The Essential Guide to the What Doesn't Kill You Romantic Mystery Series: What Doesn't Kill You Super Series of Mysteries, #18

By Pamela Fagan Hutchins

All the stories behind the hilarious and heartfelt stories, plus behind-the-scenes character interviews, and much, much, more.

You may think you know the What Doesn't Kill You series, but this Guide will fill in the gaps for you. Or maybe you're new to the series and trying to decide whether to dip a toe into the water—the Guide will put you in the know. 

The What Doesn't Kill You series features romantic mystery and suspense characters whose lives are interconnected in a myriad of ways. The protagonists are smart, kickass women who solve whatever problems—including a few dead bodies—life throws at them as they navigate their unique and adventurous journeys of friendships, romance, career, families, amateur aka "accidental" sleuthing, and more: Katie, Emily, Ava, Michele, Maggie, and Laura, and counting. The novels are mostly PG-13, with a thread of everyday magic running through them. 

Whether you've run the table on Pamela Fagan Hutchins' USA Today-bestselling and Silver Falchion Best Mystery-winning series and are yearning for a deeper dive or are wanting a low-cost way to see whether the novels or one of the multi-book box sets are right for you, this guide is your ticket. 

NOTE: this guide does not contain the novels!

˃˃˃ See why Pamela wins contests and makes best seller lists.

USA Today Best Seller
#1 Amazon Best Seller
Top 50 Amazon Romantic Suspense and Mystery Author
Silver Falchion for Best Adult Mystery
USA Best Book Awards Cross-Genre Fiction
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Romance, Quarter-finalist

˃˃˃ Once Upon A Romance calls Hutchins an "up-and-coming powerhouse writer."

If you like Sandra Brown or Janet Evanovich, you will love Pamela Fagan Hutchins. A former attorney and native Texan, Pamela lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands for nearly ten years. She refuses to admit to taking notes for this series during that time.

˃˃˃ The reviews for the series are top-notch.

"Hutchins' Maggie is an irresistible train wreck—you can't help but turn the page to see what trouble she'll get herself into next." Robert Dugoni, #1 Amazon Best-selling Author of My Sister's Grave 

"Murder has never been so much fun!" — Christie Craig, New York Times Best Seller 

"You're guaranteed to love the ride!" — Kay Kendall, Silver Falchion Best Mystery Winner

"Taut suspense." — Midwest Book Review

"Quick, entertaining read." — Kirkus Reviews

"Fantastic mystery." — Once Upon a Romance

˃˃˃ Catch the adventures of Katie, Emily, Ava, Michele, Maggie, Laura, and their friends in the What Doesn't Kill You romantic mysteries.

Scroll up and grab your copy of The Essential Guide to the What Doesn't Kill You Romantic Mystery Series to get started now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SkipJack Publishing
• Release date: Aug 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393393634

Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a USA Today best seller. She writes award-winning romantic mysteries from deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and way up in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She is passionate about long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs and riding her gigantic horses. If you'd like Pamela to speak to your book club, women's club, class, or writers group, by Skype or in person, shoot her an e-mail. She's very likely to say yes. You can connect with Pamela via her website (https://pamelafaganhutchins.com)or e-mail ([e-mail]).

Book preview

The Essential Guide to the What Doesn’t Kill You Romantic Mysteries

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU ROMANTIC MYSTERIES

KATIE, EMILY, AVA, MICHELE, MAGGIE, & LAURA

PAMELA FAGAN HUTCHINS

SKIPJACK PUBLISHING

CONTENTS

Free Starter Library

WHAT IS THE WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU SERIES?

Do I have to read the novels in order?

Who the heck is Pamela Fagan Hutchins?

Timeline Order of Books

Publication Order of Books

TAKING IT ONE PROTAGONIST, ONE BOOK AT A TIME

Ensembles

WASTED IN WACO

It Could Almost Be You: The Story Behind the Story of the What Doesn’t Kill You Protagonists

