Burning We Will Die, A
- Publisher
- Renaissance Press
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2022
- Category
- Women Sleuths, Amateur Sleuth, Humorous
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781990086236
- Publish Date
- Apr 2022
- List Price
- $20.00
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Description
Nurses traditionally care for bodies; they don't find murdered ones. Erin Rine, a gutsy, thirty-year-old nurse, inadvertently steps into murder when she trips over her patient's body. With her headstrong Aries personality, a black belt in taekwondo, and only fearing the unpredictable bear population in her Northern Ontario woodland districts, Erin gets caught up in the investigation with the help of her best friend, an elderly neighbour who provides astrological influences, eerily apt psychic warnings.
Burned in prior relationships, Erin is disconcerted by her attraction to the handsome investigating detective, and strives to avoid a romantic entanglement despite the investigation bringing them closer.
About the author
Betty Guenette is a Metis author living in Sudbury, Ontario. After retiring from over forty years of working as a Registered Nurse, Betty's interest in writing began in earnest. Her short fiction and nonfiction articles have been published in anthologies, magazines, journals and newspapers, both in print and online. She's a member of the Sudbury Writers' Guild and the Canadian Authors Association (CAA). Her current project is a 12-book, light mystery series, incorporating a smattering of astrology and lively characters. The first novel, A Burning We Will Die, was published in the spring of 2022 by Renaissance Press.
Excerpt: Burning We Will Die, A (by (author) Betty Guenette)
After knocking a few times, she turned the knob, pushed open the squeaking door and called out, "Hello, Mr. Towser, anybody home?" She peeked into the darkened room and flipped on a light switch she spotted by the door.
Scattered magazines and newspapers lay on every surface. Her elbow brushed against a shelf causing dust motes to flutter in the air. Her nose twitched and she sneezed, sending more puffs of dust flying before sneezing again. After blowing and wiping her nose on a tissue, she edged through the living and kitchen areas.
Pausing at the open bedroom door, Erin shivered in the damp, chilly air. She entered and poked her booted toe at a mound of clothes on the floor. She glanced at the crumpled blankets hanging down from the side of the mattress. "Hello, Mr. Towser?" she called out again. At least he hadn't died in his bed like that old fellow did last month. Still, that wasn't a bad way to go, so she'd been told. But who knew?
She backed out of the bedroom, knocked on the partially closed bathroom door, then edged and scraped it open along a groove worn in the linoleum. The shifting of the cabin must have warped both the floor and door. The clammy, cluttered space was empty. She went to check outside in case the elderly man had fallen or become ill.
Back outdoors Erin scanned the yard and took a deep breath of the crisp country air. She wrinkled her nose and caught a hint of a lingering whiff of smoke. "I wonder if the man's burning brush." The sound of her voice echoed in the quiet.
She needed to check around the cabin, but wouldn't go far, not near those deep woods, anyway. There were a couple of lean-tos, possibly for wood storage. She presumed that was an old outhouse off near the farther bushes.
Erin kicked at the debris littering the front yard and grabbed hold of a stout branch. Since noise often kept bears away, she blew two shrill blasts on her whistle and strode off behind the house, belting out a sporadic song of saints marching along.
Her eyes continued to flick around, searching the far bushes for movements of wild animals. With this distraction and the intense focus on her distant surroundings she kept stumbling over fallen branches and boulders along the pathway.
"Damn!" Erin yelped, tripped, and pitched forward when she edged around a pile of lumber near a leaning, dilapidated shed. She landed flat on her stomach, hearing her jacket sleeve rip against the woodpile on her way down.
Raising her upper body on her elbows, she jerked up, alarmed, as she turned her head and stared into the partially hooded, sightless eyes of a dead man.
