The Girls in Cabin Number Three is a Celebrate Canada/America Event pick #4thofjuly #womensfiction
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  • N. N. Light
    • Jul 4, 2023
    • 6 min read

The Girls in Cabin Number Three is a Celebrate Canada/America Event pick #4thofjuly #womensfiction



Title: The Girls in Cabin Number Three


Author: Chrysteen Braun


Genre: Women’s Fiction, Cozy Noir Mystery


Book Blurb:


"With themes of love, family, friendship, new beginnings, and the complexity of life, readers will get hooked from the very beginning." —San Francisco Book Review


"[The Girls in Cabin Number Three]'s complex, interesting characters, and engrossing historical and geographical settings make it a must-read." —Readers' Favorite


“Braun’s a top-notch storyteller; The Girls in Cabin Number Three is well plotted with clearly defined and relatable characters. Her research is exemplary.”

—Kate Osborn, formerly with the Mountain News, Lake Arrowhead


“Annie meets Carrie Davis, a new guest who slowly begins to unravel secrets from her own family’s past in the second part of The Guest Book Trilogy: The Girls in Cabin Number Three… with plenty of intrigue in an idyllic mountain locale.”

—Susan Denley, former Associate Features Editor, Los Angeles Times.


In book two of the Guest Book Trilogy, eighty-one-year-old Annie Parker recounts taking on, against the wishes of her new love Noah, an out-of-town design project that leads her down a path that is more than she bargained for.


Back in Lake Arrowhead, California, a long-awaited mystery is buried in Cabin Number Three. Annie meets Carrie Davis who wants to update her childhood home on the lake and feels a tie to Annie’s cabins. Apparently, Carrie’s parents stayed here during the Roaring ‘20s when Bugsy Siegel ran an underground speakeasy and distillery. Unconvinced, Annie decides to investigate and finds their names in the old guest books—Elizabeth Davis and Thomas Meyer. As exciting as that sounds, it’s only the start of a winding tale that Carrie and the new man in her life uncover. The pair unravel a family history filled with gangsters, working girls, and a surprising twist to a family tree.


The Girls in Cabin Number Three combines women’s fiction with romance, cozy noir mystery, and suspense—all wrapped up in the majestic environs of this lovely lakeside haven.


Excerpt:


As soon as I read the note, I pounded on Mary’s door.


“I think I might have a chance at becoming an actress after all,” I blurted. I hadn’t mentioned the failed audition or my fall the previous day.


“That’s so exciting!” Mary hugged me.


“Ow,” I said, wincing. “I can’t believe it,” I said as I rushed off. “I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.”


I was on cloud nine. That night I treated myself to dinner at the diner where I’d met Mr. Adler and imagined myself a famous star that everyone would recognize as I had Miss Crawford. I was so nervous, I barely ate, and had the waitress wrap the rest of my dinner in foil; I’d drop it off at Mary’s, where someone was always hungry.


I laid out my outfit and set my hair in pin curls. I then realized I didn’t have a way to reach the drugstore to tell them I wouldn’t be in the next day, but then cast the need aside.


‘Cast;’ what an appropriate word. I was going to be an actress and soon I wouldn’t need to worry about either of my sales jobs.


***


I lost my job at the Thrifty when I didn’t show up for work that next day. And becoming an actress was not what Mr. Adler had in mind for me. I wasn’t being offered a movie career, but something else “more profitable and more important.”


“There’s a famous hotel in town where movie people and some very influential individuals come to stay,” Mr. Adler said.


***

It was still 1923 when I moved from my apartment into the Hollywood Hotel.


I was to do make-up for the young ladies who also stayed there, and become a personal assistant to a woman named Virginia Hill who had a suite there. My salary would be two hundred dollars a month!


I shared a room with another girl, a very pretty southerner from South Carolina. Her name was Linette, and she was an escort.


“When gentlemen stay in the hotel and have somewhere important to go, they like to be accompanied by a pretty lady,” she explained. “I get to wear beautiful clothes, go to fancy restaurants, meet interesting people, and the best part is I make $25 for the evening.”


My mouth dropped open.


From Linette, I learned movie moguls and screen stars like Rudolph Valentino and Ethel Barrymore had stayed in the hotel.


“Have you seen them? Any stars, I mean?”


“Of course, silly,” she responded, surprised I’d ask such a question. “All the time. I’ve even met Louis B. Mayer.”


The day after I moved in, I met Virginia Hill.


Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):












What makes your featured book a must-read?


Living in the mountains I enjoyed the descriptions of places and environments. I feel like I’ve made new friends in Annie & Josh. I’ve just finished 2 in this series and can’t wait for the third. – Amazon Reviewer


The author paints a picture with such details that you cannot help but breeze thru the chapters. – Amazon Reviewer


This book is a dual-timeline story with interesting characters, a mystery to unravel, and a beautiful lake setting. You’ll want to curl up with this book. – N. N. Light’s Book Heaven


Books one and two are available at your favorite retailer in both e-book and print. Join the mass of readers who are loving this trilogy.


Giveaway –


Enter to win a $10 Amazon gift card:



Open Internationally. You must have a valid Amazon US or Amazon Canada account to win.

Runs June 29 – July 6, 2023.


Winner will be drawn on July 7, 2023.


Author Biography:


Chrysteen Braun is a California native, born and raised in Long Beach.


The Lake Arrowhead mountains, where she and her husband had a second home, were the inspiration for her first three books, The Guestbook Trilogy. These fictional restored cabins from the late 1920s all had their own stories to tell. Through their children, readers get their first glimpse of who stayed in the cabins, but not why.


Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret and Linda Holmes's Evvie Drake Starts Over.


"A touching novel charting two women’s parallel lives, tied together by mysteries, transformation, and a cabin." —Booklife


"Braun delivers a moving portrayal of a young woman searching for herself amid personal upheaval." —Booklife


"Masterfully written, intriguing, mystifying, and spooky are how I would classify The Man in Cabin Number Five by Chrysteen Braun. As a great background, Braun uses the mountainous area and cabins to her advantage in telling the stories of Annie and Alyce. This is an exceptional plot, never leading the reader too far from the original storyline. Her character development is outstanding. I was able to feel everything Annie felt." Teresa Syms for Readers' Favorite Book Reviews and Awards.


"In The Man in Cabin Number Five, Chrysteen Braun narrates a deeply compelling, inspiring, and adorable narrative about the mountainside cabins of Lake Arrowhead, shocking secrets, and two women that are linked to the cabins in different ways—one by a buried past and the other by optimistic plans for the future.


"Chrysteen Braun does a mind-blowing job of building the characters and making them lifelike and easy to relate to. The first-person narrative is done to perfection as it reads like the narrators are speaking to friends—natural, lively, and jovial. I laughed out loud when I read the part where Anne claims that a bag of chips and a soda are "just what the doctor ordered.


"The Man in Cabin Number Five inspires anyone recovering from betrayal and infidelity to keep living and working towards a better future. The picturesque descriptions of the scenes and characters will appeal to readers who wish to get completely immersed in and escape into a fictional world. Chrysteen Braun creates a masterpiece with smooth storytelling that juxtaposes the serenity of the mountains with the eruptive chaos of dangerous secrets and ends with a bang. What a terrific story! What a talented writer!" Foluso Falaye, for the San Francisco Book Review.


Her writing crosses genres with Women's Fiction with relationships, and a little mystery and intrigue. She's published articles about her field of interior design and remodeling, both for trade publications and her local newspaper and has just received a Book Excellence Award for The Man in Cabin Number Five.


Braun lives in Coto de Caza, California (southern Orange County) with her husband Larry and two Siamese cats.


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