Danny stunned a copy to death during an alien fantasy...or was it something else? Follow the terrible fate of Danny in this small, alien obsessed New Mexico town. You'll never believe what shows up in the desert outside Roswell...
...#4 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series...
Tower Lowe makes up stories about Santa Fe scenes...
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
In Gallup, Greed. Dear Readers, a LONGER story. Same quirky characters, exotic settings...
In Gallup,
Greed
by
Tower Lowe
...#6 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series
Jerry
floated before her, a vision of beer lights and brown leather vest, kind of
cute in an old white guy way.
“Wanna mash
me shot fer shot?” he slurred. Mirage laughed at the rich art collector.
"Why
not?”
“Two Wild
Turkeys, straight up.”
She
woke up in the alley by her brother’s wooden two bedroom house on Cactus Drive in Gallup. The relentless New Mexico sun stabbed
her eyes and fired a sharp pain in her forehead. Through a fog of nausea she searched black memories of
the night before. Jerry appeared,
a shirtless vision in electric blue bikini briefs passed out on a bed of beer
bottles. Mirage wretched, bringing
up a pittance of bile and
regret.
She
dragged her body off the sandy soil clumped with weeds and trailed slowly up
the path to her brother's weathered brown door. A long crack ran down the wood by the lock where someone had
clearly broken in, leaving the door ajar.
Mirage frowned through the headache, her brain slowly filling with
remorse.
Stumbling
over the wreckage of beer bottles and pizza, Mirage scouted the coffee supplies
and instantly voted for Starbucks.
"Heh,
Lonnie!"
No
answer. No doubt her brother was
passed out for the day in his bedroom.
She found him there, for sure, but not the way she expected. Blood soaked the gray linens and
drained, thick and rouge-brown, in a puddle that flowed from a wound in his
abdomen. He was clearly and obviously
dead.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Free -- Sexual tension, Inuendo...murder...
--> FREE November 29 and 30, 2012. # 3 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series.
"Sexual tension,innuendo, and a strange concoction of asparagus, lentils and blueberries..." is how one reviewer describes the start of this Cinnamon/Burro mystery. The usual cast of quirky characters inhabit this New Mexico mystery story. A hairdresser is found dead in the chapel of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. Marco is a popular, but problematic local character. In recent years, his sense of humor and compassion have been replaced by a short temper and intolerance. Was his death a gay hate crime, the result of a jealous rage, or a short term fight with a friend.
Follow Cinnamon and Burro through Santa Fe's seedy side and discover one more clue to the whereabouts of the long lost Momma.
"Sexual tension,innuendo, and a strange concoction of asparagus, lentils and blueberries..." is how one reviewer describes the start of this Cinnamon/Burro mystery. The usual cast of quirky characters inhabit this New Mexico mystery story. A hairdresser is found dead in the chapel of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. Marco is a popular, but problematic local character. In recent years, his sense of humor and compassion have been replaced by a short temper and intolerance. Was his death a gay hate crime, the result of a jealous rage, or a short term fight with a friend.
Follow Cinnamon and Burro through Santa Fe's seedy side and discover one more clue to the whereabouts of the long lost Momma.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
FREE Dreamlike Landscape...Surrealistic Tale
In Zuni, Zymotic -- #2 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series -- goes FREE for the first time October 30, 2012 thru November 1, 2012.
Cinnamon, a woman sleuth, and her pal, Burro, find a man dead on the front porch in Zuni, and accusations fly among the quirky characters within minutes of the discovery of the body. Is it Zuni medicine or murder? Find out in the exotic world of this New Mexico mystery. Zymotic means fermented or infections, and there's no lack of fermented feelings and infectious resentment in the 2nd short story in this top mystery series.
Keep your eye on twitter (@towerlowe) and amazon.com -- download a copy, read it, and leave me a "like" and a fresh review!
