Writer Wednesday - M.S. Spencer

In today's Writer Wednesday spotlight, step into the shadowed corners of Marmion Grove with M.S. Spencer, whose latest cozy mystery untangles a century-old murder, a missing fortune, and a carpetbag of secrets, inviting readers into a tangle of secrets, suspicion, a whisper of danger, and a heroine determined to unearth the truth. 

Book Title: Railroad Ties: the Marmion Grove Murders 

Release Date: June 11, 2025 

Teaser: “I shall interrogate Mr. Quayle, delve deeply into his secrets, and reveal the truth of what happened that night in April of 1920.” 

A one-hundred-year-old letter describes a murder, but who was the victim? What happened to the body and the carpetbag full of money? 

When Sophie Childress discovers a letter written in 1920 by the witness to a murder, she enlists Noah Pennyman—owner of the house where it took place—to investigate. Who was the victim? What did the killer do with his body—not to mention a carpetbag full of money? Together they expose a complex web of family ties and lies that has persisted through four generations in the historic village of Marmion Grove. When two more corpses are unearthed, Noah and Sophie are faced with too many victims and not enough murderers. 

Author Bio: Librarian, anthropologist, research assistant, Congressional aide, speechwriter, nonprofit director—M. S. Spencer has lived or traveled in five of the seven continents and holds degrees in Anthropology, Middle East Studies, and Library Science. In June 2025 she will have published eighteen mystery or romantic suspense novels. She has two children, an exuberant granddaughter, and currently divides her time between the Gulf Coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine. 

https://msspencertalespinner.blogspot.com

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/RailroadTies

Keywords: #cozymystery #mystery #amateursleuths

Before we let M.S. leave us, we asked her where her favorite three places to visit are and why. 

M.S. - "Top on the list is Paris—which weasels its way into almost every one of my books—for its romance and of course its lights. Second is Istanbul, mostly for the cuisine, but also for the spectacular views of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, best viewed from the roof of Topkapı palace. Third is Chincoteague Island (on the Delmarva Peninsula), for the thousands of migrating birds and for the oysters. Besides, something about it draws me—its hardscrabble ways, rough, enduring, clinging to its roots with all its might in the face of an implacable Mother Nature."