Where There’s Smoke blog tour is through Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours and includes a fun character guest post. Share, comment, subscribe, enter the giveaway at the end.
Book Details
Where There’s Smoke . . . (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery)
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Publisher : Severn House
Publication date : August 4, 2026
Setting – New Jersey
Print length : 256 pages
Hardcover
ISBN-10 : 1448320445
ISBN-13 : 978-1448320448
Digital
ASIN : B0H1RND6TL
Paint store owner Laura Meehan must prove her amateur sleuthing skills (again!) when her small town’s public library starts burning in this installment of the Haunted Paint Store cozy mystery series.
Don’t mess with a paint store owner’s safe haven!
Laura Meehan has her hands full with her paint store, but also with another case (that she will definitely leave to the police to solve)! The Sea Breeze Public Library is burning and it’s clear from the beginning that it must be arson.
Who would want to burn a library down and why? Was it a group of moms protesting what they see as inappropriate book content? Maybe it was someone who didn’t like a title they lent? Or is there something more alarming going on?
As a library volunteer, Laura simply has to find out, and together with her IT-savvy husband Roy and her ex-detective father’s ghost (real or imagined still yet to be determined), she stumbles upon a lot of obstacles on her quest to find the truth—and maybe even an arsonist who might strike again!
A light-hearted cozy mystery with a paranormal twist and Copperman’s signature wit, humor, and zaniness. Perfect for fans of Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries and Cleo Coyle’s Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, as well as funny and cozy mysteries by Janet Evanovich, Elle Cosimano, and Amanda Flower.
About E.J. Copperman
E.J. Copperman is a figment of someone’s imagination. Sometimes E.J. writes as Jeff Cohen. Where There’s Smoke is his 36th published mystery. But he says he doesn’t write mysteries; he writes comedies that have a mystery in them. It’s up to you to decide if that’s true.
TOUR PARTICIPANTS
August 3 – Books1987 – SPOTLIGHT
August 3 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
August 4 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT
August 4 – Sarandipity’s – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 5 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW
August 5 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 5 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
August 6 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 6 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
August 7 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 7 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
August 8 – StoreyBook Reviews – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 8 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – SPOTLIGHT
August 9 – Deal Sharing Aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 10 – Romance Novel Giveaways – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 10 – Because I said so – adventures in parenting – REVIEW
August 10 – From the TBR Pile – REVIEW
August 11 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 11 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 11 – Salty Inspirations – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 12 – Sarcastically Yours, Jen – SPOTLIGHT
Character Profile
Roy Ryan
Where There’s Smoke
My wife’s father, Amos Meehan, died roughly a year and a half ago. He’d had cancer
and it did him in over a period of about three months. Then Laura, my wife, moved back to New Jersey from Maryland, which isn’t that far, to be with her dad through his crisis. Everyone knew how this was going to end. Nobody was happy about it.
At that time, I was working in data analysis for a fairly large company whose name I will
not tell you, but you wouldn’t care anyway. I found myself living alone for more than three
months while Laura lived first in her father’s house, and then after he died, in a motel not far
from the town of Sea Breeze, where she’d grown up.
But not long before Amos passed, Laura called me with an idea she’d had: She’d give up
her job as a legal assistant in a firm near our house and take over the paint store, Breezeway
Paint and Wallpaper, that Amos owned (which was now closed “for repairs.” I would, of course, move up to Sea Breeze or a nearby town because we wanted to be together, and with my computer expertise (particularly in online enterprises) I could work anywhere.
That was Laura’s idea.
For a lot of people, that would have been an unreasonable request. We both should quit
our jobs, leaving us with no source of income other than the paint store, which I was aware was no goldmine, and move to another state?
But we’re not a lot of people. The adventure was worth doing, and my company (which I
am still not naming) didn’t want to lose me, so they transferred me to a satellite facility in South Jersey, and I was able to stay employed. Laura says it’s because I’m the best at what I do, which is something she says largely because she doesn’t actually understand what I do. She doesn’t need to.
So I got all of our belongings (and I mean all) and, once Laura was set in the store and
we could close on our new house, delivered them to our New Jersey address. It took some
time, but it’s been about eighteen months and it’s starting to feel like home.
Laura had done some renovations to the store, as her father had done only basic maintenance in his years there. So she moved some things around, set up the computers to
handle the sales figures and all other tasks that I decided they should be taught to do, and
moved in. The old “regulars,” her father’s steadiest customers, came back almost immediately.
She was starting to ease into the idea of being a shopkeeper.
And that’s where this gets weird.
I know, you’re thinking that two people with steady jobs just packing up and moving 189
miles to open a mom-and-pop (in this case, just mom) store in the age of big box retailers that offer much of the same merchandise was weird enough. And I would agree with you, except that Laura came home and told me she’d seen her father in the store’s office, and had a conversation with him.
I told her she was still mourning Amos and that it would pass as time went by, but it
didn’t. She tells me she’d the only one who can see and hear her father’s… ghost? Spirit? Live essence? I work with computers; don’t ask me. But he’s definitely there, she says. She talks to him every day. A while back, someone was murdered in the store and Amos, Laura says, helped her figure out who had done it.
After a couple of weeks I got used to the idea. I can’t see or hear Amos, who was a very
good father-in-law, but Laura tells me what he’s saying and doing. He never leaves the store
and doesn’t interact with objects – he can’t touch anything – but she’s my wife, I don’t think
she’s hallucinating and I believe her.
She did take the cue and started seeing a psychotherapist, though. You have to cover all
the possibilities.
Laura is also a part-time library volunteer, so I like to stop in when she’s on duty and
tease her a little. She takes everything so seriously. I try to lighten the mood.
But just recently, someone broke into the library and set a fire, which luckily the local
firefighters put out fairly quickly. There is damage, and it will take some time to repair, but the building is intact. I’m sure the police are looking into it.
That’s not good enough for my wife. She considers the library a sanctuary (this goes
back to her childhood) and sacred ground. Laura being Laura, there’s a decent chance she’s
about to start running around asking people questions again.
The last time we barely got out with our lives. This time?
I’ll get back to you on that.
Giveaway
Prize – 1-$50.00 Barnes and Noble Gift Card
