Guest Victoria Thompson and Giveaway!

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Jessie: In New Hampshire where the leaves have mostly rattled off the trees and the winter birds have returned to the feeders.

Today it is my  very great pleasure to welcome Victoria Thompson to the blog! I met Victoria several years ago at Malice Domestic. She is as charming and personable in life as she is in her writing.

 Victoria Thompson is the author of the bestselling Gaslight Mystery Series. Her new book, City of Lies, is the first in her new Counterfeit Lady Series, which releases on November 7. To celebrate, she’ll give away a signed hardcover copy to one commenter here today (US entries only).

ThompsonVictoria-CityofliesLooking for Inspiration…

I’m very excited that City of Lies will finally be released into the wild! I’d been wanting to write a second historical mystery series for a long time, and I’d been doing a lot of research on the early twentieth century, hoping for inspiration. During that process, I learned a lot about the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and I realized that when my own mother was born, women didn’t have the right to vote in America! It was that recent! I also learned that many women endured beatings and imprisonment to earn females the right to vote. I’d never heard about this in history class, and no other women I spoke with had either. I wanted to tell this story, but how could I make it more interesting than a dry history lesson? That’s when I decided to add a less than honest heroine, a dashing hero, and a dastardly villain.

Every woman wears a mask…

Every woman has, at one time or another, hidden who she really is in order to get along or get ahead. Elizabeth Miles has made a career of it, however. As a con artist, her job is cheating rich and greedy men, but when she cheats the wrong man, she ends up running for her life.

Elizabeth finds temporary safety by getting herself arrested with the Suffragists who have been demonstrating outside the White House for months. This gets her away from Thornton for the moment, but she and the other women are sentenced to three months of hard labor at a workhouse were they are starved and abused. Much to her own surprise, Elizabeth bonds with these women and learns to respect them while they are imprisoned, and she emerges a new person.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire…

Elizabeth may feel like a new person, but Oscar Thornton still wants to kill her. How can she escape him and still keep her secrets? Because her new friends would lose all respect for her if they knew who she really was, and the man she has come to love can’t even bring himself to tell a lie. How can she trick them into helping her pull off a con that will save her life without losing everything she has learned to value?

The more things change, the more they stay the same…

Elizabeth’s experiences in City of Lies are based on real historical events that happened in November of 1917, exactly 100 years to the month when the book is being published! In 1917, society was changing, and women were fighting to be taken seriously, to be valued, and to have a seat at the table. A hundred years later, women are still fighting for the very same things. Elizabeth lived in exciting times and so do we. I hope you enjoy reading about her adventures, which are not so very different from our own.

 

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Edgar® and Agatha Nominated author Victoria Thompson writes the Gaslight Mystery Victoria Thompson photoSeries, set in turn-of-the-century New York City and featuring midwife Sarah Brandt. Her latest, Murder in the Bowery, was a May 2017 release. City of Lies is the first book in her new Counterfeit Lady series, a November 2017 release from Berkley. She also contributed to the award winning writing textbook Many Genres/One Craft. Victoria teaches in the Seton Hill University master’s program in writing popular fiction. She lives in Illinois with her husband and a very spoiled little dog.

Published by Jessie Crockett

Jessie Crockett wears a lot of hats, both literally and literarily. As Jessie Crockett she is the Daphne Award winning author of Live Free or Die and the nationally bestselling Sugar Grove series. As Jessica Ellicott she has received starred reivews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal for her historical mystery Murder in an English Village. As Jessica Estevao she writes the Agatha Award nominated Change of Fortune Mysteries. She loves the beach, fountain pens, Mini Coopers and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England where she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar.

97 Thoughts

  3. Your new historical mystery series sounds very dynamic, and the cover of the first book encapsulates that. Congratulations on the book’s being released on the 100th anniversary of the actual events that happened. How exciting it all must be for you. ( :

  4. It sounds like a great new series! My great grandmother and sisters did some suffrage marching back in the day. It is a truly interesting time period, so many things were changing socially and industrially.

      1. It could not be a more perfect time, with all the women who were elected to various offices just this week. Looking forward to this new book very much.

  5. Welcome to the blog! I know this new series will be a huge success. As you know, I loved City of Lies and am telling everyone I know they should read it.

  6. I enjoy reading books based in NH. I lived in NH for about 24 years so am quite familiar with many areas of the state and it’s cool when your town gets mentioned which has happened. I enjoy history so here is another book to add to my TBR. Thank you for the chance.

  7. I cannot wait to read this one. I love historical novels. Thanks for the chance to win!

    2. Reading historical novels is like listening to gossip, I think! It’s delicious to hear about other people’s problems when you don’t have to experience them yourself.

  10. I fell in love with Victoria Thompson’s books when I first saw the covers. Historical fiction/mysteries are among one of my favorites to read. Ms. Thompson’s books are so well written they keep the reader wanting more and more. My fingers are crossed that I am chosen to win this book.

  13. I am looking forward to reading this new series. I’ve read all the Gaslight books–twice! I see you are working on book two of this series, but I hope you are going to give your fans another book with Sarah and Frank.

  14. Victoria, you are a “new-to-me” author and I appreciate learning about you here at the Wicked’s blog. Best of luck with your new series, it looks like a really good one. And, thank you for the contest, too. My grandmother talked about the first time she voted to me. It is hard to believe that it was so recent that women did not have the vote. And, I am horrified to learn about the abuse they suffered….that was not in the history books I remember reading in school.

  15. I am woefully behind on the Gaslight Mysteries, but I jumped at the chance to start this new series. It is absolutely wonderful! Definitely add this to your TBR pile.

  17. I can’t wait to start reading this series. The Gaslight Series was my favorite EVER.

  18. Can’t wait to read the new series! I have read all of the Gaslight Mysteries and love them!!

  20. Welcome to the Wicked Cozies, Victoria! Your new series sounds fantastic. I love “near history,” a time when my grandparents and other people I knew well were alive.

  21. This book sounds spectacular! I would love to win a copy. Thank you so much for the chance!

  26. This sounds fascinating…I did know Women risked beating and death for the vote but only after I studied history as an Adult. It was still hard to believe though… and the images were sad. The books sounds wonderful. though and I would love to read it..
    Marilyn ewatvess@yahoo.com

  27. This sounds like an exciting new series, about a period that fascinates me. Can’t wait to read it.

  29. I love your books so much, this book sounds like another great mystery series. Hope you had fun writing it as much as your fans will have fun reading it.

      1. That’s good that you enjoy writing them hopefully there be more of them to come. Big fan of your gaslight mystery books.

  31. This is a fascinating time period. Looking forward to reading about Elizabeth’s adventures.

  33. I look forward to diving into this fabulous story Thank you for the chance to win

  34. I’m not a big historical mystery reader, but this looks like it might be interesting.

  36. The new series sounds interesting. I love your other series and am glad that you are doing both.

  39. I like historical fiction and love mysteries so this book sounds fascinating!

  43. I’ve been reading the Gaslight series for years and wait (im)patiently for each new one. Then, I’ll try to budget reading a new one to make it last, only to read it in just a few days. Can’t wait to begin a new series from Ms. Thompson!!

  44. I enjoyed the Gaslight Series and especially appreciate the fact that the books featured a midwife and policeman, both helping professions that were certainly not revered in that time period. Thank you for bringing history to life.

  46. Could not put this down. Got the book and the audible so I wouldn’t miss a minute while driving. I can’t wait for the next book in the series!

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