Cinnamon, a woman sleuth, and her pal, Burro, find a man dead on the front porch in Zuni, and accusations fly among the quirky characters within minutes of the discovery of the body. Is it Zuni medicine or murder? Find out in the exotic world of this New Mexico mystery. Zymotic means fermented or infections, and there's no lack of fermented feelings and infectious resentment in the 2nd short story in this top mystery series.
Keep your eye on twitter (@towerlowe) and amazon.com -- download a copy, read it, and leave me a "like" and a fresh review!
Black Poison, Cavernous Shame, Quirky Characters
In Carlsbad, Cavernous
Tower Lowe
-- #5 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series
“She’s
dead,” Emma sagged against the classroom door.
Cinnamon put an arm around the High School Principal
and moved her out in the hallway.
“What happened?”
“They found my big sister with a crushed skull -- in
the Underground Lunch Room.”
“Here at the school?
“Don’t be ridiculous…in the lunch room in Carlsbad
Caverns.”
“Oh. Was
Magda working as a guide today?”
Emma waved her smart phone in my direction, as if
electronic information might fly at me.
“No. I don’t know. They found Magda this morning with her
head bashed in. Early…when they
opened the caverns. The deaf
custodian is missing, so they think he killed her and left town.”
That's the start in number five in this top mystery series that takes place in New Mexico. Mystery abounds, as Cinnamon, a woman sleuth, chases after the criminal (and Momma) while new quirky characters with names like Zookie and Sojo slip in and out of suspicion. Burro has one vision, and this mystery story follows the baby and black poison to it's vengeful end. And...Cinnamon finds an enticing new clue to the whereabouts of the elusive Momma.
Number five in the short story series is to be released very soon!
Friday, September 21, 2012
Quirky Characters, Eerie and Isolated Locale, Slightly Paranormal...
-- Review of In Dulce, Disturbed #1 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series
Author: Tower Lowe
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Format: Kindle
Following up on a civil rights compliant regarding specialized education for a middle school boy, Cinnamon and her partner Burro Wesote travel to Dulce, New Mexico to investigate. Upon their arrival, however, they learn that the young boy they've come to help has gone missing. They also find the area educators to be less than cooperative when it comes to boy blaming him and his family for any issues related to his education. When a beaten body is found in the local cemetery, rumors run rampant that it is the missing boy and Cinnamon vows to get to the bottom of what is really going on in this small northern border town.
Tower Lowe's, In Dulce, Disturbed, is a short story, but you would never know it by the depths of Lowe's characters. Remember the early 1990s TV show, Twin Peaks, with its quirky characters, eerie and isolated locale, and slightly paranormal bent? There is something reminiscent of that series in Lowe's work. Consider some of the more interesting characteristics in "Dulce" - the main character's name is Cinnamon - an unexpected name for a civil rights investigator - and what is the story behind her long lost mother who left her family when Cinnamon was just six? What is the deal with her partner Burro, whose visions are easier for him to manage with the medication? And what is with all the hostility from the locals at the school? All curious characteristics of a short but engaging story that I quickly found myself engrossed in and couldn't put down.
Great stuff.
I can't wait for this to be turned into a full blown novel. Watch out David Lynch.
Note: A complimentary copy of this work was provided in return for a review.
Great Short Story, July 23, 2012
By
This review is from: In Dulce, Disturbed: A New Mexico Mystery (#1 Cinnamon/Burro Top Mystery) (Kindle Edition)
In Dulce, Disturbed: Great Short StoryAuthor: Tower Lowe
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Format: Kindle
Following up on a civil rights compliant regarding specialized education for a middle school boy, Cinnamon and her partner Burro Wesote travel to Dulce, New Mexico to investigate. Upon their arrival, however, they learn that the young boy they've come to help has gone missing. They also find the area educators to be less than cooperative when it comes to boy blaming him and his family for any issues related to his education. When a beaten body is found in the local cemetery, rumors run rampant that it is the missing boy and Cinnamon vows to get to the bottom of what is really going on in this small northern border town.
