Paula Munier

The instant USA Today bestseller! The first in a gripping new series by Paula Munier, A Borrowing of Bones is full of complex twists, introducing a wonderful new voice for mystery readers and dog lovers. Grief and guilt are the ghosts that haunt you when you survive what others do not.... After their last deployment, when she got shot, her fiancé Martinez got killed and his bomb-sniffing dog Elvis got depressed, soldier Mercy Carr and Elvis were both sent home, her late lover’s last words ringing in her ears: “Take care of my partner.” Together the two former military police—one twenty-nine-year-old two-legged female with wounds deeper than skin and one handsome five-year-old four-legged Malinois with canine PTSD—march off their grief mile after mile in the beautiful remote Vermont wilderness. Even on the Fourth of July weekend, when all of Northshire celebrates with fun and frolic and fireworks, it’s just another walk in the woods for Mercy and Elvis—until the dog alerts to explosives and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones. U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear respond to Mercy’s 911 call, and the four must work together to track down a missing mother, solve a cold-case murder, and keep the citizens of Northshire safe on potentially the most incendiary Independence Day since the American Revolution. It’s a call to action Mercy and Elvis cannot ignore, no matter what the cost.

A Mystery

A Borrowing of Bones

"The first in a gripping new mystery series by literary agent Paula Munier, about a retired MP and bomb-sniffing dog who become embroiled in an investigation in the beautiful Vermont wilderness. It may be the Fourth of July weekend, but for retired soldier Mercy Carr and Belgian Malinois Elvis, it's just another walk in the remote Lye Brook Wilderness--until the former bomb-sniffing dog alerts to explosives and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones. U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search-and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear respond to Mercy's 911 call, and the four must work together to track down a missing mother, solve a cold-case murder, and keep the citizens of Vermont safe on potentially the most incendiary Independence Day since the American Revolution. A Borrowing of Bones is full of complex twists and real details about search-and-rescue dog training that Paula has learned through the training of her own dog. With its canine sidekicks and procedural plot, this series is well-positioned to become "Julia Spencer-Fleming with dogs" and will be a must-have for mystery fans" --

It may be the Fourth of July weekend, but for retired soldier Mercy Carr and Belgian Malinois Elvis, it's just another walk in the remote Lye Brook Wilderness. Then the former bomb-sniffing dog alerts to explosives, and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones. U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search-and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear respond to Mercy's 911 call, and the four must work together to track down a missing mother, solve a cold-case murder, and keep the citizens of Vermont safe on potentially the most incendiary Independence Day since the American Revolution.  -- adapted from publisher info

A borrowing of bones

The Wedding Plot, USA Today bestselling author Paula Munier's fourth Mercy Carr mystery, finds Mercy and Elvis at a deadly Vermont wedding. Love never dies a natural death... When Mercy’s grandmother Patience marries her longtime beau Claude Renault at the five-star Lady’s Slipper Inn, it promises to be the destination wedding of the year. Just as the four-day extravaganza is due to begin, the inn’s spa director Bodhi St. George disappears—and Mercy’s mother Grace sends Mercy and Elvis to find him. But what they discover instead is a stranger skewered by a pitchfork in the barn on the goat farm where St. George lived. As Mercy tries to figure out who the victim is and where St. George is hiding, the bride and groom’s estranged relations gather for the first of the pre-wedding festivities. Long-buried rivalries and resentments surface—and Mercy realizes that they’re all keeping secrets that could tear both families apart. When Elvis interrupts the escalating melodrama to alert Mercy to an intruder on the estate, she finds a wounded St. George in the cottage where she and Troy are staying. St. George is not who he says he is—but when he escapes from the hospital and disappears again, Mercy thinks he’s gone for good. With the wedding imminent and the families at each other’s throats, she decides finding St. George will have to wait. The big day arrives—but the danger is far from over. With the families and the festivities still under threat, it’s up to Mercy and Elvis together with Troy and Susie Bear to stop the killer and save the bride and groom—before death do they part.

A Mercy Carr Mystery

The Wedding Plot

"Think of your favorite story -- the one that kept you turning pages late into the night, the one with a plot so compelling, so multilayered, so perfect that you couldn't put it down. How can you make your own plots - in your novels, short stories, memoirs, or screenplays -- just as irresistible? Plot Perfect provides the answer. This one-of-a-kind plotting primer reveals the secrets of creating a story structure that works -- no matter what your genre. It gives you the strategies you need to build a scene-by-scene blueprint that will help elevate your fiction and earn the attention of agents and editors."--

How to Build Unforgettable Stories Scene by Scene

Plot Perfect

Mercy and Elvis are back in The Hiding Place, the most enthralling entry yet in USA Today bestselling Paula Munier's award-winning Mercy Carr mystery series. When the man who killed her grandfather breaks out of prison and comes after her grandmother, Mercy must unearth the long-buried scandals that threaten to tear her family apart. And she may have to do it without her beloved canine partner Elvis, if his former handler has his way.... Some people take their secrets with them to the grave. Others leave them behind on their deathbeds, riddles for the survivors to solve. When her late grandfather’s dying deputy calls Mercy to his side, she and Elvis inherit the cold case that haunted him—and may have killed him. But finding Beth Kilgore 20 years after she disappeared is more than a lost cause. It’s a Pandora’s box releasing a rain of evil on the very people Mercy and Elvis hold most dear. The timing couldn’t be worse when the man who murdered her grandfather escapes from prison and a fellow Army vet turns up claiming that Elvis is his dog, not hers. With her grandmother Patience gone missing, and Elvis’s future uncertain, Mercy faces the prospect of losing her most treasured allies, the only ones she believes truly love and understand her. She needs help, and that means forgiving Vermont Game Warden Troy Warner long enough to enlist his aid. With time running out for Patience, Mercy and Elvis must team up with Troy and his search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear to unravel the secrets of the past and save her grandmother—before it’s too late. Once again, Paula Munier crafts a terrific mystery thriller filled with intrigue, action, resilient characters, the mountains of Vermont, and two amazing dogs.

