Hallow By M. R. Dimond – Lone Star Book Blog Tours

Family: What you don’t know can kill you.

Young Texas attorney JD Thompson enjoys his life in a small Texas town, where he lives with his ABBA tribute band, college roommates, and seventy black cats that his veterinarian partner rescued before Halloween. Probate cases with inheritance squabbles leave him time to help family members, like when his grandfather receives a surprising present from the past. But the squabbles turn deadly, the present isn’t a gift, and the lovely woman who captures his heart isn’t what she seems. As he stands in ashes with murder on the doorstep, JD races to defend his client, his family, and his home. Can he untangle the dark secrets threatening to destroy everything he holds dear? The walls are already splattered with blood.

Join JD and the quirky Black Orchid Enterprises gang in their fifth Texas mystery as the holiday season rolls in—fall holidays, that is, from High Holy Days to Thanksgiving.

A Day in the Life at Gregg House of
Beauchamp, Texas

Dark o’clock             Dr. Johnny Lyrises and goes downstairs to visit cats in his clinic and shelter.

Dr. John Ky Ly, DVM, licensed veterinary acupuncturist, youngest partner of Black Orchid Enterprises. Burnout in his zoo vet residency led his grandmother to offer him Gregg House, her Victorian mansion in Beauchamp (22 miles southeast of Austin), when she wanted to retire. He invited his college housemates to join him. Hometown: San Antonio. BS from University of Texas. DVM from Texas A&M. Vegetarian. Loves to cook, has prepared Friday night feasts since college, now a tradition for the whole town. Neurospicy. Buddhist, now embracing his grandmother’s Judaism, which she rejected as a nurse in Vietnam. Tenor and bass player in MultiABBA, the ABBA tribute band the housemates formed in college. Assistant Justice of the Peace of Alvarez County (in charge of declaring dead bodies dead) and Beauchamp Assistant Animal Control Officer (dealing with cats and wild animals—do not ask about the wild hog).
Pronouns: defaults to he/him  

When he finds all is well, he returns to the second floor to join Dianne Cortez in warmups like yoga or tai chi. Then they jog around Beauchamp.

Guadalupe Dianne Cortez y Jáquez, CPA, CFE, president of Black Orchid Enterprises, umbrella firm over three professional practices (legal, accountancy, veterinary) that operate from Gregg House. Hometown: Garland, Texas. BS and MS in accounting from UT. Third-generation Mexican-American. Native speaker of Spanish and English.Alto and choreographer for MultiABBA. Dances ballet, folklorico, and ballroom. Communicates by spreadsheet.
Pronouns: she/her  

Dark + half hour     When the door shuts behind them, JD Thompson rises and staggers to the second-floor porch toscribble poetry before preparing breakfast for the household. Culinarily untalented, he can just about manage a morning fry up.

James Daniel (JD) Thompson, attorney at law, mediator. Hometown: West University Place (Houston area), Texas. Double major in pre-law and literature from UT.His legal ambitions don’t make money: public defender,union representative, immigration attorney.Speaks Spanish with a dreadful accent that Dianne’s younger relatives find hilarious. He and Dianne have made three attempts (so far) at dating, starting in their freshman year of college. Writes poetry and chronicles the adventures of the Black Orchids. Loves Texas beaches, also Paris. Plays piano and sings bass-baritone in MultiABBA. Pronouns: he/him.

8:20 a.m.                    Intern Darryl Swann arrives from the row of apartments in the backyard in time to eat breakfast and clean the kitchen. Black Orchid Enterprises can’t afford much of a salary, but with room and board included, Darryl is happy.

Darryl Swann, intern for all of Black Orchid Enterprises. Also social media coordinator, receptionist, and holiday decorator, his favorite part of the job. The partners grudgingly admit his holiday extravaganzas are great marketing concepts, except for the Easter-Passover-Oestara debacle that made the news in his first year. Substitutes as falsetto soprano in MultiABBA when soprano Chantal Gaumont is unavailable. Hometown: Beauchamp, Texas. Student at Austin Community College in Elrod. Pronouns: will let you know    

9:00 a.m.                    Johnny cares for cats in his clinic. Darryl tends the cats in the backyard shelter. JD might explain to a client that shooting someone knocking on your door does not qualify for the Stand Your Ground defense, counsel a divorce client about not hiding assets or fleeing, or review his latest immigration cases. Dianne might do taxes, usually with the help of part-time accountant Chantal Gaumont, because Beauchamp, like the rest of the country,

interprets tax deadlines as the day to start looking for your receipts.

Chantal Gaumont, part-time accountant and party organizer. Double major in music and accounting from University of Texas. Earned a cosmetology operator’s license in high school. Hometown: New Orleans, but family fled to Houstonafter Hurricane Katrina. Soprano and leader of MultiABBA, the only member attempting a musical career.As an independent musician, she’s learned graphic design, marketing, sewing, event planning, and other skills to promote herself. When she’s really broke, she does pole dancing. Pronouns: she, they.        

Noon                          Dianne’s chore rota specifies who fixes or buys lunch. Lunchtime doubles as an office meeting to discuss whatever affects the entire group, such as Darryl’s latest holiday concept.

After lunch               Johnny might rescue stray cats or local wildlife, including bobcats, pumas, snakes, and wild hogs. As assistant justice of the peace, he might have to view a dead body and determine the need for more investigation. Because law enforcement often disagrees with him about that need, JD accompanies him to mediate, defend, or investigate. Some say a vet isn’t the ideal assistant JP, butthe elected justice of the peace owns a fast-food franchise and felt his two weeks of training didn’t adequately prepare him for dead bodies, though he’s happy to perform weddings and preside over small claims court (with JD’s assistance).

                                    When not immersed in accounting clients’ business, Dianne runs the numbers for possible grants, because everyone in the firm feels strongly about community service. JD then writes persuasive text for the grants.

                                    When there’s a mystery to be solved, whether from Johnny’s assistant JP duties or the others’ clients, all Gregg House residents chip in to uncover secrets and bring justice.

6:00 p.m.                    Johnny fixes a delicious vegetarian dinner. The others toss in bacon, chicken, or other meats in their portions.

Evening                     If they’re lucky, MultiABBA will sing their hearts out at a local venue until it’s time to rest for the next day, which might be more of the same, but probably not. Life at Gregg House is full of surprises, and everyone prefers that to the corporate trudge they were doing before the windfall that brought them to Beauchamp.

Images: Adobe Stock, Envato

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After stints in professional orchestras, law firms, cat rescue, bookkeeping, and technical communication, M. R. Dimond returned to a childhood dream of writing fiction, which has turned out to be about musicians, lawyers, veterinarians, accountants, and cats. Her Black Orchid Enterprises Mystery series, set in her near-native Texas, currently contains five novels with more soon to come.

She has had short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Dancing USA, and various anthologies (most recently in Dreaming the Goddess; Hook, Line, and Sinker; and Riddles, Resolutions, and Revenge), as well as nonfiction articles in various publications.

She holds an MBA from University of Tulsa and is a veteran of writing workshops, including Clarion, Viable Paradise, Jim Gunn’s Center for Science Fiction, and Taos Toolbox. She lives in the wilderness east of Austin, Texas, with her husband and many foster cats.

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