Tower Lowe's, In Dulce, Disturbed, is a short story, but you would never know it by the depths of Lowe's characters. Remember the early 1990s TV show, Twin Peaks, with its quirky characters, eerie and isolated locale, and slightly paranormal bent? There is something reminiscent of that series in Lowe's work. Consider some of the more interesting characteristics in "Dulce" - the main character's name is Cinnamon - an unexpected name for a civil rights investigator - and what is the story behind her long lost mother who left her family when Cinnamon was just six? What is the deal with her partner Burro, whose visions are easier for him to manage with the medication? And what is with all the hostility from the locals at the school? All curious characteristics of a short but engaging story that I quickly found myself engrossed in and couldn't put down.
Great stuff.
I can't wait for this to be turned into a full blown novel. Watch out David Lynch.
Note: A complimentary copy of this work was provided in return for a review.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Cinnamon/Burro Top Mystery Series #1 - #5
Quirky and Convincing Characters
Top Mystery Series
In Dulce, Disturbed #1
Beaten to death by his teacher, a young native boy is found by the side of the road in Dulce, New Mexico. Cinnamon,a woman sleuth, joins her pal Burro to face down the school and the teachers and solve the first crime story in this top mystery series. Cinnamon collects the first clues to the lost Momma, who abandoned her in childhood. Defined by this loss, Cinnamon pursues these New Mexico mysteries with one eye on the crime and one eye on finding Momma. Burro assists with visions that contain clues to the crime, if only the two of them can figure out what they mean. Full of quirky characters, this story keeps you in your seat.
In Zuni, Zymotic #2
A dead teacher on the front porch of a Zuni, New Mexico home sends Cinnamon, a woman sleuth, on the trail to solve this cozy mystery. Quirky characters, including an Aunt and a girlfriend provide clues to the crime and to the whereabouts of Cinnamon’s elusive Momma. The exotic location includes a controversy over Zuni kachinas (spirit beings) in ancient New Mexico mystery. Follow the trail to Momma and the killer in #2 of the top mystery series.Salacious, silly, sad, and sanguine, In Santa Fe, Salacious takes Cinnamon, a female sleuth, and her pal Burro into the underside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the city different. In this salacious mystery, a man dies of a blow to the head in St. Francis Cathedral, and a cast of sexually confused characters vie for the role of lead suspect. This crime story continues the tradition of quirky characters that define this top mystery series. Who killed the hairdresser Marco as he prayed quietly in a chapel in downtown Santa Fe? Aliens abduct Danny and force him to kill Juan, his only real friend. Or that’s what Danny thinks. Danny's alien abduction story gets him arrested in this cozy UFO mystery. Cinnamon, the female sleuth, and Burro, her assistant, travel through New Mexico amid alien abduction stories, drug deals, and lost love to find out if Danny is guilty or innocent. The quirky characters also provide another tantalizing clue in Cinnamon’s search for the elusive Momma. Let an hour disappear while you mingle with the Roswell residents and their alien guests in this top mystery series.
In Carlsbad, Cavernous #5
Coming in October, In Carlsbad, Cavernous, finds Cinnamon and Burro in the middle of a crime based on bitter resentments simmering for years in the Carlsbad heat. Visions, the usual cast of quirky characters, and Burro's hallucinations follow many twists and turns in the fourth installment of the New Mexico mystery series.In Gallup....Five more are on the way, and a paisano (New Mexico Roadrunner) peeped in my ear that the next story will take us to Gallup, where Momma recently lived, and where a good friend of Cinnamon's is convinced she murdered her own brother in an alcoholic blackout. Stay tuned...
Personal Note from the Author
I started this mystery series when my job required traveling around New Mexico. Mysteries and quirky characters floated to the surface. In Dulce, New Mexico, I felt the presence of spirits, hidden in the hills, on every visit. Truly, I was disturbed. My own mother died when I was 13, and I spend most of my life chasing her, so, in this cozy mystery series, I created the woman sleuth, Cinnamon, who chases her momma while she solves crime stories in picturesque locations in the Land of Enchantment.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Free for 3 Days: In Roswell, Re-Abducted
In Roswell, Re-Abducted is going free on amazon.com kindle for August 2,3,4. I'll be featured on Flurries of Words as Free Book Find and listed on numerous other author promotion sites.
