Our Books are Free this week (March 1 through March 7, 2026) at Smashwords
All of our books are FREE this week at Smashwords. We write in several genres, including romance, historical fiction, time travel, travel, mystery, murder mystery, and cozy mystery. If you enjoyed reading any of our books, please kindly review them at Smashwords.com and/or Goodreads.com
Here's a link for our books at Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lhathaway
Thanks!
A Las Vegas Cozy Mystery
This is an excerpt from my book about my trip to the Mob Museum:
Once my husband and I entered the museum, we felt as if we had traveled back to the infamous days of crime in Las Vegas and throughout the United States, starting from the 20s when prohibition had allowed opportunists, such as Al Capone, to make their fortunes satisfying the thirst of Americans who craved alcohol.
The first room we visited showed a simulated police lineup where visitors could pose, holding up signs that looked like license plates with unique numbers. Some teenagers posed in front of a back wall that showed a height chart. They had their picture taken by a professional cameraman supplied by the museum and had a hard time keeping a straight face because they kept giggling.
Next, we saw the blood-stained wall where the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre occurred in Chicago. Circles surrounded the bloody holes where Al Capone and his gang had mown down their rivals. My husband sat in a real electric chair and I took a picture, capturing the moment.
The teenagers caught up with us and one of them sat in the electric chair. His friend pulled down a nearby lever and, as he did so, his buddy on the electric chair twitched as if he were being electrocuted. It was cute to watch them having such a good time, especially at a museum.
Next, my husband and I walked into a room wallpapered with dollars. We read a sign that told us about the “skim” at the Stardust. It explained how profits were under-counted and under-reported to the IRS by the crime bosses. The owner at the Stardust, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, arranged for a bit of those profits to be skimmed off periodically and sent back to the mob bosses on the east coast. It was the basis for the movie Casino. I remembered watching how great Robert di Nero and Sharon Stone were in the movie.
Right next to the skim room was an exhibit my husband really enjoyed. There were two long and narrow halls that were fashioned to look like firing ranges and at the far end of each hall were life-sized paper targets shaped like men. My husband got a chance to touch, hold, and “fire" an actual Tommy Gun at one of the “men”.
The next room was the centerpiece of the Mob Museum. It was the real-life second-floor courtroom where hearings had been held to expose organized crime in 1950 and 1951.
We left that room and saw a film that showed the bloody remains of dead gangsters. Real members of The Mob had been interviewed in the film. We went downstairs and watched clips from Goodfellas and The Godfather.
For those interested in reading "The Salacious Scribes Mystery", it takes place in Las Vegas and is about a group of erotic romance writers who go to the Las Vegas Adult Entertainment Expo, and while they are there, their promoter is murdered. It's a fun whodunnit with multiple suspects. There is even a touch of later-in-life romance in the story.
The book only costs 99 cents and is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble (online), Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, and Google Play.
Here is the Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Salacious-Scribes-Mystery-Louise-Hathaway-ebook/dp/B074RYV4SZ
Here are some key features of the series:
1. Protagonist: Nancy Keene, a teenage sleuth, is the main character of the series.
2. Genre: The series falls under the cozy mystery genre, which typically involves amateur sleuths, minimal violence, and a lighthearted tone.
3. Target Audience: The series is primarily written for women baby boomers who grew up reading and loving the Nancy Drew series.
4. Settings: Each book in the series takes place in a different travel destination, making them travelogues as well as mysteries.
5. Tone: The series is known for its humorous and PG-rated storytelling.
6. Standalone Stories: All five books in the series can be enjoyed as standalone stories.
The series currently consists of five books:
1. Ghost in the Plantation
2. Buried Treasure
3. The Stolen Masterpiece
4. The Stolen Mask
5. The Missing Bachelor Farmer
All the books in the series are available at Smashwords, Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Google Play, and Kobo.
Here is the Amazon link for the books in this series:
This Nancy Drew parody was reviewed in The Sleuth: The Original Nancy Drew Fanzine in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue:
Title: The Ghost in the Plantation: A Nancy Keene Mystery
By: Louise Hathaway
Book Description:
Do you like Nancy Drew? Do you like New Orleans? If so, I hope that you will enjoy this humorous and PG-rated story about a teenage sleuth that especially targets baby boomers who grew up reading and loving the Nancy Drew series.
Nancy Keene, the teenage sleuth in this story, goes on vacation with her father and friends to the French Quarter. What starts out as a sight-seeing trip changes into a murder/mystery when a docent at Oak Alley Plantation is murdered while they are there. Part travelogue, part ghost story, this book mixes voodoo, ghosts, and bayous into a spicy gumbo of a whodunit.
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books and many other online stores.
eBook costs $2.99
Amazon Link for eBook:
Paperback costs $6.38
Amazon Link for Paperback:
My husband and I just came back from a wonderful trip aboard the Coast Starlight, traveling from LA up to Seattle and back.
Highlights: viewing the unspoiled California coastlines from our sleeper car bedroom, admiring the fall leaves in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and being lucky enough to see the snow-capped top of Mount Shasta peeking through the clouds as the train rolled on and we ate a delicious lunch in the diner car.
It was our second trip on the Coast Starlight; we traveled to Salinas two years ago and when I came home, I wrote this bittersweet love story about two ex-lovers who unexpectantly meet again aboard the Coast Starlight.
Here's where you can purchase it for $2.99.
Amazon:
Barnes and Noble:
Apple:
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1098394
Kobo:
Google Play:
We have written 3 novels that take place on trains while we were in our bedrooms aboard Amtrak's sleeper cars. Two are time travel stories and one is a cozy mystery. We hope you'll take a look. They are available at your favorite online bookstores including, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Google Play, Smashwords, and Kobo. I've included the Amazon buy links for each of the three novels. Here are their titles and descriptions:
Travelers in Time Aboard the California Zephyr
Do you like trains? Do you like history? If so, take a look at this time travel tale about modern Amtrak travelers who go back in time to the days when the transcontinental railroad was being built. Our passengers become part of a real-life special excursion train and meet Rutherford B. Hayes, George Pullman, and Robert Todd Lincoln. How will our time travelers cope with their new surroundings? Will they ever come back to the 21st Century? Will they want to come back? Find out and take a trip into history.
Travelers in Time: A Search for the Missing
In this time travel tale, two sisters go back to the 1860s to search for their missing parents who had earlier gone on a time travel trip of their own and decided not to return home, much to their daughters' surprise. The sisters have many adventures during their journey and meet several interesting characters along the way.
There is a lot of history and research that went into this story--not to mention, a lot of heart and soul. The story takes place during the building of the transcontinental railroad and the world of post-Civil War America. Meant to be enjoyed as a standalone story, this book is part of the Travelers in Time series.
Murder Aboard the Coast Starlight
In this intriguing murder mystery, two sisters, one a homicide detective, the other an erotic romance writer, travel aboard Amtrak's scenic Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle when a famous movie star on the train is murdered. Then, to make matters worse, a forest fire in Oregon stops the train dead in its tracks with the killer still onboard. With a cast of characters who seem to have a motive for murder, will two detectives be able to figure out the killer's ingenious plot in time before someone else ends up dead?
Our cozy mystery, Honeymoon in Savannah: A Detective Santy Mystery, takes place in Savannah, Georgia during the St. Patrick’s Day "Season", as the locals call it. Before we left for our trip to the beautiful city, my husband and I read that in Savannah, St. Patrick’s festivities go on for days. It’s almost as big as Boston’s celebration of it. So, here's an excerpt from our book that takes place on St. Patrick's Day when the honeymooners go to see a performance by The Lady Chablis, AKA The Empress of Savannah, famous for her role in the bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
After Detective Santy and her husband Ron got out of bed and dressed, they headed into town to see a performance of the African American comedienne/drag queen, Lady Chablis. It took about twenty minutes to get to downtown and they encountered hordes of St. Patrick’s revelers. They found a parking place about six blocks south of the club and stepped into the craziness. The crowds were even worse than they were the day before. Drunks were everywhere, and young women screamed as if they were at a frat party. It was semi-controlled chaos. People threw beads down on the crowds from balconies. Many drank beer openly as they walked down the streets. Firemen and other uniformed people tried to keep things safe. Police cars zoomed from place to place. Ron said, “This must be what Mardi Gras is like.” They jockeyed their way through the hordes of people and arrived at Club One just in time for the 9:00 show.
They told the doorman that they had reserved tickets, and after he checked their names off his list, they walked inside. The first thing they saw was a crowded dance floor flooded with dry ice smoke and loud Euro-beat music played.
Her husband Ron told her, “Yikes! We’ve reached gay-bar-hell,” as he saw three scantily-clad men dancing on risers. “Is this what we’re in for?” he asked the detective. “I don’t know if I can make it for two hours of this.”
“Oh Ron, open up your mind! What are you afraid of? Think one of them is going to hit on you?”
He smirked back at her, and she grabbed his arm and guided him to another door and stairs that led up to the cabaret level.
When they arrived upstairs, Ron said, “Phew! Bless you, my dear! Good thing someone knows what they’re doing and where they’re going!”
She told him, “I read all about the club before we got here. I can’t believe the crowds. I’m glad that it isn’t as crazy up here as it is downstairs!”
The cabaret room was a relatively small space: about 100 feet by 60 feet. The stage was tee-shaped with chairs and tables filling in each side of the tee. The room couldn’t hold much more than maybe a hundred people, tops. The first two rows of seats had small shared tables for the “high rollers” like them who had made reservations. Two reserved seats had their names on sheets of paper taped to the backs of the chairs. Their table was down in front just about dead center.
When Ron saw how close they were to the stage, he said, “Uh-oh. I hope she doesn’t pick us out of the crowd to make fun of.”
Clarissa told him, “This should be interesting. You’re sitting right next to the stripper pole.”
He answered back, “Oh, just great! I’m definitely toast!”
A spotlight in the rear illuminated the entire width and depth of the stage. Ron went to the small bar and ordered two glasses of wine for them. When he was returning, the lights dimmed. Here we go, he told himself.
The first act was The Lady and three others in the revue. The curtain parted, and they began lip-synching I Will Survive in all their drag glory.
Clarissa said, “There she is, The Lady. Oh my god. There’s the friggin’ Lady Chablis.”
Each singer took turns lip-synching and moving around the audience. People were up at the stage almost immediately offering one-dollar-bill tips.
Ron told himself, we don’t have to do that, but then felt a bit guilty because the emcee had announced before the show that the ladies were playing for tips. After a few of the singers received tips from everyone else, the detective and Ron sheepishly got out all their spare bills. Luckily, they had quite a few ones on them. Soon, they were playing right along with everyone else. The show continued with several solo performances, including The Lady herself. About halfway through, Chablis came out and did her “standup.” She took her microphone and said to the crowd, “Hey, bitch!”
“Hey, bitch!” the crowd yelled back at her. She moved amongst the audience looking for victims. Fortunately, they were spared. There was too many other low hanging fruit in the crowd for her to lampoon.
A gay couple from Australia kept her busy for most of the night. A woman asked The Lady to retrieve tips from her bra. Chablis objected and told the woman, “What do ya think you’re doing, girl?! I ain’t no lesbian!”
Several fawning young men adorned her with some big tips. Towards the end of the show, a good-looking black man who was about thirty asked his friends to get a picture of him tipping The Lady while she sang. He stood at the edge of the stage in front of Clarissa and Ron and waved the cash teasingly at The Lady. He appeared to be wishing to prolong the moment. The Lady one-upped him and leaped into his arms. For a short while, they embraced before he deposited her back on the stage on her butt. Her pearl necklace flew off across the stage. They both seemed taken by the moment. The young man almost rose to the stage for a final dance but pulled back at the last moment.
Singing Elton John’s “Your Song,” the Lady signed off for the night, but not before she walked over to Ron and planted a big red kiss on his cheek during her tip collection. They thought it was hilarious.
The performance was only an hour and they were left with a feeling that they wanted more. They were ready for two hours and this was a surprise. “Oh well,” Clarissa said. “We did get to see one more person besides Martha from the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil cast and I’m happy for that.”
They wandered out into the Savannah night and found that the revelers were still at it. There was the same amount of craziness, only everyone was drunker than before. Back at the hotel, they got a bottle of wine from the Marriott market and retired to their room to indulge themselves in two hours of post-show talk and drink. Ron said to her, “I really think The Lady is a good judge of who’s who in the audience. She knows who she can mess with and who she should stay away from. Pretty cool.”
His wife agreed and asked, “Are you ever going to wash her lips off your face?”
He laughed at himself. “Listen to us, being Lady Chablis-groupies.”
“Yeah! We are a bit star-struck. Too funny. What a great way to end a great day!” she told him, snuggled next to him in the spoon position, and drifted off to sleep.
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Would you like to read more about Savannah and the murder of a famous Savannah chef, who just happens to be Detective Santy's cousin? If so, check out "Honeymoon in Savannah: A Detective Santy Mystery"
Our book is available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Smashwords, and Scribd
Here's the link to purchase:
