Lamb To The Slaughter
by Karen Ann Hopkins
Synopsis:
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.
Book Links
Author Interview
1. For those who don't know you, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I live in northern
Kentucky with my five children on a farm that boasts a menagerie of horses,
goats, peacocks, chickens, ducks, rabbits, dogs and cats. My main job is home
schooling the kids, but I find time to give riding lessons, coach a youth
equestrian drill team, and of course, write books. I was inspired to write my
first book, TEMPTATION, from the Amish community that I live in. The
experiential knowledge I gained through interactions with my neighbors drove me
to create the story of the star-crossed lovers, Rose and Noah, which continued
in Belonging and came to a thrilling conclusion in Forever.
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 community. 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.
2. What has been the scariest moment in your life?
A pretty memorable incident that I’d
have to put at the top of my scariest moments list is a fall I took off a horse
on the edge of a cliff. I was in my
early twenties at the time of the incident and working at a riding stable in
the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I guided horse-back riding tours on the mountain trails and loved the
job immensely. At the end of the season,
all the guides who worked at the stable would get together for a ‘guide ride’ up
to Rainbow Falls. The trip generally
took a few hours and would have been a pleasurable excursion if it hadn’t been
for the fact that another guide took the horse that I usually rode and I was
stuck with a very temperamental Appaloosa mare for the trip. When we’d almost reached our destination, a
few other riders who had left earlier, passed by me heading back down the
trail. They were galloping along on a flat stretch and when they passed by me,
my lovely horse, Tonya, spooked and whirled around to race after them. I had absolutely no control whatsoever and in
a flash we were well past the other riders. The trail quickly narrowed and I found myself with a shear drop off of hundreds
of feet on my left and a steep embankment to the right. The usual trick of turning the mare into a
stop was not an option.
Tonya was hard
mouthed and insane to boot. I endured a
couple of agonized moments of racing down the mountain trail, dodging tree
branches and thinking about my two baby boys who were at home being babysat by
my mother. I honestly feared that they
were going to grow up without a mother.
The scariest part was that it seemed to take forever to for the
ride-from-hell to end. We finally
reached a place where a large Hemlock tree encroached too far onto the trail to
easily pass. At that moment I squeezed
my eyes shut and prayed that the horse somehow managed to get by the tree
without crashing into it or swerving off the side of the cliff. Luckily for me and Tonya, she kept her
footing and curled around that massive tree trunk. She barely slowed for the object in her path
and my right side hit the tree, knocking me from the crazy horse. I laid there in the churned up dirt of the
trial for a minute, thanking God and the universe that I was still alive. All in all, I ended up with a torn ear and a
long swath of nasty looking bruises down my arm and leg, but I was unharmed
other than that. Tonya made it down the
mountain without injury and I rode her several times after that, but never on a
guide ride again.
3. As a child, what did you want to be when
you grew up?
Growing up in upstate New York, I was
bitten by the horse bug at the tender age of five. After diligently taking riding lessons for
several years I was rewarded by my parents with my first horse at the age of
eleven. The feisty horse’s name was Lady, a Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred cross,
who became my steadfast companion. Through the years the constant force in my
life were horses, from pleasure riding and showing, to eventually finding a place
as a riding instructor myself. So I
guess you can say I’ve always wanted to be a great equestrian and hoped to make
a livelihood in the equine industry.
4. Who should play you in a film?
That’s
an interesting question. I think about
actors for my characters all the time, but never for me personally. If I had my pick, I’d be thrilled if Cate
Blanchett played me. She has the right
balance of earthiness and leadership qualities that I can relate to.
5. What would we find under your bed?
A
lot of cat hair! I have five house cats
and have joked on many occasions how their hair seems to gather under the bed
as if it’s trying to become a brand new cat.
6. Tell us about your family.
I’m
blessed with five beautiful children. My
oldest is nineteen and is currently working with the Amish learning the trade
of becoming a master house builder. My
seventeen year old son is into everything soccer and my fourteen year old
daughter is a mini-me, riding on an equestrian team and spending all her free
time on the back of a horse. My eleven
year old son is a little Harry Potter wannabe and my youngest daughter, who is
eight, is a mixture between ultra girly and Tom boy, making her an extremely
confusing and saucy child.
7. Do you have a love interest?
I’ve
finally made it through a stretch of some very rough years. After moving to northern Kentucky from
Tennessee for my ex-husband’s work in 2008, he left the family and returned the
south by himself shortly thereafter. He
was remarried to another woman within a few months of our divorce, and I’ve
been a struggling single mother of five since then. For a long time I didn’t even want to think
about love, which was ironic since I was in the middle of writing the romantic
Temptation series. Betrayal is a very difficult thing to overcome, but when I
was least expecting it, a really wonderful guy came along and my children and I
couldn’t help falling in love with him.
I’m happy once again and almost completely healed from the past.
This
or That:
Vampires or Werewolves? Werewolves
Hotmail or Gmail? Gmail
Chocolate or Vanilla Ice Cream? Chocolate
Summer or Winter? Summer
Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert
TV or Movies? Movies
It’s been great to stop by Chosen By You Book Club 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 for the promo price
of only $2.99, 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 tour Rafflecopter. Happy reading!
Karen Ann Hopkins
Limited-Time Offer!
For a limited time, Lamb to the Slaughter is available for $2.99 from Amazon and Barnes & Noble so get your copy now!
About the Author
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.
***Giveaway***
We have a really exciting prize package for this tour, so make sure to follow along for more chances to win every day! What’s up for grabs:
• A $100 Amazon Gift Card
• An autographed set of Karen’s YA Temptation series
• A traditional Amish style hand stitched wall hanging/lap quilt with the lone star pattern in country colors
Open internationally.