The Hiding Place

Blind Search

Commit to Your Writing Craft! To write with quiet hands is to embrace the journey all writers must take: from seeking inspiration and shaping raw material to cultivating a personal support network, navigating the various pathways to publication, and committing to a lifelong practice. In Writing with Quiet Hands, author and literary agent Paula Munier helps you hone your words into well-crafted stories and balance this satisfying work with the realities and challenges of the publishing world. You'll learn how to tame your muse, manage your time wisely, and treat your practice with the seriousness it deserves. You'll develop a distinct voice, write with style and substance, employ the tenets of strong structure, and engage your readers by injecting narrative thrust into your stories. You'll explore the finer aspects of craft, refine your work, and boldly bridge the gap between published and unpublished. From drafting and revising to querying agents, you'll discover the secrets to writing artfully, and publishing bravely. Fulfilling and rewarding writing careers are forged from the successful marriage of craft and business know-how. Are you ready to embark on your journey, armed with both grace and grit? Are you ready to write with quiet hands? "Writing with Quiet Hands is loaded tips and tools, firsthand experience, and down-to-earth advice from a writer, editor, and agent who's seen it from all sides. Paula Munier gives it to you straight as she dissects the inspiration, perspiration, and dogged determination it takes to set and meet your writing goals. This book will keep you sane." --Hallie Ephron, New York Times best-selling author of Night Night, Sleep Tight

How to Shape Your Writing to Resonate with Readers

Writing With Quiet Hands

Former Army MP Mercy Carr and her retired bomb-sniffing dog Elvis are back in Blind Search, the sequel to the page-turning, critically acclaimed A Borrowing of Bones It’s October, hunting season in the Green Mountains—and the Vermont wilderness has never been more beautiful or more dangerous. Especially for nine-year-old Henry, who’s lost in the woods. Again. Only this time he sees something terrible. When a young woman is found shot through the heart with a fatal arrow, Mercy thinks that something is murder. But Henry, a math genius whose autism often silences him when he should speak up most, is not talking. Now there’s a murderer hiding among the hunters in the forest—and Mercy and Elvis must team up with their crime-solving friends, game warden Troy Warner and search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear, to find the killer—before the killer finds Henry. When an early season blizzard hits the mountains, cutting them off from the rest of the world, the race is on to solve the crime, apprehend the murderer, and keep the boy safe until the snowplows get through. Inspired by the true search-and-rescue case of an autistic boy who got lost in the Vermont wilderness, Paula Munier's mystery is a compelling roller coaster ride through the worst of winter—and human nature.

IT'S TIME TO FOCUS ON BEING HAPPY - Features more than 100 exercises designed to lighten your spirit - Covers everything from yoga and decluttering to meditation and forest bathing - Written by a USA Today bestselling author In Happier Every Day, author and yoga instructor Paula Munier details a simple yet comprehensive approach to cultivating happiness, including the most recent data and discoveries, all distilled into layman’s terms. She provides 100 practical, easy-to-implement exercises and activities that cover both the well-known (hygge, feng shui, law of attraction, yoga, decluttering, etc.) and more obscure techniques (forest bathing) for achieving happiness. A joyful, encouraging book, Happier Every Day can be picked up as needed to help calm your heart, or read from front to back as one would a daily devotional. It provides a sound beginning to each day, helping you to put yourself in a state of mind where you'll be open to happiness in whatever form it presents itself.

Simple ways to bring more peace, contentment and joy into your life

Happier Every Day

Give your story its best start! The best beginnings possess a magical quality that grabs readers from the first word and never lets them go. But beginnings aren't just the door into a fictional world. They are the gateway to the realm of publishing--one that could shut as quickly as it opens. In The Writer's Guide to Beginnings, author and literary agent Paula Munier shows you how to craft flawless beginnings that impress agents, engage editors, and captivate readers. You'll learn how to develop the big idea of your story and introduce it on page one, structure opening scenes that encompass their own story arc, kickstart your writing with effective brainstorming techniques, and introduce a compelling cast of characters that drive the plot. You'll also examine the best-selling novels from different genres to learn the secrets that experienced writers use to dive straight into a story. With thorough examinations of voice, point of view, setting, dialogue and conflict, The Writer's Guide to Beginnings is a must-have tool for luring your readers in with your opening pages--and convincing them to stick around for the ride. "Writing a book? Hard. Writing the beginning of a book? Rocket science! Strap on your spacesuit, because thanks to Munier's nuanced, actionable breakdown of every possible aspect of a gripping opening, authors everywhere can now take their books to the stars." --K.M. Weiland

Paula Munier

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