Does your family have a trivial thing they fight about? It possibly makes no sense to anyone. In my family, it’s my hair. Through my teenage years my mother tried to control the color and style. Once I got my own job, I could pay for the cut. Nothing too extreme, I went through my gypsy perm stage along with almost everyone else.  My rebellion included not having big bangs when everyone else did. No skunk striped hair for me since my mother prevailed on that matter.

Didn’t dye my hair until I was twenty-seven at the command of my ex-husband. He thought my sudden onset of gray hair made him look bad. He had firm ideas about hair, not his, mine. One day, he told me I should cut my hair off when I hit thirty-five because that was the magical age when women no longer looked good with long hair.  Not sure, who made up that rule, but other people in my family grabbed hold of it too.

Both my older siblings, and my mother nagged me for years to cut my hair. They reminded me I was too old for long hair. They all sported chin length or shorter styles. In case, you’re wondering I have thick wavy hair that is halfway down my back. It grows fast so even cutting off six inches doesn’t make that much difference.

When they weren’t fussing about the length, they disliked the color, mink brown. After all, they’d remind me that women of a certain age go ash blonde to hide the gray. Yeah, I’ve heard the argument before. I’ve been on enough bus trips with the silver set to realize all the women over sixty had similar hair styles and color. At least, my husband could pick me out of a group.

After fighting off my siblings for the last ten years, I decided to cut my hair and dye it red. Did my family finally wear me down? Nope, it was my video game avatar. After staring at her sassy red do, I decided I'd like something similar. Nothing too hard, but it had to dry faster than the four hours my current length takes. As for the hair wars, a truce has been declared.

Does your family argue about hair?

​BLURB: 

Can a girls’ weekend at The Painted Lady Inn with backstabbing sorority sisters ever end well? Add in a murder mystery game complete with costumes, a demanding diva, and a mysterious midnight visitor. 

Strained relationships, lurkers in the dark, open windows in the dead of winter and séance gone wrong is only the beginning. Too bad, the help has gone south leaving Donna dependent on her overzealous mother and a questionable fan. 

It’s enough to kill a person.

EXCERPT

The bell on the front door jingled. Not guests already?

A familiar voice called out. “Mother’s here to save the day.” Her smiling parent entered the kitchen carrying a bulging bag, placed the colorful tote on the counter, and hugged Donna.

“Hi.” Her mother showing up was never a simple I was in the neighborhood type of thing. “So, what merits the pleasure of your company?”

Her mother laughed and gave her a playful slap. “You act like you don’t know.”

She didn’t. “I should know?” Her eyebrows arched in inquiry.

“Silly.” Her mother smirked at her. “There you go teasing me. I never thought you ever had much of a sense of humor as a child, but you must have picked up some. Maria called me on her way out of town. She told me you needed a hand with your activities.”

“Ah.” Donna stalled, searching her memory for any hints that her mother might be assisting her this weekend. Maria had apologized profusely, promising to get someone to help. She’d expected one of Maria’s co-workers who would have been easy to boss around, not her mother. “It’s all coming back now.”

“Good thing, I’m here since your memory is slipping.” Cecilia turned and grabbed her bag from the counter. “You can thank me later for the fun items I brought. At least one of us has a clue how to party.”

Nope. She wasn’t going to respond to the dig. She knew how to party. It just usually involved a food processor, possibly a blender, heavy cream, and top shelf brandy. “What do you have?”

“Fun!” Her mother pulled a can from the bag and sprayed into the air. The stink of aerosol and a shot of color, then something gooey plopped onto the floor. Donna stared at the color blob in disgust.

Tennyson strolled into the room as Cecilia pushed the nozzle down again. “Silly string. Way cool, Cici.”

When had he started calling her mother Cici? That was supposed to be her code dating name to keep her rejected suitors
from tracking her down. There wasn’t time to query anyone about name changes when her hardwood floors were in danger. “Not cool. It will ruin my floors. Besides, I think that would appeal more to fifth-grade boys than grown women.”

​Her mother’s gleeful expression drooped a little. “You could be right. The employee who suggested it was a teen.” She turned the can over in her hand and stared at it. “I can’t even read what it has in it. Probably better off not using it. Here, Ten, you take it.”


Drop Dead Handsome ( Book 2) is free on Instafreebie https://www.instafreebie.com/free/XVQTb

M. K. Scott is the husband and wife writing team behind The Painted Lady Inn Mysteries. Morgan K Wyatt is the general wordsmith, while her husband, Scott, is the grammar hammer and physics specialist. He uses his engineering skills to explain how fast a body falls when pushed over a cliff and various other felonious activities.

​The Internet and experts in the field provide forensic information, while the recipes and B and B details require a more hands on approach.  Morgan’s daughter, who manages a hotel, provides guest horror stories to fuel the plot lines. The couple’s dog, Chance, is the inspiration behind Jasper, Donna’s dog.  Murder Mansion is the first book in The Painted Lady Inn Mysteries. Overall, it is a fun series to create and read.
 
 
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An Invisibilia podcast entitled Fearless, confirmed some theories I had about current society being motivated by fear. You see, I used to be a copywriter and we were taught to appeal to both fear and greed to sell anything.  Your fear might be that you’d die alone, poor, and unhip if you didn’t by an advertised product.

In the podcast, a social scientist decided to watch children and document their activities in the mid-seventies. What he wanted to know was what kids do when adults weren’t around. Where did they go? What did they talk about? He showed up in a small-town America and explained his intentions. Surprisingly, everyone was okay with it. He found most of the children in town by age ten could run the length and breadth of the town with warnings to be home for supper or back before dark.

In one of his recordings, he tapes five-year-old boys in the woods making fart sounds and laughing wildly about their antics. No big surprise there, instead the surprise came when he went back and interviewed one of the boys who was now a man and had daughters of his own.  He didn’t allow his children to go anywhere outside their yard. His reasoning was that a stranger would abduct his children.

