Spotlight & Giveaway: A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Maxie Dara to HJ!

Hi Maxie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Kathy Valence is not your typical grim reaper. In fact, she’s not a grim reaper at all. These days, folks who collect souls are known as Collections Agents. It’s a corporate gig, and Kathy is one of the best. Or at least she isn’t the worst, and she takes a lot of pride in that. But then the soul of her angsty teenaged client Conner claims someone at her company, S.C.Y.T.H.E., murdered him, and now she has to go against the job she loves to solve his case. All while accidentally pregnant with her soon-to-be ex-husband’s baby. Who she’s accidentally still in love with. All in a day’s work.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“All right, who’s got the chicken Parm and who has the fet-
tuccine Alfredo?”
“We’re really pregnant?” Simon rose after me.
“Yes.”
Simon took my hand. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” said the server. “Alfredo?”
“I guess I’ll take that as well,” said Simon, his round face
beaming. “I’m eating for two.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I am something of a cliche true crime junkie, and if you are too then you will find Easter eggs for a very specific case tucked away in this book. I can’t give specifics without ruining the ending, but once you know the whodunnit in A Grim Reaper’s Guide, it’s definitely worth a grisly deep dive Into the inspiration behind them.
• When it comes to the love story in the book, the most important thing for me was that neither character was your typical romantic lead. They’re both messy and imperfect and human, because as fun as it can be to fantasize about beautiful people in love, I really wanted to show that romance and attraction are things we’re all deserving of, whether or not we fit certain standards.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Kathy spent her whole life feeling invisible and flawed, so when she meets Simon, she’s immediately attracted to the way he not only sees her but accepts and adores what he sees. For Simon, Kathy is a completely different woman in his eyes from the way she exists in her own. He is immediately attracted to her wit, her quirks, and her well-guarded but boundlessly caring heart.
 

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I definitely found myself doing some proper girlish giggles writing the scene where Kathy and Simon first met. It’s so awkward and messy and romantic. Very much the kind of meet-cute I could see myself having.

My heart gave a reluctant flut-ter, and just like that I was back in the dairy aisle of the grocery store where we’d met; a pool of broken eggs forming a viscous puddle around my sensible loafers, at least one shell fragment inexplicably nestled in my hair, and a stocky stranger bent at my feet, ready to fearlessly tackle my mess before I even had time to right the ­ now-​­ empty carton clutched upside down in my hands.

Readers should read this book….

If they like second chance romances, found family, and love in the face of insecurities.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’ve got book two of the S.C.Y.T.H.E. Mystery series in the works, which should be hitting the shelves next fall, just in time for spooky season!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A print copy of A GRIM REAPER’S GUIDE TO CATCHING A KILLER by Maxie Dara

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you got to go on a date with the ghost someone from any period in history, who would it be and why? I’d personally go with Vincent van Gogh because he was so sad and I’d want to try to cuddle some joy into him.

 
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Excerpt from A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer:

We landed on chicken and vegetables; a tame meal for a cha- otic day. I turned some music on at Conner’s insistence and sat beside him at the table chopping carrots and onions while Simon prepared the meat. I could look at dead bodies in whatever state they came to me, but raw meat always made my stomach turn. Simon was behind me humming along to the folksy, ­ banjo-heavy song floating up from my open laptop. Conner had already given me a full discography of the band before I was through with my first carrot. I reached back into the bag for another when I felt Simon’s hands wrap gently around my wrists from behind, his voice still lifted in a hum. “Dance with me?” I turned around and gave him a warning look. Even if it were under different ­ marriage-​­ related circumstances, I was barely able to muster an elegant waddle these days, which was a subtle downgrade from my usual dancing abilities. I peered over his shoulder to the thick night sky, any stars in that swirling black-ness devoured by a blanket of gusting clouds. The light of the kitchen was soft and warm, the air still against the hammering winds beyond the windowpane. That night was like a bowl of
soup; warm and familiar and soothing in contrast to the world’s chill. I relented. The banjos were gone, replaced by an airy voice and a mourn-
ful fiddle. Simon scooped my elephantine waist into his hands and swayed with me around the kitchen as the music swelled and the chicken crackled in oil on the stove. “Dip her,” Conner hollered, as though we were a pair of me-diocre street performers primed for heckling. “He wants you to dip me,” I said to Simon. “I think we can manage that.” We swooped around the table and Simon gently eased me back so my head dangled beside Conner’s shoulder. Despite the upside-​­ down angle, I could see a smile grow on Conner’s face, a mixture of delight and embarrassment wrapped within it. I stood upright again and grinned a conniving grin before forcing Simon over in a dip of his own. By this point Conner’s smile had erupted into surprised laughter, quickly met with Simon’s and my own. We turned one more round across the cool beige tiles and landed back in front of Conner. I gave a curtsy, Simon a bow, before he sniffed the air, said, “Oh no, my chicken,” and raced back over to the stove.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Murder is not her department.

It’s not like it used to be. Modern-day grim reapers wear business casual, not black cloaks, and they don’t carry scythes, they work for S. C. Y. T. H. E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences), where the Department of Natural Causes is the least exciting gig. And that’s how Kathy Valence likes it: boring and predictable. She has enough stress in her personal life; she’s mid-divorce, pregnant, and terrified she doesn’t have what it takes to be a good mom.

Then, she goes to pick up a new client and finds his soul is missing. When she finally tracks down Conner Ortiz, he angrily insists he was murdered, and he refuses to move on until Kathy finds out why and by whom.

Kathy has only forty-five days to solve the mystery before the boy’s soul is doomed to roam the earth as a ghost forever. To do that she’ll have to call on the help of her retired mentor, her almost ex-husband—and, inconveniently, Conner himself. This is the wildest case of her career . . . and one wrong move could cost Kathy her job, not to mention her life.
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Meet the Author:

Maxie Dara is from a tiny, Hallmark ­ movie-​­ style town in Ontario, Canada where she works as a writer and actress, because ­ rejection-​­ heavy careers are her passion. She is also a ­ two-​­ time ­ award-​­ winning playwright. Maxie knew she wanted to be a writer at the age of seven, when she first fell in love with the written word. She also wanted to be a mer-maid but has mostly focused on the writing side of things.
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