The Children Didn't See ANYTHING
Meet inquisitive Evangeline, one-half of the precocious twelve-year-old Bresette twins. It’s just another summer for them, swimming, squabbling, and coping with their lawyer parents—until a woman dies at their grandparents’ country club. And Evangeline notices the corpse is missing something: a pair of diamond earrings.
Her twin brother, Raphael, would rather go swimming and leave the worrying (and asking nosy questions) to the grown-ups. But the adults, who think the children didn’t see anything, haven’t got a clue. Relying on her own wits and curiosity (and her BFF and their Barbie Doll Crime Scene Reconstruction Team), Evangeline launches her own investigation into the mystery of the missing earrings—and a death no one else believes is suspicious. But Evangeline's search for justice soon proves to be far more dangerous than she ever expected.
Ellen Byerrum's new novella for teen and adult readers is her first story to feature the Bresette twins.The Children Didn't See Anything is now available from the Amazon Kindle store.
Ellen Byerrum is a novelist, playwright, reporter, Washington journalist, and a graduate of private investigator school in Virginia. Her Crime of Fashion mysteries star a savvy, stylish female sleuth named Lacey Smithsonian, a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington D.C. (which she calls "The City Fashion Forgot").
Lacey longs to be taken more seriously as a "hard news" reporter, but her nose for nuance, eye for a great story, and talent for getting into trouble all combine to make her the perfect newshound for the Crimes of Fashion beat. Her "Extra-Fashionary Perception," which Lacey says is really just her finely honed sense for what we tell the world through the way we dress, helps her solve crimes where the cops are clueless. In her vintage suits and killer heels, Lacey trips over fatal fashion clues, fabulous shoes, dangerous women, drop-dead men, and even the occasional corpse, well-dressed or otherwise.
Lacey Smithsonian and her creator Ellen Byerrum have a lot of history in common, among them a balcony view of the Potomac River, a love for vintage clothes, failing surveillance in private eye school, and a humorous viewpoint on life, love, mystery and fashion. And a window seat on the wild and wacky world of Our Nation's Capital.
Photo © Joe Henson
Veiled Revenge
Ninth in the Crime of Fashion series
Time marches on, even in fiction, and my Crime of Fashion characters change and grow. Their lives move forward as the seasons pass, albeit a little more slowly than real life. In Veiled Revenge, the ninth book in the series, just a year has passed since the first book, Killer Hair. But we've seen major life changes for Lacey Smithsonian and her BFFs, Stella Lake and Brooke Barton, as well as for Felicity Pickles, Marie Largesse and the rest of the cast: The complicated mysteries of life, love, fashion, murder—even wedding proposals. When your characters start proposing marriage to each other, things really get complicated. But everyone wants to go to a wedding. Especially a crazy wedding. Including the author!
And what creates more complications than a wedding? Weddings bring out the craziness in everyone, and this story got a little crazier too. I loved exploring how we invest our clothes with magical properties, and then I wondered: If clothes can be magical, can they also be haunted? Or even cursed? The murder of a rude party crasher at a bachelorette bash is something many bridesmaids have longed for. And when a stressed-out bride decides at the last minute she hates her boring wedding dress, maid of honor Lacey Smithsonian must solve yet another urgent Crime of Fashion.
In Veiled Revenge, Lacey discovers that being her friend Stella’s maid of honor is a killer of a job. But Stella and her fiancé Nigel might still make it all the way down the aisle—if murder, mayhem and a haunted Russian shawl don’t get them first.
Sounds like a fun wedding, doesn’t it?
