Smashing the Glass Ceiling #FearlessFriday by Susie Black

FEARLESS FRIDAY

Please welcome Susie Black back to Discover... Her Fearless Friday tale is for sure fearless, and I'm happy to say successful. It's a great story, so read on! And be sure to read to the end where the link to a free swimwear fit guide is just for you.

My maternal grandmother had two favorite expressions: Man plans and God laughs, and nothing turns out the way you think it will. She believed things happen for a reason, even if we don’t always understand why. She warned me to be careful what I wished for since I might get it. That sometimes God punishes us by granting us our wishes, and other times God saves us by not granting them. And that God helps those who help themselves. As I’d come to learn, my wise nana had the secret of life down pat. 

At the end of my college freshman year, my dad, a ladies' apparel sales rep, got a huge opportunity and moved my family from Los Angeles to Miami. Relocating from hip LA to “God’s waiting room” failed to excite me, and I chose not to go. 

Three years later, armed with my journalism degree and a blind idealism only the young can sustain, I dreamed of being a writer, but fate had other plans. A family crisis threw me into an improbable situation. During an Atlanta trade show, my dad needed to leave to attend to the crisis and reached out to me to take over the trade show in his place. I pointed out the obvious to my dad…that the only experience I had with ladies’ apparel is that I wore it. Nonetheless, this was my father…so how could I turn him down? Of course, I couldn’t. 

After only an hour of apparel sales lessons, my dad left me to run the tradeshow for three days. Miraculously, I wrote a huge number of orders and my dad offered me a job as a sub rep. Graduate school wasn’t appealing, so I accepted my dad’s offer. 

Baptism by fire got me into the rag biz. My life veered off in a completely different direction than I intended, and it would never be the same. Despite not knowing a soul there, I moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta. After a week of training, I became a manufacturer’s sales representative and traveled a territory comprised of four states in the deep south. 

While the majority of people were friendly, nothing could have prepared this California kid for the culture shock of living in Dixie. Completely foreign social mores- including anti-Semitism and countless acts of racial discrimination- different cuisine, and a stifling hot and humid climate I never got used to made it seem as though I had moved to another country, and not just another state. 

Schlepping six canvass garment bags filled with heavy samples in and out of numerous stores everyday…it was a tough way to make a buck, and I earned every plug nickel with my sweat, tears, and aching back. 

As a woman working in a traditionally male-dominated industry, I had to prove myself every day. When I started my apparel sales career, no other woman did what I did in the deep southern states. Depending upon who you spoke with, I was either famous or infamous-but one thing was certain: I was the talk of the garment industry. No one-except my mentor father and me- thought I’d last a season. 

Grit and stubborn perseverance to prove them all wrong kept me going, no matter how daunting the
challenge. And prove them wrong I did- and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I took a sledgehammer to every glass ceiling I encountered and smashed it to smithereens. And the bonus? I opened many doors for the next generation of women executives to succeed in male-dominated industries. 

But if it wasn’t for my nana urging me to “Keep a journal. Get all your experiences down on paper. Maybe this is the reason you’re in the rag biz. This must be the story you’re destined to write,” I doubt if I ever would have leveraged my successful ladies’ apparel sales career into a writing gig. 

It was my daily journal entries chronicling the interesting, quirky, and often challenging characters I encountered and the crazy situations I got myself into and out of that gave me the stories I’d ultimately write and thanks to Nana, my life completed the destiny of its circle.

Link for Swimwear Fit Guide

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7lerp4cy1al2j0l/CHOOSING%20THE%20RIGHT%20%20SWIMSUIT.pdf?dl=0

Susie's latest great book released November 15.  CLICK HERE

Holly Schlivnik dreams of being a writer, but fate has other plans. A family crisis throws her into an improbable situation and her life will never be the same. Determined to make her own luck when things don’t happen the way she plans, the irrepressible young woman takes a sledgehammer to the glass ceiling and shatters it to smithereens. The wise-cracking, irreverent transplanted Californian goes on a raucous, rollicking rollercoaster ride of hysterical adventures as a ladies' apparel sales rep traveling in the deep South and finds herself along the way.

Susie Black biography

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that
sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Contact Susie at:

Website: www.authorsusieblack.com

E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

How I Became a Cozy Mystery Writer by Susie Black

MUSE MONDAY

It's so fun to have Susie Black back for Muse Monday on Discover... And has she got something special for you. Did you know there's a whole method to choosing the right swimsuit for whatever body shape you possess? No kidding! Here it is readers, in time for summer. CLICK HERE and then read on for a fun post. And thanks, Susie!

Like the protagonist in my Holly Swimsuit murder mystery series, I am a ladies’ apparel sales exec. The most critically important skill a sales exec must have to succeed is to be a good storyteller. Fortunately, I’ve been telling stories since I learned how to talk. One thing I’d been told over and over as a sales exec was to know your product inside out.  I heard the same thing when I started writing cozy mysteries: write what you know. If you don’t know it, either do the research and learn it or don’t dare to write it. Whether you’re an author or a sales exec, you’re selling yourself, and readers, like buyers, can sniff out a phony in a heartbeat, and then you and whatever kind of story you’re telling are toast.

