Cause for Elimination by Marla A. White – Spotlight and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Marla A. White will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Reclaiming her life after a devastating riding accident, equestrian Emily Conners’ world shatters again when she discovers her friend and boss laying in a stall with a smashed skull. Now jobless and with a handsome cop underfoot investigating the case, she’s torn between wanting the killer found and keeping her own secrets safe.

Detective Justin Butler always gets his killer, but this victim has a stampede of enemies and few leads to go on. Stonewalled by the tight-knit equestrian world, he looks to Emily for help, but she’s strangely reluctant. Is she hiding something, or is she afraid of their growing attraction?

As the search for the murderer heats up, their hearts become entangled and their lives at risk, forcing Emily and Justin to work together to find the killer before they strike again.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Dennis snapped on his own set of gloves and gestured toward the woman standing just outside the stall-cum-office. “Nice coat she’s got on. Didn’t you used to have one like it?”

“That’s Emily Conners. She found the body.”

“And so what, it’s a new gimmick? Everyone who reports a murder wins a free Blueberry coat?”

“It’s a Bu—never mind, you philistine. What was I supposed to do? We took her coat and shoes as evidence.”

Dennis wanted to say, you mind your own business and solve the crime, not take every hard-luck case you see under your wing. Nobody, not even Justin, had big enough wings to take in all the strays they met in this line of work. Instead, he left it alone. It was a lesson every cop had to learn for themselves.

Justin ignored his unspoken disapproval and took a sip of coffee. Instantly, his face scrunched up in an expression of pure horror.

“Don’t blame me. It was the only coffee I could find around here,” Dennis said while he checked out the office. “Hey, you take the horse out of the stall, add a ceiling fan, crappy furniture from the local office supply store, and a phone and you’ve got—a stall minus a horse.”

“People who live in glass cubicles,” his partner countered. “I kind of like the Feng Shui, it’s very grounding, especially with the window—”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s facing south and angled toward the moon, whatever,” he scoffed.

About the Author:

Marla White is a story analysis instructor at UCLA and writing coach who lives in Los Angeles. She graduated from the University of Kentucky (go Wildcats!), where she took her first horseback riding lesson. After dabbling in hunters, barrel racing, and weekly trail rides, she fell hopelessly in love with the sport of eventing. She conquered Novice level before taking a break to pursue novel writing but hopes to return to the saddle someday soon. Her first novel, “The Starlight Mint Surprise Murder,” was published in 2021 followed by the first two books in her Keeper Chronicles series. When she’s not writing, she’s out in the garden, hiking, or putting together impossibly difficult puzzles.

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Comments

  1. Thanks for hosting!

  2. Thank you for hosting, I look forward to chatting throughout the day! In the excerpt, Dennis and Justin both are aghast at the terrible coffee but drink it anyway. Usually, equestrians are coffee addicts, especially when you have to get up early for a show, but there was one event I went to where the coffee tasted like it had been made with creek water! I just couldn’t go there. Have you ever needed the caffeine so much you ignored the taste and drank it anyway?

  3. The book sounds very interesting. Great cover!

    • Thanks, Piroska! I give all the credit to Wild Rose Press cover artist Diana Carlile, who has done all my covers. She was great to work with and created the cover I’d always imagined inspired by the early editions of the great Dick Francis’s horse mysteries. Enjoy!

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