SMFS Member Guest Post: Luck of Shadows by Cheryl Phipps

 

Please welcome our fellow member, Cheryl Phipps, to the blog today. Her short story, Luck of Shadows, appears in the cozy mystery anthology, The Luck of the Irish: Cozy Mystery Anthology, scheduled to be released March 16^th. 

 

I’ve been writing short stories for as long as I can remember, with a break when I got married and had my 3 children. Working and raising a family while working, pushed time constraints, but I always had a story to tell at bedtime!

 

In 2001, the founder of RWNZ (Romance Writers of New Zealand) did a talk at my local library and I was hooked on writing more as well as having them published. While I write cozy mysteries alongside contemporary romance and Women’s Fiction novels these days, I still add in novellas or short stories when I can. Not only are they a change of pace and often a challenge, but they can also be repurposed down the track. For instance, I just wrote a cozy mystery for a charity anthology and fully intend in a year or so to make it into a series of novellas. Write what you love, and the length doesn’t matter! (Unless you enter a competition! 😉)

 

About my story:

All my cozy mysteries are classic whodunnits. They are clean, with the emphasis on solving a crime. I love that my heroines care for their small-town communities as well as being somewhat feisty. They never take no for an answer! 

In Luck of Shadows, through compassion and empathy Patience O’Reilly helps people to realize the biggest item on their bucket list while investigating the crime that invariably turns up. 

 

Cheryl Phipps ©2024 

Cheryl Phipps is a USA Today Bestselling author of cozy mysteries and contemporary romance with over 45 works published. Hailing from a small town in beautiful New Zealand, she loves everything bookish and is devoted to her family, friends, and one delightful, if rascally, pooch. Weaving stories that celebrate love, family, and resilience, as well as delivering a heart-racing, happy ending, with a sprinkle of humor–or complex mystery, she couldn’t imagine a different career. She also co-hosts a free popular podcast for self-published authors of all levels called the spagirlspodcast.com.