Friday Guest Host: Karen Pullen April 11, 2013

Author Karen Pullen is a PhD-toting engineer turned bed and breakfast owner whose first novel, Cold Feet, launched from Five Star Publishing/Gale in January.

In Cold Feet, special Agent Stella Lavender has a stressful‚ adrenaline-fueled job: buying drugs undercover from paranoid drug dealers.

So one afternoon she’s grateful to be relaxing at an elegant outdoor wedding. But as the guests wait‚ then grow restive‚ the satin-clad bride is dying most horribly. Who would kill a bride—an “angel” according to the groom—just minutes before her nuptials?

Joining the investigation‚ Stella discovers the bride’s surprising history and that jealousy‚ depression‚ and grief colored her relationships.

In Cold Feet‚ Karen Pullen draws the reader into a riveting story that alternates between Stella’s life as a drug agent and her determination to untangle a complex knot of secrets‚ harmful emotions‚ and questions of identity in order to find a killer.

Karen Pullen left a perfectly good job at an engineering consulting firm to make her fortune (um, maybe not) as an innkeeper and a fiction writer. Her B&B has been open for 12 years, and she’s published short stories in Every Day Fiction, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Spinetingler. Her first novel, a mystery called Cold Feet, was released by Five Star in January 2013. She lives in Pittsboro, N.C. with her husband, her father, and four spoiled cats.

Follow Karen Pullen on Twitter: @KarenWPullen.