This is a happy day for me because Carterville is officially a series!
Today the first Carterville novel, Out of a Christmas Sky is out. This is a Christmas murder mystery with plenty of suspects and lots of twists and surprises.
It’s also a quarantine novel, drafted May – July, 2020 fairly early during the COVID pandemic. I mention this for a couple of reasons:
- As I wrote about previously, I’m very curious what kind of art this environment will produce. This is an example.
- Because of the stress of lockdown, I was dedicated to having a lot of fun with the book. That, hopefully, will show. It’s a mystery, for sure, but because of the nature of Carterville, there’s some pretty quirky stuff in here.
To switch things up, I’m going to go into FAQ mode to get you more info:
Since this is a series, which book should I start with? Each book is stand-alone, but things do change in Carterville. If you haven’t read the first book I released, The Blood of Carterville, starting with Out of a Christmas Sky is a good choice because it takes place several years earlier. The official chronological order of the books are:
- Out of a Christmas Sky
- Unnamed 2021 novel (just finished the first draft!)
- The Blood of Carterville
As a bonus, the ebook for Out of a Christmas Sky is on sale in the U.S. for the next few weeks for $2.99.
How “Christmassy” is the book? I (love/hate/don’t care about) Christmas. Most of the action takes place on Christmas day and, as such, is surrounded by many of the trappings of Christmas. But it is most definitely not a Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movie. If you like first-person mysteries told by a cop and don’t absolutely hate everything about Christmas, you should be good. If you love Christmas, all the better.
Can I read a sample? Sure. There is a lovely series page that has samples for both books.
Will there be more books in this series? Yes! These are a lot of fun to write and I am currently working on a long Carterville novel right now that I expect to be out in 2021.
Can you tell me a little more about the book? Sure, the blurb is right below.
How can I get it? Now that’s a good question! The ebook is on sale in the U.S. for the next few weeks and is available everywhere. The print edition will be out any moment.
Here’s the full blurb:
Carterville, AZ. Population: 293. People with powers: 201
Just a sleepy former mining town turned tourist haven in the mountains of Northern Arizona until the “incident”—the meteorite that gave everyone in the town powers, but only while in or near Carterville.
With a dead woman dressed as an elf found on Christmas morning in snow-globe-perfect Cartervile, it falls to police chief Henry Carter to solve the murder. But Henry knows the victim, and his suspect list soon fills up with the people closest to him
With no allies and powers involved, Henry risks his life to solve the crime and to find some kind of justice for his friend.
From Robert J. McCarter, long-time Arizona resident and the author of The Blood of Carterville, comes a Christmas murder mystery and a town you will never forget.
