Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Catacombs and Criminals

by Sherry Ellis
In IWSG Anthology #5 Voyagers

When you think of Paris, things that come to mind may be the Eiffel Tower, good food, fashion, and art museums. I doubt skeletons, underground cemeteries, and art thieves would pop into your head. Bubba and Squirt’s City of Bones explores some of these darker aspects of the City of Lights. While the book is a work of fiction, there are truths in the stories within the story.

Were the art thieves real? 

The characters in Bubba and Squirt’s City of Bones are fictional, but the information about the Mona Lisa robbery, the heist from the Museum of Modern Art, and Picasso’s granddaughter are true.
  • Italian painter, Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in 1911. It was recovered in 1913 when he tried to sell it.
  • On May 20, 2010, an art thief stole five paintings, including a Picasso and Matisse from the Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately, the security alarms were not working, and the security guards on duty did not notice the thief. The works are still missing, and the thief has not been caught.
  • On February 27, 2007, thieves broke into the house of Picasso’s granddaughter and stole two of his paintings. They were worth over sixty million dollars!
The Catacombs

The catacombs are an underground gravesite located in the Place Denfert-Rochareau district of Paris. This is where Bubba and Squirt arrive after being whisked through the mysterious portal. It’s also where they first meet the art thieves. A positively creepy place! Here are some facts about it:
  • The bones were once buried in the Cemetery of the Innocent in the district of Halles. When the cemetery became overcrowded, the government decided to move the bones. They chose an old stone mine. 
  • On April 7, 1786, removal of the bones began and continued until 1788.
  • The site contains the remains of about six million people.
  • The catacombs were opened to the public in 1874.
If you ever visit Paris, take the time to visit this unique place. It’s an unforgettable experience!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trivia and that you will consider checking out Bubba and Squirt’s City of Bones!

City of Bones
by Sherry Ellis

Bubba and Squirt are back for another rousing quest as they travel through the mysterious vortex to Paris, France.

It's another wild adventure as they track down art thieves, encounter terrifying monsters, and discover the whereabouts of their missing father. 

Will they make it out alive or join the rest of the skeletons in the City of Bones?

Buy Links:
Amazon  ~~~  B & N  ~~~  iTunes 


Sherry Ellis is an award-winning author and professional musician who plays and teaches the violin, viola, and piano. Her books include Bubba and Squirt’s Big Dig to China; Bubba and Squirt’s Mayan Adventure; Bubba and Squirt’s City of Bones; Don’t Feed the Elephant; Ten Zany Birds; That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN; and That Mama is a Grouch. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.


Connect with Sherry on Social Media:

Facebook  ~~  Twitter/X  ~~  TikTok  ~~  Blog

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Wrapping up a Series

by L. Diane Wolfe

The fourth and final instalment in my In Darkness series comes out this month. And there’s something both satisfying and a little bittersweet about finishing a series.

The four novellas don’t follow the same characters all the way through the series, so it’s not a sadness of missing old friends I’d been with a while. I will miss coming up with new twists on the paranormal romance genre though.

It’s great knowing I did finish this series since time to write is fleeting in between my responsibilities with Dancing Lemur Press and my clients. (Fortunately, two stories were completed and polished over seven years ago, one was finished almost 30 years ago and needed a rewrite, and only one did I have to write from scratch.) It’s a different genre for me, which was also exciting.

Of course, I have a lot of other stories and ideas that could fit into the paranormal romance category should I decide to continue the series!

But for now, I present to you the final novella, The Alien.


In Darkness: The Alien
By L. Diane Wolfe

Souls shrouded in darkness…

Abducted from her research station, Liz’s life is flung into chaos. Sold into servanthood for her knowledge of planetary mining to a race called the Stren, she discovers her problems go far deeper. She is to marry her alien master, Krist, after enduring a procedure designed to eradicate her emotions.

Desperate, Liz persuades the Stren to grant her the duration of a short voyage to change his perception of emotions. But how can she convince someone lacking feelings of their value? And is there a means of accessing the emotional side of Krist?

Release date – February 6, 2024 from Dancing Lemur Press, L.L.C.
Romance-Science Fiction / Science Fiction-Alien Contact / Romance-Paranormal
eBook ISBN 9781939844972

Book Links:
Amazon                                       iTunes
Barnes & Noble                             Kobo
Scribed                                  Goodreads



A professional speaker and author, L. Diane Wolfe conducts seminars, offers book formatting, and author consultation. She’s an editor at Dancing Lemur Press, L.L.C. and contributes to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

Monday, January 8, 2024

Happy New Book!

We're starting off 2024 with some great news!
C. Lee McKenzie has a new release and she's grateful to have some space here today to talk about it. Read about her exciting journey and story... Here's Lee.


This book is a bit of a departure from my usual contemporary/realistic young adult ones.  I stepped into the paranormal area and sent my main characters back in time to bring long overdue justice to a family. 

Here’s what the story is about: The desert town of Rattlesnake isn’t a destination. It’s a last resort. Seventeen-year-old Jonah Guthrie’s aunt sold their home in New England and fled to this place to escape the humiliation of his dad’s indictment for embezzlement and subsequent disappearance. 

While their late uncle left them a house and a silver mine, the house is a shambles and the mine is defunct. They’re almost out of money, so they have no choice but to stay in Rattlesnake. And then Jonah discovers they’ve inherited something else. Her name is Catherine, and she’s been dead for over a hundred year. Now, she needs his help.

I’ve scared a few readers with my title, but after they discovered Rattlesnake wasn’t about a nest of those poisonous reptiles, they enjoyed the story. Rattlesnake wasn’t my first tittle. I think I had three others before I settled on that venomous sounding one. Each previous title had ghosts included—No Such Thing As Ghosts, Ghost Dreams, and one other that must have been so bad I can’t remember it. I think the word, Gulch, was involved. Fortunately, I dispatched all of these, and once I settled on Rattlesnake, I was happy. It had the flavor of the desert, a hint of the old west, and it was also ominous. 
                                                                                    

AVAILABLE NOW!

Look for Rattlesnake at these distribution centers

C. Lee McKenzie is a native Californian who grew up in a lot of different places; then landed in the Santa Cruz Mountains in her home state. She writes, gardens, hikes, and does yoga a lot, and then travels whenever she can. Her favorite destinations are Turkey and Nicaragua, but because she has family in England, Switzerland, and Spain she goes there when she can. 

She takes on modern issues that today's teens face in their daily lives. Her Evernight Teen Publication, Double Negative was voted as one of the best top ten Young Adult books in 2020. Her most recent novel, Shattered, won a 2022 Indie Book Award.

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