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Book Details
Mystery
Date Published: June 10, 2025
Publisher: MindStir Media
Set sail for suspense in the thrilling first installment of the Sailing Mystery Series!
In Murder on the Squid Row Run, oboist Georgiana Quilter is finally hitting her stride—with a dream orchestra job and a new apartment. But when she agrees to pose as a celebrity’s girlfriend during a glamorous international sailing rally, things take a dark and deadly turn.
A body turns up on board. A child disappears. A saboteur strikes. As the Squid Row Run heads from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, Georgiana races to uncover secrets buried at sea—all while navigating a fake romance that’s becoming dangerously real.
Perfect for fans of cozy mysteries, strong female sleuths, and nautical adventures, authentic maritime details inspired by the author’s own seven-year circumnavigation. Suspense, wit, and danger at every port
“… action-packed with a pitch-perfect ear for all the craziness of an international sailing rally.”
—Cap’n Fatty Goodlander, Cruising World Magazine
Love mystery series set on the water? This is your next great read.
Series https://amzn.to/49MC3qv
Author Details
Author Julia Shovein brings authenticity and edge to her mystery novels, drawn from a life spent at sea and in service. After a thirty-year career as a university professor of nursing (Professor Emeritus), Julia retired and embarked on a global sailing adventure with her husband, circumnavigating the globe over seven years.
She lived and wrote in exotic locations like New Zealand, Turkey, and London’s St. Katherine Dock. Upon returning home to Paradise, California, Julia and her husband narrowly escaped the devastating Campfire wildfire. These life-altering experiences shaped her writing—and her heroine, Georgiana Quilter.
Now living in Bremerton, Washington, with her husband Horst and husky Blue, Julia is a proud member of the Poulsbo Yacht Club. She’s truly, as Cruising World puts it, “the real thing.”
Contact Links
Website: https://juliashovein.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailingmysteryseries
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JuliaShovein
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@juliashovein
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliashovein/
Purchase Link
Amazon: https://amzn.to/4rsSCOE
Excerpt – Murder on the Squid Row Run: Sailing Mystery Book 1
I gave Max a high five. A bigger salary would’ve been nice, but I said nothing because I didn’t want to disappoint him.
If there’s anything I hated, and I mean really hated, it was disappointing people.
Gran would’ve said, “Honey-girl, everything’s in God’s hands.”
From where I stood, it looked as though God had passed the assignment along to me.
A gunshot interrupted Nicky’s rant.
I knew a shotgun when I heard it.
Loaded buckshot struck the elaborate crystal-dripping chandelier over our heads. It exploded outward like launched fireworks.
Shimmering shards of glass pelted us like hard rain.
“Shoot,” I said, not really knowing where he intended to go with this. “I’ll help if I can.” But words like sex addiction stuck in my head. I hoped this proposal wouldn’t be something weird.
“Listen, girl, David’s really not a bad guy. He’s good to me. Is it too much to ask for my best friend to like the guy I love?”
“No, it’s not,” I lied. It’s difficult to get along with David-the-a-wipe, let alone like him.
He fit the dictionary’s definition of an ass-wipe: “… a stupid, annoying, or detestable person.” Okay, maybe not the stupid part. I’ll admit David’s a musical genius and a good provider, but he came with baggage—a wife.
Was I alone in having a friend who chose an a-wipe for a partner? Everything David did annoyed me, including how he chewed his food. An athletic guy for fifty, his thick brown hair rested fashionably on his usual Gucci jacket collar, and his arrogance enveloped him like cheap cologne.
A lot of women were giving Keith an appreciative once-over, and I felt proud to be on his arm. What a heady feeling. I didn’t know I could be so shallow.
The rally included people from many walks of life. The diversity surprised me. I’d figured only rich people sailed, but there were blue-collar workers, managers and executives, movie stars (okay one), professors,
bartenders, journalists, circumnavigators, sailing neophytes, and on and on. Everyone chattered about weather, navigation, and upcoming passage possibilities. Like a stripper discarding clothes, politics, religion, and class distinctions were put aside.
He looked relaxed and healthy. Good choices become easier when you’re away from temptation.
I didn’t think life could get any better––good company, full sails, brilliant stars, music, and chocolate. I might be accumulating life-stress points, but that didn’t keep me from appreciating fortunate moments like this.
That night, as I lay in my bunk, I could hear water rushing by the hull, only inches from my pillow. It reminded me how vulnerable we were here in this big ocean, with only a thin wall of fiberglass between
us and a hundred fathoms of cold, impersonal death.
I took both his hands in mine and met his eyes. “Are you telling me there is no hope for us?”