Ending on a Good Note: The Story Behind the What Doesn’t Kill You Trilogies

Winging It: The Story Behind the Story of Wasted in Waco

Gratefuls from the What Doesn’t Kill You Gang

New Year’s Resolutions: Katie & Her Friends

Coming … SOME DAY

Katie Connell

Saving Grace

Excerpt from Saving Grace

Leaving Annalise

Excerpt from Leaving Annalise

Finding Harmony

Excerpt from Finding Harmony

Seeking Felicity

Excerpt from Seeking Felicity

Voodoo Spirits and Jumbie Houses: The Story Behind the Story of Saving Grace

You’re Not the Princess Anymore: The Story Behind the Story of Leaving Annalise

More Than the Eye Can See: The Story Behind the What Doesn’t Kill You World

Interviews with Katie and Her Friends

Nonfiction Bonus

Emily Bernal

Heaven to Betsy

Excerpt from Heaven to Betsy

Earth to Emily

Excerpt from Earth to Emily

Hell to Pay

Excerpt from Hell to Pay

Your Roots are Showing: The Story Behind the Story of Heaven To Betsy

Who Hoo: The Story Behind the Story of Earth To Emily

Judge Not: The Story Behind the Story of Hell to Pay

Who Says You Can’t Go Home Again: The Story Behind the Story of the Emily Novels

Faith, Whatever That Faith May Be: The Story Behind the Story of Emily’s Faith

Interviews with Emily and Friends

Michele Lopez Hanson

Going for Kona

Excerpt from Going for Kona

Fighting for Anna

Excerpt from Fighting for Anna

Searching for Dime Box

Excerpt from Searching for Dime Box

How Do You Like Your Kona: The Story Behind the Story of Going for Kona

The Old Switcheroo: The Story Behind the Rewrite of Going for Kona

The Eye of the Beholder: The Story Behind the Story of Fighting for Anna part 1

The Hidden Treasure: The Story Behind the Story of Fighting for Anna part 2

Finding the Magic: the Story Behind the Story of Fighting for Anna part 3

Where Truth and Fiction Collide: The Story Behind the Story of Searching for Anna

Interviews with Michele

Nonfiction Bonus

Maggie Killian

Buckle Bunny

Excerpt from Buckle Bunny

Shock Jock

Excerpt from Shock Jock

Live Wire

Excerpt from Live Wire

Sick Puppy

Excerpt from Sick Puppy

Dead Pile

Excerpt from Dead Pile

The Power of Yes: The Story Behind the Stories of BUCKLE BUNNY and SHOCK JOCK

My Life and Privacy as Novel Fodder: The Story Behind the Story of LIVE WIRE

Someone’s Been Sleeping in My Bed: The Story Behind the Story of SICK PUPPY

A Walk on the WYld Side: The Story Behind the Story of DEAD PILE

Touching Allowed

Interviews with Maggie

Maggie Killian Playlist

Laura Sibley Begay

Laura Begay Playlist

Excerpt: Blue Streak

Ava Butler

Bombshell

Excerpt from Bombshell

Stunner

Excerpt from Stunner

Knockout

Excerpt from Knockout

What’s in a Name?

She’s Bringing Sexy Back

I’m Your Venus

What Gives Me the Right?

How Made Up is Ava, Really?

Interviews with Ava

Ava Butler Playlist

Patrick Flint

Switchback

Excerpt: A 3-Chapter SWITCHBACK Preview!

The Patrick Flint Series

The Jenn Herrington Wyoming Mysteries

Big Horn

Excerpt: A BIG HORN Preview!

Jenn Herrington is expanding!

The Delaney Pace Series

Her Silent Bones

Excerpt: HER SILENT BONES

Delaney Pace is Coming

From Whence They All Came . . .

The Story Behind My Story

Leaving Annaly

iResolve

Ghoulies Ghosties and Long-Leggedy Beasties

Close Encounters of the Cloud Atlas Kind

PG-13 Alert

Give ‘em What They Ask For

The Funk in My Trunk

Not for Sissies

Big Sky, Magic Fire

NOW THAT YOU KNOW, WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO?

Where You Can Get the WDKY Series

Spoiler Alert: Book Club Questions

How to Help An Author

Crime & Wine

Get More for Less (Patreon)

Books by the Author

Books from SkipJack Publishing

About the Author

Foreword

FREE STARTER LIBRARY

Before you begin reading, you can snag a free Pamela Fagan Hutchins What Doesn't Kill You ebook starter library by joining her mailing list at https://pamela-fagan-hutchins.myshopify.com/pages/the-next-chapter-with-pamela-fagan-hutchins.

WHAT IS THE WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU SERIES?

My What Doesn't Kill You series features romantic mystery and suspense characters whose lives are interconnected in a bunch of ways. The protagonists are smart, kickass women who solve whatever problems—including a few dead bodies—life throws at them as they navigate their unique journeys of friendships, romance, career, families, and more.

My novels are mostly PG-13, and you'll find a thread of everyday magic running through them.

People say they're funny. {They're probably full of it.}

I usually write a trilogy for each protagonist, but don’t hold me to it. Sometimes I get carried away and throw in a few extra stories.

You meet all of the WDKY protagonists in Wasted in Waco—which you can only get by subscribing to my newsletter HERE. You don't get a deep dive into their lives and characters there, but you totally do in their novels, and Saving Grace is a great example of that with Katie.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

DO I HAVE TO READ THE NOVELS IN ORDER?

No. Yes. Maybe. Do what you want!

I jump around by protagonist, and I sometimes jump around in the timeline, too. Intentionally. So I make sure that each novel reads as a standalone, as well as fits within its own trilogy and the greater series. Feel free to read freestyle.

However, it does enhance the experience to binge in order. I’ll share that order with you, as well as details on the books and main characters, and how the books are interrelated (which is super important), so you can make your own best choice.

Also, you can read them in any format (paperback, audio, ebook) from any retailer. But I encourage you to visit my site for signed copies, exclusive bundles, and great deals.

