Finders Keepers
The Jane Barnaby Adventures Book 1
by J.J. DiBenedetto
Genre: Light Suspense Thriller
230 pages
All archaeology student Jane Barnaby had to do was deliver a box of pottery shards to her professor at his dig site, along with his new car. Yes, his office was in Oxfordshire, and his dig site was in Spain, a trip of 1,400 miles across three countries and two bodies of water. Still, it should have been simple.
That is, until everything went wrong.
Now, Jane has the wrong box and is being chased by thieves who want it and aren't particular about how they get what they want.
Add to that, she's picked up a pair of passengers who both claim they can help her get her professor's pottery back and return the artifacts to their rightful owner. If only she knew who was working with the thieves and who she can trust in this high-stakes game of finders keepers.
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“You know that expression ‘if looks could kill’ really is just an expression, right? You can stare at me like that all night if you want, but I’m not changing my mind.”
When she’d told him her new plan, Jane had worried, just for a moment or two, that Tom might try to grab the wheel or do something else equally drastic. She wasn’t sure what would have happened if he had; fighting for control of the car with a hostile passenger had not come up in her Driver’s Ed classes back in high school.
Forgoing violence, he’d settled for stunned disbelief, followed by an extended string of what Jane had to admit was pretty creative cursing. She’d smiled through all of it, and she kept smiling when he changed tactics to a one-sided staring contest. But it was starting to become tiresome. His response to her words, though, was equally annoying.
“You are insane. You understand that, don’t you? You are committing a crime. You are making me a party to crimes. Do you honestly not realize that?”
The smile fell from her face, and Jane sighed. “What crime?” Really, she thought, she shouldn’t have to explain this. It wasn’t that complicated. “I was told to pick up a box in the basement of the Institute, and drive it to Professor Welldon in Mallorca. That’s still what I’m doing.”
Jane glanced over, mainly out of curiosity. She wondered precisely what color his face was. It appeared to have passed straight through the usual visual spectrum and was well on its way towards ultraviolet. With great effort, he managed to keep his voice almost under control, though. “It’s the wrong box! It’s our artifacts, not your pottery pieces!”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But I only have your word on that. You don’t have a badge, or a warrant or even a nasty letter to prove it.”
Losers Weepers
The Jane Barnaby Adventures Book 2
226 pages
Jane Barnaby had everything going her way: a prestigious internship at the Museum of Natural History, a fantastic Upper West Side sublet apartment, and helping plan her newly-engaged college friend's wedding.
Until a casual lunch with her friend’s fiancé set off alarm bells, and sent her digging into the rabbit hole that is his past.
When that rabbit hole leads Jane and her on-again, off-again boyfriend to the English countryside, uncovering secrets dating back to World War 2, searching for priceless art treasures looted by the Nazis, and fighting off the thieves who will kill to get those treasures for themselves, will they discover the truth, or lose their lives?
Until a casual lunch with her friend’s fiancé set off alarm bells, and sent her digging into the rabbit hole that is his past.
When that rabbit hole leads Jane and her on-again, off-again boyfriend to the English countryside, uncovering secrets dating back to World War 2, searching for priceless art treasures looted by the Nazis, and fighting off the thieves who will kill to get those treasures for themselves, will they discover the truth, or lose their lives?
Despite his fears about driving on the wrong side of the road, and his obvious discomfort at being hunched over the steering wheel, Mark was doing a good job. It had taken some convincing to get him to drive. Jane had had to resort to what her father referred to as “the sad lonely puppy eyes.” It was a powerful weapon, against which there was no real defense. But it had to be used carefully, and rarely. It was only to be employed in cases of extreme need.
This morning qualified. When she woke up, after a restless night on a mattress that wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it had seemed at first, she was in no state to drive for six hours. She’d tried to use reason to get Mark to take the wheel, and then she’d turned to guilt. When that, too, failed, there was no other choice. She went to DefCon One and turned the puppy eyes on him. He’d crumbled in seconds.
Her Brother's Keeper
The Jane Barnaby Adventures Book 3
175 pages
Jane Barnaby has planned the perfect Christmas vacation. Her father and his fiancé are joining her in Spain at her archaeological dig. They'll see her work, meet her mentor, and they'll all enjoy a few days of sunny Mediterranean beaches in the dead of winter.
But it all falls apart when Jane's annoying brother tags along and lands in jail for a crime he didn't commit.
To clear her brother's name, all Jane has to do is chase a wily female con-artist across Europe, catch her, and confront the woman and her accomplices. Oh, and outwit an ex-KGB agent and his personal goon squad along the way.
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The man standing in front of her had her father’s face, but his hair – it wasn’t graying anymore. And his clothes – they were new. And pressed. And actually fashionable. She couldn’t recall the last time you could say even one of those things about her father’s wardrobe, let alone all three at the same time. She looked down, and, even half expecting to see new shoes, she couldn’t help but gasp at the sight.
“Jane? What’s wrong?”
She shook her head in hopes of clearing it, trying to make sense of her father’s makeover. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just – wow, Daddy, you look fantastic.” She went the last few feet, threw her arms around him and hugged him close. If he wanted to look better, that was a good thing, right? If it was Cassie’s influence, or if he just wanted to impress her on vacation, good for him. If he was happy, she was happy.
“I don’t look that different!” Her father wasn’t really annoyed; it was that mock-impatient tone he sometimes liked to use. “I buy one new outfit and everyone loses their minds!”
“It was more than one new outfit, Joe,” Cassie said. Jane pulled back from her father to get a good look at her. She was grinning, but there were the beginnings of circles under her eyes. Clearly she hadn’t followed instructions and slept on the trans-Atlantic portion of their flight. “But, yeah, I do kind of lose my mind over you.”
Jane had never thought of her father – or, really, any man his age, as somebody that a woman might lose her mind over. Well, maybe Harrison Ford – he had to be somewhere around her father’s age. If Indiana Jones wanted to marry her, Jane had to admit she might be rendered incapable of rational thought. But the list of desirable older men began and ended with him.
J.J. DiBenedetto is author of the Dream Series and the Jane Barnaby Adventures and lives in Arlington, Virginia with the love of his life and a white cat who rules the roost.
His passions are photography, travel, the opera, the New York Giants, and of course writing.
Mr. DiBenedetto is devoted to writing books with a sense of mysticism to entertain and perhaps invite his readers to suspend belief in a way they might never have.
Since he was very young, he has always been intrigued with the supernatural and things that can't be explained rationally.
By always asking way too many questions, it piqued his interest to the point of setting his writing off and running when he grew up! All the curiosity building up all those years were finally getting put into words to captivate readers. And it hasn't ended. His main goal is to share all the stories he has inside, putting pen to paper. And that's how the Dream Series was born.
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2 comments:
Congrats on the tour and thank you for the excerpt and giveaway. I appreciate the opportunity to win.
I think it sounds awesome.
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