It’s free this week, darlings. Here it is.
Melissa Morris is a thirty-something single New Yorker who works in one of the trendiest boutiques in Manhattan. She has it all, until the night she discovers something dreadful and frightening and just plain weird. Her life will never be the same.
Never fight with your doorman. That’s the lesson I learned today after he let Elvis up to the penthouse.
Yes, you read it right. After weeks of calls and emails and text messages, that little runt managed to get to my front door. I knew what he wanted, which is why I’ve been avoiding him, but then there he was and as he’s only ten I could hardly punch him in the face without risking yet another law suit.
“Your Dad bought the ring!” he said. “They’re officially engaged now!”
“Go away,” I said. “I’m not hungover but I will be soon.”
“Let’s make them a party together!” he said. “We’ll have it here! Your house is so big.”
What a brown-nosing little sycophant.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks to pretend this conversation never happened. I’ll give you a thousand if you can break them up.”
“I’ll start buying decorations!” he said, grabbing the C-note. “You can make the invitation list.”
Oddly, the trait of ignoring some questions while answering the ones you expected to be asked is a trait that my father has mastered. Which means my father may like this dreadful person.
“He’s horrible,” I said after I finally got Elvis to leave. “Everything is horrible. How am I going to stop this marriage?”
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but the thoughts about the situation,” my future ex-husband said. He was on the couch reading a book, and I think he was actually quoting from it. It was one of the books that Lysette gave him. I think they’re meeting secretly.
“It’s not a secret,” he said, reading this post over my shoulder. “I told you at least a dozen times. Besides, Lysette is pregnant. And what about all your drunken binges with Charles? I never ask you about those.”
Now I’m planning an engagement party for my father and that Kosovan, gold-digging dye-job Sabina. My badly-ageing literary agent Elaine Totsky wants to have a meeting with me – she says she has news. And I still haven’t found a good lawyer to represent me in the murder case. On top of it all, I’m out of Opana. A package was supposed to arrive yesterday, but, as I mentioned, my doorman is currently hostile. What should I buy him? I need my special cocktail now more than ever – All advice is welcome.
My new story How Would You Fight A Lion? is free this week.
Melissa’s new Wall Street job is saving her. She’s climbing out of debt, she’s getting her life together… and the boss’s son is cute. But a mysterious email threatens to destroy everything. Is Melissa working with a killer? She must discover who’s lying, who’s dangerous, and who’s just out for themselves in this smart, modern Wall Street tale.
British? Really? Get the story here.
Readers are still sending in their suggestions of how they’d battle the beast. Give this question some thought. I heard there was a lion sighting at a Cedar Rapids Walmart last week and another one yesterday at an Tallahassee Starbucks. The next one will pop up when you least expect it.
How Would You Fight A Lion? That’s the name of my new short story.
Though the story has just come out, my readers, ever enthusiastic and faithful, have been flooding me with suggestions about how they’d go about it.
Sarah from Wasilla, for example, would shoot it with a Remington 870 Pump, and then mount the head over her fireplace. Good for you Sarah! Jasmine likes an unreconstructed approach to most things.
Lindsey from Merrick, on the other hand, would punch it between the eyes. Mel from Sydney would complain that it’s Jewish and Brett from Los Angeles would bait it with cocaine. Both ideas are creative, don’t you agree, and each, in its way, just slightly old-fashioned. Laura N. from Brooklyn would “give it a cookie”. I think we can all agree that she’s toast.
And what about you? Imagine that you’re there, in the savanna, staring into those amber eyes. Would you run, readers? Would you understand that this is the greatest moment of your soon-to-be-ended-in-horrible-fashion life?
It’s such an evocative question and really, I think the answer tells you more about a person than you’d like to know. But if you’re curious to learn how to really fight a lion, check out my new story, and stay out of the jungle, my darlings. Not all of us are equipped to brawl with the beast.