WHO THE HECK IS PAMELA FAGAN HUTCHINS?

My editor calls me Pamela Freakin' Hutchins. I think she means it as a compliment . . . but you can be the judge of that as you get to know me and the WDKY characters and stories.

I come to you from winters on our Nowheresville, Texas, ranch and summers at Snowheresville, our rustic log B&B on the face of the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. You can usually find me with my hot husband Eric — hiking, camping, or trail riding, me on my plus-size-and-proud-of-it draft cross mare Katniss and Eric on his even bigger draft cross gelding Feathers — or solo, digitally recording first drafts while I walk our rescue dogs: one-eyed Boston terrier Petey and emotionally-fragile, soft-mouthed, gun-shy Belgian Malinois Georgia. Georgia really wishes her mama didn't insist on carrying a Judge revolver on her hip, but those aren't kitty cats in the hills, folks. We have five grown kids (yes, a basketball team's worth) who seem to be recovering just fine from the trauma of their upbringing.

My novels win awards like the Silver Falchion for Best Mystery and hit bestseller lists like USA Today and stuff, but yada yada, who cares, right? It’s all about whether you have a good time reading them. And I take that very, very seriously, so let me know how you like them.

Update 2023:

We’ve moved on from Nowheresville and now split time between Wyoming and a rustic lake camp on Lake Mooselookmeguntic in Maine, a place Eric’s family hand-built when he was six-years-old. Georgia has passed over the rainbow bridge and we now have two Alaskan Malamute sled dogs—Sibley and Willett—who are literally wild and wooly and oh-so-loved.

TIMELINE ORDER OF BOOKS

This the chronological order of the books, but you can read them in any order. And most people read them by protagonist, which is a great way to do it.

Buckle Bunny (Maggie Prequel 1)

Shock Jock (Maggie Prequel 2)

Wasted in Waco (Prequel, Ensemble Novella)

Saving Grace (Katie #1)

Leaving Annalise (Katie #2)

Finding Harmony (Katie #3)

Going for Kona (Michele #1)

Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1)

Earth to Emily (Emily #2)

Hell to Pay (Emily #3)

Seeking Felicity (Katie #4)

Fighting for Anna (Michele #2)

Bombshell (Ava #1): Spin-off Trilogy

Stunner (Ava #2): Spin-off Trilogy

Knockout (Ava #3): Spin-off Trilogy

Searching for Dime Box (Michele #3)

Live Wire (Maggie #1)

Sick Puppy (Maggie #2)

Dead Pile (Maggie #3)

From time to time, I will add novellas and short stories and work them into the timeline

PUBLICATION ORDER OF BOOKS

This is the order I published the books in:

Saving Grace (Katie #1)

Leaving Annalise (Katie #2)

Finding Harmony (Katie #3)

Going for Kona (Michele #1)

Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1)

Earth to Emily (Emily #2)

Hell to Pay (Emily #3)

Wasted in Waco (Prequel, Ensemble Novella)

Bombshell (Ava #1): Spin-off Trilogy

Stunner (Ava #2): Spin-off Trilogy

Knockout (Ava #3): Spin-off Trilogy

Fighting for Anna (Michele #2)

Searching for Dime Box (Michele #3)

Buckle Bunny (Maggie Prequel Novella)

Shock Jock (Maggie Prequel Short Story)

Live Wire (Maggie #1)

Sick Puppy (Maggie #2)

Dead Pile (Maggie #3)

Seeking Felicity (Katie #4)

New Series:

Patrick Flint

Switchback (1)

Spark (1.5)

Snake Oil (2)

Sawbones (3)

Scapegoat (4)

Snaggle Tooth (5)

Stag Party (6)

Sitting Duck (7)

Jenn Herrington

BIG HORN (Jenn 1)

Not Yet Published:

Delaney Pace:

Her Silent Bones (Delaney Pace 1)

Her Hidden Grave (Delaney Pace 2)

Her Last Cry (Delaney Pace 3)

Snake Oil (Patrick Flint 8)

WALKER PRAIRIE (Jenn Herrington 2)

Stone Cold in Story (Ensemble Novella)

Blue Streak (Laura #1)

Fast Company (Laura #2)

Double Time (Laura #3)

Toasted in Tularose (Ensemble Novella)

TAKING IT ONE PROTAGONIST, ONE BOOK AT A TIME

ENSEMBLES

Heck, they’re all ensembles to an extent, as my ladies make crossover appearances (so do the guys!) in each other’s books. But I only alternate points of view in my true ensemble books, which is what I’ll include in this section.

WASTED IN WACO

It's five years before Katie runs away to the islands, and this time her travels keep her closer to home: back to her Baylor Law School reunion in Waco, Texas. With Emily as her plus-one and Michele rounding out the party, their evening at a murder mystery dinner theater goes awry with weird former classmates, too many cocktails, and, oh yeah, a real murder onstage before the cast finishes Wasted in Waco. Meanwhile, fallen-star Maggie loses out on her chance at redemption in the lead role when she shows up polluted, and Ava gleefully fills in, in more ways than one. Laura, on a stopover between quarter horse races, attends on gifted tickets from a grateful horse owner, and has a ringside view to the circus. The women's paths crisscross and backtrack over each other in ways that will resonate for years to come, with each holding clues she doesn't know she has to the identity of the murderer, who is far too close to one of them for comfort.

