When Olivia Wells returns to Creekside, Cornwall, intent on fulfilling her bequest of cultivating a co-working community of eco and creative entrepreneurs in a renovated railway building, she soon finds opposition, sabotage and the murdered body of her friend.
She has to put her trust in an unlikely ally to help her investigate exactly who is threatening the success of her ventures, her liberty and ultimately, her life.
Readers who enjoy books by LJ Ross, Betty Rowlands and Claire Chase, will love this cosy mystery.
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A Deadly Inheritance by Jane McParkes was published on 30 November 2022 by Dark Edge Press. As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today.
Extract from A Deadly Inheritance by Jane McParkes
It had been another night full of frantic, desperate dreams, but this time when Olivia forced her eyes open, her body was still swaying, still fighting the waves that had been pulling and spinning her round all night. She lifted her head and immediately regretted it. The room was swaying now. Like she had the worst hangover in the world. And yet she hadn’t even had that much to drink the night before. Had she?
A surge of nausea propelled her out of bed and across the wooden floorboards to the bathroom, wincing at the early morning light forcing itself between the closed shutters.
‘You are not going to vomit. You are not going to vomit . . .’ She told herself, easing open the window and inhaling carefully. The salty, Cornish air edged with a hint of seaweed helped a little, but as she stood there, memories of the previous day began to download in her mind. Fragments of the Trustees’ meeting, Libby’s uncharacteristic snarky attitude towards her, and then the vicious words she’d hurled at her afterwards rushed into her throbbing head.
Oliva stumbled into the shower, her face turned up to the pounding, hot jets as she tried to coax her body andbrain back to life and wash herself clean of Libby’s cruel words. More snippets of the evening began to surface. Martin had appeared by magic, ready to help as she’d rushed to get away from the Goods Shed and everyone who had seen her humiliation. His kind face and gentle tone had weakened Olivia’s resolve to stay strong and cope with the fall-out by herself. And they had come back to Tresillian, where they’d eaten supper together and she had drunk enough wine to loosen her tongue and confide in Martin about feeling as if everything was falling apart. She remembered swallowing a third glass of Malbec, but after that everything was a blur.
Olivia turned the temperature dial to cold and forced herself to stand there for fifteen seconds, then dried herself and shuffled back to the bedroom. Two pairs of round dark eyes observed her solemnly from the bed. Lowering her head gingerly, she kissed each dog gently on the nose.
‘I don’t suppose you guys can tell me what happened last night?’ Two feathery tails wagged tentatively as she eased on her black running tights and top, still careful not to make any sudden movements. ‘No, I thought not. Okay, let me just make one of Mollie’s cure-alls and then we’ll go deal with this crap the way we always do.’
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Cornish creekside village and will appeal to fans of Emma Davies, L J Ross and Sarah Yarwood-Lovett.
Jane believes she was always destined to be a crime writer. As a child she was an avid reader of the Famous Five and any other mysteries she could find at the local library. Her first commercial success came when she was 8 years old with the publication of a letter to the Bunty comic about her grandfather digging up a small handgun and two gold hoop earrings in his garden and suggesting they were connected with an unsolved murder. From that moment she wanted to be a writer.
Things like life, career, marriage, motherhood and illness got in the way, but that initial ambition never died.
After years of secret scribbling, lots of reading and one other small success in flash fiction, Jane began writing A Deadly Inheritance. A cancer diagnosis and the Covid epidemic eventually focused her mind on finishing her novel, and she enjoyed writing as a means of escape from the grim reality of what was going on in the world.
A Deadly Inheritance is the first book in a new series and combines Jane’s love of Cornwall, murder mysteries and her interest the environment, sustainability and creativity.
Twitter @JaneMcParkes
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