I came to write in the cozy mystery genre because I love solving puzzles. My parents would certainly confirm I have always asked a lot of questions, and I am naturally curious (some narrow-minded people say I am nosy…go figure…LOL). So, writing mysteries was the natural

next step for me to take. Since I’d never written a novel before, the only thing I knew to do was to apply the same story-telling skills I’d successfully used hawking bikinis to writing a tale. So, where did my story ideas come from? From the start of my career, I have kept a daily journal that chronicles the quirky, interesting, and often challenging people I’ve encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of. The journal entries are the foundation of all my writing. With a dollop of imagination, a pinch of angst, and a decades-long career chocked to the gills with juicy characters, I had more stories itching to be told in my daily journal than time to write them.

Who could push a sales exec to dream of murder and mayhem? Who else but a buyer?  After completing a rather challenging conversation with an important, but difficult account, I imagined how good it would feel with my hands around her scrawny neck, squeezing the life out of her. While the notion of knocking off my annoying customers was wildly appealing, a horizontally striped prison uniform making my four-foot, nine-inch body look like a barbershop pole and a fire hydrant had a child wasn’t a pretty sight. The viable alternative?  Writing humorous murder mysteries set in the Los Angeles garment center. Brilliant and cathartic! In one fell swoop, eliminate a pain-in-the-patootie buyer, avoid life in prison, and still get the order. It doesn’t get any better than that.

DEATH BY CUTTING TABLE BLURB

Butch Oldham didn’t have an honest bone in his body. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the bastard dead. The question was, who didn’t. Mermaid Swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik finds colleague Queenie Levine standing over Mermaid CEO Butch Oldham’s bloody corpse nailed to a fabric cutting table with a big honkin’ pair of cutting shears plunged deep into his chest. When the cops discover Queenie’s blood-soaked sweater, learn about her stormy relationship with the victim, and her public threats to make Butch pay for destroying Mermaid Swimwear by stealing it blind, Holly’s colleague shoots to the top of the suspect list. When Queenie is arrested, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent for revenge. 

EXCERPT

I cracked open the forward door and stuck my head out. I scoped a one-eighty around the dock. The street lights were on, as well as the lights at the top of the gangplank. A half-dozen apartments were also lit. A single light shined inside a cabin cruiser two boats from mine. My boat seemed to be the only thing in the marina with no power.

This isn’t the first time I’d been the only one with no power. When I first bought the boat, I learned the hard way don’t let the coffee maker, microwave oven, and television run at the same time or the circuits overload. But in the middle of the night with no appliances running or an electrical storm to cause a power outage? The blood froze in my veins. The answer isn’t inside the boat. I hoisted myself over the forward deck onto the dock with my heart in my throat.

A faint hint of smoke wafted from the breaker box and power outlet as I reached the end of the dock. I yanked the damaged plug out of the outlet and threw it in the water. I blasted the dock power outlet and breaker box with the fire extinguisher and pulled the other end of the power cord out of my boat power outlet. Eight minutes after my nine-one-one call, the cavalry arrived in force and all hell broke loose.

****

The psychedelic light shows of the emergency vehicles flashing strobe bubbles created an eerie specter as they bounced off the walls of the apartment buildings across from the marina. While the firemen examined the breaker box, two LA County Deputy Sheriffs kept my dock neighbors at a distance from my houseboat now swathed with yellow crime scene tape.

After the Deputy Sheriffs arrived, Antonio, the security guard, called the Dockmaster to bring her up to speed. Twenty minutes later, Dock Mistress Audrey Camarillo showed up at my slip to consult with me and the first responders.

A fireman squatted in front of the breaker box and electric outlet. “See this?” Siggie sidled over next to the fireman and the nosy parker hound rested his head on the guy’s shoulder for a closer look. The fireman laughed and gave my curious canine a howdy-do scratch behind the ears.

The fireman pointed to the marine power cable connected from the outlet to my boat. The interior guts of the marine cable are covered by a protective rubber encasement. The cable was slit open, exposing the wiring inside mid-cable to the prongs of the tampered plug. Several strips of aluminum foil anchored in place by a fistful of pennies laid on the dock adjacent to the breaker box.

The fireman said, “Whoever did this is no amateur. They knew exactly what they were doing. If they hadn’t been interrupted, they would’ve jammed the pennies in the breakers and wrapped the breakers with the aluminum foil. The breaker would’ve blown and ignited a fire. With the rubber-coated power cable serving as a connector, the fiberglass boat would’ve burned to a crisp in a matter of minutes.” He stroked his gloved hand across Siggie’s head. “It’s a darned good thing Ms. Schlivnik’s dog scared them off.” He turned a one-eighty around the basin. “With all the gasoline-powered motors, they came within a hair of blowing up the dock and burning this entire basin to ashes.” The fireman shoved his helmet to the crown of his head and whistled through a gap in his front teeth. “Somebody wanted Ms. Schlivnik dead. They came mighty close to succeeding.”