Ebook is free and exclusive to newsletter subscribers. Subscribe HERE.

Audiobook available for purchase on Audible, iBooks, and Amazon. PG-13.

Major Recurring Characters

Katie

Emily

Ava

Michele

Maggie

Laura

Mickey

Zach

IT COULD ALMOST BE YOU: THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY OF THE WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU PROTAGONISTS

While I was living on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix–an island that at the time housed the 2nd largest oil refinery in the Western Hemisphere–a local oral surgeon disappeared when he flew his private plane to Puerto Rico. Speculation about his disappearance was rampant. In the same year, a man died from a gunshot wound while in a vehicle on the road that led to my future driveway–I moved into 16 Estate Annaly one year later. Again, speculation was rampant. Both stuck in my mind until I was later able to weave them into a plot on my fictional St. Marcos. (p.s. the oral surgeon's crashed plane was later found off Vieques; the death of the man in the car was ruled a suicide)

Meanwhile, I was accidentally writing mysteries with an amateur sleuth, because when I started them I hadn't realized they were mysteries **this is not uncommon for writers in their first few books, even though I know it makes it sound like we're idiots**, thus obviating the need for a cop/coroner/soldier/investigator/or-some-such protagonist. I just wrote what I felt was authentic: a woman bombarded by life's issues, forced to be self-sufficient and solve her own problems. I mean, isn't that how it is for you? That's what it's like for me. We live a crazy modern life of conflicting responsibilities and desires, with technology never allowing us to escape them.

In retrospect, I positioned my amateur sleuth to have special knowledge of the law, I wrote her as a karate champion, and I gave her a love interest who could teach her about private investigations. Go, me.

I think of fiction as life re-imagined. When you daydream, do you re-imagine your life completely, or just try to spice up what you've got? Probably some of both. But for me, it's just little what ifs, little twists of fate that speed things up and turn up the tension. Did the missing guy in the plane run away with a girlfriend? Was the man in the car shot by drug dealers who staged it as a suicide? Things like that.

So my protagonists, for better or for worse, are ordinary, extraordinary women forced out of their daily comfort zones into roles they are capable of (solving problems, aka murder mysteries) even though they never planned for them. But the rest of the story beyond the mysteries is just as important, so problems with their love lives, offspring, parents, day jobs, etc. are just left of center stage, ramping up the pressure and giving depth to the characters. Which makes the mysteries character-driven, just shy of being women's fiction.

This topic reminds me of a story about my husband Eric. When he was 40, he took his youngest daughter Liz to audition for some commercials and print ads. She wasn't cast. He didn't audition, but they had his contact information from her, and he got a call–much to Liz's chagrin–and a few weeks later, he was the husband in an ad for a medication for a drug for women. The ad featured a woman with her husband and two children, running on the beach. She was a little older, a little heavier, and a little less attractive than my gorgeous husband, but not much. Just enough that if she was re-imagining her life, her husband would have looked like him, and they would have been on a beach in St. John, with smiles on both of their perfect kids' faces.

Possible, but not probable.

And so it is with my protagonists. You really could live on a tropical island, be sexy, single, and talented, and date incredible men. You don't want or need to go back to school and become a forensic pathologist (ew, yuck, smelly, gross, long hours, bleck). You can imagine using your wits to a higher purpose JUST AS YOU ARE, and starring in the What Doesn't Kill You mystery series.

And so I write about you, dear readers, ordinary, extraordinary women, capable of great things in a life just slightly reimagined. Close your eyes for a moment. Can't you just picture yourself there?

ENDING ON A GOOD NOTE: THE STORY BEHIND THE WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU TRILOGIES

You know what I love? I love a great series with characters I want more of.

You know what I hate? Series that flog me to death with characters who never develop, even if they were great in the first three, four, five, or six books. Not all long series are like this. I just binged on CJ Box's Joe Pickett series and can't wait for #17. But, to me, this is an exception rather than a rule, and has more to do with the protagonist taking a fairly minor role in the alternating points of view. It's like the 3rd Joe Pickett book instead of the 17th, in page-time, if you know what I mean.

So when it came time to write my own series, I wanted to leave my readers wanting more of each protagonist when I finished with her. I wanted to take a character and develop her over a three-book story arc. Each of her books would be a standalone mystery novel, but when combined with the other two books about that protagonist, they would tell a story about her with significant, interesting personal growth occurring from book-to-book, and a satisfying romantic storyline as well.

