Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Tallowed Ground: A Magic Candle Shop Mystery by Valona Jones. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Tallowed Ground: A Magic Candle Shop Mystery by Valona Jones
Tallowed Ground: A Magic Candle Shop Mystery
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Georgia
Publisher : Muddle House Publishing (September 10, 2024)
When a killer props his third and latest victim against the double tombstone of Tabby and Sage Winslow’s grandparents’ grave in Savannah, Georgia, the psychic twins are stunned. Even worse, the victim is the very man they filed a restraining order against a few months ago for trashing their book and candle shop. Coincidence…or a connection? Then a clue about the murders points to Tabby’s career as a candlemaker. Now, she is the number one suspect in the killing spree.
The twins investigate all three victims, finding little that might tie the cases together besides where the bodies were found—in or near Bonaventure Cemetery, a beautiful 100-acre historic graveyard with a storied past. Then Tabby’s Medical Examiner boyfriend is mysteriously pulled from the case, with his dream job in jeopardy. The situation reaches a flashpoint when new evidence points to Tabby. With her freedom and the family business in jeopardy, Tabby and Sage match their wits and psychic abilities against the wily killer.
That is, until Tabby’s spirited inquiry lands her in the worst kind of trouble. Can Tabby clear her name before the fiend snuffs her flame…for good?
Character Guest Post
Gaps in my Family Tree
By Tabby Winslow, amateur sleuth in Tallowed Ground
I’ve always had a healthy curiosity. That’s how I became an amateur sleuth. I need answers. I need to understand why someone would kill someone else. Often, revenge, jealousy, and greed top the list of why. Once I have the “why” of a case, it is easier to find the who.
Concurrently with my active curiosity, I grew fascinated with family genealogy. So many people were sending their DNA off to be analyzed. I thought of doing this myself. After all, I could only trace my lineage to my father on my paternal side and to my maternal grandparents on the other side. It sure seemed like a DNA test would help clarify who were our kinfolks.
I had, of course, pestered my mom and aunt for years on this very topic. They were tight-lipped and never once broke their silence on the matter. All of this fueled my curiosity. Were we descended from serial killers, swamp people, Old Savannah, or royalty? I could literally be related to anything and anyone. Should I be proud of my heritage or ashamed of itNot knowing was maddening.
I barely remembered my father. Adam Winslow vanished when we twins were five years old. He used to read to me and toss me up in the air. That’s all I remembered. There were no other Winslows in Savannah, so he was a mystery. If he was dead, he wasn’t in the family plot. He had no obituary in the Savannah paper. Did he walk away from us? Was he kidnapped? Was he in prison? Did he have amnesia? What made a man desert his family? He went out for eggs one day and never came home. Worse, Mom never seemed to miss a beat. She went on as if he wasn’t part of us.
My curiosity about him burned fever-bright through the years. Where in the world was Adam Winslow? Why couldn’t we talk about him? Why didn’t he write to us? For a while, I wrote letters to him in secret, stacks of them. Mom found them and threw them out when I was seven. “He’s gone,” she said, as if that made him unworthy of correspondence.
Still, I didn’t give up hope. He must be elsewhere and not deceased. Surely DNA testing would help us reconnect. In a flurry of decisiveness I prepared the sample and sent the test off. I wanted to see my father again and to have him answer all my questions.
My twin sister, Sage, reminded me that we still lived at the same place and Dad knew exactly where we were. That burst my balloon. If he knew where we were and we were all grown up and not little kids, why wouldn’t he visit us?
And Mom’s parents were both killed by the same assassin’s bullet, only the killer was never caught. That didn’t seem right. Further, no one else with their last name was in Bonaventure Cemetery. Weirder and weirder, right? The DNA results might shine a light on that issue too.
Though I had secrets aplenty and I had lived all my life under the motto of “keep a low profile,” I was done with that. I wanted answers.
Or did I?
Doubts crept in. If our secrets became known, Mom always said we’d be persecuted. I asked her how, like the Salem Witch Trials? She said nothing so overt but the same outcome. Our lips became sealed about our paranormal talents. No one outside of Mom and Auntie O knew of our skills with energy, Sage’s skills with plants, and my ability to bend light.
The more I thought about doing the DNA test, the more concerned I became. Then I began getting calls from the head of the DNA laboratory. I changed my mind about wanting the results. In fact I wanted all data relating to me erased. I turned to my lawyer and he said he knew a guy. In very short order, my data was ghosted from all files in the site, as if it never existed.
Though I had a few regrets about not even seeing the results, mostly I felt relief. Knowledge is a two-sided coin and while I dearly wanted the benefits of knowing, I couldn’t afford the negative fallout of our secrets being revealed.
About Valona Jones
Valona Jones, aka Maggie Toussaint, writes paranormal cozies set in coastal Georgia, Her latest release, TALLOWED GROUND, book 3 in the A Magic Candle Shop Mysteries, came out September 10, 2024. Under the name of Maggie Toussaint, she also publishes cozy mysteries and romantic suspense. Her pen name for a three-book science fiction ecothriller is Rigel Carson. In total, she has published more than 27 works of fiction and won multiple awards. She lives in coastal Georgia, where time and tide wait for no one. Visit her sites: https://valonajones.com and https://maggietoussaint.com
Author Links
Valona Jones Website https://valonajones.com
Maggie Toussaint Website https://maggietoussaint.com
Maggie Toussaint Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MaggieToussaintAuthor
Valona Jones Facebook https://facebook.com/ValonaJonesAuthor
Maggie Toussaint BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maggie-toussaint
Valona Jones BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/valona-jones
Maggie Toussaint Booklover’s Bench https://bookloversbench.com/maggie-toussaint/
Maggie Toussaint X https://www.x.com/MaggieToussaint
Purchase Links
Kindle Nook Kobo iBooks Amazon Kindle and Print Book
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Tallowed Ground TOUR PARTICIPANTS
September 11 – Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense – SPOTLIGHT
September 11 – Angel’s Book Nook – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
September 12 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – CHARACTER GUEST POST
September 12 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – REVIEW
September 12 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
September 13 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
September 13 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
September 14 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
September 14 – Baroness Book Trove – REVIEW
September 14 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
September 15 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
September 15 – StoreyBook Reviews – CHARACTER GUEST POST
September 16 – Storybook Lady – REVIEW
September 16 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
September 17 – Ruff Drafts – RECIPE
September 17 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
September 18 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
September 18 – Binge Reading Books – AUTHOR GUEST POST
September 19 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW
September 19 – Sarah Can’t Stop Reading Books – REVIEW
September 20 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR GUEST POSTS
September 20 – Lady Hawkeye – SPOTLIGHT
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Thanks for being part of Tallowed Ground’s Great Escape Tour. I don’t know if readers are as fascinated by genealogy as I am. I caught the bug late in life, and I was definitely influenced by forensic genealogy! Any way, I enjoyed being here at Christy’s Cozy Corners!
You’re welcome! I like looking at the genealogy some of my relatives have done!
sounds very intriguing
Cover is amazing