Dead Shot (38 page)

Out on Highway 100, just past the Loveless Café (best fried chicken and biscuits in town), you can see the house where Gillian lived when she was seven and found her mother’s murdered body. Or rather, the house I based my imaginary one on. The murderer was never caught, and Gillian’s been obsessed with death ever since.

The Gray Visual Arts Center is similar to the art museum in Nashville, in that it’s new (the real museum is several years older) and the arts community worked a long time to fund it. The real museum has never been picketed, but I can’t help wondering what would happen if it did exhibit Gillian’s macabre self-portraits—the dead shots of the title—which inspire several murders in the book.

When Gillian is attacked over her controversial photographs and someone starts recreating them for real, her family hires a bodyguard, Ray Pearce. Ray lives in Sylvan Park, another actual location. As in the book, the streets are all named after states, and Nebraska, Ray’s street, actually exists. I pass by it on the way to Bobby’s Dairy Dip for their signature chocolate-dipped cones. Yum.

I know most people think of country music when they think of Nashville. But in DEAD SHOT, it’s murder and mayhem. So for a whole different take on my hometown—plus more real locations—check out my latest, DEAD SHOT. And next time you visit, you can check out the other side of Nashville, too.

www.anniesolomon.com

From the desk of Lori Wilde

Dear Reader,

When I first got the idea to write a series of bride-to be stories centered on a magical, wish-granting wedding veil, I knew I had to do a little research. Google and I became fast friends as I scoured the Internet for bridal myths and legends. And then I discovered the coolest thing: There are only about eighty people left in the world who make handmade rose point lace, and they’re all in Belgium.

I unearthed so many romantic stories about lace and wedding veils, it was mind-boggling. There was even one about a mysterious woman who supposedly made veils so beautiful, they cast a spell over anyone who wore them. Those fables were the jumping-off place for my imagination as I envisioned the most exquisite wedding veil ever made that also possessed the power to grant the wearer’s most heartfelt wish.

Then I thought, what if the women passed this wedding veil along from friend to friend as they each found their happily ever afters? What fun!

The Wedding Veil Wishes series starts with THERE GOES THE BRIDE (on sale now) and my heroine, Delaney Cartwright. Poor Delaney. As a kid she was the proverbial ugly duckling, and she still can’t believe she’s grown into a beautiful swan. She’s got a snobby, blue-blood Mama she’s afraid to buck and in her sleep, she talks to the ghost of her dead sister. She’s been keeping all that bottled up inside for far too long!

Until the day the veil comes into her life and changes everything. Bravely, she wishes on the wedding veil, desperate to find a way out of her impending marriage to her childhood sweetheart. That’s when she meets sexy Houston P.D. Detective Nick Vinetti and everything starts to go completely
wrong
. . . .

I hope you enjoy the book!

http://www.loriwilde.com