With Katie, for example, we have Saving Grace  where she's trying to belatedly grow up, Leaving Annalise where she's becoming less self-focused, and Finding Harmony where she learns she can't expect perfection out of others any more than she can expect it from herself. When I wrote the ending of Finding Harmony, I liked where Katie was. Honestly, I didn't want to mess up her world, and if I'd continued with her, I'd have had to farg her up. The way I write, the protagonist must have skin in the game. She has to have all she cares about at stake in each mystery in order for her to care enough to put herself at risk by taking ownership of solving it. My gift to Katie is a long and happy life with her husband and kids.  

My gift to you guys is that I don't dilute her impact on you by going on and on and on. (You're welcome!)

Yet I don't want to start over with a new world after I finish three novels for a protagonist. So I chose to do a world, What Doesn't Kill You, where I can stay within the same community of characters and spin off trilogies for protagonists who we already know and care about. Enter Michele, Katie's law school roommate (Going for Kona, Fighting for Anna, and Searching for Dime Box), Emily, Katie's former paralegal (Heaven to Betsy, Earth to Emily, and Hell to Pay), and Ava, Katie's singing partner and island friend (Bombshell, Stunner, and Knockout).

I did the same three-book character arc thing with them.

I let my protagonists make guest appearances in each other's novels. Katie is in fourteen of the novels. Emily is in ten. Ava is in nine. Michele is in eight. Maggie is in five. Laura is in three with three more in the works. And many other characters cross over as well. Collin isn't a protagonist but appears in ten novels so far; Rashidi is in ten; Nick shows up in seven. Etc.

For better or worse, this is my strategy, and it's working for me. I know how hard it is to walk away from a character you love and not continue in-depth in his or her world. Bring on more Joe Pickett, ha ha. Thanks for sticking with me anyway! I promise you'll keep getting more of your favorite What Doesn't Kill You characters.

WINGING IT: THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY OF WASTED IN WACO

I'm pretty Type A. I've been accused of being intense, over-structured, and the Energizer Bunny, notwithstanding long periods of getting less done.

I am a huge believer in outlining, character studies, writing-from-once-upon-a-time-until-the-end, and one-pass revision. So one day when I was out walking the dogs and had my digital recorder in hand, I pressed record and began to talk. But not just any chitter-chatter talk. I talked my way through a twenty thousand-word novella, a prequel to the What Doesn't Kill You series. Without any outlines. Without any character studies. Without any planning at all. I had no idea what I was going to say or what I would be saying it about.

And it felt . . . freeing. It felt right, for right then.

It was my second foray into digitally recording my drafts, so I was better at that part at least. Still, as I talked my way through it, I ran into obstacles. I hadn't written Ava, Laura, or Maggie points of view at the time. I waffled back and forth between first and third person, past and present tense, simplicity and complexity, accent and diction, as I experimented on the fly with my women. I struggled as I wrote a mystery without knowing who the bad guy would be, and what red herrings and clues to drop.

When I got the first draft back in written form, it was a hot mess. I could totally see why outlining first is my usual methodology!! And guess what I ended up having to do? Write character studies on the new women, who I thought I knew well from their supporting roles in earlier novels, but of course, it turned out that I didn’t know them nearly well enough to put them in the drivers' seats. Possibly because it was only 25% as long as my novels, I found revising the plot line easier than I'd expected. I had fun re-immersing myself in characters whose minds I hadn't dived into for awhile.

And I discovered a big surprise: my beta readers loved Laura and Maggie! They already knew they enjoyed the other protagonists (Katie, Emily, Michele, and Ava), because they'd gotten to know them very well. The notes and comments about the new women were immensely gratifying. And encouraging.

The story behind the story of Wasted in Waco, thus, is that this old dog is capable of learning a couple of new tricks, of turning over new leaves. And to keep it with clichés, I put the cart before the horse, and what didn't kill me made me stronger. Also, I found out I could write something shorter than a novel and pull off a complete mystery.

It was liberating . . . and I can't wait to get back to OUTLINING my next novel, right after I finish my CHARACTER STUDIES!!!!

GRATEFULS FROM THE WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU GANG

The women of the What Doesn't Kill You romantic mysteries have a few 2016 Thanksgiving gratefuls to share .

Katie: The Dixie Chicks concert in Austin with Nick.

Michele: Looking forward to what's coming next, for the first time in a long time.

Emily: Jack, Betsy, and me visiting Greg and watching the Masked Rider at a Tech home game.

Ava: Getting what I need and finding out it’s what I want.

Laura: Grand opening of Right Turn Equine Camp!

Maggie: Planning an in-home music studio for someday.

And a few of their favorite people want to chime in, too.

Nick: My hot business partner.

Rashidi: That I not born a redneck.

Wallace: A Texas wedding!

Nadine: No.More.Drama.

Jack: (lopsided, one-dimple grin)

Collin: If I told you, I'd have to kill you.

Mickey: Everywhere I turn, kids, kids, kids.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS: KATIE & HER FRIENDS

I love catching up with the What Doesn't Kill You women and imagining where their paths will take them next! Here are their 2017 resolutions:

Plan a reunion with my best girls.