Hope any cozy mystery readers out there will take a few minutes to read the story and let me know what you think on amazon.com or goodreads.com.
Thanks for your support.
Monday, July 30, 2012
In Carlsbad, Cavernous
My next story is well underway. Below is a quote from page 2, after Magda's body is discovered and her sister, Emma, knows that Magda is dead. What's with Zookie? And why doesn't Emma comfort him?
Stay tuned....Cinnamon and Burro are solving mysteries again...
Yellow police tape
fluttered in hot wind. Emma seemed to flutter at the same rate, leaning first
into Burro and then me. Two police cruisers, blue lights intense against the
heated May sky, were parked parallel to each other, facing the crowd. Emma slumped fully against Burro, and
we used her condition to carve a path through the crowd to a low wall near the
entrance.
“Magda,” she
whispered. “My only family.”
A
skinny man, about 5’2”, all in black, dropped to the ground and grabbed Emma by
the knees. His long black hair
fell in front of his face, and he began a desperate monologue.
“You sister was a
wonderful woman. Nobody alive was
as good as her, as kind, as generous, as giving. She taught me in 9th grade, you know that? She treated me like a son, her own
child, a boy she cared for and cared about. Nobody could hurt an angel like her. Nobody, not even that weird Rein. She loved him, too, she did.”
Emma readjusted
her body, throwing the fellow off her knees. He fell on the pavement, looking up at her now, his hair off
his face. I saw a scar running from his left lip to her ear. His eyes were cat-green, and a sour
smell fumed off his clothes.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Zookie.” Emma put her hand up to hold the man
away. “You know Magda didn’t like
that sort of display. Think of
her, for goodness sake. She was an
angel – everyone thought so. But maybe
someone robbed her or…she caught somebody robbing the lunch room and they whacked
her in the head. We don’t know the whole story yet, is all.”
“That doesn’t make
any sense, Emma,” Zookie stood up.
“There’s no reason for our Magda to be down at the bottom of the caverns
at night. She was dragged down
there by a cold-blooded killer, I say.”
Zookie’s green
eyes were showing red around the edges, and I realized he was drunk or stoned,
or both. Emma followed my look, and
explained Zookie.
“He was one of
Magda’s students, “ Emma flipped a hand in his direction, “when she taught high
school here in Carlsbad. Magda
helped her students out when they…they had problems.”
Zookie took
offense at this. “She saved my
life, is what she did. She said so herself, over and over again. I’d be dead without her.”
“Zookie,” Emma
stood up now, looking the black clad man in the face. “You can’t save someone’s
life over and over again. The truth
is you manipulated…”
The Restaurant Inside Carlsbad Caverns
This is the location of the murder of Magda in the story In Carlsbad, Cavernous.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
In Roswell, Re-Abducted, New Release
Here's the set-up. In an alley behind the UFO Museum in Roswell, Danny kills his best friend, Juan. Or so it appears. Cinnamon and Burro don't know what to think, and they tour the quaint town, encountering UFO aliens and aliens of other kinds.
My editor calls this, "Your best story yet," so I hope readers will feel the same.
Click the cover on the right and buy it for 99 cents...it's out of this world...
Monday, July 16, 2012
Kindle Free-for-All: My Turn
New to Indie publishing, I need to get my name out there, and, in the end, the Kindle Direct Publishing and the KDP Select giveaway presented the best option. I tried it, with some success, and I'm glad I did. I write short stories, so "book" is used loosely here.
