Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Swap
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.nancyboyarsky.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Husband is author Bill Boyarsky * http://www.lightmessages.com/nancy-boyarsky
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no 99013429
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no99013429
HEADING: Boyarsky, Nancy
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040 __ |a AU |c AU
100 1_ |a Boyarsky, Nancy
670 __ |a Backroom politics, 1974: |b t.p. (Nancy Boyarsky)
953 __ |a xx00
985 __ |c OCLC |e LSPC
PERSONAL
Born Oakland, CA; married Bill Boyarsky (a writer and journalist); children: two daughters.
EDUCATION:University of California, Berkeley, graduated with honors.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and editor. Worked as an associate editor for a small publishing house in San Francisco, CA; then as a freelance writer; then as associate editor of Los Angeles Lawyer, Los Angeles, CA; then as communications director for political affairs for the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), La Palma, CA.
AVOCATIONS:Painting family portraits from old photographs.
WRITINGS
Also author of textbooks on the justice system; contributor to political anthologies, including The Challenge of California, Little, Brown, 1976; and In the Running: The New Woman Candidate, Ticknor & Fields, 198. Contributor to periodicals, including the Los Angeles Times, West magazine, Forbes, McCalls, Playgirl, and Westways.
SIDELIGHTS
Nancy Boyarsky grew up in East Oakland, California. Although her father was not in favor of women attending college, Boyarsky went on to graduate with a degree in English literature, supporting herself by working in the college library. Boyarsky worked as an associate editor for a now defunct publishing house in San Francisco, California, before deciding to stay home and freelance after her daughters were born. She lived in Sacramento, California, for ten years while her journalist husband worked for the Associated Press. Boyarksy and the family moved to Los Angeles when her husband joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times. Boyar sky returned to full-time work for a period until her first granddaughter was born.
A contributor to political anthologies and to periodicals, Boyarsky s also the author of justice system textbooks. and coauthored with her husband the book Backroom Politics: How Your Local Politicians Work, Why Your Government Doesn’t, and What You Can Do about It a New York Times notable book. Boyarsky is also the author the “Nicole Graves” mystery series.
The Swap
The first book in the series, The Swap, revolves around a woman who arranges a house swap. The swap ends up getting her involved in an international drug ring, which subsequently leads her to become an amateur detective. “My book is a mystery of the sort that Alfred Hitchcock used in his classic film The Man Who Knew Too Much,” Boyarsky told OmniMystery News Web site contributor Lance Wright, adding: “It’s the story of an innocent abroad.”
Nicole Lewis works for a law firm in Los Angeles. When her husband, Brad, is scheduled to spend the summer in Great Britain, Nicole rearranges her work schedule so she can spend the summer with him, suspecting that he is having an affair with his assistant. Nicole arranges a house swap with a London couple, Freddy and Muriel Lowry. Freddy works in Brad’s London office. For Nicole, the house swap is an opportunity to rekindle her failing marriage.
Initially, Nicole is pleased with the cozy cottage and her new surroundings. However, shortly after moving in, she is kidnapped by a group of drug dealers who think she is Muriel and tell her she has something that belongs to them. Nicole tries to explain that she is not Muriel and that she has no idea what they are talking about. Although the kidnappers do not believe her, they let her go.
Nicole believes that perhaps the owners of the house may be involved in something unsavory. As a result, she starts to conduct her own inquiry and learn that the owners are involved in something dangerous and illegal. However, they have never showed up at Nicole’s Los Angeles condo and have essentially disappeared. When Nicole tells her husband and the police what she’s discovered, they do not believe her story. Nicole decides to solve the mystery herself.
“Boyarsky’s first novel, as full of page-by-page surprises as it is predictable in its larger outlines, puts its sorely tried heroine through every peril in the book,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Calling The Swap a “fine debut novel,” RT Book Reviews Online contributor Nancy Glans also noted: “The plot is fast paced, with surprises around each corner.”
The Bequest
The next book in the “Nicole Graves” mystery series, The Bequest, find Nicole back in Los Angeles working in her office manager position. Despite her hectic schedule, Nicole is trying to carry on a long-distance relationship with a man she met while staying in London, a mysterious British agent who seems to have disappeared. Nevertheless, he seems to have arranged for bouquets to be periodically sent to Nicole.