KATIE

Got accepted to Texas Tech law school, so I guess decide whether to become the oldest day student in the class of 2018.

EMILY

Balancing my new found love life with my new found grandmother life!

MICHELE

Party like a rock star. Kiss my man under the mistletoe.

AVA

Quit worrying about what other people think. Study less. Hug Mickey and Farrah more.

LAURA

Smile in the checkout line even though every gossip rag in the rack has a Where Are They Now story about washed up stars featuring me on the cover.

MAGGIE

COMING … SOME DAY

STONE COLD IN STORY, TOASTED IN TULAROSA OR WRONG TURN AT THE RIGHT TURN RANCH, and MURDER ON ST. MARCOS. When time permits :-)

Major Recurring Characters:

Katie

Emily

Ava

Michele

Maggie

Laura

Nick

Jack

Collin

Rashidi

Hank

Mickey

KATIE CONNELL

She’s the train wreck where What Doesn’t Kill You all began. When we meet her, she’s a deeply flawed, control freak of a Texas attorney who needs to grow the heck up. In love with a man who doesn’t love her back. A big fan of bloody Marys. She’s lost her parents and has only her best friend Emily and her brother Collin left in her corner.

But damn if she isn’t loveable and relatable and oh-so-funny . . .

SAVING GRACE

A humiliated attorney.

An unexpected second chance.

Can a house with a twist help her find love and answers?

Saving Grace Cover

Nearly two million downloads and counting, y’all!

Straight from the internet:

Texas attorney and alcoholic Katie Connell’s career just melted down before her eyes. After very public failure during a doomed celebrity trial and a heart-wrenching breakup, she avoids rehab by retreating to the tropical island where her parents tragically died. But when she arrives, it becomes obvious that her parents’ supposed accident was cold and calculated… As Katie sorts through the clues, she gets help from an unexpected source: a spirited house named Annalise. Between the kindred ghost, a local singing sensation, and a handsome chef, the quirks of the island throw the former attorney for a major loop. Can Katie pick up the pieces of her life and solve her parents’ murder as part of her fresh new start?

Saving Grace is the first standalone book in the Katie trilogy and Book #1 within the What Doesn’t Kill You romantic mystery series. If you like island getaways, compelling characters, and witty dialogue, then you’ll love USA Today best seller Pamela Fagan Hutchins’ suspenseful story of voodoo and redemption.

Saving Grace is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook. PG-13.

Major Recurring Characters:

Katie

Nick

Emily

Collin

Rashidi

Ava

Bart

Outtakes:

The Saving Grace cover artist has a wicked sense of humor. Here’s her for-shits-and-giggles version of the cover.

There Is No Saving Grace

EXCERPT FROM SAVING GRACE

Last year sucked, and this one was already worse.

Last year, when my parents died in an accident on their Caribbean vacation, I’d been working too hard to listen to my instincts, which were screaming bullshit so loud I almost went deaf in my third ear. I was preparing for the biggest case of my career, so I sort of had an excuse that worked for me as long as I showed up for happy hour, but the truth was, I was obsessed with the private investigator assigned to my case.

Nick. Almost-divorced Nick. My new co-worker Nick who sometimes sent out vibes that he wanted to rip my Ann Taylor blouse off with his teeth, when he wasn’t busy ignoring me.

But things had changed.

I’d just gotten the verdict back in my mega-trial, the Burnside wrongful termination case. My firm rarely took plaintiff cases, so I’d taken a big risk with this one—and won Mr. Burnside three million dollars, of which the firm got a third. That was the total opposite of suck.

After my coup at the Dallas courthouse, my paralegal Emily and I headed straight down I-20 to the hotel where our firm was on retreat in Shreveport, Louisiana. Shreveport is not on the top ten list for most company getaways, but our senior partner fancied himself a poker player, and loved Cajun food, jazz, and riverboat casinos. The retreat was a great excuse for Gino to indulge in a little Texas Hold ’Em between teambuilding and sensitivity sessions and still come off looking like a helluva guy, but it meant a three and a half hour drive each way. This wasn’t a problem for Emily and me. We bridged both the paralegal-to-attorney gap and the co-worker-to-friend gap with ease, largely because neither of us did Dallas-fancy very well. Or at all.

Emily and I hustled inside for check-in at the Eldorado.

Do you want a map of the ghost tours? the front desk clerk asked us, her polyglot Texan-Cajun-Southern accent making tours sound like turs.

Why, thank you kindly, but no thanks, Emily drawled. In the ten years since she’d left, she still hadn’t shaken Amarillo from her voice or given up barrel-racing horses.

I didn’t believe in hocus pocus, either, but I wasn’t a fan of casinos, which reeked of cigarette smoke and desperation. Do y’all have karaoke or anything else but casinos onsite?

Yes, ma’am, we have a rooftop bar with karaoke, pool tables, and that kind of thing. The girl swiped at her bangs, then swung her head to put them back in the same place they’d been.

That sounds more like it, I said to Emily.