FIRST: Since I was a shy, modest, unassuming type (or so I liked to think) -- the first step involved letting go of this person as quickly as possible. So, when people say to me, "I'd never share on Twitter," I profess to be an exhibitionist, unconcerned about privacy. "Privacy is passe," I declare. Do I believe this -- no. But I can say that if I want to publicize my writing and, thus, me, I must have an online presence. So I throw away my metaphorical robes and let it all hang out -- metaphorically, of course.
SECOND: What do I know about online promotion? Virtually nothing. I begin to explore the efforts of others. I read blog posts. I follow Twitter links, peruse Facebook pages. I find out the answer to two burning questions: What is Stumbled Upon? Is Google+ as creepy as it feels? Here are a few things I learn.
- How to sign up for a Twitter account
- How to Tweet and get followers
- How to Retweet
- How to schedule tweets (Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Twuffer.com)
- How to say TY (Thank you) and be happy about it
- How to schedule a free book and promote it.
- Thousands can't be wrong. It's easy to follow the step by step directions on kdp.
- Keep track of websites that list your books and list the free offering early
- Keep track of websites that list your books and list it the same day (varies by website)
- How to boldly ask to be chosen and get chosen as a featured free book
- How to join goodreads.com
- How to start a reading list on goodreads.com
- How to get MY books on goodreads.com
- How to get friends on goodreads.com
- Finally, how to promote my free book (invite friends to an event)
- How to meet great people and get tired of the tiresome on LinkedIn (such as the gentleman who suggested he can name call because he's right -- new idea).
- How to ask for help and get it on LinkedIn
- How to soak up writing tips on LinkedIn
- How to tweet 'til you drop, follow your downloads in real time, find out your free book ranking on amazon.com, and how to accept that I didn't become a paid best seller the first time around. I did make #5 in the Top 100 Free Best Sellers for mysteries. One day, I told myself, that will be in the top paid best sellers, one day. Such is the stuff of a writers' dreams.
Third: Before my free book giveaway, I was selling five short stories a month. I am now selling one a day. That may not last, but it's nice for now. But, more than that, I am more confident about promoting my work. I am improving my blog, and now my book covers link to the amazon.com buy page, a small victory for a struggling newbie. The most important thing the kdp select free promotion taught me: I know I can learn what I need to learn. I have hope, and hope keeps me writing.
Tomorrow, I'll be releasing my next short story, In Roswell, Re-Abducted. I'll tell you about it then. (Promotion, you know, promotion...)
Saturday, June 16, 2012
In Roswell, Re-Abducted, 1st page
Here
it is, the first page to my new short story, In Roswell, Re-visited.
Danny takes first place as a suspect in the murder of a local hero and
champion of people with disabilities. Cinnamon and Burro know the
hero, Juan Bueno, and doubt Danny killed him. Burro repeatedly has
visions of an abandoned trailer, and the two traipse the city looking
for a culprit amid tourists, a blond, director of the UFO museum and
other alien characters. UFOs appear.
Billie Rae’s Bar and Grill stays
open ‘til 2am, and that’s when Danny headed down
Main Street in Roswell, fighting the March wind. Tuesday is payday at Billie Rae’s and Danny drank Bud
Light (half price for employees) all night every Tuesday.
“Bang! Ba-boop! Bang!”
Danny jumped, and then saw an empty KFC tub bouncing into the
sunken doorway of a thrift store.
The noise reminded him of a fight at the bar. He walked faster. Next, he heard a high whistling sound,
followed by a rush of dirt to his eyes.
He stopped and turned around. People whispered in the dark street. It sounded like old people, following
him at a distance, and spying on him. He knew they planned to tell his mom
about the Bud Light and the two toques on a joint with Rosalita. Martha
accepted Danny, and she didn’t care
about his problems or the rules his mom made.
“No drugs and no drinking,
Danny. Understand? I love you
Danny.” He hated Mom when she talked like that.
“Sure Mom.” Danny always lied. What else could he do? There’s no way he planned to
stay sober every single goddamn day.
No way.
