Cover reveal--drum roll, please

How do you like it? I think it's smashing. Many thanks to Kim Jacobs, publisher of Turquoise Morning Press, who designed it. She tells me she's noticed mysteries are going big and bold in their covers. Here's the blurb that will be on the back of the book--and, yes, in spite of the dragon image, this is another Kelly O'Connell Mystery set in Fairmount, where there are no dragons except on Ms. Lorna's silk dressing gowns. At one point or another, almost everyone in the book is pretending to be something they aren't--hence the title. But I'll let you figure out the deceptions for yourself. Could be that a dragon in the historic Fairmount Historical District is part of the deception itself.

A woman desperately seeking her biological mother, a televangelist determined to thwart that search, a hired hit man, and in the midst of it all, a reclusive diva who wears Chinese silk gowns and collects antique Chinese porcelain. Kelly has gotten herself involved in a dangerous emotional tangle this time, and Mike doesn’t tell her to back off, even when events take them from Fort Worth to San Antonio.

I hope you feel, as I do, that it's fun to be back in Kelly's world with her loyal and sometimes wacky extended family, her husband Mike who is devoted but loses patience with her, and her two growing daughters. As a reviewer said of another Kelly book, "You could meet these people in the grocery store."

And more praise for the last Kelly book, Danger Comes Home: "Author Judy Alter brings a colorful cast of characters alive scene after scene. Alter's love of cooking and infatuation with old Craftsman homes permeates the story like a dash of just the right spice in your favorite dish.
Deception in Strange Places will be available as an e-book July 31, with print to follow. Don't worry--I'll be reminding you.