Secrets Revealed by Annette Dashofy

Last month I blogged about waiting. And waiting. And waiting. This month, I’m happy to be able to reveal some of what I was waiting for. 

First is my new cover for the eleventh Zoe Chambers Mystery. 

Fatal Reunion comes out May 10. I have a new publisher for this one, so the look is a little darker, a little grittier. So is the story. But it’s still Zoe, Pete, Wayne, Sylvia, and the gang, so the snarky humor is still firmly in place. Here’s a tease of the opening:

Ten years with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police hadn’t prepared Pete Adams for this. Even the additional ten years as police chief in rural Vance Township hadn’t done the trick. He’d certainly participated in a number of vehicle pursuits in his career.

But a high-speed tractor chase?

If thirty miles an hour could be considered “high speed.”

Trailing dust, the behemoth John Deere swerved to the left, and Pete feared the teenage driver might careen into the wall of summer-green trees lining the rutted back road. Tall, lanky, red-haired tractor thief Gabriel Zediker probably felt invincible atop the huge piece of farm equipment. But even the Deere was no match for the oaks and walnuts.

Beside Pete, Officer Abby Baronick exhaled an audible sigh of relief when the tractor righted its path and continued to roar down Miller Road. Pete shot a glance at his young daylight-shift officer, who braced one hand on the Explorer’s center console, the other on the dash.

“We’re not going that fast,” he said. The Deere might have been top of the line, but it wasn’t designed for road races. Still, on the pothole-riddled road, thirty felt like seventy-five.

        Abby made a point of bringing her hands back to her lap. “Fast enough.”

The other big secret I was keeping involves none other than James Patterson. No, I’m not co-writing a book with him. But I have been selected to join him onstage in June when he comes to southwestern Pennsylvania on tour for his new memoir, The Stories of My Life: James Patterson. I’ll be the event’s moderator as he and I discuss the book. As a reader, I’m a huge fan. As a writer, I deeply admire how giving and supportive he is toward other authors, especially those just getting their start. 

And let’s face it, sharing a stage with THE James Patterson is about the best exposure to new readers I can ever hope to get! 

One of the fun parts is getting to read an ARC of the memoir. His speaker’s bureau is sending me a copy. In return, I’m to come up with a list of questions, which I’m to submit for approval. I’m not worried about the approval part since I already sent them several “sample” questions during the initial moderator application. I’ll try to keep the fangirl quotient under control. But really. I want to know how much fun it was to co-write a book with DOLLY PARTON! 

I am, however, open to suggestions. What questions would you ask James Patterson if given the chance?