If one more person says they’re surprised when they discover that I have a living grandmother, I swear to god I’ll punch them in the face.
Nonna Pessia came to visit me yesterday. It was a real honor because the rumor is that she’s more loaded than anyone in the family.
“Yasmine,” she said before her gloves had come off. “Who is representing you?”
“An associate of Charles Endicott’s,” I told her.
“Get rid of him,” she said. “Call Stanley.”
“He’s dead, Nonna,” I reminded her.
“Then call Myron.”
“Dead,” I said.
She exhaled from exasperation.
“You are going to end up in prison, Yasmine. This is very serious. Who is this man in the kitchen?”
“That’s just Mark. He’s renovating the bedroom. Supposedly.”
Mark approached my grandmother but she put her hand up to stop him.
“I stay out of Chelsea,” she hissed to me. “Why does he have to come to the Upper East Side?”
“Please, Nonna. I won’t go to jail. Anyway the real issue is Daddy. He’s going to marry that horrible woman. Can’t you talk to him?”
“We haven’t spoken for twelve years,” she said. “I’m not sure this is a good enough reason to start now.”
“Oh forget it,” I said. “Let’s just go to lunch.”
You see? There’s nothing as frustrating and disappointing and complicated as family. You can wish you were adopted all you want, but in the end, if you have a grandmother who can get a table at Jean Georges just by walking in, then order the foie gras brule and count your blessings.
As my readers know, amateur sleuth Melissa Morris is based on a real person – an old girlfriend of mine named Lysette. She used to do some work for the Mossad until she got tired of seducing Syrian businessmen in cheap East European hotels. She drifted for years. I urged her to give up and marry rich, but Lysette made the too-common error of ignoring my advice and now she’s living in Queens.
It’s a real shame because, like any attractive woman, Lysette could have married and divorced someone wealthy by now. Instead she has to work for a living, as a social worker no less, and she’s a vegan. It’s a tragedy, no matter how you look at it…
Read more of this guest post on M.J. Kane’s website. M.J. Kane? She’s a stay-at-home mom turned Amazon bestseller. Her words inspire, encourage and bring hope, so really, we have very little in common. Still, hop on over and check her out…
All the single ladies put your hands up. My story, Email from Beyonce is free this week.
Melissa Morris is a thirty-something New Yorker who joins the Obama campaign. She finds purpose and drive and even a good-looking man who wants to date her. But nothing is as it seems, even the emails from Beyonce and Michelle Obama. Soon enough, she’s surrounded by corruption and murder.
You’d be surprised to learn how many people are doing internet searches for ‘Phineas, Ferb and Sex‘. Until my cousin Milagros Schwartz enlightened me, I didn’t even know who Phineas and Ferb were, and now it’s the main reason people are coming to my website, aside from the murder charge.
“They haven’t charged you.”
This from my future ex-husband, who, once again, is reading over my shoulder.
“Yet,” he adds.
Kim Kardashian was the most internet-searched-for women in 2012. I know Kim through mutual friends, and she’s furious about the popularity of Phineas and Ferb. Personally, I don’t really care, as I just took my Opana with that touch of Xanax and am feeling it all over. You’d be surprised to learn how many people are doing internet searches for ‘Phineas, Ferb and Sex‘.
Did I tell you that Elvis keeps calling me? He’s the ten-year-old son of Sabina, the Russian who thinks she’s marrying my father.
“She’s Kosovan,” says my future ex-husband.
“Don’t you ever go to work?” I say.
The wedding is getting close and I’m considering doing the unthinkable. I just don’t understand it, readers. Isn’t it enough for daddy to have the perfect daughter in every way? Isn’t enough that I’m thin and marrying wealthy? I even wrote two novels for him, but did he even call me to say he was proud?
“Jasmine,” says my future ex-husband. “Sometimes you just have to accept things the way they are.”