This fear that the father felt was not borne out by actual crime statistics. The sleepy little town remained sleepy and their crime wave consisted of knocked over mail boxes and the occasional burning bag of dog poo. In fact, crime is lower than it has been in decades. You wouldn’t think so if you tuned into any of the 24/7 news stations. Their job is to frighten you and apparently, it is working.

Many people are terrified to travel outside their local area. They hear tales about serial killers and drug crazed fiends, not to mention zombies. People who allow their children to walk to school are being reported to social services by their neighbors for doing so. Is the world more dangerous than it was in the 70s?

Most of us would say yes. It isn’t. There are some very dangerous places. Check out this list for places not to go. Life is not an action-packed movie starring Liam Neeson. We watch news tabloids to police dramas and mistakenly believe the crime rate is much higher than it is. Two of my favorites shows were Bones and NCIS, which both are set in Washington, DC. where my stepdaughter worked. The closest encounter she had with the criminal element was her office was in the former Watergate hotel.

As for me, even though I do write mystery novels and do research crimes, I haven’t been a crime victim. I’ve been in countries all around the world and with my poor sense of direction often lost in the exotic locales. Our school’s crime spree consisted of someone stealing teachers’ lunches out of the staff fridge. We assumed it was a student, but the thefts stopped when a coach took a job elsewhere.

The fact that the coach was someone we knew and talked to everyday wasn't unusual. When crime does happen, it isn’t a stranger, but possibly someone we know. Most people are killed by spouses, ex-spouses, former lovers, employees or even their own children. They are robbed by former lovers, children, ex-spouses, and neighbors. I think you get the picture. What usually doesn’t happen is we are attacked by complete strangers, but strangers are what we fear most.

On the playground, a young student asked me why he had to play on the pavement instead on the grass and in the surrounding woods. The standard answer was that he might get hurt in the woods.

I grew up roaming the woods, even picking up snakes, and wading in the creek. I rode horses bareback, climbed trees, and jumped from the hayloft. The only bones I ever broke was falling down the stairs as an adult. Those experiences taught me to be alert for everything from speeding cars to water moccasins.  It also instilled in me a sense of independence and confidence.

At times, I worry we are becoming a nation addicted to fear. When I mention taking a hot air balloon ride or using a zipline, a half dozen people will have some horror tale about someone they never met or possibly never existed dying in a horrific manner doing the very same activity.
​
Is fear controlling your life? Think what it would be like to live fearlessly.

BLURB

Can a girls’ weekend at The Painted Lady Inn with backstabbing sorority sisters ever end well? Add in a murder mystery game complete with costumes, a demanding diva, and a mysterious midnight visitor.

Strained relationships, lurkers in the dark, open windows in the dead of winter and séance gone wrong is only the beginning. Too bad, the help has gone south leaving Donna dependent on her overzealous mother and a questionable fan.

It’s enough to kill a person.


EXCERPT
A siren shrieked as the police car raced through the dark neighborhood. Donna muttered as she clenched her fists. “Too late, too late.”

In the shadows of the nearest building, a man lurked. The street light caught the satisfied gleam in his eyes and evil smile.
Her top teeth clamped down on her bottom lip as the words TO BE CONTINUED scrolled across the screen.

“Seriously.” Donna slapped the arm of the chair. A throat clearing caught her attention. She turned her head to notice Tennyson standing in the second parlor door frame. Her college-aged employee had awkward stamped all over him. He knew she valued her free time, especially when she indulged in catching up on the murder mysteries and police dramas she’d recorded during the week.

“Ah,” he stalled and looked back over his shoulder.

“Out with it.”

“One of your guests is on the phone. She wants to talk to Maria.”

“Okay.” She reached for the remote and clicked off the television. Her mind was still dissecting the show she had just watched as she stood and passed Tennyson. “I don’t know what it is with those television writers, but they keep making the police so stupid. I knew who the killer was within five minutes of the show.”

Donna picked up the hall phone. “Donna Tollhouse speaking.”

“I specifically asked to speak to Maria.” Irritation bled through the distinctively enunciated words.

“She’s gone. I’m the owner of The Painted Lady Inn. What can I do for you?”

“I’m checking to make sure everything is in place for the knockout girls’ weekend I planned.”

“Of course. Anything else I can do for you?” Donna did wonder what the specific plans were but didn’t want to ask. Maybe Maria had made notes or Tennyson knew. The latter possibility was doubtful.

“No. I’ll be arriving shortly.” The guest terminated the conversation before Donna had a chance to ask for a name.

Maybe Donna should have automatically known as if she were talking to the Queen of England. Come to think of it, she didn’t know what the queen sounded like.

A girls’ weekend had been Maria’s brainchild. She’d come up with the idea and helped Donna shake down local merchants and restaurants for two-for-one coupons to stick in the participants’ goodie bags, along with chocolate, hand cream, and individual size bottles of wine.

Mainly, it was Maria’s, since Donna hadn’t perfected her welcoming innkeeper banter yet. The same time her first fully booked girls’ weekend was about to happen, her brother decided to whisk her pregnant sister-in-law away for a romantic trip before the two became three. Most people might call it thoughtful. Her eyes narrowed as she realized she might have even suggested it.

Still, did he have to pick this weekend when Donna desperately needed help?  Worse, they left on a Thursday morning when the guests were expected Thursday evening. An extra-long shift at the hospital cut out any discussion time about the plans.
 
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-pledges-a-sorority-m-k-scott/1125797724
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/704127
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Pledges-Sorority-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B06W2JHHJZ
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Pledges-Sorority-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B06W2JHHJZ

Coming soon in Large Print and Audible