Curling Up With A Good Book: Kismet Book Touring Blog Tour, Guest Post, & Giveaway: Lamb To The Slaughter (Karen Ann Hopkins)

Friday, April 25, 2014

Kismet Book Touring Blog Tour, Guest Post, & Giveaway: Lamb To The Slaughter (Karen Ann Hopkins)

Some Amish communities aren't so cozy.
Lamb to the Slaughter is a story about the intertwining lives of three unlikely people in an Indiana Amish Community and the devastating results when a rebellious teenage girl is found shot to death in a corn field during the harvest.
Serenity Adams is the newly elected young sheriff in the country town of Blood Rock and besides dealing with the threatening behavior of her predecessor, she now has a dead Amish girl on her plate. At first glance, the case seems obvious. The poor girl was probably accidently shot during hunting season, but when the elders of the Amish community and even the girl’s parents react with uncaring subdued behavior, Serenity becomes suspicious. As she delves deeper into the secretive community that she grew up beside, she discovers a gruesome crime from the past that may very well be related to the Amish girl’s shooting.
Serenity enlists the help of the handsome bad-boy building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who left the Amish when he was nineteen and has his own dark reasons to help the spunky sheriff solve the crime that the family and friends who shunned him are trying desperately to cover up. Serenity’s persistence leads her to a stunning discovery that not only threatens to destroy her blossoming romance with Daniel, but may even take her life in the end.
*Lamb to the Slaughter is book one of Serenity’s Plain Secrets.

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For a limited time, Lamb to the Slaughter is available for $2.99 from Amazon and Barnes & Noble so get your copy now!

A native of New York State, Karen Ann Hopkins now lives with her family on a farm in northern Kentucky, where her neighbors in all directions are members of a strict Amish community. Her unique perspective became the inspiration for the story of star-crossed lovers Rose and Noah. When she’s not homeschooling her kids, giving riding lessons or tending to a menagerie of horses, goats, peacocks, chickens, ducks, rabbits, dogs and cats, she is dreaming up her next romantic novel.

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Curling Up With a Good Book, April 25th

What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

Lamb to the Slaughter is an Amish murder mystery that I began writing over a year ago after my agent asked me if I could create such a thing on demand. I became intrigued with the idea, especially since I had personally witnessed some strange and almost creepy goings-on in the Amish community where I lived. I really wanted to delve deeper into the darker side of being Amish, especially in relation to my personal passion, the lives of the teenagers and some of the harsh realities they’re faced with.

Creating a murder mystery was very different than writing the Young Adult contemporary romances that I was used to. For one thing, I had to be meticulous in planning the plot lines and I actually wrote a pretty detailed draft of the Lamb before I ever began writing it. With my previous books, I relied much more on a stream of conscious type writing, allowing some of the plots to develop as I went along. I didn’t have that luxury with a mystery. Mystery readers want the intrigue of a real mystery that keeps them guessing throughout the entire book. In contrast, a straight forward romance is a lot of fun to write, at least for me. It’s more simplistic in nature, that’s for sure.

But even though I was writing a mystery this time, I still wanted to spice it up with some good old fashioned romance and I must say, Lamb has its fair share of love, almost love and love lost. At the heart of the story is Naomi. She’s a pretty young Amish woman with a rebellious spirit. She’s also in love with two boys. One is her handsome and upstanding Amish beau, Eli. The other is Will, an English (non-Amish) teen, who captivates her with his fun and easy going manner. Of course this situation doesn’t end well.

The other romance in Lamb, and a delicious one to write, was between Serenity, the tough-as-nails Sheriff of Blood Rock and the gorgeous building contractor, Daniel Bachman, who used to be Amish and joins her on the murder investigation. Serenity and Daniel have each had their fair share of failed relationships and even though the chemistry between them is undeniable, they’re both stubborn creatures and incredibly intimidated by their growing closeness. There’s a lot of sexual tension between these two, an ingredient that I think makes for a very interesting side story. And as more books develop in this series, I’m sure readers will look forward to seeing whether they end up as a lasting couple.

I was originally inspired to begin writing Amish fiction after moving into the middle of an Amish community in northern Kentucky about six years ago. The idea of Rose and Noah’s star-crossed love affair in Temptation sprouted in my mind from watching the interactions between the Amish and non-Amish teens at my horse farm. Because of my personal experiential knowledge, observations, interactions, and discussions with both the teenagers and adults in my neighborhood, I’ve been able to infuse into my books a reality and grittiness that some other Amish novels don’t possess, making them very unique.

Thank you so much for having me at Curling Up With a Good Book today! I love to hear from readers and answer any of their questions (especially the Amish related ones)! Please contact me on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads or visit me on my website at, www.karenannhopkins.com. I also have a special giveaway going on right now that I’d like to share with you. If you purchase Lamb to the Slaughter on either Kindle or Nook, you can be entered in a giveaway for a three book autographed set of the Temptation series. It includes copies of Temptation, Belonging and Forever! All you have to do is personally contact me on FB, Twitter, Goodreads or my website and let me know that you’ve purchased Lamb and I’ll get you entered. The drawing will be held on May 30th in conjunction with blog tour ending. This is a separate giveaway from the Rafflecopter above.

Happy reading!

Karen Ann Hopkins

I have been loving me some Amish young love!!! This book was more from the "Englishmen" point of view but still just has good! There is a new sheriff in town and it is a woman!! Serenity returns to her hometown to serve the people of her county as the sheriff. Serenity takes her job very seriously and will not put up with the "good old boy" way of handling crime. One of the first things Serenity has to investigate is the death of a young Amish girl. It looks like a hunting accident but Serenity knows there is more to the story...and WOW what a story it is!!!! Serenity learns that the young Amish girl had quite the love life and it involved her nephew, Will. This book had it all!! Murder, mystery, forbidden romance and left you needing to read the next book in the series ASAP!! Loved this book! I give it 4.5 stars!