What a Busy Week! A New Release and a Re-Release

What a busy week!

On Thursday, I shared the link and cover to our newest Happy Homicides anthology, Cookin' Up Crime. The price is only 99 cents until Nov. 5, and gosh, I guess readers are "hungry" for books that combine crime and cooking because we made it to #1 in two Amazon categories. Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Homicides-Cookin-Up-Crime-ebook/dp/B076HBH58S/

Our biggest anthology yet! Three hundred- plus pages! Comes with a huge bonus file of recipes and craft projects.

At the same time, I released Killer, Paper, Cut: Book #9 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, with its new cover and edits. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G60USJQ

And wow! It became #1 in two Amazon categories, too!

Now I'm going crazy doing the edits on Handmade, Holiday, Homicide: Book #10 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series while working on Fatal, Family, Album: Book #13 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series.

I can only sit in one place for so long at a time, so I try to take regular breaks for...crafting. Right now I'm working on a miniature room box that's intended to mimic an ad that Steinway Pianos has for the new Spirio, the hottest thing to hit the piano market in, well, decades. It's the world's most advanced high-resolution player piano. They can even "reverse engineer" performances to recreate on any Spirio a concert played and recorded in the past.

A room box is like a dollhouse, only as the name implies there's just one room. This particular project has been given me lots of trouble. I didn't have the proper equipment to cut the wood accurately. The archway that I bought came back with slightly wonky "legs." The panels needed to be ripped down and done over. There's still a lot to do, but it's getting there. The chair and the piano still need legs. A big screen TV will go over the mantle. I'm building a chandelier that will actually light up. I want to put a "throw" over the chair, and I need to add trim to the zebra rug. I want to put a palm in the pot, which I made by quilling.

The curtains are real silk. I made the cornice from a box and added papier mache to strengthen it. For the curtains themselves, I painted aluminum foil with white gesso. Then I glued on the silk. That allows me to arrange the folds as I wish.

To the right is a "marble" fireplace. I ordered it. It came unpainted. To get the marble look, I squirted my base color (acrylic paint) on a big piece of wax paper. Then I squirted on the accent colors. Using a piece of plastic wrap that I'd crumpled up, I dotted the plastic in the mixture and dotted it onto the surface of the fireplace. When that was dry, I used Mod Podge in gloss to get the shine. The interior o the fireplace (the firebox) is of recycled foam trays from the grocery store. It will light up when I'm done.

What else would you add to this scene?