Back at work, Nicole is asked by her bosses to check on an investigator for the law firm named Robert Blair, who has been conspicuously absent from work for the past week. When she goes to Robert’s home, she finds him dead from a gunshot to the forehead. Nicole is almost as surprised by the fact that Robert lived in a upscale house in the Hollywood Hills, something his job with the law firm would not have enabled him to afford. Even more disturbing, is Nicole’s discovery that Robert not only had detailed files about Nicole but has also named her as the beneficiary of his estate, even though they were not close.
Nicole becomes the object of media attention and is asked to take a temporary leave from work by her publicity-shy bosses. With time on her hands, she begins to look more closely into Robert’s death and discovers that he was involved in some shady dealings. At one point, Nicole’s house is broken in to and she ends up kidnapped by a couple when she breaks into Robert’s home to conduct her own search for information.
“The mystery proceeds at a quick pace and leads to a surprising resolution,” wrote Foreword Reviews Online contributor Hilary Daninhirsch, who also noted: “The ending runs long, but satisfies.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor remarked: “Boyarsky’s weightless complications expertly combine menace with bling, making the heroine’s adventures both nightmarish and dreamy.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2016, review of The Swap; June 15, 2017, review of The Bequest.
Small Press Bookwatch, January, 2016, review of The Bequest.
ONLINE
Foreword Reviews Online, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (May 27, 2015), Michelle Anne Schingler, review of The Swap; (June 27, 2017), Hilary Daninhirsch, review of The Bequest.
Light Messages Web site, http://www.lightmessages.com/ (September 11, 2017), brief author profile.
Midwest Book Review, http://www.midwestbookreview.com/ (September 11, 2017), review of The Bequest.
Nancy Boyarsky Web site, https://www.nancyboyarsky.com (September 11, 2017).
OmniMystery News, http://www.omnimysterynews.com/ (March 7, 2017), Lance Wright, “A Conversation with Mystery Author Nancy Boyarsky.”
RT Book Reviews Online, https://www.rtbookreviews.com/ (September 11, 2017), Patsy Glans, review of The Swap; Patsy Glans, review of The Bequest.
coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book, with her husband. She has written several textbooks on the justice system and contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women’s political campaigns and The Challenge of California by the late Eugene Lee. She has also written articles on a variety of subjects for the Los Angeles Times, West magazine, Forbes, McCalls, Playgirl, Westways and other publications.
She is currently working on another mystery featuring Nicole, as well as Family Recipes for Gastroenteritis, a tragicomic memoir of growing up in Oakland in a family at the far end of disfunctionality.
She lives in L.A. with her husband, the journalist Bill Boyarsky.
Nancy was born in Oakland, California, and grew up with her parents and two sisters in the flatlands of East Oakland. When she was around eight—in a world that was a lot safer that today—she was allowed to roam the neighborhood by herself, and her visits to the tiny Alandale Public Library were the highlight of her week.
She attended public schools in Oakland. Her father opposed the idea of sending girls to college, being of the opinion that they would be better off working as waitresses to prepare them for their life’s work as housewives. Nancy ignored his advice and went on to UC Berkeley, where she supported herself by working in the campus library. In addition to the pleasure of working around books, the job had an added benefit of allowing student clerks to disappear into the stacks and read when work was slow. Nancy majored in English literature and graduated from Berkeley with honors.
Her first job was as an associate editor for a small, long-vanished publishing house in San Francisco. When her two daughters were born, she stayed home and began writing freelance articles for a local paper, as well as teaming up with her husband, Bill Boyarsky, on magazine articles. They lived in Sacramento for ten years, while her husband covered the state capital and political campaigns for the Associated Press.
The family moved to Los Angeles when Bill joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times. When her girls were in their teens, Nancy gave up freelancing and returned to full-time work, first as associate editor of Los Angeles Lawyer magazine and later as communications director for political affairs for ARCO. She quit ARCO when the first of her two granddaughters was born. Since then, she has devoted herself to writing and editing. Her primary hobby is painting portraits and images from old family photos dating from the early 1900s. She loves reading fiction, the theater, films, and travel, especially to the UK where the theater and books are a national passion.