“I’m saying I’ll break your heart, because I can never be the man you once knew. There’s an emptiness in me that can’t be filled, at least not by another person.”
I fell asleep thinking about all the complications involved with families. Despite all the messiness human relationships bring, I still wanted one.
“You could say I’m a mutineer.” He clinked his bottle to mine.
“Sorry to hear that. I am a diehard conformist.” Despite my offbeat upbringing (or maybe because of it), I liked to project perfect normalcy.
“Oh, come now, you may think you’re conventional, but in my experience, everyone has secrets, and almost none of us are who we appear to be.”
Something about our conversation felt indulgent.
I felt a tiny ping of regret, though. Not an emotion a phony girlfriend could afford.
But for now, I felt like a wounded fake girlfriend. Maybe even a fired one.
Not that costumed rally participants were paying any attention to decorations. A pulsating crowd danced to blaring music, laughed in groups, or raided food tables. Halloween, less than a week away, saw hundreds of decked out attendees. I already wore Regency clothing provided to Dissolute’s crew by our commander, Charles Rand.
I jumped at the thunderous crashing sound of a forcefully upended display table. Looking toward the ruckus, I realized the flailing arms I saw were actually throwing punches. A fight had erupted between a coven of skinny vampires and a troupe of no-neck Polynesian dancers. I stepped back as I heard someone yell that the security guys were on their way.
In the middle of it all perched a woman on a barstool who had squeezed herself into a mermaid costume. Her ample assets and sequined spandex fishtail looked great but at the expense of her mobility. I watched
as a chorus of four Dos Equis beer bottles picked her up, chair and all, and spirited her away.
The San Francisco vampires were getting pounded by the Polynesians until a group of multicolored Lucky Charms jumped in to help the blood-sucker wannabes. A couple of pastel marshmallows knew a thing or two about the one-two punch, finishing the fight.
Finally the security folks arrived in their black-and-yellow padded bee costumes, their antennae swinging wildly like out-of-sync metro-nomes. They took charge and led away the most aggressive drunks. The
prancing beer bottles returned the mermaid, to applause. The atmosphere felt like the set of a Fellini film, except the director had failed to show up.
“At two a.m. I got up to feed the baby when our two-way radio startled me. It suddenly came to life. I heard a little girl’s voice.” As the jalapeño pepper fussed, taco woman rocked the baby back and forth. “She said, ‘My name’s Stephanie. Please help me. I don’t want to go to Mexico. I want to go home to my mommy and daddy.’
She said she was on a big boat with a green light outside her window. Then she started crying and her transmission stopped.”
“Did you find out her last name or her location?”
“I have no experience with radios, so I couldn’t ask her anything!
But if you’d heard her voice, you’d never forget it. Terrified and desperate.
My husband says it was probably just kids playing a prank and I should forget it. I called the police anyway. But what could I really tell them? They said there were thousands of boats in San Diego, so without a child’s full name or a boat name and location, what could they do? I can’t stop thinking about that little girl, so I wrote everything down in that letter.” With a worried look, she asked, “You’ll give it to the person in charge?”
The dogs found something, all right—a pair of horizontal, motionless legs clad in polished Hessian boots. In an authoritative voice, Mrs. Gardner called Rowena and Prudence to heel. I peered between the two
overgrown bushes to get a better look at the prone man. I couldn’t see his face. A drunk? Uh, no. I could see blood seeping out of a back wound. He wore a bright green coat. David had been wearing the same clothing when I last saw him. This lifeless body had longish dark hair like David’s and a similar build.
They’d never definitively determined an intended victim at David’s award ceremony. Could Nicky be right? Had whoever tried before finally killed him?
Nicky checked to see that our anxious passenger in the back was preoccupied on her call to a hospital, then quietly said, “My handgun went missing.”
“What do you mean, your gun went missing?” I hissed.
“Did you take it?” she whispered.
“Of course not. I didn’t even know you brought it along!” Taking a deep breath, I chided her. “Aren’t firearms illegal to bring into Mexico?” I knew this to be true because a highlighted warning handed out to each of us said so. Lecturing Nicky about rules equaled a waste of time.
I sighed. “Okay, when did you last see it?”
“Yesterday morning. It was in my cabin. Before we left just now, I noticed it was missing from the mini cabinet where I keep my bag.”
“Loaded?” I asked with my eyebrows raised. She nodded.
“Verdammt, Nick—”
“I think Adam’s point, and maybe David’s too, is to ask how concerned we should be.” Constance spoke in a matter-of-fact manner. “If this was an accidental explosion, that’s one thing. If an explosive device played a part in this, it has some strong implications for us too. Remember, Haiyun rafted up to us. Had she exploded in the marina, we would be the ones fighting for our lives…or dead.”