Danny heard the old
people whispering again – now
the voices came from down the street….no,
maybe from up above. The whistling
again, then the voices. He looked
up the street at the UFO Museum, thinking the sounds came from Juan’s apartment on the second
floor. No lights,
though. Juan usually left a light
on when he was reading or watching TV, and then it was okay for Danny to knock
on the door, and maybe come in for a cup of tea. He had to be sober and the light had to be on. Those were
the rules, and Danny managed to follow them because Juan talked to him and
never gave advice. Advice fell
hard on Danny.
A quick gale sent a Big Mac container sailing in the air, dancing in a circle. Danny's eyes followed it up under the streetlight, watching it twirl and turn in the desert night air. Oval black eyes, painted for tourists, spied on him from the cool green rim on the lights. That's when he saw, for real, a luminescent saucer, the kind people talked about in the UFO Museum. The saucer hovered in front of the UFO building, a block from the house where he and his mom lived and right under Juan's window. Long thin green rays shot out from the edge of the saucer, beeping words at Danny. They were after him again, and they wanted to transport him into the alien body of the ship.
Are you curious? Let me know. Available in July on Amazon Kindle.
Monday, May 7, 2012
UFO Visits
A quick gale sent a Big Mac container sailing in the air, dancing in a
circle. Danny's eyes followed it up under
the street light,watching the container twirl and turn in the desert night air. Oval black eyes, painted for tourists, spied on him from the
cool green rim of brightness. That’s when he saw, for real, a luminescent saucer, the kind people talked
about in the UFO Museum. The
saucer hovered in front of the UFO building, a block from the house where he and
his mom lived and right under Juan's window. Long thin wisps of green plasma pumped, like man of war
tendrils, from the edge of the saucer, pumping words at Danny. They were after him, wanted to grab and
swallow him into the jellied alien body of the ship.
This is the start of the abduction in my latest story "In Roswell, Re-abducted." The street lights in Roswell really do have oval black eyes, at least in the downtown area. Writing is such a struggle. My first drafts of paragraphs are all full of telling and no showing and I have to wait a few days and go back and try to make them more mysterious and leave more to the reader.
Still, it's more interesting that my day job.
This abduction starts the at a murder scene. Danny has been abducted before and so have others in the story, it turns out. I hope an alien abducts me and makes writing easier over the next few weeks!
My short stories follow Cinnamon and Burro as they chase crime in New Mexico cities and try to find long lost "Momma" who abandoned Cinnamon when the investigator was 6 years old. Each new installment unveils more clues about Momma and where and if she lives now.
In Dulce, Disturbed
http://www.amazon.com/Dulce-Disturbed-Mexico-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0042RUKGG/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
In Zuni, Zymotic
http://www.amazon.com/Zuni-Zymotic-Mexico-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0066B2546/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
In Santa Fe, Salacious
http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Salacious-Mexico-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0066CBANC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336397171&sr=8-1
Author Page
http://www.amazon.com/Tower-Lowe
This is the start of the abduction in my latest story "In Roswell, Re-abducted." The street lights in Roswell really do have oval black eyes, at least in the downtown area. Writing is such a struggle. My first drafts of paragraphs are all full of telling and no showing and I have to wait a few days and go back and try to make them more mysterious and leave more to the reader.
Still, it's more interesting that my day job.
This abduction starts the at a murder scene. Danny has been abducted before and so have others in the story, it turns out. I hope an alien abducts me and makes writing easier over the next few weeks!
My short stories follow Cinnamon and Burro as they chase crime in New Mexico cities and try to find long lost "Momma" who abandoned Cinnamon when the investigator was 6 years old. Each new installment unveils more clues about Momma and where and if she lives now.
In Dulce, Disturbed
http://www.amazon.com/Dulce-Disturbed-Mexico-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0042RUKGG/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
In Zuni, Zymotic
http://www.amazon.com/Zuni-Zymotic-Mexico-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0066B2546/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
In Santa Fe, Salacious
http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Salacious-Mexico-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0066CBANC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336397171&sr=8-1
Author Page
http://www.amazon.com/Tower-Lowe
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