Nancy Boyarsky coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book, with her husband. She has written several textbooks on the justice system and contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women’s political campaigns and The Challenge of California by the late Eugene Lee. She has also written articles on a variety of subjects for the Los Angeles Times, West magazine, Forbes, McCalls, Playgirl, Westways and other publications.
She is currently working on another mystery featuring Nicole, as well as Family Recipes for Gastroenteritis, a tragicomic memoir of growing up in Oakland in a family at the far end of disfunctionality.
She lives in Los Angeles with her journalist husband, Bill Boyarsky.
Nancy Boyarsky
Nancy BoyarskyNancy Boyarsky has been a writer and editor for her entire working career. She coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book, with her husband, Bill Boyarsky. She has written several textbooks on the justice system. She has written articles for publications such as the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and McCall’s. She has also contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women’s political campaigns, and The Challenge of California by the late Eugene Lee. In addition to her writing career, Nancy has served as communications director for political affairs for ARCO. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a major in English literature. She resides in Los Angeles.
A Conversation with Mystery Author Nancy Boyarsky
Lance Wright 3/07/2017 08:00:00 AM No Comments
Omnimystery News: Author Interview with Nancy Boyarsky
We are delighted to welcome author Nancy Boyarsky to Omnimystery News today.
Nancy's new first in series mystery is The Swap (Light Messages Publishing; February 2017 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to catch up with her to talk more about it.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: Introduce us to your new series character.
Nancy Boyarsky
Photo provided courtesy of
Nancy Boyarsky
Nancy Boyarsky: Nicole Graves is my series heroine. In book one, The Swap (published this month), she has arranged a house swap, exchanging her L.A. condo for a house in London. At the start of the novel, Nicole seems a bit of a wimp, preoccupied with the problems in her marriage. An important part of her character is her insatiable curiosity about the people she meets. She also tends to be impulsive, acting instinctively when a crisis arises. And there are times in the past when she’s been brave. But when we first meet her, she’s so consumed with anxiety, that these qualities have pretty much shut down.
That soon changes when circumstances put her in danger. Suddenly she faces three new problems: the failure of the London couple to arrive in L.A., the people who are following and threatening her, and her failure to get anyone to believe her.
At this low point, her coping skills are seriously challenged. But it isn’t until she gets truly angry that she grows into the role of de facto detective, willing to take some risks — and gradually much greater ones — to find out what is going on and save herself. At this point, she becomes a force to be reckoned with, confident, assertive, and — when challenged — more than a little dangerous.
OMN: Was it always your intention to make The Swap a first in series mystery?
NB: No, not at all. Once it was published, however, I kept wondering what would happen to my heroine after the story ended. That inspired me to write a second novel about Nicole, The Bequest, which is set in L.A. and will be released by my publisher this summer. I’m now working on a third book in this series.
OMN: How to you see Nicole developing over the course of the series?
I try to make to make her grow and change by forcing her to confront a series of crises. In The Swap, she is confronted by marital problems, a common experience for people today. But her marriage becomes secondary to much bigger threats that force her to use all of her intelligence and courage. That helps her grow as a character and makes her braver and, in my eyes, more admirable.
OMN: Into which genre would you place The Swap?
NB: My book is a mystery of the sort that Alfred Hitchcock used in his classic film The Man Who Knew Too Much. It’s the story of an innocent abroad, the traveler who picks up the wrong suitcase. In Nicole’s case, however, she’s a traveler who picks out the wrong house swap.
I chose the “accidental detective” genre because I enjoy reading this kind of book, as opposed to procedural mysteries. Although The Swap has a female protagonist and some elements of a cozy, my books have too much realistic dialogue (language real people use when they’re angry or threatened) and violence.
I don’t find it a disadvantage to label a book in a genre and a subcategory of that genre. It gives prospective readers an idea of what to expect; that’s always a good thing. People tend to favor certain genres over others. As authors, we should give them information so they can make good choices.
OMN: Tell us something about the book that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
NB: Someone Nicole first regards as a threat will help save her, and the person she trusts most turns out to be lying about everything.
OMN: When starting a new book, which comes first for you: the storyline or a cast of characters?
NB: In starting a new book, creating interesting characters is important. My main character is central to everything I write. She will provide the viewpoint for the story. In other words, everything that happens will be told through her eyes, even though I’m writing in the third person.
