mystery

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Just Released!

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The Butterfly Carpet Murders, the latest addition to my Bella Sarver Mystery series, is now available on Amazon.com.

It’s been a long two years and the pandemic isn’t over yet, but it’s finally under control, thanks to vaccines, masks, and treatment options. Bella Sarver and her husband, Art Halperin, are thrilled to be able to travel once more. They’ve been so looking forward to visiting the UK, particularly, the Scottish Highlands, home to so much beauty and fascinating history. True to expectations, the Highlands are indeed beautiful, but they’re also filled with ghosts from the past, ghosts that insist on intruding into the present.  When one of their fellow tourists meets with an accident, Bella wonders – was it an accident? Or something more sinister? Could it really be the curse of the butterfly carpet?

Though Art is leery of his wife getting involved with the case, Bella can’t help herself. She just has to figure out ‘who dunnit?’ Doesn’t she?

Available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Special Offer This Week

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A Wonderful Good Morning!

Special Offer, 1 week only – September 1 to September 8

Take advantage of the Kindle Countdown deal to purchase A Wonderful Good Morning at a discount price, only on Amazon. A Wonderful Good Morning is a mystery with a bit of science fiction thrown in. If you enjoyed Groundhog Day, you’ll love A Wonderful Good Morning.

Sometimes every day seems just like the one before.  Sometimes, it really is the day before.

Strange things have been happening to Tim for a while now.  Lately, his friends have learned to treat him very gently until he comes out of one of  his spells. His girlfriend, Natalie, decides a Rhine River cruise will be just what the two of them need to get things back to normal, but at the last minute, Tim is left to sail on his own. That’s when things get really weird. While he stares, yet again, at the very same clumps of algae in the very same stretch of the Rhine he’s been looking at for days, something finally clicks. Now the only problem is – how to fix it.

Meanwhile, Natalie and her artist friends back in Chicago wonder why Tim hasn’t returned from his vacation and why he doesn’t answer his phone. It’s not like him to just disappear;  he’s normally super responsible. They have no choice but to set off for Europe to find out what’s going on.

Click here to purchase.

A Wonderful Good Morning

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I’m excited to announce that my new Science Fiction novel is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and print versions. Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered the Kindle version, which you should have received yesterday. I hope you enjoy it, and will take a minute to write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

I have to say, I never saw myself as a Science Fiction writer before. But like creating mysteries, writing sci-fi is a matter of asking yourself “what if?” In A Wonderful Good Morning, the what if? is–what if our world is changing even more than we realize? What happens to an ordinary person then?

A Wonderful Good Morning by [Barbara Lipkin]

Sometimes every day seems just like the one before. Sometimes, it really is the day before.


Strange things have been happening to Tim for a while now. Lately, his friends have learned to treat him very gently until he comes out of one of his spells. His girlfriend, Natalie, decides a Rhine River cruise will be just what the two of them need to get things back to normal, but at the last minute, Tim is left to sail on his own. That’s when things get really weird. While he stares, yet again, at the very same clumps of algae in the very same stretch of the Rhine he’s been looking at for days, something finally clicks. Now the only problem is – how to fix it.


Meanwhile, Natalie and her artist friends back in Chicago wonder why Tim hasn’t returned from his vacation and why he doesn’t answer his phone. It’s not like him to just disappear; he’s normally super responsible. They have no choice but to set off for Europe to find out what’s going on.

Click here to order A Wonderful Good Morning

So How’s NaNoWriMo Going?

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Well, the goal was to write a 50,000 word draft by today. Am I going to make it? Not unless I can come up with 14,040 words by midnight! Highly unlikely.

But the good news is I’ve written 35,960 words towards “Time Warp: a Love Story,” which is a Mystery/Romance with Paranormal Elements. (That may be a new genre I just made up. ) I’m having a great time with this complicated story, which follows three main characters, Tim, Natalie, and Abby, each operating along separate timelines that coincide at several critical points. It’s quite different from my Bella Sarver Mystery series but at least as equally challenging to write as those four novels were.

So–back to work. Wish me luck!

Death on the Danube

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This week, I began draft #5 of Death on the Danube. I finished the 4th draft about a month ago and decided to just let it sit for a while. In the meantime, I let my husband read it. He thinks it’s really good, but he had some helpful suggestions, too. I’ve been mulling things around, and now I’m ready to approach the project with a fresh eye.

The story is done. The mystery is solved. (Hint: Bella Sarver provides the key information, though she has a lot of help from the German and Romanian police.) But now it’s time to really whip this book into shape.

This is my fourth novel, and I’ve learned quite a bit about the writing process. It’s all very well to come up with a basic mystery, but fleshing out the characters, letting them tell the story in their own words, and letting the story go its own way is where the work part comes in. It’s fun, too, though, a new adventure every time. So back to work, and I’ll keep you posted on progress.