Seadon grabbed my hand and pulled me down into Arceneaux’s dinghy. I fell and barely had time to scramble into a seat. I madly grabbed at the hand straps before Arceneaux gunned the motor and we roared away. Life vests came flying after us––Seadon expertly plucked them out of the air. We took off toward a terrifying fireball. Shouldn’t we be fleeing in the opposite direction? My lack of a backbone was embarrassing—not my proudest moment.
“Can you swim?” Arceneaux yelled at us. Seadon and I nodded. “We need to look for anybody in the water. Look for blood.” Arceneaux slowed down to circle the burning explosion and its wreckage. I searched from my side while Seadon scanned his own. Arceneaux surveyed the area forward.
My eyes watered from the smoke, making it hard to see. I had that licking-an-ashtray taste in my mouth and couldn’t stop coughing, so I pulled my T-shirt off, dipped it in water, then fixed it around my mouth and nose. I held my breath which for a professional oboist can be pretty darn long.
Debris surrounded us but was no longer dropping from above.
Should I be afraid fuel tanks might explode? Through the smoke I could make out an entire deck, in one piece, floating in front of us. A wooden eyebrow—formerly cabin house trim—burned while portions of the fiberglass were melting and misshapen. I couldn’t see any of the hull.
Had it already sunk?
“I’m going to circle back again.” Arceneaux shouted above our outboard’s propeller noise. “The explosion probably blew crewmembers off this way with the deck.” He waved a hand portside. Visibility remained
so bad that it looked like we three were all alone in a kind of apocalyptic hellscape. I wondered if we would just find body parts. How could anyone have survived this?
“There! I think I see someone!” Excited, Seadon pointed and carefully stood up. He started coughing but didn’t close his eyes.
Arceneaux immediately steered in that direction. “I see! Good job, Seadon!”
An unmoving body floated face down, covered in soot and black crud. Arceneaux maneuvered as close as he could. Seadon donned his life vest, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and tossed it to me. “Give
Arceneaux GPS coordinates.”
Releasing my hand strap death grip, I caught the phone, and then pulled my T-shirt down from my mouth.
A jolt knocked half of us across the deck. Cookies flew. Someone screamed. Another groaned. I wildly grasped for something to hang onto.
A cacophony of troubled voices tried to calm others down.
“Silence!” ordered Constance.
Everyone became quiet and still wherever they’d landed. Our deck resumed an even horizontal position. No one appeared hurt. Then I heard a loud whooshing expulsion of air behind me and got a whiff of something pungent and foul. It smelled like a cross between garbage left out in the sun too long and rotting, fermenting fish.
A whale! A whale had surfaced an arm’s length from where I’d settled!
An unholy stinky smell came from forcefully expelled air from his blowhole. No one moved or spoke. Soon the whale floated away from us before his massive back arched, flippers waved, and pale moonlight reflected off him as his tail breached. He slipped under the water and disappeared. Our silence didn’t last long.
“Madre mia! A whale! So big!” Maria said. “I’ve only seen them with binoculars.” Voices rose from every direction.
I scanned the deck and everyone looked okay.
“Good morning,” he said in flawless English. “Do you know how you got here?”
How could I answer that? Secretly I hitched a ride into the desert in a local pickup truck, eavesdropped on a meeting with some scary-looking thugs, saw a woman beheaded, jumped out of the returning pickup while it drove away, and then walked miles back to Turtle Bay?
Tour Schedule
November 25 – Books 1987– Spotlight
November 26 – Book Corner News and Reviews – Spotlight
November 27 – Iron Canuck Reviews – Review
November 28 – Sarandipity’s – Spotlight
December 1 – A Life Through Books – Interview
December 2 – Crossroad Reviews – Spotlight
December 3 – Momma and Her Stories – Excerpt
December 4 – Liliyana Shadowlyn – Spotlight
December 5 – Book Junkiez – Excerpt
December 8 – My Bookmarked Reads – Spotlight
December 9 – Texas Book Nook – Review
December 10 – On a Reading Bender – Spotlight
December 11 – The Avid Reader – Interview
December 15 – Book Reviews by Virginia Lee – Spotlight
December 16 – Our Town Book Reviews – Review
December 17 – Novel News Network – Review
December 18 – Nana’s book Reviews – Spotlight
December 19 – My Reading Addiction – Interview
December 23 – Always Reading – Excerpt
December 24 – The Faerie Review – Spotlight
December 25 – Tea Time and Books – Spotlight
December 26 – RABT Reviews – Wrap Up