With a mystery, you have to establish some other things before you can start: What is the crime? Who committed it? What is the motive? Why did the crime take place at that particular moment? Who is the detective character? What is the detective’s motive for solving the crime? The crime-solver needs a pretty strong reason to spend time and take risks by getting involved.
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiriing writers?
NB: The best advice was “Don’t give up your day job.” The odds of being able to support yourself writing fiction are about as good as an artist has supporting herself with proceeds from her work. Be satisfied with the joys of storytelling and having your work find an audience.
The harshest criticism came from a few readers who complained that too much happened in my mysteries. I, myself, grow impatient when too little happens in a book I’m reading, so I have trouble relating to this. Most of my readers seem like the action and twists that keep my plot moving.
As for what advice I’d give a new author, I’d say don’t give up but be prepared for a lot of rejection letters before your work finds its way into print. And, if all else fails, don’t hestitate to self-publish. That’s how some books find publishers. By all means, hire a publicist so your book doesn’t get lost in the thousands of books that are published at the same time as yours.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a mystery author, but I am also …".
NB: I am a mystery author, but I am also a portrait artist and a techie, providing technical support (wifi, computer, smartphone, etc.) for family and friends.
OMN: When selecting a book to read for pleasure, what do you look for?
NB: I look first at various book review sites. Then I read the synopsis of the book, usually on Amazon, as well as reader’s comments. Finally, I download a sample of the book to see if it catches my interest. I generally look for books that are well written and intriguing, usually with some kind of mystery angle.
OMN: If The Swap were to be adapted for television or film, who do you see playing the lead characters?
NB: I’d like to see Piper Perabo, the star of Covert Affairs and Notorious on TV. For Reinhardt, I’d like Rufus Sewell, from TV shows The Man in the Castle and Victoria.
OMN: What's next for you?
NB: The next big event for me will take place this summer when my second book about Nicole Graves, The Bequest will be published. This book has her back in L.A., caught up in a mystery and a media frenzy when a co-worker is murdered and unexpectedly leaves her a fortune of dubious origin. I’m currently working on a third book about Nicole, as yet unnamed. This one involves a campus rape that turns into a murder case.
— ♦ —
Nancy Boyarsky has been a writer and editor for her entire working career. She coauthored Backroom Politics with her husband, Bill Boyarsky. She has written several textbooks on the justice system. She has written articles for publications such as The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and McCall's. She has also contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women's political campaigns, and The Challenge of California by the late Eugene Lee. In addition to her writing career, Nancy has served as communications director for political affairs for ARCO. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a major in English literature. She resides in Los Angeles.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at NancyBoyarsky.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Boyarsky, Nancy: THE BEQUEST
Kirkus Reviews.
(June 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Boyarsky, Nancy THE BEQUEST Light Messages (Adult Fiction) $16.99 8, 15 ISBN: 978-1-61153-190-9
Back from an eventful trip to London (The Swap, 2017), legal office manager Nicole Graves finds her homecoming to
LA just as replete with criminal mischief, some of it from quite unexpected sources.Now that Nicole's back, somebody-
-make that she--can finally check on Robert Blair, who hasn't shown up at his job as investigator for Bascomb, Rice,
Smith & Di Angelo for five days. She finds him fatally shot in his swanky home in the Hollywood Hills, a setting that
provides more surprise than his death. But Nicole's bewilderment over how Robert could have afforded such palatial
digs rapidly gives way to bigger, more intimate questions when she realizes he's kept detailed files on her, named her as
beneficiary of the company's modest life insurance policy, and indeed left her his considerable estate. Naturally, the
press, led by the vultures of Extra Hot News, camp outside her home and office, and in the absence of Ronald
Reinhardt, the mysterious British agent who romanced her in London but has now vanished except for the robobouquets
that keep arriving from him, Nicole is grateful for the attentions of architect Josh Mulhern, whose private
emails to other correspondents she duly forgives herself for reading, and she is suspicious of the motives of skirtchasing
new BRS&D partner Rick Sargosian. Nicole's place gets broken into, she's pointedly asked to take some time
off from her publicity-shy firm, and when she decides to search Robert's home on her own, she's kidnapped by another
pair who've had exactly the same idea. Her sister keeps warning her that she has to be careful about whom to trust, but
never fear: Nicole always trusts exactly the right people. Whew. Boyarsky's weightless complications expertly combine
menace with bling, making the heroine's adventures both nightmarish and dreamy.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Boyarsky, Nancy: THE BEQUEST." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA495427775&it=r&asid=69b85be5fb2004a337165b82989358d0.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495427775
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Boyarsky, Nancy: THE SWAP
Kirkus Reviews.
