2023 Readings and Events
Tucson Festival of Books. https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/
March 9 and 10, 2023. Come by to enjoy an amazing festival on March 9 and 10. I’ll be at the Tucson Sisters in Crime booth from 11:30-1:30 on Saturday, and the Women Writing the West booth on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons!
Mysteries of the Gila
An evening of words and images at Diana Ingalls Leyba Studio and Gallery
315 N. Bullard St., Silver City
5-7 PM, April 15, 2023
Join author Marty Eberhardt and artist Elli Sorensen for Mysteries of the Gila, a reading and art exhibit. In Marty Eberhardt’s second mystery in the Bea Rivers series, Bones in the Back Forty, an oldskeleton is found in a Tucson botanical garden. Meet some quirky suspects in a little town in southwest New Mexico called Copperton. Marty will read passages that take place in the Gila region. Elli Sorensen offers new work representing the flora, fauna, and landscapes of the Gila River ecosystem.
Marty and Elli are Silver City residents, award-winners, and fast friends. The reading will take place from 5:15-5:45, followed by questions and book signings. Elli’s paintings will be on display and for sale throughout the evening. Light refreshments will be served.
Review of Bones in the Back Forty in the Albuquerque Journal, February 26, 2023:
https://www.abqjournal.com/2576214/bones-in-the-back-forty-lets-you-cozy-up-with-a-southwest-whodunit-ex.htmlhttps://www.abqjournal.com/2576214/bones-in-the-back-forty-lets-you-cozy-up-with-a-southwest-whodunit-ex.html
Debut of Bones in the Back Forty, #2 in the Bea Rivers series, at Tucson Botanical Gardens January 14th 2023.
January 14, 2023, 10 am:
Free Presentation & Book Signing with Marty Eberhardt, Author of Bones in the Back Forty
Jan. 14 at 1pm: Mystery Writers Workshop with author Marty Eberhardt
https://tucsonbotanical.org/class/mystery-writers-workshop-hosted-by-marty-eberhardt-in-person/
February 11, 2023, 10 am-2 pm:
Book signing at Coas Books, Las Cruces, NM from 10 am-2pm Saturday, February 11.
February 25, 2023, 10:30-12:00 , Croak and Dagger Panel, Cherry Hills Library
February 26, 2023, 1:30-3:30 PM:
Book signing, Treasure House Books and Gifts, Albuquerque, NM
March 3-5, 2023:
Tucson Festival of Books: at the Women Writing the West booth
March 4, 11 am-2:00 pm and March 5, 3:00-6pm
Tucson Sisters in Crime Booth, March 5, noon-2:00
March 9, 2023 3-6 PM:
Book signing at Petroglyphs: A Tucson Emporium
March 26, 2023, 10 AM:
Respecting the Ancients: Remembering the Mimbres Through a Murder Mystery
Marty will read passages from Bones in the Back Forty that take place in the Gila Region, and discuss some of the book’s themes.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Silver City, Silver City, NM
April 15, 2023, 5-7 PM:
“Mysteries of the Gila” 5-7 PM pm Diana Ingalls Leyba Studio and Gallery, Silver City, NM. Reading from 5:15-5:45, followed by book signings. Beautiful paintings of the GIla region by Elli Sorensen will be on display.
Reviews
Praise for Bones in the Back Forty
” Marty Eberhardt, Silver City/Tucson mystery novelist, is a rare find. As in her premier outing for garden employee Bea Rivers, Marty’s “Bones in the Back Forty” tells a sweet, sweet story. She offers a new genre of joyful suspense every time a reader cracks open one of her books.” —-Tom Hester, Silver City Daily press and Independent, April 2023
“If you like your crime fiction light and lively, then Marty Eberhardt’s Bones in the Back Forty: A Bea Rivers Mystery is for you.” — David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal, February 26, 2023
“When the old bones of a sixties-era murder victim surface in a peaceful Tucson desert gardenin Bones in the Back Forty, suspicion radiates out through two states, unearthing buried scandals and long forgotten crimes, in a story that demonstrates justice delayed doesn’t necessarily mean justice denied. Marty Eberhardt has penned another winner.” — Kris Neri, NM-AZ Book Award-winning author of Hopscotch Life
“Marty Eberhardt takes the reader on an immersive journey into the beauty of the southwestern landscape where ancient artifacts mingle with decidedly modern bones in her second Bea Rivers mystery, Bones in the Back Forty. Bea juggles her job at a botanical garden, raises two children on her own, parries personal threats, and negotiates a love affair as she travels between her home in Tucson to southwestern New Mexico to unearth the truth. Along the way Mimbres culture and stunning Gila landscapes shape the background of her investigation. Eberhardt’s story is leavened by humor and interwoven with suspense.”
