Paint Can Kill: Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series by Joanna Campbell Slan | Author Guest Post

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Paint Can Kill: Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series

by Joanna Campbell Slan

Paint Can Kill: Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series
Cozy Mystery
9th in Series
Setting – Hobe Sound, FL
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spot On Publishing (December 15, 2023)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 252 pages

It’s raining outside, and it’s raining inside. Hey, that’s Florida. But as sassy entrepreneur Cara Mia Delgatto watches a van full of Highwayman paintings walk out the front door of The Treasure Chest–because the collection’s owner is taking them back–she’s crying on the inside all the way to the bank. There will be no quick fix for this. Instead Cara focuses on an outstanding bill. When she visits the wealthy woman who has stiffed her, Cara stumbles over another stiff, a dead body. With multiple crisises in her business life, Cara grieves the loss of her live-in love and her rescue Chihuahua. The man and the dog have left a huge hole in her heart. Will Cara survive all these losses?

Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series is a clean read
Features a female amateur sleuth and her friends
Includes Florida lore and history
Shares ideas for upcycling, recycling, and repurposing
Celebrates friends, family, and fur babies

Author Guest Post

I had a decision to make. When I began writing Paint Can Kill, I had to decide whether or not to include Covid. A lot of authors in different forums counseled against inclusion. They thought the whole pandemic would be too depressing for us to work into a story line. They made a good point. Most cozies seem to rely on yippee-skippee characters and never come down to earth. I asked myself, over and over, could I do this?

In the end, I decided Covid simply needed inclusion. I wanted to write a record of how confusing life was during a pandemic. For example, I still haven’t figured out why we ran out of toilet paper. Anyone? Anyone? But we did. The information we received from trusted sources was confusing at best and life-threatening at worst. This confusion and fear led to passionate quarrels over prevention. Most of us lost a friend or two, either to the virus or to the disagreements.

I didn’t become a writer to make friends. That said, I’ve been blessed with readers who like my work enough to befriend me. That’s been a bonus. I write because this is how I process the world, how I make sense of a Universe that can seem both random and unspeakably cruel. I write to record the world I live in and the observations I make. My hope is readers will come away with a greater sense of understanding and sympathy for each other. In this book, I wrote a story to honor two friends, one of whom died after contracting Covid. (Yes, I got their permission.) Leaving the virus out seemed to me like an act of cowardice. As always, I tried to show a multiplicity of sides. Empathy is what gives a writer the emotional bandwidth to write good stories. I do my best to consider multiple viewpoints no matter what the story is. I’m proud of Paint Can Kill, and so far, my readers are loving it!

About Joanna Campbell Slan

Joanna is a New York Times Bestselling, USA Today Bestselling, and Amazon Bestselling author as well as a woman prone to frequent bursts of crafting frenzy, leaving her with burns from her hot glue gun and paint on her clothes. And the mess? Let’s not even go there.

Otherwise, Joanna’s a productive author with more than 80 written projects to her credit. Her non-fiction work includes how to books, a college textbook for public speakers, and books of personal essays (think Chicken Soup for the Soul).

Currently, she writes six fiction series: The Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series (Agatha Award Finalist, contemporary, St. Louis setting, crafting), the Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series (contemporary, Florida setting, DIY, and recycling), the Jane Eyre Chronicles (Daphne du Maurier Award Winner, 1830s England, based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic), the Sherlock Holmes Fantasy Thrillers (late 1800s, based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s books), the Tai Chi Mystery Series (featuring a mature female amateur sleuth!) and the Friday Night Mystery Series (set in Decatur, IL in 1986 with a spunky female heroine.)

A former TV talk show host, college teacher, and public relations specialist, Joanna was one of the early Chicken Soup for the Soul contributors. She won a Silver Anvil for her work on the original FarmAid concert to benefit farmers.

In her ongoing quest never to see snow again, Joanna lives with her husband and their Havanese puppy, Jax, on an island off the coast of Florida. You can email her at jc****@********an.com or visit her website at https://linktr.ee/jcslan

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