strong female lead

01
Oct
2022

Free Mystery Feature October 2022 | Tale of the Tape: A Kira Brightwell Short Novel

Tale of the Tape Kira Brightwell cover

A bootleg Nine Inch Nails cassette tape.

Weird thing for Kira to find abandoned by a sewer grate on her way to school.

The hand-drawn NIN logo in marker catches Kira’s eye. Who tossed the tape? And why?

Kira pockets it, of course. Seems a shame to leave it in the gutter. Who knows what kind of extra tracks she might find on it?

…Now she only needs to figure out a way to play the thing.

A twisting, short novel of Kira’s high school past from the Kira Brightwell mystery series by Jacquelyn Smith.

Now you can read it for free on this site for one month only. This short story also comes in ebook and paperback format–both on its own, and as part of the Down in the Fifth Kira Brightwell Collection.

Tale of the Tape: A Kira Brightwell Short Novel

Jacquelyn Smith

As of November 1st, 2022 the Free Mystery Feature is on hiatus. If/when the Free Mystery Feature returns, you can find new posts here.

Recommend, rate, and review:

Posted by Jacquelyn in Free Mystery Feature, 0 comments
01
Feb
2022

Free Mystery Feature January 2022 | Ring Girl: A Kira Brightwell Short Story

Ring Girl Kira Brightwell cover

Enemies since high school… Kira and Trevor never expected to end up solving cases together.

Trevor knows that Kira does most of the solving, but he likes to think his raw charm and charisma count for something…

And when the opportunity to prove himself as more than a stunningly handsome sidekick falls into his lap in the form of a beautiful client, how can he possibly refuse?

A short story misadventure of Kira and Trevor from the Kira Brightwell mystery series by Jacquelyn Smith.

Now you can read it for free on this site for one month only. This short story also comes in ebook and paperback format–both on its own, and as part of the Fourth Strike Kira Brightwell Collection.

Ring Girl: A Kira Brightwell Short Story

Jacquelyn Smith

This story will be available for free for one month only, which is now over. The next free story will be posted on April 1st. You can keep an eye out for it here.

Recommend, rate, and review:

Posted by Jacquelyn in Free Mystery Feature, 0 comments
13
Sep
2021

Meet Kira Brightwell’s Canadian Cousin: Mackenzie Quinn

Photo by Dominika Roseclay from Pexels

I wrote a lot of Kira Brightwell adventures last year during the first six months of the pandemic. (All shorts, but still.) Honestly, if I hadn’t had a set schedule already in place to write all those stories during that time, I probably would have got a bit crazy. (Crazier?)

I still love Kira, and I definitely have future plans for her, but I kinda got burned out. The difficulty in writing a mystery series is that the stories are very much tied to the lead detective. I did try to mix things up with all those Kira shorts as much as possible to have some kind of variety and keep things fun (different locations, character focus, themes, etc.), but it’s pretty much always going to be the same main character in the same timeline.

Then I thought, ‘What if Kira had an older, Canadian cousin?’ Continue reading →

Posted by Jacquelyn in Writing/Publishing Updates, 0 comments