This is the kind of drivel he says now, ever since that night in Queens. I would dump him, but the cocktail always makes me a little sleepy, and also, we have reservations tonight.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s just go to Jean Georges.”
You see. Sometimes he still says the right thing.
“The trouble with you people, Jasmine, is that you always want more.”
These frequently italicized words were spoken to me recently by Charles Cornelius Endicott IV, the hardworking, white Protestant financial advisor who has served the Schwartz family for three generations.
“Take me,” said Charles. “I’m rich as Croesus and you don’t see me striving.”
As usual, we were getting tanked on Dalmore and, according to the security tape, I began to cry.
“The police have reopened the investigation into uncle Myron’s death,” I said, weeping on his strong shoulder. “And they want to question me again. Why me? Why not Milagros? She’s his daughter! She was at the ski resort when it happened.”
“As were you,” said Charles. “But you’re straying from the point, Jasmine. Why can’t you people ever be happy with what you have?”
Don’t get me wrong. Charles was sympathetic. But after we reach the lower depths of the Dalmore bottle, he’ll generally start focusing on my Jewessness. It’s one of the reasons I respect him so much. Charles doesn’t follow fleeting social whims like some of the other old school financial advisors. He believes what he believes, and he’s too rich to ever be seriously challenged.
“What are you saying, Charles?” I said, dabbing my eyes dry. “That it’s because of striving that Myron is dead?”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Jazz. I’m just pointing out that one of you probably killed him for his money. Isn’t that right?”
“Oh Charles,” I said, fresh tears appearing. “Is this your last bottle of Dalmore, or what?”
What would I do without Charles? Now that my future ex-husband has become unhinged, Charles is my rock and my savior. Let’s take a moment out of our day to pay tribute to these unsung heroes of our generation, the Wall Street financial billionaires, without whom we’d all be lost.
Ok, did everyone fall silent? No? Never mind. A shout out, then, to Dee Doanes, who is not a Wall Street financial anything, but a writer, and so presumably not in the one percent, although who knows what the New Year will bring? She outs herself as a trekkie and a stiletto addict in this whimsical post. She also mentions me, which is always fabulous.
The talented JD Chase has asked me to participate in a Blog Hop, which is a little like wife swapping without the keys, sex and suburbia. Thank you, JD and good luck with Hunting Lust, a “contemporary romance with mild erotica”.
What is the title of your book?
Speaking of sex… The title of the second novel in my detective series is Fakakt: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Sex
Where did the idea come from for the book?
Amateur sleuth Melissa Morris is based on my friend Lysette who used to work for the Mossad until she got tired of seducing Syrian businessmen in cheap East European Hotels. She now works as a social worker and one day I thought to myself, what if, instead of working with abused children, Lysette found dead bodies and solved crimes?
What is the genre of the book?
Mystery – Chick-lit
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Christian Bale has already agreed to do it in drag.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Melissa Morris chases her cheating boyfriend to Rome. While trying to track him down, she’s arrested for the murder of a Romanian businessman. She sets out to find the real killer, discovering an underside to Rome and herself that she never imagined.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I’ve just taken my second dose of Opana. Who can remember?
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
People have compared me to Marian Keyes and Donald Trump
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Did I mention that Sabina’s son, Elvis called me yesterday? What does he want? Isn’t enough that his skanky platinum blond dye-job of a mother roped my father into getting engaged? Some people ask why bad things happen to good people, but that’s really the wrong question. The correct question is, why aren’t things going better for Jasmine? What’s wrong with the world?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
My future ex-husband has started to read books, which I find odd. But if, like him, you do actually read, then go ahead and pick up a copy. It just came out in paperback.
Thanks again JD and happy hopping…
Jasmine Schwartz writes a detective series about Melissa Morris, a thirty-something New Yorker whose search for herself is constantly interrupted by the discovery of dead bodies. Jasmine became a writer when she got too old to do her real job.
© 2013 Jasmine Schwartz. All Rights Reserved.
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