This post was contributed by author Kelley Kaye. Her cozy mystery, Poison by Punctuation is currently on tour with Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book .

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/magazine/can-literature-save-us-need-saving/

I’ve always felt that books can save lives. Whatever it is that’s going on in your life, there’s a book for it, something out there that will teach you, heal you, inspire you or shelter you.

For me, the shelter aspect was key. The young version of Kelley was a total nerd, forty years before nerds became cool. I hated sports, sucked at foursquare, and did really well in school, thought knowing how to spell was the awesomest. Translation: big ol’ geek. The playground was not a respite for me; rather a black hole. I only wanted to escape back into the classroom, where I felt much more surefooted, or, escape into a book, where I felt…indomitable. Into a world I controlled by a turn of the page, or not. I can still picture myself, propped on the playground curb, one skinny leg stretched out to one side, with the book splayed open on the concrete. Catty little girls or thoughtless little boys took a back seat in this world, where space travel is as easy as a Sunday drive, telepathy is real, and if you want it, the good guy always wins. It saved my life.

As a teacher, my motto was “If you don’t like to read, you just haven’t found the right book yet.” I still believe it, even though I’ve been trying for over fifteen years now to find the right one for my husband. I’ll keep trying.

But for a lot of my past students the old adage rings true: take Elijah, who as a freshman hadn’t read a book since fifth grade, hated the idea of books, but after experiencing the motto–and the persuasivenessAKAbossiness–of teacher Kelley, he found his groove in a Dean Koontz book, and by the end of his senior year had finished 30 of them. Same thing happened with Brian, though for him his groove was Harlan Coben.

Now I don’t know if these two examples would be dead if they’d never found a love for reading, but I know I would be. The article I posted at the beginning of my guest post talks about literature as a lifesaver more in terms of big world issues being better understood, disseminated and dealt with through books, which is maybe a more literal way it saves lives.

But no matter how you look at it, for a lot of us, books are akin to breathing.

A lifesaver. How about for you?

Here’s a book trailer for Poison by Punctuation: Poison by Puncutation Trailer

Poison by Punctuation (Chalkboard Outlines)
by Kelley Kaye

About the Book

Poison by Punctuation (Chalkboard Outlines)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Red Adept Publishing, LLC (April 24, 2018)
Print Length: 243 pages
Digital ASIN: B07BTYJXCG

High school teacher Emma Lovett is finally recovering from her first year of teaching when she discovers another dead body. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this time, someone has killed a student, Kisten Hollis.

Emma and her best friend, Leslie, are desperate to solve this murder. But suspects abound. The perpetrator could be a teacher, an administrator, a member of Kisten’s zealous church community, or even another student.

Emma must juggle her teaching responsibilities, her new romance with handsome Hunter Wells, and interest from a hunky second suitor, all while searching for evidence to bring a killer to justice before someone else dies.

About the Author

“Kelley Kaye” taught High School English and Drama since 1992 in California, then Colorado and now Cali again, but her love for storytelling dates back to creating captions in her high school yearbook. Maybe back to the tales she created for her Barbie and Ken—whatever the case, the love’s been around a long time. She’s married to an amazing man who cooks for her, and they have two funny and wonderful sons.

Website – http://www.kelleykaybowles.com/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/authorkelleykaye/

Blog – http://www.kelleykaybowles.com/kelley-s-blog2.html

Twitter – https://twitter.com/kelkay1202

BookBub – https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kelley-kaye

Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Kelley-Kay-Bowles/e/B00JJ9T7AC

GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1380492.Kelley_Kay_Bowles

Purchase Links

Amazon B&N Kobo Google Play BookBub

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TOUR PARTICIPANTS

June 13 – Devilishly Delicious Book Reviews – REVIEW, CHARACTER INTERVIEW