(Oct. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Boyarsky, Nancy THE SWAP Light Messages (Adult Fiction) $16.99 2, 7 ISBN: 978-1-61153-187-9
How many things can go wrong when you swap homes with a couple in the world's most civilized city? Quite a few, it
turns out.SoftPac exec Brad Graves wanted his wife to stay behind when he flew off to London on an extended business
trip. But Nicole, half-suspecting that Brad's assistant, Brenda Ferraro, has been assisting him under the covers, insisted
on leaving her job as office manager for an LA law firm to accompany him and even found a couple willing to swap
houses: financial consultant Frederick Lowry and his wife, Muriel, an American expatriate. From the minute their flight
touches down, nothing goes right. One of Nicole's bags gets lost at Heathrow. Hours after they let themselves into the
Lowrys' place in Chiswick and Brad takes off, an intruder locks Nicole in the bathroom and opens the Lowrys' safe.
Nicole's visit to the National Gallery with home-care nurse Alice McConnehy, the Lowrys' tenant, ends abruptly when a
pair of men who've eavesdropped on the women's lunch conversation threaten her, evidently under the impression that
she's Muriel Lowry. Unlike so many threats made to damsels in distress, this one is fulfilled in record time when a
bomb blows up the Graves' car moments after Nicole steps out of it. And all these traumas are only preliminaries to the
main event: Nicole's kidnapping by a pair of thugs whose boss, posh drug trafficker Alexander Hayes, demands in
courteous but implacable terms that Freddy Lowry, who's vanished into thin air, owes him a great deal of money that he
really can't afford to lose. Boyarsky's first novel, as full of page-by-page surprises as it is predictable in its larger
outlines, puts its sorely tried heroine through every peril in the book before leaving her to conclude: "Oh, yes, she
would be back."
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Boyarsky, Nancy: THE SWAP." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466329366&it=r&asid=8e414e0c0cf5a0c61fbf2e1094eeedc3.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466329366
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Nancy Boyarsky: THE SWAP
Kirkus Reviews.
(Oct. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Nancy Boyarsky THE SWAP Light Messages (Adult Fiction) 7.99 ISBN: 978-1-61153-187-9
How many things can go wrong when you swap homes with a couple in the world’s most civilized city? Quite
a few, it turns out.SoftPac exec Brad Graves wanted his wife to stay behind when he flew off to London on an extended
business trip. But Nicole, half-suspecting that Brad’s assistant, Brenda Ferraro, has been assisting him under
the covers, insisted on leaving her job as office manager for an LA law firm to accompany him and even found a couple
willing to swap houses: financial consultant Frederick Lowry and his wife, Muriel, an American expatriate. From the
minute their flight touches down, nothing goes right. One of Nicole’s bags gets lost at Heathrow. Hours after
they let themselves into the Lowrys’ place in Chiswick and Brad takes off, an intruder locks Nicole in the
bathroom and opens the Lowrys’ safe. Nicole’s visit to the National Gallery with home-care nurse
Alice McConnehy, the Lowrys’ tenant, ends abruptly when a pair of men who’ve eavesdropped on
the women’s lunch conversation threaten her, evidently under the impression that she’s Muriel
Lowry. Unlike so many threats made to damsels in distress, this one is fulfilled in record time when a bomb blows up
the Graves’ car moments after Nicole steps out of it. And all these traumas are only preliminaries to the main
event: Nicole’s kidnapping by a pair of thugs whose boss, posh drug trafficker Alexander Hayes, demands in
courteous but implacable terms that Freddy Lowry, who’s vanished into thin air, owes him a great deal of
money that he really can’t afford to lose. Boyarsky’s first novel, as full of page-by-page surprises as
it is predictable in its larger outlines, puts its sorely tried heroine through every peril in the book before leaving her to
conclude: “Oh, yes, she would be back.”
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Nancy Boyarsky: THE SWAP." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466551616&it=r&asid=b0c5334c80cbc6d6a186cf26af2dbf65.
