cozy mysteries

Guest Chick: Diane Kelly

The Chicks are thrilled to have author pal Diane Kelly with us today on the blog. Her hot new mystery was released into the wild yesterday. Four Alarm Homocide, the sixth novel in her delightful House Flipper cozy mystery series from Diane Kelly set in Nashville, TN―where the real estate market is to die for. Some properties are just too hot to handle… One lucky commenter (with a U.S. or Canada address will win a copy of the new book, courtesy of Diane!

An Alarming Incident

My husband and I had just moved with our two young children into a rental house in San Jose. My husband had started a new job after a three-year fellowship in another city. We looked forward to finally having two nickels to rub together and living in a space with no shared walls. Our 15-month-old son was thin, in a very low percentile for weight, a trait that runs in my husband’s family. However, he was in the 95th percentile for head size. Think bowling ball atop a chopstick.

We had a small plastic slide with just two steps that stood about knee-high to an adult. It sat on the plush carpet in the living room for our daughter to play on. Our son, who had only recently learned to walk, climbed up on the slide. If the slide had tilted over on the carpet, he would have been fine and the incident probably wouldn’t have even elicited a cry from him. Unfortunately, when he reached the top landing of the slide, he lost his balance, probably thanks to that oversized head of his. He was standing tall enough that, when the slide tipped over, the side of his head hit the adjacent kitchen floor, which was linoleum laid over concrete. Though he cried for a long time, he had not even the faintest of bruises on his head. We wrote the incident off as an insignificant childhood boo-boo. After all, toddlers constantly fall or bump into things.

When our son later tossed his cookies, I knew it was a bad sign. Then his eyes rolled back in his head. Having lived in this new city for only six weeks, we had no clue where the nearest hospital might be. I promptly called 9-1-1. Once the dispatcher got help on its way, she had me count my son’s breaths out loud. I’ll never forget the shuddering breath he took at number 19, a breath I feared might be his last.

A moment later, a siren announced the arrival of help, and a big fire truck pulled to our curb. The first responders attempted to rouse our son with smelling salts, to no avail. They placed his limp little body on a board and proceeded to cut his clothing off. All the while, my heart beat so hard I could barely hear and our terrified daughter wailed that she wanted her brother “to wake up!”

The first responders were about to carry our son off when his eyes opened and he burst out crying. I have never been so happy to hear him scream! He was taken via ambulance to a local hospital, where we were told he’d fully recover. PHEW!

  I’ll never forget those first responders, how they expertly handled our son – and us anxious parents – with calm and professionalism. It was only natural to dedicate a book about a firehouse to these wonderful people.

Diane Kelly writes funny mysteries featuring feisty female lead characters and their furry, four-footed sidekicks. Diane is the author of over three dozen novels and novellas, including the Death & Taxes white-collar crime series, the Paw Enforcement K-9 series, the House Flipper cozy mystery series, the Busted female motorcycle cop series, the Southern Homebrew moonshine series, and the Mountain Lodge Mysteries series. When not writing, Diane enjoys walking her dog, playing with her cats, and hiking in the beautiful woods in her home state of North Carolina. Learn more about Diane and her books at DianeKelly.com You can also find her on Instagram, Twitter/X, Pinterest, and TikTok at @DianeKellyBooks, and on Facebook at her Author Diane Kelly page.

Do you have a 9-1-1 story with a happy ending? Share your story or comment below for a chance to win a copy of Four-Alarm Homicide (U.S. and Canada addresses eligible).

34 thoughts on “Guest Chick: Diane Kelly”

  1. Oh, how scary! In November of 2023, I tripped over my dog. As soon as I hit the ground, I knew something was wrong with my elbow – the pain was intense. Unfortunately, I was home alone at the time. Koda, not having thumbs, was not going to be of much help. I managed to claw my way over to grab my cell phone and call my son. He rushed home and called an ambulance. The EMTs had to cut my pajama top off. They rushed me to the ER where, fortunately, they said I had a simple dislocation of my elbow. They popped it back into place and I avoided surgery.

    Did I mention it was in the teens that night? All I had on were my pajama bottoms. I was too cold to be embarrassed!

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  2. Oh, my goodness, I can’t even imagine how frightening that must have been, Diane! So glad it all turned out okay!

    Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks today, and congrats on FOUR-ALARM HOMICIDE–it sounds terrific!

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    1. I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about it. We were very lucky! The first responders were so good. So professional and reassuring.

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  3. Wow Diane, that is terrifying. Luckily, I haven’t had a 911 experience like that but when our daughter was 2, she climbed up her stroller, it tipped over, and I discovered that USC has an emergency pediatric dentistry office! It happened on my watch because I wasn’t paying attention, and I’ve always felt bad about that.

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    2. My son had 3 head injuries in a single year, so don’t feel bad. Kids move so fast! It’s impossible to keep up with them, even if we are watching them like hawks. Luckily, they are resilient!

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  4. Diane–I’m so glad your son was okay. Haven’t had any 911 experiences like that–though, like Liz, we had to rush our older daughter to the ER once. She’d also dislocated her elbow (nursemaid’s elbow) during roughhousing.