–Lynn C. Miller, author of The Unmasking and The Day After Death
“BONES IN THE BACK FORTY by Marty Eberhardt is a captivating mystery set in a fictional Tucson botanical garden where mysterious murders, decades apart, seem at first to be unconnected. Vivid characters put you in the midst of the illegal Mimbres pot-hunting trade amid the iconic beauty of the resilient desert Southwest. This gripping story intertwines Eberhardt’s deep knowledge of the desert landscape with characters whose social and ethical leanings invite readers to pause and consider the impacts each of us has on our fragile environment.” Betsy Randolph
2021-2022 President
Women Writing the West
“Marty Eberhardt crafts the perfect picture of life as a public garden professional. She skillfully creates characters both as charming as the garden itself and as complicated as the history of the Southwest.
When human remains are discovered at Shandley Botanical Gardens, the quiet garden is once again thrust into the public eye. Bea Rivers, a young mother and dedicated staff member, is asked to step up and step into a role she never aspired to. Bones in the Back Forty is filled with twists and turns, making it a great read! The second in a series of Shandley Garden mysteries – I’m hooked!”Michelle Conklin
Screenwriter and Executive Director, Tucson Botanical Gardens
“Bones in the Back Forty, Eberhardt’s exciting sequel to Death in a Desert Garden, will have you looking suspiciously at those horticulturists who specialize in succulents. Rare but beautiful desert blooms do appear in Shandley Gardens, but so do long-buried bones. Bea Rivers, volunteer coordinator in the Tucson-area facility, is curious and tenacious, determined to uncover the who, how, and why of the bones found in the garden’s xeriscape.
Eberhardt has skillfully created a world of characters we all want to know, so that we root for Bea as she digs her way into this second harrowing “garden” adventure. We shiver as not only Bea, but her loved ones face threats from a diabolical mind. Whoever planted those bones never intended for them to make their way back to the surface.”Mary Coley, author of Blood on the Mother Road, 2022 fiction winner, Oklahoma Book Awards
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From a review by Tom Hester, Independent Book Critic, Silver City Independent, June 2, 2022
I invite readers to survey shelves of new paperbacks for so-called detective or thriller fiction. These are the days of cruel drug gangs threatening detectives whose own backgrounds are shady. Or the plots rely on “serial killers” who inspire page turning by shoving menace closer and closer to the protagonists. Mayhem rules! Twisted psyches reappear with a frightening regularity. If you are weary of gory violence filling pages and of narratives that stagger from one dead body to the next, Marty Eberhardt, a Silver Citian with her premier detective novel, offers relief. In fact, Eberhardt’s “Death in a Desert Garden” destroys more than one bloody formula of modern mysteries.
Eberhardt recalls that her teen reading followed the grand dame of mystery, Agatha Christie. Though Christie suggested basic techniques, “Death in a Desert Garden” lies far from a cozy English village crowded with deadly eccentrics. Familiar suspects do inhabit the Tucson garden, however. With her skillful dialogue, the author convinces a reader that a governing board for a nonprofit can be as ominous as a Mafia family. Is the egocentric professor, the board’s only professional botanist, capable of murder? With sly details Eberhardt convinces us that if he isn’t the villain, he should be. Perhaps the board chairman, a driven restaurateur, bore an ancient urge for revenge against the East Coast snob, the garden’s founder, who fell victim to a justifiable homicide. Maybe another ancient wrong, fostered in a tony Virginia private school, led to vengeance?
It’s up to Bea Rivers, the garden’s volunteer coordinator, to sift through the crime and its motives before the police come to a wrong conclusion. It’s with Bea — and her precarious hold on a job in an underfunded nonprofit — that “Death in a Desert Garden” finds its center. She’s no Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, whose little gray cells deliver the key to unlock an enigma. She’s a single mom beset by a philandering ex, two very vibrant kids, and a new boyfriend who may not be a new boyfriend.
Oppressed by Tucson’s heat and at social loose ends, Bea stands in front of her closet deciding whether to toss a garment into the Goodwill bag. Just as she uncovers scheming, backbiting and messages from flowers, she receives from the summer care program the stern note every parent dreads — she must treat her kids for head lice. Single parenthood requires, if not a village, then at least a corral full of cooperative friends.