Accessed 11 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466551616
The Bequest
Small Press Bookwatch. (Jan. 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Listen
Full Text:
The Bequest.
Nancy Boyarsky
BellBoy Books
9780692481721, $9.99, 270pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Nicole Lewis leads a hectic life, balancing work at L.A.'s most prestigious law firm and a long-distance romance with her English lover. Things go sideways when she tracks down a missing office mate, the firm's in-house investigator, and finds him murdered. Robert's murder, his mysterious wealth, and his inexplicable bequest make Nicole a target for the police, the paparazzi, and the killer. As Nicole's love life takes an unexpected turn, she uncovers evil and corruption among the city's most powerful people. The thriller plays out against the backdrop of Los Angeles, with its peculiar mix of balmy weather, the celebrity-crazed media, and a corrupt power structure hidden by the veneer of glamour and wealth.
Critique: "The Bequest" is the sequel to Nancy Boyarsky's first novel featuring the adventures of Nicole Lewis "The Swap" (9780692298442, $9.99 PB, $2.99 Kindle) and once again demonstrates Boyarsky as a master storyteller of the first order. A deftly crafted novel that will have immense appeal to mystery buffs, "The Bequest" is very highly recommended for community library Mystery/Suspense collections. For personal reading lists it should be noted that "The Bequest" is also available in a Kindle edition ($3.99).
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Bequest." Small Press Bookwatch, Jan. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA441587148&it=r&asid=84069234e5ea72c388e237ce0b127104. Accessed 11 Sept. 2017.
The Bequest
a Nicole Graves mystery
Reviewed by Hilary Daninhirsch
June 27, 2017
Nicole Graves is a charming and straight-shooting heroine who reads like a grown-up Nancy Drew.
Readers who were first introduced to Nicole Graves in The Swap will be delighted to catch up with her again in Nancy Boyarsky’s The Bequest, the second in a mystery series.
Nicole is an office administrator at one of the major law firms in Los Angeles. For her, it is a job, not a career. To liven things up, she begins helping Robert Blair, one of the firm’s investigators, on some of his cases.
When Robert goes missing, the firm sends Nicole to his home, where she makes a gruesome discovery: Robert has been shot in the forehead, assassin-style. After Nicole reports the crime, she becomes a media target, with paparazzi trailing her every move.
Things become even more complicated, and puzzling, when Nicole learns that Robert, with whom she had a very casual relationship, bequeathed his entire estate to her. Someone wants her dead, and she also has to convince the police and public of her innocence.
Though the book opens with a murder, it is a light read as far as mysteries go. It is character-driven, with Nicole standing as a refreshing protagonist. A charming straight shooter, she reads like a grown-up Nancy Drew, who finds herself innocently embroiled in situations and forced to solve a mystery. She deals with gossipy coworkers and the media like a pro.
Nicole’s relationship with her sister, as well as her “off the pages” relationship with her mystery boyfriend, add dimensionality. That love interest is a welcome addition within the mystery, shining a light on another aspect of Nicole.
The mystery proceeds at a quick pace and leads to a surprising resolution. The ending runs long, but satisfies.
A charismatic heroine, suspenseful scenes, and a budding romance make this easygoing mystery light enough to take to the beach and engaging enough to keep the reader on their toes, generating excitement for the next installment.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
RT Rating:
Genre:
Mystery
Publisher:
Light Messages Publishing
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5 GOLD: Phenomenal. In a class by itself.
4 1/2: TOP PICK. Fantastic. A keeper.
4: Compelling. A page-turner.
3: Enjoyable. A pleasant read.
2: Problematic. May struggle to finish.
1: Severely Flawed. Pass on this one.
THE SWAP
Author(s): Nancy Boyarsky
This is a hold-onto-the-bar roller coaster of a mystery with murder, missing persons, drugs and a little romance. Characters are cheeky, crazy and some are even lovable. The plot is fast paced, with surprises around each corner. Nancy Boyarsky has written a fine debut novel. This is a first book in a series, and readers will be waiting for the next installment to see what is in store for Nicole Graves.
