Alice K. Boatwright Garners 'Mystery and Mayhem' Grand Prize

Cozy Cat Press publisher Patricia Rockwell today announced that one of the company’s authors, Alice K. Boatwright, received the ‘Mystery and Mayhem Grand Prize’ for the best cozy mystery of 2016 from the Chanticleer Authors’ Conference. The honor was presented to Boatwright for her mystery Under an English Heaven, at the group’s convention in Bellingham, Washington, on April 1, 2017.

Under an English Heaven, is the first in Boatwright’s Ellie Kent series. The second book will be out later this year. She is also the author of Collateral Damage, three novellas about the long-term impact of the Vietnam War, which won the 2013 Bronze Award for Literary Fiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. She formerly lived in the Cotswolds for several years, and now divides her time between the UnitedStates and Paris.

The book follows the life of newlywed Ellie Kent as she begins her life with her clergyman husband Graham. Unfortunately, she is no sooner ensconced in their cottage than an unknown man is found murdered in thegraveyard near the vicarage. It’s bad enough that Ellie discovered the old man’s body, but bad turns to worse when the local constabulary begin to suspect her. After all, she is a foreigner and new to the area and she did discover the body.  Then, to top off those seemingly innocuous reasons, it’s discovered that the deadman was wearing Italian underwear and Ellie was formerly married to an Italian man and had vacationed in Italy.  When a local antiques dealer finds a book of Italian poetry in the surrounding woods and gives it to Ellie, she sees the book as a possible clue to the man’s identity and maybe a means of discovering the true killer and removing herself from the top of the list of suspects.  As Ellie begins to study the book, she becomes intrigued and mystified by its possible connections to the dead man.  Was it his?  And if so, who is the “Cara Mia” that he mentions in the inscription?  Why is there no information about the author?  The plot thickens and before Ellie is able to track down the killer and regain her reputation, other victims may fall.

Boatwright’s book is available in print and ebook formats from Amazon.com. Readers who are interested in learning more about Boatwright and her books, may visit the Cozy Cat Press website at:  www.cozycatpress.com.