Bad Lands: A Holmes & Storm Mystery (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) [Hardcover]

Selina Rosen (Author), Laura J. Underwood (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Five Star (June 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594144737
• ISBN-13: 978-1594144738
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,237,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Selina Rosen lives in rural Arkansas with her partner, her parrot, Ricky, assorted fish and fowl ' both inside and out, several milk goats, an undetermined number of barn cats and her dog, Spud. Besides writing, editing, and taking care of the farm, she's a gardener, carpenter, rock mason, electrician (NOT a plumber), Torah scholar and sword fighter. In her spare time she creates water gardens, builds furniture, and adds to her on-going creation of the 'Great Wall of Kibler.'

Selina's short fiction has appeared in several magazines and anthologies including Sword and Sorceress 16, Such A Pretty Face, Distant Journeys, three of the MZB Fantasy Mags, Tooth and Claw, Turn the Other Chick, and the new Anthology At the End of the Universe, just to name a few. Her critically acclaimed story entitled "Ritual Evolution" appeared in the first of the new Thieves World anthologies, Turning Points, and her second TW story, 'Gathering Strength,' appeared in the new TW anthology, Enemies of Fortune. The Bubba Chronicles is a collection of her short fiction which features ' strangely enough ' bubbas.

Her novels include Queen of Denial, Recycled, Chains of Freedom, Chains of Destruction, The Host trilogy, Fire & Ice, Hammer Town, Reruns, and novellas entitled The Boatman and Material Things.

Her new novel, Strange Robby, is due out in July of 2006 from Meisha Merlin Publishing. This will be her first hard cover release. Bad Lands, a gonzo-mystery novel co-written with Laura J. Underwood, is due out from Five Star Mysteries in 2007.

In her capacity as owner and editor in chief of Yard Dog Press, Ms. Rosen has edited several anthologies, including the award-winning Bubbas of the Apocalypse, and The Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse: Flatulence, Halitosis, Incest and' Ned, and two collections of 'modern' fairy tales ' the Stoker-nominated Stories That Won't Make Your Parents Hurl and More Stories That Won't Make Your Parents Hurl.

She also owns and operates CASTLE FARMS, an ADGA goat farm with registered Nubian milk goats.

You can contact Selina through her personal website www.selinarosen.com, or just Email her at [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, bizzare and engrossing., September 23, 2007

By 

V. Meredith Toenjes (Kansas City, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bad Lands: A Holmes & Storm Mystery (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)

Bad Lands is the first in a proposed mystery series by Selena Rosen and Laura J. Underwood. The "detectives" -Maggie Holmes and Vivian Storm are just about the oddest pair you could imagine. Maggie is a widowed, semi-retired middle-aged forensic pathologist who has a fascination with paranormal activity at murder sites. Her partner is a 30-something smart-mouthed lesbian bartender who moonlights as a police sketch artist and who is able to get uncanny descriptions of murderers because she relives the last moments of the deceased.

When Maggie is denied access to Knight Island-a private resort where there were mass murders on two different occasions, and where she wants to go to do research for her next book, she jumps on the chance to go as a contestant on the reality show 'Chicken Out'. The problem is, the show is only taking couples, so she tells them that she and Vivian are. Now she has to figure out how to break the news to Vivian that they've been accepted.

However, once they arrive, the stakes become higher than either had counted on as the bodies start piling up.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters are likable and believable if flawed and a little obnoxious at times. Rosen and Underwood have woven together a good story that leaves you guessing until the end. When you think you know who did it...think again. All-in-all, a book I'd highly recommend and a sequel I'm looking forward to.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Move over, Monk and Sharona -- here comes Holmes and Storm!, August 14, 2007

By 

Melanie Fletcher - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bad Lands: A Holmes & Storm Mystery (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)

"Bad Lands" is a marvelous mystery/thriller debut by the writing team of Selina Rosen and Laura J. Underwood. Known for their SF and fantasy novels, Rosen and Underwood team up to deliver a gut-punch of a thriller featuring the unlikely pairing of Vivian Storm, a salty police sketch artist with the ability to "see" the last moments of someone's death, and Maggie Holmes, a forensic pathologist in a money crunch.

When Holmes signs the pair up for a reality show set on the "haunted" Knight Island, things turn bloody as someone -- or something -- starts slaughtering the show's contestants one by one, mimicking the previous massacres on the island. Now Holmes and Storm must solve a 10-year-old mystery if they want to get off the island alive.

If you like tautly paced mysteries, snappy dialogue and one of the most ingenious pairings since Monk and Sharona Fleming, you'll love "Bad Lands".

5.0 out of 5 stars Badlands a place you should visit, September 21, 2008

By 

Tracy S. Morris - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bad Lands: A Holmes & Storm Mystery (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery) (Hardcover)

Its rare that I find a book that I cannot put down. But Badlands was one of these books. I started out wanting a nice whodunnit for bedtime reading, and soon I found myself carrying this book with me everywhere and reading it in snatches of stolen time while at the Doctor's office and in the check out line at the supermarket.

The unreliable narrator is done very well in this book, with each author trading up writing duties on the chapters and setting them in the viewpoint of their character.

Although Vivian Storm kept me in stitches with her quirks (Including giving everyone and every thing an alternate name, from dubbing Kennedy, the producer of Chicken Out "Dead President Guy" to describing Maggie's ghostbusting equipment "spectrowhatzits".), Maggie Holmes isn't without her own humor. As the bodies start to stack up and the game falls apart, the seemingly level-headed Maggie bemoans the fact that the murders are interrupting her scientific investigation of the island.

I recommend Bad Lands to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced thriller.