Nicole Graves thought it would be a grand adventure to swap her Los Angeles home for a house in London. She is excited to see all of the fabulous sights, though she was not expecting to be kidnapped only nine hours into her stay in England. Her kidnappers don't believe her when she tells them she has no idea what they are talking out, but they claim she has something of theirs and they want it back. When they suddenly release her, she does some snooping into the house she and her husband are staying in and learns the owners are in some dangerous business and have vanished. When her husband and the police don't believe her story, Nicole realizes she will have to solve the mystery herself. The confrontations continue and they are now getting deadly. Nicole will have to get someone to believe her or she will be the next casualty. (LIGHT MESSAGES PUBLISHING, Feb., 342 pp., $16.99)
Reviewed by:
Patsy Glans
Mystery
RT Rating:
Genre:
Mystery
Publisher:
Light Messages Publishing
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RT RATINGS GUIDE
5 GOLD: Phenomenal. In a class by itself.
4 1/2: TOP PICK. Fantastic. A keeper.
4: Compelling. A page-turner.
3: Enjoyable. A pleasant read.
2: Problematic. May struggle to finish.
1: Severely Flawed. Pass on this one.
THE BEQUEST
Author(s): Nancy Boyarsky
The second book in the Nicole Graves Mystery series is a fast-paced, roller-coaster mystery filled with corruption at the highest level. Characters are shifty and secretive, yet they are also lovable in their own ways. The plot is filled with twists and turns and red herrings. Boyarsky is a creative author and uses this skill to grab fans and not let go until the last page.
Nicole Graves is still recovering from her ordeal in London. Coming to terms with the fact that she had to kill a man to save her own life is nearly debilitating. She also wonders if her long-distance romance with Reinhardt will survive now that she is living in Los Angeles. Things take a turn for the worse when she happens to find her colleague Robert dead in his house. Stranger still, the lawyer has left his estate to Nicole, when they weren’t even particularly close. After reading Robert’s paperwork, she discovers that he was into some bad business, which is what got him killed. Nicole will need to find someone she can trust to help her sort everything out — but who can she trust? The clues lead her to some high-powered people, and they will not hesitate to commit another murder. (LIGHT MESSAGES, Aug., 230 pp., $16.99)
Reviewed by:
Patsy Glans
The Swap
A Mystery
Reviewed by Michelle Anne Schingler
May 27, 2015
Mary Higgins Clark meets London in the first novel from Nancy Boyarsky, a fast-paced mystery in which a hopeful wife travels abroad to rekindle her relationship and finds, instead, that she’s stumbled into the tensions of an international drug ring.
As a heroine, Nicole is instantly likable. Disturbed by the growing distance in her marriage, she rearranges her work schedule to accompany her husband, Brad, on a summer-long stay in the UK. They arrange a house trade with someone Brad once met in his London office, but soon find that their cozy cottage is at the center of a showdown between dealers seeking payment. Nicole finds herself not only battling Brad’s infidelities, but fighting for her life.
The pace of Boyarsky’s story and the thrill of surprising new developments lead to a nail-biting adventure whose thralls are difficult to escape. Nicole’s evolution—from a possibly cuckolded wife to a capable detective who evades investigators and murderous fiends alike—places her amongst the most intriguing leads in the genre. The Swap contributes to the women-driven mystery field with panache.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
The Bequest
Nancy Boyarsky
BellBoy Books
9780692481721, $9.99, 270pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Nicole Lewis leads a hectic life, balancing work at L.A.'s most prestigious law firm and a long-distance romance with her English lover. Things go sideways when she tracks down a missing office mate, the firm's in-house investigator, and finds him murdered. Robert's murder, his mysterious wealth, and his inexplicable bequest make Nicole a target for the police, the paparazzi, and the killer. As Nicole's love life takes an unexpected turn, she uncovers evil and corruption among the city's most powerful people. The thriller plays out against the backdrop of Los Angeles, with its peculiar mix of balmy weather, the celebrity-crazed media, and a corrupt power structure hidden by the veneer of glamour and wealth.
Critique: "The Bequest" is the sequel to Nancy Boyarsky's first novel featuring the adventures of Nicole Lewis "The Swap" (9780692298442, $9.99 PB, $2.99 Kindle) and once again demonstrates Boyarsky as a master storyteller of the first order. A deftly crafted novel that will have immense appeal to mystery buffs, "The Bequest" is very highly recommended for community library Mystery/Suspense collections. For personal reading lists it should be noted that "The Bequest" is also available in a Kindle edition ($3.99).