Karaoke, she said. Again. She rolled her eyes. Only if we can do tradesies halfway. I want to play blackjack.

After we deposited our bags in our rooms and freshened up, talking to each other on our cell phones the whole time we were apart, we joined our group. All of our co-workers broke into applause as we entered the conference room. News of our victory had preceded us. We curtsied, and I used both arms to do a Vanna White toward Emily. She returned the favor.

Where’s Nick? I called out. Come on up here.

Nick had left the courtroom when the jury went out to deliberate, so he’d beaten us here. He stood up from a table on the far side of the room, but didn’t join us in front. I gave him a long distance Vanna White anyway.

The applause died down and some of my partners motioned for me to sit with them at a table near the entrance. I joined them and we all got to work writing a mission statement for the firm for the next fifteen minutes. Emily and I had arrived just in time for the first day’s sessions to end.

When we broke, the group stampeded from the hotel to the docked barge that housed the casino. In Louisiana, gambling is only legal on the water or on tribal land. On impulse, I walked to the elevator instead of the casino. Just before the doors closed, a hand jammed between them and they bounced apart, and I found myself headed up to the hotel rooms with none other than Nick Kovacs.

So, Helen, you’re not a gambler either, he said as the elevator doors closed.

My stomach flipped. Cheesy, yes, but when he was in a good mood, Nick called me Helen—as in Helen of Troy.

I had promised to meet Emily for early blackjack before late karaoke, but he didn’t need to know that. I have the luck of the Irish, I said. Gambling is dangerous for me.

He responded with dead silence. Each of us looked up, down, sideways, and anywhere but at each other, which was hard, since the elevator was mirrored above a gold handrail and wood paneling. There was a wee bit of tension in the air.

I heard there’s a pool table at the hotel bar, though, and I’d be up for that, I offered, throwing myself headlong into the void and holding my breath on the way down.

Dead silence again. Long, dead silence. The ground was going to hurt when I hit it.

Without making eye contact, Nick said, OK, I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.

Did he really say he’d meet me there? Just the two of us? Out together? Oh my God, Katie, what have you done?

The elevator doors dinged, and we headed in opposite directions to our rooms. It was too late to back out now.

I moved in a daze. Hyperventilating. Pits sweating. Heart pounding. My outfit was all wrong, so I ditched the Ann Taylor for some jeans, a structured white blouse, and, yes, I admit it, a multi-colored Jessica Simpson handbag and her coordinating orange platform sandals. White works well against my long, wavy red hair, which I unclipped and finger-combed over my shoulders. Not very attorney-like, but that was the point. Besides, I didn’t even like being an attorney, so why would I want to look like one now?

Normally I am Katie Clean, but I settled on a quick brush of my teeth, a French shower, and lipstick. I considered calling Emily to tell her I was no-showing, but I knew she would understand when I explained later. I race-walked to the elevators and cursed them as they stopped on every other floor before the Rooftop Grotto.

Ding. Finally. I stopped to catch my breath. I counted to ten, took one last gulp for courage, and stepped under the dim lights above the stone-topped bar. I stood near a man whose masculinity I could feel pulsing from several feet away. Heat flamed in my cheeks. My engine raced. Just the man I’d come to see.

Nick was of Hungarian descent, and he had his gypsy ancestors to thank for his all-over darkness—eyes, hair, and skin—and sharp cheekbones. He had a muscular ranginess that I loved, but he wasn’t traditionally handsome. His nose was large-ish and crooked from being broken too many times. He’d once told me that a surfboard to the mouth had given him his snaggled front tooth. But he was gorgeous in an undefined way, and I often saw from the quick glances of other women that I wasn’t the only one in the room who noticed.

Now he noticed me. Hi, Helen.

Hi, Paris, I replied.

He snorted. Oh, I am definitely not your Paris. Paris was a wimp.

Hmmmmm. Menelaus, then?

Um, beer.

I’m pretty sure there was no one named Beer in the story of Helen of Troy, I said, sniffing in a faux-superior way.

Nick spoke to the bartender. St. Pauli Girl. He finally gave me the Nick grin, and the tension left over from our elevator ride disappeared. Want one?

I needed to gulp more than air for courage. Amstel Light.

Nick placed the order. The bartender handed Nick two beers beaded with moisture, then shook water from his hands. Nick handed mine to me and I wrapped a napkin around it, lining up the edges with the military precision I adored. Nick sang under his breath, his head bobbing side to side. Honky-tonk Woman.

I think I like you better in Shreveport than Dallas, I said.

Thanks, I think. And I like seeing you happy. I guess it’s been a tough year for you, losing your parents and all. Here’s to that smile, he said, holding his beer aloft toward me.

The toast almost stopped my heart. He was spot-on about the tough part, but I did better when I kept the subject of my parents buried with them. I clinked his bottle but couldn’t look at him while I did it. Thanks, Nick, very much.

Want to play pool? he asked.

Let’s do it.