Often puzzled, Bea remains our trustworthy guide to the heart of this mystery. It’s a remarkable feature of this novel that we seek “the solution” because Bea Rivers wants the true answer, not because a plot confection demands it.
Bea and the knowledgeable exposition of Southwestern flora are why I’m anticipating with eagerness the next desert garden mystery, already scheduled for a 2023 release.Reading at the Silver City Public Library, May 2, 2022 3pm
Praise for Death in a Desert Garden
“For fans of cozy mysteries in Southwestern settings.”
Library Journal
“Marty Eberhardt creates a tale full of endearing characters, alluring landscapes, and local flavor. Just when former teacher, single mom, nature-loving Bea Rivers finds her niche in a job she loves at Shandley Botanical Garden, a murder on the grounds threatens not only her job but the future of the garden. Bea isn’t going to let this Tucson gem close, nor let a self-important jerk take over, much less let her co-workers take the fall for the baffling crime. Seeded with native plant lore, Death in a Desert Garden had me guessing right to the end. If you can’t get enough of good mysteries with southwest settings, make Death in a Desert Garden the very next book on your reading list.”
Vicky Ramakka, Author, The Cactus Plot – Murder in The High Desert
“Take a peaceful desert botanical garden, add a small, dedicated staff, and a quirky board of directors with decades of hidden simmering resentments. When a partially severed tree limb kills the widow of the founder of the garden, everyone is a suspect. The lush descriptions of the plants and the ecological considerations involved in running a desert garden are the canvas on which the investigation unfolds. You’ll keep turning the pages until the totally unexpected conclusion.”
Carolyn Niethammer, award-winning author of eleven books on the food and people of the Southwest.
“Combining a determined sleuth who skillfully navigates all levels of Tucson society, with such a vivid sense of the Southwest you feel the blistering summer heat from the page and see the unexpected beauty of the desert, with a mystery that will keep you guessing until the final pages – makes Marty Eberhardt’s Death in a Desert Garden a first-rate addition to the ranks of debut mystery novels. Brava!”
Kris Neri, NM-AZ Book Award-winning author of Hopscotch Life
“Marty Eberhardt expertly draws the reader into the beauty and danger of the desert, weaving elements of the traditional mystery into the story along the way. The result is a great read!”
Marty Wingate, author of the First Edition Library mysteries and the Potting Shed mysteries
READINGS
Mission Garden, Tucson, October 9, 2021, 4-6 PM ( by invitation only)
Tucson Botanical Gardens, October 16, 2021, 10 AM and 1 PM https://tucsonbotanical.org/event/mary-eberhardt-death-in-a-desert-garden-reading/
Tohono Chul Park, Tucson, October 17, 2021 10 AM https://tohonochul.org/upcomingevents/classes-lectures-workshops/
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Silver City, Silver City, NM October 24, 2021 10 AM
Makers’ Market, Silver City, NM 10 am-2pm Saturday, October 30. https://www.thefutureforge.org/makers-market
Treasure House Books and Gifts , Albuquerque, NM, Saturday, November 13, 1:30-3:30. Click here for more information
An Evening with Two Mystery Writers and Artemesia Publishing, Wednesday, November 17, 2021 7:00 PM MST by ZOOM. Register before noon on November 17 by sending your email to martyeberhardt@earthlink.net
Silver City Public Library, 3pm, May 2
Water Conservation Garden, El Cajon, CA, December 2021
MEDIA
Speak Up talk Radio Interview about Firebird Awards, May 17, 2022 https://www.speakuptalkradio.com/author-marty-eberhardt/
“All About Books,” hosted by Lynn Moorer, KTAL radio Las Cruces, NM. 12:30 PM September 24, live-streamed on lccommunity radio.org https://www.lccommunityradio.org/archives/all-about-books-marty-eberhardt
“Write On! Four Corners” hosted by Traci HalesVass, November 10, 2021, Farmington, NM https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fyhym-1129f8a?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share
“Caravan”, gmcr.org, hosted by Carolyn Smith, www.spinitron.com/kuru/calendar . Go to Monday, January 3, “Caravan” at 2:pm, then put in 3pm. The interview starts about 3:02.
Other Events
Left Coast Crime Conference
Author Speed Dating, 9am April 7, 2022; Meet the New Authors , 7:30 am April 8, 2022, Cozy Mystery Panel, 9am April 10, 2022