Maddie's Amazing Venetian Carnevale Launch Party

Welcome, one and all, to the fabulous, amazing, fantastical Timely Taffeta Masquerade Launch Party!

The Maddie Hatter Adventures welcomed to our launch party another Tyche Books new release, Dying on Second, the fourth in the Marie Jenner mysteries by Edmonton author (and temporarily dead second-base narrator) EC Bell.

The thrilling choral performance by Double Treble Ensemble transported us to a Venetian palazzo!

Members of the Ensemble picking up their copies of

 MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA

Many launch guests arrived in costumes worthy of the most extravagant Venetian Carnevale!

Solo Piratical Woman

Dashing Mother-Daughter Duo down from Edmonton for the event

This mother-daughter team came dressed as Emmy Gat and Cat Cheshire from
MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA

Moaning Myrtle made an appearance

A whole-family affair!

Altogether, there were four juniors in costume

The super Owls Nest staff threw themselves into the spirit of Carnevale

This man with the fabulous wrist-brace is using his sundial-wristwatch to find his way through the twisting tale.

The night's most elegant masquerader shone in gold and white satin against the blue dusk beyond the windows

The man who inspired Oberon O'Reilly attended with his charming lady-love

Calgary author and impressario Neil Enoch took home the coveted Timely Taffeta coffee mug.

Maddie's Fourth Adventure is officially afloat! Available at Owls Nest Books in Calgary and everywhere online that fine fantasy novels are sold.

Find out more about the book at this link

Find us on Facebook at The Maddie Hatter Adventures 

Tweet me @JayneBarnard1 

Join us on Instagram @je_barnard  

Maddie's Third Adventure Already!

It seems like barely yesterday I was dressing up in my black-and-purple Steampunk outfit for the launch of  MADDIE HATTER AND THE DEADLY DIAMOND, and wondering privately whether anyone besides family and Tyche Books staffers would show up to find out about this debut novel from a relative unknown.
Yet it was two years ago last week. 
 
How time... or in this case, taffeta... flies!

It hasn't happened in isolation. Although I write the stories, their production is truly a team effort. My heartfelt thanks go out to the following stalwart supporters of Maddie's adventures:  Steampunks of SASS and The Airship's Mess Deck; fellow writers from Sisters In Crime and Calgary Crime Writers; the dedicated production team at Tyche Books who keep on the hop getting everything together in time for launch day; Super-Fans Lex Robertson, Cindy Bedford, and Karen M. Owen; my agent and cheerleader Olga Filina of The Rights Agency; and of course Kevin, who handles a lot of daily life for months on end while I live in Maddie's world with Tweetle-D and the other talking clockworks.

From the Book Jacket: 

Maddie Hatter’s third Adventure finds her in Venice on an all-expenses-paid assignment: report on the season’s most extravagant Carnevale costumes. Determined to land an inside scoop, she enlists the help of her half-Venetian friend, Lady Serephene, to penetrate Madame Frangetti’s Costume Atelier in disguise.

Serephene is pursuing plots of her own: training in secret for a career that’s forbidden by her family, and flirting madly with a low-born Scottish inventor in his airship laboratory.  When the inventor’s fabulous new fabric is targeted by industrial spies, Serephene risks not only her family’s displeasure but her own safety to protect him and his work.

Pursued through the floating city’s legendary canals and squares, Maddie must draw on all her hard-won survival skills to keep herself and Serephene out of the spies’ clutches. With the help of unexpected allies among Venice’s underdogs, the daring young ladies just might reach Carnevale’s grand finale alive.

If you're in the Calgary area, you're very welcome to attend our LAUNCH PARTY on October 23rd at 7 p.m. at Owls Nest Books in Britannia Plaza (149th St & Elbow Drive SW). Costumes welcome but not mandatory. There will be prizes! Check out the details on Facebook.

Pre-orders of MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA are now available at:

Barnes & Noble (Nook) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta-jayne-barnard/1127175003?ean=2940154941607

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07613F87Q

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07613F87Q

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta/id1292381422

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/maddie-hatter-and-the-timely-taffeta

When Words Collide 2017 - August 10-13 in Calgary

It's August again, and you know what that means: it's time for When Words Collide, Calgary's wildest wrangling of genre-crossing literature, a Festival for Readers and Writers.

The convention has been sold out since June but there are a few areas open to the public. Check the website at When Words Collide to learn what events you can access from outside.

I'll be appearing on several panels to discuss the amazing alternate-Victorian world of Maddie Hatter, how to plot the perfect crime, who my favourite paranormal authors are, and other topics of interest to readers and to writers of crime and/or speculative fiction.

My Schedule:

Friday, August 11th 

* at 7 p.m. in the Canmore Room (Atrium Building): When, Where, Why and How Would You Kill This Character?  Audience participation as writers brainstorm. With only a setting, character, and motive, how will each panelist kill the character and hide the body?

* at 9 p.m. (room TBA)  Tyche Books Ltd and Steampunk Arts & Sciences Society (SASS) present their annual  absinthe and Scotch tastings. Learn about malts from true aficionados  and watch a perfect absinthe drink created from the fountain manipulated by the Commander's experienced hands.

Saturday, August 12th
(all in Tower Building from here on unless specified)

* 12 noon in the Fireside Room:   Tyche Books Presents their annual book social with editors and authors presenting the 2017 collection. Panel discussion and Q & A. 

* 2 p.m. in Bonavista Room: Paranormal Mysteries by subtype and style. How much woo-woo is too much? What authors do it well?

* 8 p.m. in the Parkland Room: Mass autograph session, where I'll be signing my two Maddie Hatter Adventures, two Enigma Front anthologies, and whatever other anthologies or old magazine stories of mine readers bring along.

* 10 p.m. in a semi-secret location: Bundoran Press's combined party and triple book launch. I'm just going as a spectator and cheerer-on of the authors.

Sunday, August 13th

* 2 p.m. in the Parkland Room: Elements of Suspense (a Sisters-in-Crime panel), in which we discuss what keeps readers turning the page and sleeping with the lights on.

* 4 p.m. in the Fireside Room: Women of Mystery (a Sisters-in-Crime panel), in which 4 long-time mystery writer/readers discuss their favourite new and established female crime writers, and reveal a few secrets of our own.

Looking forward to seeing lots of friends old and new!

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