title: Deadly Reading: A Lily Pennwether Mystery
author:  Lonnie D Groendes 
description: Like many mystery and fantasy authors Lons life has been strewn with the unexpected, roads less familiar, relationships and associations both picaresque and eclectic. From studying acting with Uta Hagen at the HB Studios in New York to writing spec scripts for popular television crime dramas while hobnobbing with celebrities in Hollywood, his has been a journey fueled by little miracles, bizarre synchronicities and bullish determination Lon began writing little short stories when he was in elementary school. His teachers were more than a little disturbed at the content of his page-long masterpieces; ranging from a small village devastated by a volcano to the life of a forest tree cut down for Christmas  from the trees point of view. By the time he entered college, his aspirations were free-flying and his writing has won several awards in various formats: magazine articles, plays, screenplays, short stories and essays. Three of his one-act plays were produced professionally by a LORT Theatre in Mars Hill, North Carolina. In recent years he has concentrated on writing novels and stage plays for regional theatre productions. Lons professional experience in dramatic writing for the theater brings his colorful characters to life in spellbinding situations. He now lives in the North Carolina Piedmont; a unique region made infamous by the real life folk legends such as Tom Dooley and the Hatfields and the McCoys. The region has also nurtured giants of American literature such as novelist Thomas Wolfe and poet Carl Sandburg. After several visits to the charming town of Asheville, Lon was inspired to set his books, The Blue Ridge Murders and Deadly Reading, in the fictional ski-village of Waurika, a tourist mecca in the heart of the Appalachians.
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  For He Who Must Not Be Named. No, not Voldemort.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Chapter One
  
  
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  February 1856, Southampton, England
  
  
  > “YOU THERE. WHERE DO YOU think you’re off to? And where is your father?”
  
  > Miss Mary Chartley came to a stop in the hall, mere steps from escape. The
  > servants’ door was only a few feet away. She silently cursed the board that
  > had let out the telltale creak. Her shoulders ached. Her heart pounded. And
  > behind her eyes, a headache had started, brought on by sleeplessness and
  > unshed—
  
  > No. Not tears. She was done with crying.
  
  > She gathered her composure and her wits, and turned.
  
  > Her father’s one-time business partners had started to ransack the house
  > early that morning. She had heard them come in; the constable who had
  > accompanied them had even questioned her briefly. But they’d busied
  > themselves downstairs, leaving her free to do what needed to be done. She
  