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    1. So scary, Diane! We called the ambulance when my 4-ish year old son gashed his forehead open. He did NOT want to get in the ambulance and I was frazzled. Finally, the paramedic said he wouldn’t be going lights-and-sirens anyway and it would be fine for me to drive him to get his stitches. That was some kind of drive, though. Now I can throw a rock and hit half a dozen places to get stitches—well, almost—but back in the day, my little town had nothing. That little boy is now a paramedic advising other mothers about their injured kids. I send up prayers for first responders all the time.

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      1. Ouch! A dislocated elbow sounds painful. I hope she got the best of whoever she was roughhousing with! : )

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  6. Diane, huge congrats on Four-Alarm Homicide–adding to the TBR! And thanks so much for visiting us today and offering a giveaway to a lucky Chicks reader. I’m trying to recall a 911 episode that turned out well… may have blocked any and all out of my mind. I did get a call at work years ago that my 8 yo son was in the ER–with sunstroke and dehydration after a few hours at Coney Island Beach with a friend. (Plenty of sunblock, but those 7-11 giant gulp/slurpee things do not count as liquids, apparently.) When I arrived at the ER, his friend was sobbing beside his gurney, begging him not to die. Luckily, after a few bags of IV fluids, the two were reunited and playing Pokemon in no time.

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  7. Oh Diane! That story had MY heart pounding, too! How absolutely terrifying. Thank GOODNESS for those first responders. I’m so glad your son was okay. ❤

    I don’t have a 911 story, but plenty of trips to the ER where heroes helped the bodies of the injured while holding the hearts of those who waited for news of their condition.

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    1. It really takes a special kind of person to be able to handle that kind of pressure! So glad some people are wired for this kind of work. I definitely would not be able to stay so calm!

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      2. As someone whose been in child care basically since I was 12 and started babysitting, 60 years now, Ive seen a lot of kids get really hurt, from gashes in the head to broken bones and having them lose consciousness and more, I always remain calm and in control! Its once its over and the child is ok or at least going to be ok is when I fall apart!!

        i cant even imagine what that was like for you to go through with your own young son.

        Once when i was reading a story to my prek class i had respiratory failure! Ended up passing out on my classroom bathroom floor! I came to with the emts all around me giving me oxyge doing all they could to help me! But what impressed me most was hearing one of them talking to the children assuring them that Miss Patti was going too be ok and told them how they were going to take me in the ambulance to the hospital! He was so kind and reassuring it calmed me down too!

        Anyone that is on the front lines in any capacity has my utmost respect and gratitude!

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  8. The hardest 911 call that I ever made, is when my mother called that she had fallen and could not get up and was not near the phone. and could not get to one. I was in Alpharetta, Ga. and she was in Harlingen, Texas. That is 1147 miles away. I called neighbors and no one could get in due to her alarm system and locked doors. Finally, the only friend that had a key was reached after she attended mass, and she rushed over just as they were going to break windows. They got her and she was fine though she had to have a hip replacement at the age of 78 and rehab. After that we gave a key to the neighbors across the street and that was good as it happened again, and we went through another hip replacement. I finally went home to take care of her, and she died 6 months later with another 911 call. She had lost 2 units of blood, but we got her to the hospital in time and she was doing great and ready to come home the next day, but later that night, it was bad and they called me back to the hospital. I spent the night at the hospital, and she was in a coma and never made it out of that. She kept telling me that if she went back into the hospital that she would not make it out and she did not. I will never get over that. I loved her and she died at only 81 1/2 years old. I talked with her daily on the phone. I hope to never have to deal with anything like that again. I love your series and would love to win the book.

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    1. So sorry about your mother. It’s hard when they are so far away. Broken hips seems to really take their toll. Seems like a lot of people pass very soon after a broken hip. A similar thing happened to one of my writer friends.

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      1. Thank you. It absolutely is. She had a great orthopedic doctor that put in both of her hip replacements and made them match. It was always other stuff that she developed in the hospital that finally got her.

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  9. Hi Diane-Wow what a story! The other comments really remind us to be grateful for the first responders, fire departments and medical professionals. Hello from Lucy in Richlands NC😊

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      1. Oops! Hit enter before I finished. : ) Definitely grateful for first responders! Don’t know what we’d do without them!

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  10. No 911 stories but we had a medical emergency story that is recent. A couple of years back my daughter had to have an appendectomy. She had been suffering severe stomach pain so we took her to the doctor, They sent us to the children’s hospital to have tests run. Turns part of her appendix was necrotizing and it had to be removed. She also had to be on a course of antibiotics for a couple of days as well.

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  11. We had to call 911 for my dad. He was in a lot of pain, having difficulty breathing, etc. The took him to the local hospital, and then had to transfer him to the trauma center the next day for emergency surgery. He developed sepsis and they were unable to stop it since it was systemic. He passed away days later.

    I appreciated the Paramedics taking care of him, but I can’t help but wonder if he’d had a better chance if they had taken him initially to the trauma center (they didn’t because the back up to unload ambulances there was at least 30 minutes and they said the ambulance couldn’t be out of service that long).

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      1. Thanks, Diane. It’s been almost seven years, so of course we’ve had to let it go. In the midst of a family crisis, it’s easy to focus just on your people and forget there are others around. I get why they couldn’t keep an ambulance tied up for so long, and once he got to the hospital, he did receive excellent patient care.

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  12. I called one time when I heard noises and thought someone was in my backyard! Officers did come to check things out and everything was fine fortunately!

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