Alice Duncan Books In Order

Publication Order of The Dream Maker Books

Publication Order of Meet Me at the Fair Books

Publication Order of Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery Books

Publication Order of Pecos Valley Books

Publication Order of Mercy Allcutt Mystery Books

Publication Order of Land of Enchantment Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of It's a Dog's Life Books

Publication Order of Haunting Hearts Books

Publication Order of A Faerie Tale Romance Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Before engaging in full-time writing, Alice tried dancing and singing in a choir, which was fun, she says but brought meager earnings. She finally found better grounding in writing, and in 1995, Alice published her first book “One Bright Morning” by Harper Monogram Publishers. After her newfound love, and success in writing, she moved from Pasadena, CA to her maternal ancestral home in Roswell, NM

The book was an instant hit, earning her the best novel award the HOLT. A few years later, she wrote the Daisy Gumm Majesty series, a controversial dark spirits book that did well in 2003, when she first published. We shall review some of the scripts from Daisy Gumm.

Strong Spirits #1 Daisy Gumm Majesty

1920 Pasadena, California. World War I is over, and people must survive the hard economic times. Daisy survived the five-year war that has taken more lives than she can count. Her husband has returned from the battlefields, and he’s partly disabled, his leg damaged plus a couple of mental and psychological issues. It is a dire situation, and Daisy must survive under the terrible economic conditions. She decides to become a séance, performing future spiritual predictions to the rich to support her family. She is not a real divine predictor. Daisy understands that what she is doing is wrong, but nobody can confirm her séance activities, so life goes on with her gainful self-employment of interpreting tarot cards for the wealthy.

When Mrs. Kincaid, a wealthy woman in the neighborhood asks to see Daisy, she is desperately seeking answers to find her husband’s killer or kidnapper; at this point, he could be either dead or waiting to die. Detective Sam Rotondo has his hands in this case as he carefully follows the wealthy woman’s whereabouts. Detective Rotondo is not fooled by Daisy’s choice of occupation and isn’t ashamed of blackmailing her into spying on the Kincaid case. Daisy reiterates by handling the game in an even smarter move, she reads Sam’s tarot cards, and the mystery begins.

An endearing and linguistically eloquent mystery set in Pasadena, just after World War I. Strong Spirits contains a charming plot. It is a tale of how ordinary people lived during the hard years in the Twenties. It’s difficult to classify this novel as a romance or a mystery, elements of both genres exist. It has no violence or sexual scenes. A great read for any adult on a cozy day. The book is a stark reminder of the grappling hard times after the First World War era and the catastrophic Flu Pandemic. It is a stressful period, and many people turned their insecurities to spiritualists and palm readers for comfort.

The story is slow-paced, but the characters deliver the plot so well. It is interesting to note how detective Sam seeks approval, or help from Daisy when trying to find criminals and lawbreakers. Daisy Gumm lays the game plan for Detective Rotondo. It is not lack of insight that keeps Detective Rotondo from solving crimes without her help but his overly suspicious and cynical nature. It makes his focus on premature judgments too stifled to admit his fallibility.

Fine Spirits #2Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery

Set in the 1920’s, the youthful twenty-year-old séance Daisy pretends to be a spiritualist to the wealthy folk in Pasadena who have too much money than 2 cents common sense. Daisy is admittedly fake, in all weird ways and she knows it. Her disabled husband depends on her as well her extended family. Work is hard to come by. People survive on scrapple meals with occasional grooming. A terrified client calls in with frightening news of ghosts and spirits haunting her house from the basement. She calls on the self-proclaimed spiritualist to exhort the unwanted dwellers off the premises.

Since Daisy does not believe in haunting spirits or ghosts, she is sure something else hides in the basement. She discovers it is no threatening spirit but a fugitive from the local area. After learning why the young woman left home to hide in a stranger’s house, she conspires with a close friend to cover up the fugitive until she finds a suitable solution. It must be done quietly; because Detective Sam has a hunch daisy knows more than the purported spiritual sarcasm. This second installment has detailed historical facts on the early 20th-century lifestyle. Filled with elements that give the reader a peek into a past era, the well-developed characters and never-ending tension between detective Sam and fake séance Daisy offer great suspense.

High Spirits # 3 Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery

Daisy Gumm’s days of foolery have come to a close call. The danger comes in all forms and the tight economic period gangster hood makes up for current jobs with a single buck made every day. An illegal businessman, a mobster, wants to interfere with her business. It’s scary, but she is not one to be cowed down by an n illegal speakeasy. Detective Sam Rotondo helps her put the mobsters out of business. She earns a new friend in the midst of the commotion and dangerous task of shutting out the mobsters. Flossie, a gangster’s girlfriend befriends her.

Daisy eventually goes about reading torrent cards for her clients as the rest of her family, and their crazy dachshund puppy makes life a living drama. Besides the annoying repetitive rants and constant explanations, the characters provide great entertainment in the third series of the Daisy Gumm Majesty series. Simply wonderful to read and learn many historical facts about life in the twenties

Hungry Spirits #4 Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery

The same rhetoric of Daisy’s fraud continues into the fourth series book of the Daisy Gumm chronicles. Her close friend Johnny Buckingham, a Salvation Army captain, asks spiritualist Daisy Gumm Majesty to help in the church community by teaching cooking classes for the poor women. She’s taken aback by this request, it’s absurd! John must be nuts. Her evil conniving occupation does not come close to kitchen chores. However, she cannot let him down, and so, she sets out with a cookbook, ready to teach the damn cooking lessons. An unexpected event occurs. One of her students disappears, and Daisy must look for her before sunset. Her suspicions for the Germans evil intentions come crawling back to her senses, and soon, she finds herself locked into a complicated criminal operation. Did someone frame her? Equally thrilling and entertaining, Alice once again pens an excellent suspense novel that leaves readers wanting to read more and more, without blinking an eye.