Bread and Butter 01

Hoag Family Plot - Alabama Center Cemetery, Alabama, NY

Well I'm not so sure how non-fiction is going to work for Sunday Snippets but let's give it a go, shall we?

SETUP: (Alabama, NY) In November of 1855 Polly Hoag had her fortune told when her and her husband Henry attended an election party at the Alabama Hotel. She was told two members of her family would die, and she would not be one of them. Henry decides he wants to give up being a shoemaker and try farming. This meant they would be moving away from the conveniences of village life, her friends ... and someone else. We will begin in the spring of 1856 (which is somewhere in chapter 2).

As time passed, Polly's hostility towards moving to the farm increased.  Mrs. Potter testified during one of the trials that Polly had told her and another woman, Delia Avery, that she was sorry she ever got married.  Polly also relayed to the women that she wished she was clear of her husband and children. She did not care how she got clear of them, nor how soon; and that if it was not for them she could go anywhere she had a mind to.  Polly told the ladies that she would not care a bit if Henry should die; if he moved on the farm, as he was not healthy, he wouldn't live six months.

Why was Polly protesting so much? Henry would not find out the real reason until right before the move. The answer would not come from Polly, but from her then nine-year-old son Albert.

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BLURB:

In 1856, in the rural town of Alabama, NY one woman's family suffered from multiple unexplained deaths. The town folk grew suspicious of the now remarried Polly Frisch. An investigation commenced, bodies were exhumed, an affair—exposed. Polly would be arrested for the murders of her first husband and daughters. Her fourteen-year-old son would testify against her. If found guilty, the punishment for such a crime was the gallows. Bread & Butter is the true story of Polly Frisch who poisoned her family with arsenic and the five trials it took to convict her. 

The link to the other Weekend Writing Warriors is here. You're bound to find something to pique your interest.

The Sunday Snippet writer's on Facebook are here. Between the two there is something for everyone. Thank you for any comments you leave me. Much appreciated!

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The above excerpt is from Bread & Butter: The Murders of Polly Frisch, a book I co-authored with my friend, Ellen Bachorski. We are re-releasing it into the modern world of POD and Kindle, etc. It has had an edit make over and new info added. The copies of the first edition which we printed through Morris Publishing in 2000 are still available. You can see it over on the right in my blog. I did a mock up for the new cover below. What do you think?

Stay tuned for the release date of February 2014. Anyone have tips on how to do a blog tour let me know!

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Milk Carton Murders 33

SETUP: The three girls whose twenty plus-year-old remains washed up in coffins at Wiscoy Creek have been identified as Lisa Appleton, Rachel McKenzie and Samantha Briggs. Samantha was a foster child at Dave's house when he was a kid, and it was the last place Dave seen her alive. His dad Hal is one of the suspects. Dave and Investigator Pepper Black are at the police station going through boxes Dave pulled from their attic. One is a box of old foster family files (that Dave's dad believes will help clear him) and a couple boxes of old photographs from the right time period and before. Dave's dad, Hal, also worked in the print shop at the dairy, the supervisor being Charlie Smythe. Below Dave and Pepper are going through photos to identify them.

She  reached her hand in the box, pulled out a photograph and held it up. “Aw, look at how cute you were as a boy—although a bit glum—when was this taken?”
   
Dave glanced over at the photo. “Not sure—looks like I'm three or four maybe? I’m sitting on the stool in the print room office where we were the other day.”
   
“Oh yes, I remember you and Charlie Smythe saying your dad brought you to work with him when you were little.” She looked again at the photograph of Dave, then at the back, and stopped.
   
“Something wrong, Pepper?”
   
“What, no,” Pepper said, with a weak smile, "just trying to look close at all the photos—match them up right." She put his picture in the "gone through" pile and changed the subject.

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Sorry the end of that snippet was rather abrupt. Pepper says something right after, changing the subject, but it would have gone way over the sentence limit.

The link to the other Weekend Writing Warriors is here. You're bound to find something to pique your interest.

The Sunday Snippet writer's on Facebook are here. Between the two there is something for everyone. Thank you for any comments you leave me. Much appreciated!

I'm being a NaNoWriMo rebel and using the goal stats to get my back title, as they say, Kindleized. Is that a word? If not it is now. It's an 1860s true crime called Bread & Butter: The Murders of Polly Frisch (co-authored with my friend, Ellen Bachorski). It needs a go over to fix some typos and punctuation. I see things now that I didn't 13 years ago when it was first published. Wish me luck and good luck to all of those on the last week of NaNo!

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BLURB:

When three small coffins are unearthed near the Wiscoy Creek during a routine dredging operation, it’s the last thing DAVE ROBERTSON, of the Lamont Weekly Times, expected. Pinned to the skeleton’s clothing are pictures from milk cartons of missing girls.

Dave is stunned to find that one of the girls is Sally―a foster child his parents had cared for through the Friends of Foster Families (FFF) program. Cold case files reveal the girls disappeared over 20 years ago. Knowing his house was the last place he saw Sally alive, he can’t help but suspect his dad.

How can he write the biggest story of his career if his father turns out to be the killer? If the voice in his head would shut up and let him remember, he might figure it out before he loses his mind and his dad is charged with murder.

Full blurb and snippet recap here.

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