Dead Week (A Cassandra Sato Mystery)
by Kelly Brakenhoff
About Dead Week
Dead Week (A Cassandra Sato Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting - Nebraska
Publisher: Emerald Prairie Press (December 7, 2019)
Paperback: 322 pages
ISBN-10: 1733742425
ISBN-13: 978-1733742429
Digital ASIN: B07ZHN2SMS
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting - Nebraska
Publisher: Emerald Prairie Press (December 7, 2019)
Paperback: 322 pages
ISBN-10: 1733742425
ISBN-13: 978-1733742429
Digital ASIN: B07ZHN2SMS
Will Dead Week kill Cassandra’s career?
VP of Student Affairs Cassandra Sato has a desk full of problems and it’s not even Thanksgiving break.
A student’s injury and a deaf advocacy project brings national media attention to underfunded Morton College.
Cassandra's new boss talks to her dead husband. Cassandra’s mentor thinks he’s a superhero in a senior citizen’s body. And Cassandra, recently moved from Hawai'i, can't crack the code of what to wear during November in Nebraska.
Is there more to the Vietnam-era story of a student's death? Cassandra's search for the long-buried truth stirs up the wrath of those who want to keep the past forgotten.
Guest Post
Hello and thanks for inviting me to your blog!
I’m super excited about my newest book Dead Week and letting more readers know about the Cassandra Sato series. Last year for my first time ever, I attended Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, in Dallas, Texas. Meeting my favorite mystery writers in person was amazing, but what was even more cool was meeting some of the 1200+ readers and fans who attended. In 2020, the convention will be in Sacramento. Seriously, if it ever comes near where you live, you should consider going, especially if you love crime fiction of any kind.
The book haul was overwhelming!
I checked an extra bag on the flight home because the 25+ books that publishers gave away didn’t fit in my suitcase! It was a reader’s dream come true. Now Nebraska is cold and snowy, and I’m working my way through the stacks of books and enjoying the mental vacation to distant countries, times, and places.
Writers are readers first.
Since I’m set for a few months reading through my Bouchercon pile, it made me realize how much fun it is to have a steady supply of books for free. Don’t get me wrong. I buy plenty of books, too and I’m sure you do as well. But for voracious readers, there are many ways to get new books without mortgaging your home or donating plasma for extra cash. Recently I interviewed a couple of librarian friends who told me that local libraries try hard to respond to what their patrons want.
Request new titles using your local library database.
When you read a blog post, and you think you’d like to try a new author, (like this one, **hint **hint) head over to your library’s website and request they add the title to their collection. Not only are you saving money, you help readers in your community discover new authors they might enjoy as well as you do.
Sign up for monthly reading subscription services.
There are monthly services you can subscribe to for as little as $9/mo for Scribd or $10/mo for Kindle Unlimited. On those services you access thousands of ebooks and download them to read on your device. Use the 30-day or 90-day free trials to test if you read enough books to make a service worthwhile. If you read more than five books a month, a monthly service can be a great deal compared to buying books outright.
Monthly subscription boxes send real books.
For those who love the feel and smell of a freshly printed book, there are tons of subscription box services that send you a sweet package in the mail every month with their selected titles for your enjoyment. Here’s a great post I found highlighting the differences among those services and the price ranges. https://bookriot.com/2018/12/06/best-book-subscription-services/
Offer to read Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs)
Visit the websites of your favorite authors and sign up for their email newsletter. (**hint: mine is at the bottom of this post!!) Often when those authors release their newest books, they send an email requesting volunteers to read an ARC book. In exchange, you leave an honest review on the main bookstore websites to tell customers what you liked about the book. It’s a win-win situation. You get to read the latest books of your favorite author before they even hit the shelf, and you give them reviews. Reviews are very important to authors and publishers because the more positive reviews a book has, the more the book will sell. Now, if you volunteer to read the newest James Patterson novel, he’s probably not going to send you a link for a free book tomorrow. (I could be wrong, of course.) But if you enjoy authors who have a smaller group of fans, sign up for their mailing list, and like their page on Facebook, chances are good that you could become an ARC reader.
Back to libraries.
Honestly, this is my favorite. Where else can you borrow thousands of books for a few weeks at a time and all it costs you is the gas money to get there? And how do you keep track of these precious books you want to read, are reading, or requested on hold? Back in the dark ages before smartphones, I kept track of my books on an excel spreadsheet where I rated them from 1-10 and noted anything unique about the book. Nowadays, I keep track of my book list on Goodreads. I include my reading start and end dates, save titles to my book lists, rate and recommend books to my friends, and even search for quotes from my favorite authors. (If you look at the front page of my website, there’s a running post on the sidebar with some of my favorites quotes.)
There’s an app for that.
The best thing about borrowing library books is that now there are many apps available to make the whole process smooth and painless. Some of my favorite apps:
BookMyne: Beginning with my favorite app for your phone. Once you save your library number in your profile, you can search for books, reserve, checkout, and renew titles, see if you owe any fines. It’s super simple and works great without being so fancy you get lost.
Hoopla: My favorite place to borrow ebook titles and audiobooks if they aren’t available in my local library system. They have more copies available of each book and you can download them to your phone or a Kindle or iPad or other device. One negative with Hoopla is that they don’t have every single title that your local library has. So it’s good to check and see if an author is there, but if not, you’ll have to go through your library site.
Overdrive: Type in your library card number and Overdrive connects to your local library website where you can browse and borrow books just like you would on their full website.
Libby: A close cousin to Overdrive. (In my opinion, Overdrive can be clunky and hard to browse through, especially if you’re looking for eBooks or Audiobooks.) This service uses the same library information, but seems more user friendly.
I hope you’ve learned a few new tips and tricks to read lots of books in 2020. I’d love it if you follow me on Facebook, Goodreads, BookBub or anywhere you like to hang out and talk about books. And of course, I invite you to get to know Cassandra Sato and her friends at Morton College by reading DEAD WEEK! Happy New Year!
About the Author
KELLY BRAKENHOFF is an American Sign Language Interpreter whose motivation for learning ASL began in high school when she wanted to converse with her deaf friends. Her first novel, Death by Dissertation, kicked off the Cassandra Sato Mystery Series. She also wrote Never Mind, first in a children’s picture book series featuring Duke the Deaf Dog. She serves on the Board of Editors for the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf publication, VIEWs. The mother of four young adults and two dogs, Kelly and her husband call Nebraska home.
Her first mystery, Death by Dissertation, released April 22, 2019.
Author LinksWebsite – http://kellybrakenhoff.com/
Amazon – Https://amazon.com/author/kellybrakenhoff
Twitter- https://twitter.com/inBrakenVille
Instagram – @kellybrak
BookBub - https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kelly-brakenhoff
GoodReads - https://www.goodreads.com/kellybrak
Purchase Link – Amazon
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