Looking for a mystery with a twist?
a suspense novel of past and present
from D. M. Pirrone.
In 1893, seventeen-year-old
Mary Anne Schlegel left her uncle’s Chicago home and vanished. The revelation
of her fate more than a century later upends the life of Rachel Connolly, an
adoptee desperately seeking her roots.
Rachel’s search for her birth
mother leads her deep into a shrouded family past, on a journey that takes her
from Chicago to Birch Falls in northern Minnesota. There she befriends Linnet
Chapman, a lonely girl on the run from her brutal father, Luke. Rachel’s quest
for identity threatens to uncover a family secret kept for three generations,
and to derail others’ plans for inheriting a hundred-year old legacy. Before
long, Rachel and Linnet discover that Mary Anne had a son—Rachel’s grandfather,
which makes Rachel the legitimate heir to the long-held Schlegel fortune. If
she can stay alive long enough to prove it…
The author says:
“I think of this book as my Gothic novel with teeth. Meaning, instead of the
heroine being vulnerable and helpless, she’s vulnerable but more than capable
of rescuing herself from the hazards that befall her, even if she doesn’t know
it. The story has all the other Gothic novel elements I love: the brooding
manor house in the isolated landscape, a long-vanished heiress, the darkly
handsome stranger who may be a villain, the secret from the past that brings
danger in the present when the heroine gets too close to it for somebody’s
comfort. I hope readers will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.”
Character Profile: Rachel Connolly
Smart, funny, stubborn, and a
lot braver than she gives herself credit for. Rachel is a careful person, the
kind who usually thinks about things long and hard before she jumps. On a good
day she’s okay with this; on a bad one, she sees herself as a total shrinking
coward. Absolutely the last person to get caught up in the unexpected, even dangerous
situation that develops around her. What
sends her off on this roller-coaster journey from Chicago to the Iron Range of
northern Minnesota is the abrupt loss of two people she cares deeply about. Her
whole sense of who she is and what matters in her life is knocked off-kilter,
so she goes looking for her birth mother in hopes of getting at least some of
that back. What she finds is something far different, though in the end every
bit as valuable.
Praise for NO LESS IN BLOOD
This may be a debut mystery, but Pirrone writes like a veteran. Her ability to create characters, whether present-day adoptee seeking her roots, or the author of a beautifully written 1893 diary who just might be her ancestor, and then place them both in jeopardy, is the mark of a talented, accomplished, nuanced author. Don't miss NO LESS IN BLOOD.”
—Libby Fischer Hellmann, Author of SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE and A BITTER VEIL
“…The novel is one of
searching. Police are searching for a killer. The killer is searching for his daughter.
And a lonely adopted woman, with little to go on, searches first for her birth
mother, and then for family, possibly lost forever, in the unconcerned mists of
a previous century. The solution to the several mysteries will determine who
lives and who dies… In the end, the novel is about relationships, good and bad,
and it speaks in universal terms to anyone open to others.”
—Carl Brookins, author of Case of the Greedy Lawyers, Devil’s Island and Bloody Halls
~ If you like what you see here, please come back on Friday
for the interview with D. M. Pirrone. Trust me, it’s totally worth it.