I was giddy, the sophomore girl out with the senior quarterback. We both loved music, so we talked about genres, bands (his old band, Stingray, and real bands), my minor in music at Baylor, and LSD, AKA lead-singer disease. Over a bucket of beers, we swapped stories about high school, and he told me he’d once rescued an injured booby.

An injured booby? I asked. Implants or natural? Eight ball in corner pocket. I sank it.

He gathered the balls out of the pockets and positioned them in the rack while I ground my cue tip in blue chalk and blew off the excess. You’re so land-locked. A booby is a bird, Katie.

I rolled his use of my real name back and forth in my brain, enjoying how it felt.

I was out surfing, and I found a booby that couldn’t fly. I carried it back home and took care of it until I could set it free.

Oh, my gosh! How bad did it smell? Did it peck you? I’ll bet your Mom was thrilled! I talked fast, in endless exclamation points. Embarrassing. I was a Valley Girl on acid, like Oh-My-Gawd. It was in shock, so it was calm, but every day it got wilder. I was fourteen, and my mom was happy I wasn’t in my room holding some girl’s real booby, so she was fine with it. It smelled really bad after a few days, though.

I broke. Balls clacked and ricocheted in every direction, and a striped one tumbled into a side pocket. Stripes, I called. So, your mom had caught you before holding a girl’s booby, huh?

Um, I didn’t say that . . . he said, and stuttered to a stop.

I was more smitten than ever.

Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover was playing in the background. I hadn’t heard that song in years. It got me thinking. For months, I had been fighting off the urge to slip my arms around Nick’s neck and bite the back of it, but I was aware that most people would consider that inappropriate at work. Pretty small-minded of them, if you asked me. I eyed the large balcony outside the bar and thought that if I could just maneuver Nick out there, maybe I could make it happen.

My chances seemed good enough until one of our colleagues walked in. Tim was of counsel at the firm. Of counsel meant he was too old to be called an associate, but he wasn’t a rainmaker. Plus, he wore his pants pulled up an inch too high in the waist. The firm would never make him a partner. Nick and I locked eyes. Until now, we’d been two shortwave radios on the same channel, the signal crackling between us. But now the dial had turned to static and his eyes clouded over. He stiffened and moved subtly away from me.

He hailed Tim up. Hey, Tim, over here.

Tim waved to us and walked across the smoky bar. Everything moved in slow motion as he came closer, step by ponderous step. His feet echoed as they hit the floor, reverberating no . . . no . . . no . . . Or maybe I was saying it aloud. I couldn’t tell, but it made no difference.

Hey, Tim, this is great. Grab a beer; let’s play some pool.

Oh, please tell me Nick didn’t just invite Tim to hang out with us. He could have given him a short hey how ya doing have a nice night I was just leaving shpiel, or anything else for that matter, but no, he had asked Tim to join us.

Tim and Nick looked at me for affirmation.

I entertained a fleeting fantasy in which I executed a perfect side kick to Tim’s gut and he started rolling around on the floor with the dry heaves. What good were the thirteen years of karate my father had insisted on if I couldn’t use it at times like these? Every woman should be able to defend herself, Katie, Dad would say as he dropped me off at the dojo.

Maybe this wasn’t technically a physical self-defense moment, but Tim’s arrival had dashed my hopes for the whole neck-bite thing, and all that could have come after it. Wasn’t that reason enough?

I cast out the image. Actually, Tim, why don’t you take over for me? I was in trial all week, and I’m exhausted. We have an early start tomorrow. It’s the last day of our retreat, the grande finale for the Hailey & Hart team. I handed my pool cue to Tim.

Tim thought this was a fine idea. It was clear women scared him. If I had hoped for an argument from Nick, though, I didn’t get one. He reverted to his outside-of-work Katie who? act.

All I got from him was Goodnight, with neither a Helen nor a Katie tacked on.

I grabbed another Amstel Light from the bar for the plod back to my room.

LEAVING ANNALISE

A new life on the horizon.

An old flame at the door.

When a dead body turns up in the freezer, one woman's island lifestyle turns stormy.

Leaving Annalise

My 1st big win: Writers League of Texas named this the top Romance manuscript of 2010 :-)

According to Papa Amazon:

Katie Connell's new life in St. Marcos is cruising right along. She's got a restaurateur boyfriend, a singing venture with her best friend, and a new streak of sobriety. Even better, she's purchased a rainforest home that came complete with a centuries-old house ghost. With her legal career well behind her, she's hopeful her new chapter will lead her to happiness.

But when a man from her past enters the picture, a murder in her boyfriend's restaurant and a child in need throw everything into chaos. Forced to choose between the spirited house that saved her and a man who may just be the love of her life, Katie almost yearns for the simpler dramas she faced as a lawyer. Can she make the right choice without slipping back into the destructive ways of the past?

Leaving Annalise is a fast-paced romantic mystery. If you like strong women, whirlwind twists, and satisfying love stories, then you'll love USA Today best seller Pamela Fagan Hutchins' tightly-woven mystery.

Leaving Annalise is available in ebook, paperback, and