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department detective turned to me and asked, “Any idea who is responsible?”

I motioned to the gate above the gangplank. “That’s a security gate. You need a key to get into the basins. Every tenant has a key to the gate and their key works on every gate in the marina. I’m not saying boaters don’t let outsiders in, because we all do. But this time of night, I doubt if a boater is still out, and if someone was, they certainly wouldn’t let a stranger in.”

Audrey shrank back in horror. “You’re saying one of our tenants is responsible?”

I nodded. “Yeah, and I’ve got a pretty good idea which one. She was aboard her boat last night.”

BOOK LINKS:

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C62HRJXM

Barnes & Noble:  Death by Cutting Table by Susie Black | eBook | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Book Bub:  Death by Cutting Table (Holly Swimsuit Mystery Book 4) by Susie Black - BookBub

Goodreads:   Death by Cutting Table (Holly Swimsuit Mystery Book 4) by Susie Black | Goodreads

SUSIE BLACK BIO

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Contact Susie at:

Website: www.authorsusieblack.com

E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

Also Find Susie here:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/susieblack.com

Facebook:    https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

Instagram:   Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1_saved/

Twitter:    http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit

A Journal and a Story by Susie Black #CozyMystery #AmateurSleuth

FEARLESS FRIDAY

Please welcome brand new author, Susie Black. She's written a fun book, and below you can read her equally fun post! 

I learned many invaluable life lessons from my wise Nana, but the two that have been the foundation of how I live my life are that nothing turns out the way you think it will and that things happen for a reason, even if you don’t always understand why. The way my career turned out is proof-positive Nana was spot on: I had planned a career as a journalist, but life had other plans. Right after my college graduation, our family had an emergency while my apparel sales rep Dad was at a trade show in Atlanta. When no one from his companies could cover for him so he could attend to the emergency, dad asked me to help. Despite having absolutely no background or interest in his business, this was my dad, so of course, I said yes. After giving me a half-hour crash course in how to sell ladies’ apparel, dad left me alone to muddle through running the trade show. When he returned three days later he was taken aback at how many orders I’d written. To my utter astonishment, he offered me a job as a sub-rep. No one was more surprised than me when I passed on graduate school, accepted dad’s offer, and moved cross-country to Atlanta in less than a week. 

When I began my apparel industry career as a sales rep in the deep southern states, I was the ONLY
woman traveling a territory. I had to prove myself to everyone in the industry every day. Retailers, as well as manufacturers, doubted my ability to do the job or last more than a season.  I proved all the doubters wrong and broke every glass ceiling. 

Like the protagonist in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, I am a ladies’ swimwear sales exec in the greater Los Angeles area. From the beginning of my career, I have kept a daily journal chronicling the interesting, quirky, and sometimes quite challenging people I have encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of. My daily journal entries are the foundation of everything I write. 

As a female who has succeeded in a historically male-dominated industry, it was important to me to write about the apparel business from a woman’s point of view. All of my characters are based on real people, and the central characters are all strong, successful women who have beaten the odds. Holly Schlivnik, the main character in the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, is based on me with some poetic license taken, of course. The plots and premises of my stories all take place in the fast-paced ladies' apparel industry. The premise behind the story in Death by Sample Size is what if a buying office big shot in the apparel industry was so universally disliked, that when she was murdered, there were so many potential suspects that it wasn’t a question of who wanted her dead, it was a question of who didn’t. 

Somewhere out in the great beyond, Nana is smiling. She was right; things rarely turn out the way you think they will but they do happen for a reason. I got into the rag biz because I was destined to write about it.

DEATH BY SAMPLE SIZE

Everyone wanted her dead…but who actually killed her? The last thing swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik expected was to discover ruthless buying office big wig Bunny Frank's corpse trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey with a bikini stuffed down her throat. When Holly's colleague is arrested for Bunny's murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to find the real killer. Nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she matches wits with a wily murderer hellbent for revenge.

BOOK LINKS:

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Sample-Size-Hilarious-Whodunit-ebook/dp/B093F24T3F/

BARNES & NOBLE: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-sample-size-susie-black/1139356591

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/Susie-black

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57877534-death-by-sample-size

Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?pcampaignid=books_read_action&id=k8swEAAAQBAJ

I Tunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/death-by-sample-size/id1564686461

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=Death+by+Sample+Size 

TARGET.COM: https://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=Death+by+Sample+Size

Susie Black biography

Born in the Big Apple, Susie Black now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Reach her at mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

Also Find Susie Here:

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/Susie-black

Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57877534-death-by-sample-size

Instagram: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1_saved/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit