Thursday, December 3, 2015

Landscape for Murder Book Review and Giveaway


NEW RELEASE.....

A friend’s murder. An unconnected cast of suspects, including the victim’s missing adult daughter. As if that wasn’t enough, Brynn Bancroft’s winery has been broken into. Can she deal with her co-owner ex and help the police find her friend’s murder so she can finally overcome her own troubled past and enjoy family life with her teenage ward?

My thoughts:

I'm new to Ms. Strand's writing, but she had me hooked from the first chapter. Her characters are so alive that I felt like I really knew them.

Brynn has a life she's beginning to love, running a winery in Sonoma with her ex-husband and raising a teen ward as her son. She's even made a new friend while painting.

Then that friend is found murdered, their winery is burglarized, friends are attacked and people kidnapped.

Can Brynn and Liam discover who is out to get them before their lives are destroyed? Or will these change their future forever?

This is part of a series, but can definitely be read as a stand alone book.

Book available from....

About Brynn Bancroft
Brynn Bancroft evolved from the Jillian Hillcrest mysteries where she served as Jillian’s manager while Chief Financial Officer of Harmonia Therapeutics in Silicon Valley. A shapely blonde with a MENSA IQ, she had an affair with the CEO of the company.

Unfortunately for Brynn, the CEO’s wife figured out that the two were involved and asked Brynn to leave the company, which she agreed to do.

In the meantime, her husband, Liam—not unfamiliar with extramarital affairs himself but also understanding that Brynn grew up in an abusive household- grew tired of waiting for Brynn to commit to their relationship and asked for a divorce. At the same time, he solicited her assistance in developing his new winery in Sonoma County, Calif.

Much like Jillian--who does appear in the Brynn Bancroft mysteries--Brynn, too, attracts mystery and murders as she grows to enjoy life at her ex-husband’s Hilltop Sunset Winery.

Also Available
Hilltop Sunset: A Brynn Bancroft Mystery

A mystery set in wine country pitting financial exec Brynn Bancroft against a determined stalker, a troubled love interest, and career clashes.

Brynn Bancroft learns that a former employee who beat her nearly to death has returned to stalk her and her friend, Jillian Hillcrest, also a former victim.

Recently divorced, Brynn turns to a new love interest only to encounter additional unwelcome issues. Meanwhile, short-timer Brynn, who has resigned from her Silicon Valley company, becomes bored fulfilling her remaining responsibilities there. She begins to prefer supporting the launch of her ex-husband’s new hilltop winery while waiting to move to her next position. Between her stalker and her new love interest, Brynn faces a series of life-changing events.

Book available from....

About the Author

Joyce T. Strand is the author of who-done-it mysteries set in the San Francisco Silicon Valley and Napa-Sonoma wine regions of California.

Her most recent novel, Landscape for Murder, follows Hilltop Sunset which was the first of a new series featuring protagonist Brynn Bancroft, a financial guru in transition to winemaker from corporate executive. Brynn Bancroft is a minor character in Strand's novels On Message, Open Meetings, and Fair Disclosure--three mysteries solved by Jillian Hillcrest, a publicist whose boss was Chief Financial Officer Brynn Bancroft.

Much like her protagonist Jillian Hillcrest, Joyce Strand headed corporate communications at several biotech and high-tech companies in California's Silicon Valley for more than 25 years. Unlike Jillian, however, she did not encounter murder in her career. She focused on writing by-lined articles, press releases, white papers, and brochures to publicize her companies and their products.

Strand has been a mystery fan since she read her first Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy stories as a teenager. She admits that in between reading Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Erle Stanley Gardner, and John McDonald in her youth, she also checked out Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Dostoyevsky, but her love of the “puzzle” always drew her back to the latest fictional detective. Today she favors John Grisham, Louise Penney, Linwood Barclay, Michael Connelly, and Stieg Larsson. She has always enjoyed the challenge of following clues to solve the puzzle of a mystery before it is revealed.

Joyce lives with her two cats and collection of cow statuary in Southern California, and seeks out and attends as many Broadway musicals and other stage plays as possible.

She received her Ph.D. from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. and her B.A. from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

Find the author on the following sites....

Follow the book tour
I received this book to review through Beck Valley Books Book Tours, all the opinions above are 100% my own.
NOW FOR THE AUTHOR'S GIVEAWAY
1st Prize - Win $50 Amazon.com GC / Paypal Cash (winners choice) 
2nd Prize - Win $25 Amazon.com GC / Paypal Cash (winners choice)
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Ending on Tuesday 22nd December at 11.59pm EST


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4 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for hosting me and Landscape for Murder. I really appreciate the opportunity to reach out to you and your readers. I also appreciate the time you took to read and review my newest mystery. I hope you enjoy connecting authors to readers. Thank you, thank you.

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  2. I would spend my winnings on buying every single book that caught my eye!

    ReplyDelete