My Mom is a Smasher

My mom is a Smasher. Lest you get the wrong idea and think this means she needs anger management, let me clarify that a Smasher is someone who has published an e-book using Smashwords.com. She currently has three books available via Smashwords, Point and Shoot and Deep Blue Murder, both Edie Malone mysteries, as well as another mystery called Dangerous Inheritance.

As you can imagine, I am extremely proud of her and so is the rest of the family. My son was so excited about the first book he said he can't wait to get a tattoo of the cover on his arm. That wasn't exactly the reaction she was hoping for, I don't think, but coming from a teenage boy that is high praise indeed.

My mom's romance with the mystery genre is legendary in our family. When we were growing up she could often be found absently stirring a pot on the stove with one hand, while reading a mystery held in the other. My dad sometimes joked he was afraid she might get distracted from the recipe she was making and accidentally add in some hemlock or other poison out of her murder mystery.

My mom gets her love of murder mysteries from her own mother, who was also an avid reader and a particular fan of mysteries. But I think she gets her storytelling gene from my Grandfather, who was a natural born storyteller. A gregarious Irishman with a sly sense of humor and the gift of the gab, he often regaled us grand kids with stories of the many exploits he and his 11 siblings got up to in Belfast just after the turn of the last century. He also made up ghost stories to tell us, which he knew were our favorites.

Grandpa had a lot of imagination, which he applied liberally to more than just his storytelling. When a wrong number called, he would pretend he was the intended recipient of the call and ad lib his way through a long conversation. He rented U-hauls, cancelled orders for sewing machines, re-directed pizzas and even convinced a young lady to break up with her boyfriend, telling her she was better off without him anyway because he was unreliable and she deserved better. He also had an unfortunate penchant for trying to marry my sister or I off to random people on the street, usually launching into a long list of our made-up attributes and a fictitious dowry. He especially liked trying to marry us off to cops, although he did once try to pawn one of us off on an organ grinder at a street fair in exchange for a monkey.

I'm digressing - my grandfather's exploits could be a whole blog unto themselves - but suffice it to say that as I read my mom's books I see elements of my grandparents and other relatives coming alive in her characters.

I'm traveling for work most of the week, but I have packed my Nook so at least I know I'll get to enjoy a good read. If you want to join me clicking on the caption under the cover of Deep Blue Murder will take you to her page on Smashwords, or just visit Smashwords.com and type in "Shirley E. Watson."

Visit Smashwords.com to download this or any other of my mom's mysteries