’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong to sniff out the real killer. Nothing turns out the way she thinks it will as Holly matches wits with a heartless killer hellbent for revenge.



Pre-order
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Surfboard-Holly-Swimsuit-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0BXMCS2NN​
​ From a reviewer
​I binged on this book all afternoon. Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2023

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About Susie Black 
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit
https://www.instagram.com/hollyswimsuit/
https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries​