Elena Hartwell's Blog, page 43
January 7, 2023
Under a Veiled Moon: Historical Mystery
Under a Veiled Moon, historical mystery by Karen Odden
Spotlight + Book & Author Info + Excerpt + Giveaway!Don’t miss any blog tour posts! Click the link here.Under a Veiled Moon
In the tradition of C. S. Harris and Anne Perry, a fatal disaster on the Thames and a roiling political conflict set the stage for Karen Odden’s second Inspector Corravan historical mystery.September 1878. One night, as the pleasure boat the Princess Alice makes her daily trip up the Thames, she collides with the Bywell Castle, a huge iron-hulled collier. The Princess Alice shears apart, throwing all 600 passengers into the river; only 130 survive. It is the worst maritime disaster London has ever seen, and early clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who believe violence is the path to restoring Irish Home Rule.
For Scotland Yard Inspector Michael Corravan, born in Ireland and adopted by the Irish Doyle family, the case presents a challenge. Accused by the Home Office of willfully disregarding the obvious conclusion, and berated by his Irish friends for bowing to prejudice, Corravan doggedly pursues the truth, knowing that if the Princess Alice disaster is pinned on the IRB, hopes for Home Rule could be dashed forever.
Corrovan’s dilemma is compounded by Colin, the youngest Doyle, who has joined James McCabe’s Irish gang. As violence in Whitechapel rises, Corravan strikes a deal with McCabe to get Colin out of harm’s way. But unbeknownst to Corravan, Colin bears longstanding resentments against his adopted brother and scorns his help.
As the newspapers link the IRB to further accidents, London threatens to devolve into terror and chaos. With the help of his young colleague, the loyal Mr. Stiles, and his friend Belinda Gale, Corravan uncovers the harrowing truth—one that will shake his faith in his countrymen, the law, and himself.
Genre: Historical Mystery
Published by: Crooked Lane Books
Publication Date: October 11, 2022
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 978-1639101191
Series: Inspector Corravan, #2
“[An] exceptional sequel … Odden never strikes a false note, and she combines a sympathetic lead with a twisty plot grounded in the British politics of the day and peopled with fully fleshed-out characters. Fans of Lyndsay Faye’s Gods of Gotham trilogy will be enthralled.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Victorian skulduggery with a heaping side of Irish troubles.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Will keep readers curious and guessing to the end.” —Manhattan Book Review, 5-star review
“Damn fine historical crime fiction.” —Bolo Books
“Rich in emotion and historical detail, Under a Veiled Moon is a brilliant tale of the dark, thorny places where the personal and the political intertwine.” —Mariah Fredericks, Edgar award-nominated author of the Jane Prescott series
Excerpt — Under a Veiled MoonLondon September 1878 Chapter 1We all carry pieces of our past with us. Sometimes they’re shiny and worthy as new half crowns in our pockets. Sometimes they’re bits of lint or scraps of paper shredded beyond use. Plenty of my memories carry a stab of regret or a burn of shame with them, and honestly, there are times when I wonder how we all bloody well live with the fool things we’ve done.
I’ve made a fair number of mistakes since I first donned a Metropolitan Police uniform in Lambeth, over twelve years ago now. Investigating murders and missing people isn’t a task for those who aren’t willing to go down the wrong alley three or four times before finding the proper one. But those errors are a result of making a poor guess based on limited knowledge, and while they may cause a few sleepless nights, they can be set aside.
The mistakes that feel less forgivable are those that hurt someone you love. Worse still is when you discover your error only years later. Often, there’s nothing to be done. Too much time has passed to make amends. And those mistakes—ach, it’s bloody difficult to forgive yourself when you should’ve known better, should’ve known to pick your head up and cast about to see what might happen as a result of your actions. Perhaps there’s no easy way to learn that lesson, other than failing to do it once and discovering later just what it cost.
Sometimes, during the evenings we’re together, my Belinda reads aloud from whatever book is occupying her at the moment. One night she related a Greek myth about a man whose wife was killed by a snakebite. By virtue of his music, he weaseled his way into the underworld and convinced the king of Hades to release her. The king had one condition, however, of the rescue: neither the man nor his wife could look backward as they were leaving. And what did the fool do? He turned back to be sure his wife was still with him. He couldn’t help himself, poor bloke. So the mouth of hell opened up, and she vanished forever.
But perhaps we can’t always help what we do in a moment of crushing fear.
When I was nineteen, scared out of my wits and fleeing Whitechapel with only a bag of clothes and a small pouch of coins Ma Doyle thrust into my hand, I didn’t look back. Unlike the man in the myth, I should have, though.
Perhaps then hell would not have opened up around me thirteen years later.
***
On the first day of September, I woke to pale autumn sunlight and a feeling of well-being. It didn’t happen often, and it took a few moments to recall the cause. I lay still, listening to the Sunday quiet of my house, to a lone costermonger’s wheels creaking and rumbling over the cobbles outside, and the bells from St. Barnabas’s tolling from the next street over. I no longer attended church, but I did believe in God—a reasonable and just God, although sometimes the world twisted justice around, like a boat line hitched badly around a metal cleat so it emerged from the knot in a direction you didn’t expect.
As I stared at the ceiling, I collected my thoughts with some satisfaction. I’d been acting superintendent at Wapping River Police for three months now, and we’d just resolved a case involving smugglers who’d been bribing Custom House men to underweight the scales, to avoid paying proper taxes. It had occupied my every breath for the past four weeks, and now I felt a sense of relief, like a weighted yoke off the back of my neck, as I always did when an important case ended. The newspapers had even printed something good about the police yesterday as a result. God knows we needed it. Sometimes I still cringed at the memories of the corruption trial last autumn, with mobs cursing us plainclothes men for being frauds and cheats, and newspaper headlines proclaiming how London would be better off if we were all at the bottom of the Thames. But with the river murders of last April resolved and this smuggling case concluded, it seemed the police were slowly earning back public trust. Of course, the stories published about our successes were full of inaccuracies, and by omitting any reference to the tiresome inquiries, the endless walking, and the misleading clues, they were nowhere near the whole truth, but at least they painted the police in a satisfactory light.
The door to Harry’s bedroom, next to mine, opened and closed, and as I heard the boy start down the stairs, I slid out of bed. The coals in my bedroom stove had burnt to ash, and the room was cool, with a dampness that lingered after a rainy August.
Standing at the window in my nightshirt, I looked across the way at the two-story red-brick terraced houses, built cheek by jowl, mirror images of those on my side of the street. The sunlight, golden as a well-baked loaf of bread, inched down from the roofline and struck the upper windows, flashing a shine that made me squint. It was a pleasure to think I had no plan for the day but to visit the Doyles for Sunday tea. What with the smugglers and my new responsibilities at Wapping, it had been over a month since I’d seen Ma, Elsie, and Colin—longer than I liked.
From downstairs came the sound of our kettle shrieking.
Harry would be preparing tea for himself and coffee for me. My brew was a holdover from the tastes of the previous century, I knew, but I couldn’t abide weak liquids in the morning. I’d taught Harry how to make my coffee properly after he said he’d do whatever necessary to keep me from growling at him.
Harry Lish had come to live with me here in Soho six months ago, after his father died, his mother having passed away years before. Harry was Ma Doyle’s nephew, but as she’d told me when he arrived at her house in Whitechapel, he didn’t belong there. His speech was too well schooled and his manners more Mayfair than Merseyside. Although barely sixteen, Harry was determined to study medicine, and I’d found a place for him at St. Anne’s Hospital with my friend James Everett, a physician and surgeon who supervised the ward for brain injuries and mental disorders. Harry was leaving the next day to spend a fortnight or so observing in an Edinburgh hospital, a special opportunity arranged by James, who found in Harry an eager and intuitive student.
I pulled on my shirt and a pair of trousers with the special side pocket for my truncheon, a vestige of my days in uniform. It being Sunday, I was off duty, but the Doyles lived in the heart of Whitechapel, and there was no point in being foolhardy. I splashed water on my face and ran a comb through my hair before stowing my truncheon and heading down the stairs.
“Good morning, Mickey,” Harry said as I entered the kitchen.
“Morning.” I accepted the cup he pushed across the table. The pocketbook he always took to the hospital lay beside his saucer. “Are you not coming with me to the Doyles’s?”
He winced an apology. “I would, but there’s a special procedure.”
“On a Sunday?”
He nodded, his brown eyes keen. “Dr. Everett is performing a craniotomy on a woman with blood on the brain.”
The coffee suddenly tasted sour. But far be it from me to dampen his scientific ardor.
“You’ll only be watching, I assume?” I asked.
Regret flickered over his features. “Observing from the balcony.” Then he brightened. “Richard will be assisting, though.”
Richard was a second-year medical student at University College here in London, who worked at the hospital and had taken Harry under his wing.
“How did it happen?” I asked. “Blood on the brain?”
“She fell off a ladder,” he replied. “If Dr. Everett doesn’t operate, the blood will continue to press on the internal parts and organs.” He touched his fingertips to the side of his head. “She’s already having secondary symptoms—seizures, confusion, and the like.”
“Ah. What time is it? The operation?”
He upended his cup to drink the last of the tea. “Ten o’clock, but I want to be there for the anesthesia.”
“Of course.” What could be more entertaining? I thought as I raised my own cup to hide my smile.
He reached for his coat. “Besides, I doubt Aunt Mary will expect me. I saw them on Tuesday. My aunt and Elsie, I should say,” he amended as he thrust his arm into a sleeve. “Colin was out somewhere . . . as usual.”
In his voice was an undertone—hurt, strained, subdued—that could have served as a signal of something amiss. But it was one of those moments when you must be paying proper attention to take it in, when you must be standing quite still. And we weren’t. Harry was dashing up the stairs, calling over his shoulder, “Wait for me—I’ll be right down,” and I was rummaging on the table amid some newspapers for my pocketbook—where was the bloody thing?—and the warning went unheeded.
I swallowed down the last of my coffee. Harry did well by me, leaving no grounds in the bottom, meticulous in a way that boded well for his success in a profession that demanded precision. With my pocketbook found, I shrugged into my coat, and when Harry reappeared on the stairs, his boots sounding quick on the treads, I waved him outside and locked the front door. We walked to the corner, where we bid farewell and separated. I watched him, hatless, his lanky boyish frame hurrying along, not wanting to miss the thrills to be found in the medical amphitheater.
I found myself grinning as I turned away, for I liked the lad, and we’d come to understand each other. Belinda says that in our both being orphans and clever, as well as in some of our less desirable traits such as our prickly aversion to owing anyone anything, we’re more alike than I’m willing to admit. There’s part of me that agrees with her, though Harry and I have our differences. Sometimes I wonder where I’d be if I’d had Harry’s book learning or someone overseeing my education and guiding my professional progress the way James does for Harry. Oh, my real mother had taught me to read before I lost her, and working at Ma Doyle’s store had made me quick at my sums. But every so often Harry would let slip a phrase in French or Latin, or he’d mention some curious bit of history, much the way James or my former partner Stiles does, not to show off his learning but just because it floats around in his brain. And I’d think about how we can’t be more than our past permits us.
Then again, my advancement within the Metropolitan Police has been my own doing. There’s some satisfaction in that too.
Chapter 2It was a fine day for a walk, and I headed to my favorite pub— the only one within a mile of my house that served a satisfying wedge of shepherd’s pie in a proper crust. It was where I usually spent part of my Sunday, with the papers, and I knew the Doyles wouldn’t expect me before two or three at the earliest.
My favorite table was occupied by two men, but I chose another near the window where a newspaper was lying, its ruffled pages evidence of it having already been read at least once. I flipped it over to find the Times masthead and the bold headline “Sittingbourne Disaster,” with a drawing below it of a railway train with the engine, tender, and two cars tipped over on their sides and the usual chaos of people and their belongings flung from carriages.
I let out a groan.
Sittingbourne was fifty miles east of London, on the south side of the Thames, not far from where the river let out to the North Sea. I scanned the article, but there weren’t many facts provided other than it had happened the previous night, August 31, on the London, Chatham and Dover line, when an express train bringing trippers back from Sheerness and elsewhere had run off the rails. It seemed to be the result of either eroded ground or a rotted railway tie that destabilized the iron rail above it—the same problem that had caused the disaster at Morpeth last March, as well as half a dozen other accidents that had occurred around England in the past few years. Early reports indicated three dead and sixty-two injured, with numbers expected to increase. The article closed with the usual gloomy declarations about how, until railways are held to a standard of safety by Parliament, accidents such as this would continue to plague travelers.
I stood and went to another table, where I found a second paper whose account included the additional facts that, for some unknown reason, the railway train had been on the ancillary line instead of the primary line, approximately one hundred yards from the station; and five passengers, not three, had been killed. This version also included, on an inside page, lurid descriptions and illustrations of mangled bodies and children’s toys strewn among the broken carriages.
Those poor families, I thought. What a wretched ending to a pleasant excursion.
As I refolded the paper, worry nicked at my nerves. Belinda would be traveling home from Edinburgh by train in a few days. She’d been visiting her cousin for a month, which was the longest I’d gone without seeing her these three years since a burglary had first brought me to her home. The thought of her in a railway disaster carved a cold, hollow space in my chest.
But even as I imagined it, I dismissed my worry as nonsensical. Belinda had made this trip dozens of times, and the line from Edinburgh was one of the newest and safest. Besides, the newspaper’s pessimism notwithstanding, parliament had mandated new safety devices and procedures. No doubt this Sittingbourne disaster would require yet another Parliamentary Commission, and the Railways Inspection Department would be saddled with the task of providing weeks of testimony and filing endless reports. I didn’t envy them.
After finishing my pie, I took my time reading the remainder of the papers, then rose, shrugged into my coat, and left the pub, strolling east until I crossed Leman Street into Whitechapel. Many of the narrow, pocked streets were without signs, but I’d grown up among these crooked alleys, with buildings whose upper floors overhung the unpaved passages and oddly shaped courtyards, and I tacked left and right, left and right, until I reached the street with Ma Doyle’s shop. It always opened at one o’clock on Sundays, after Roman mass, and as I anticipated, there was the usual bustle around the door.
What I didn’t expect were the wooden planks that covered one of the windows.
Alarm pinched at the top of my spine and spread across my shoulders.
Karen Odden — Author of Under a Veiled Moon
Karen received her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University and subsequently taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has published numerous essays and articles on Victorian literature, written introductions for Victorian novels in the Barnes and Noble Classics Series, and edited for the journal Victorian Literature and Culture. Her first novel, A Lady in the Smoke, was a USA Today bestseller and A Dangerous Duet and A Trace of Deceit have won awards for historical mystery and historical fiction.
Her fourth mystery, Down a Dark River, introduced readers to Michael Corravan, a former thief and bare-knuckles boxer from Whitechapel who serves as an inspector at Scotland Yard in 1870s London. The sequel, Under a Veiled Moon, is available in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook. A member of Mystery Writers of America and a national board member for Sisters in Crime,
Karen lives in Arizona with her family.
Catch Up With Karen Odden:KarenOdden.com
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Facebook – @karen.oddenVisit all the Stops on the Tour!
01/02 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
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01/23 Review @ Melissa As Blog
01/26 Review @ Guatemala Paula Loves to Read
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
The post Under a Veiled Moon: Historical Mystery appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
January 5, 2023
You Should Have Told Me: Book Review
You Should Have Told Me, domestic suspense by Leah Konen
Book Review + Book & Author InfoRead my review of The Perfect Escape, click the link here.You Should Have Told Me
A new mother chases the secrets her partner left behind after his sudden disappearance in this pulse-pounding domestic thriller from the author of The Perfect Escape.
Janie needs a break: her baby won’t sleep, she’s struggling with motherhood, and a secret from her past threatens to tear her new family apart. So when her partner, Max, offers to do their baby’s feedings that night so she can finally get some sleep, she jumps at the chance. But when Janie wakes up at three a.m., her daughter is screaming alone in her bassinet … Max has vanished.
Alone with a newborn and desperate for answers, Janie searches for Max, but the more she learns about the man she loves, the more she wonders how well she knew him at all. When a woman is murdered and Max becomes the prime suspect, Janie must face her partner’s secrets—and her own—if she ever wants her daughter to see her father again.
An endlessly suspenseful and surprising look at both the beauty and darkness of modern motherhood, You Should Have Told Me is a roller-coaster of a thriller with family at its heart.
“Even the biggest thriller fan will struggle to guess the ending of this twisty, gorgeously written debut.”—Rolling Stone
“Konen knows how to write great dialogue and keep readers surprised.”–Albany Times Union
Leah Konen puts motherhood front and center in her intense domestic thriller, You Should Have Told Me, proof there is room for every voice in the thriller genre.
Janie is a new mom. Her partner Max is a natural with the baby, Janie is not. She wonders what’s wrong with her when she doesn’t feel the love everyone promised her she would for her child. Then she wishes she had never had Freya at all. Anyone who has ever been a caretaker will understand that terrifying thought, and the fear of failure at one of the most important roles a person can play.
One of Konen’s greatest gifts as a writer is her understanding of the complexity of human behavior. Parenting is not like we see in the movies, the all bad of Mommie Dearest, or the all good of a Hallmark movie. Parenting is messy and scary, even when everything goes right. And for Konen’s heroine, everything goes wrong.
When Max disappears in the middle of the night, Janie’s fears range from him lying in a ditch, to the thought she will be trapped in single parenting. The tension and twists in the plot involve not just the mystery of Max, and later a woman’s murder, but also in the mystery of becoming a mother.
It doesn’t take having children to feel empathy and compassion for Janie. The endless stream of breastfeeding, diapers, and sleeplessness echo the reality of caretaking. Whether rearing a child or caretaking an adult with a debilitating illness, the tasks that make up protecting another human being can infuse every moment of a caretaker’s life. Konen beautifully and honestly captures the guilt and shame of feeling overwhelmed at the job society teaches women should just come naturally.
Someone should have told Janie how hard it would be. Someone should have told Janie that she isn’t alone in her feelings of dread and fear and anxiety.
Laced throughout Janie’s struggle with a newborn is the unfolding story of Max and his disappearance. What happened? Where did he go? What did he do?
Konen provides enough reveals and reversals to maintain a breakneck pace, augmented with Janie’s personal struggles. Everyone in the story has secrets—friends, family, even the deceased. And it is those secrets that take Konen’s characters to an even higher level of believability. Because everyone lies. Everyone has fears, but Konen puts them on display. She pulls no punches with exploring the failings of parents, which then ripple down to the next generation.
Janie’s parents never modeled healthy parenting, setting her up to fail as well. And that’s much of what we learn from the rollercoaster ride Konen takes us on. Even when people do their best, mistakes are made.
Sometimes with deadly consequences.
Readers might decide to skip Konen’s latest release because the idea of a thriller built on motherhood doesn’t appeal, but that’s at their peril as they will be missing out on a terrific novel of suspense, baby and all.
Leah Konen
Leah Konen is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and English literature.
Her debut thriller, All the Broken People was a Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, She Reads and Charlotte Observer best summer book pick.
She is also the author of The Perfect Escape and several young adult novels, including Love and Other Train Wrecks and The Romantics.
She lives in Brooklyn and Saugerties, NY, with her husband, their daughter, Eleanor, and their dog, Farley.
To learn more about Leah, click on any of the following links: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook & GoodreadsElena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. #1 Amazon Bestseller
The post You Should Have Told Me: Book Review appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
January 3, 2023
The House in the Pines: Debut Thriller
The House in the Pines, debut mystery by Ana Reyes
Author Interview + Book & Author InfoDon’t miss any debut author interviews! Click the link here.
The House in the Pines
Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer—the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.
At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
To purchase The House in the Pines, click on any of the following links: Amazon Barnes & Noble Books A Million Bookshop.org Hudson Booksellers IndieBound Powell’s Target WalmartThe Interview — The House in the Pines The House in the Pines revolves around a death in the past. Tell us about the relationship between Maya, the protagonist, and Aubrey, her best friend.Maya and Aubrey were best friends in high school. Maya had always felt like an outsider, more comfortable with her nose in a book than at a party, and Aubrey was the new girl at school when their English teacher paired them up for a project on Emily Dickinson.
The girls bonded over their love of books and of poetry. They were inseparable until the summer after high school when a man named Frank entered their lives, sweeping Maya off her feet and turning the friends against each other. By the end of the summer, Aubrey would be dead, and Maya would suspect Frank of killing her.
The House in the Pines is set in a cabin deep in the woods. What drew you to that environment for your debut novel?The house in the book is one I’ve been writing about since I was eleven. It appeared in the first story I ever wrote and has been haunting my pages ever since. The book is my exploration of that house, both as a place and a symbol.
Tell us about your publishing journey:Like a lot of writers, I started out as an avid reader.
The story I wrote at eleven was for a writing contest held by the public library in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The prize was a gift certificate to a local bookstore, so I basically started writing in order to buy more books. (I didn’t win.)
Twenty years would pass before I sat down to write The House in the Pines.
I was in grad school by then, and the book was my MFA thesis. After graduating, I queried agents and was lucky enough to find one who worked with me on the manuscript for almost two years, helping me shape it into the book that would eventually sell.
You also teach creating writing. How does that impact your own writing?Teaching is, in my opinion, the best education.
You really have to understand something in order to effectively articulate it for someone else. Reading student work and providing feedback is also a bit like strength training; it builds storytelling ability which can then be applied to your own work.
Finally it helps that my students—mostly older adults working on memoirs—are wise and empathetic. I’ve learned at least as much from them as they’ve learned from me.
What can we find you doing when you aren’t writing or teaching writing?I love to cook and dance—sometimes at the same time!
I also enjoy hiking the trails at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where I live, or in the Berkshires, where my mom grew up, and where my book is set. And if I’m not doing one of these things, I’m probably reading a book.
What are you working on now?I’m working on my second novel, which I’m very excited about. It’s going to be even creepier than the first!
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:Find other writers to exchange work with, talk to, commiserate, and celebrate with. Writing can be a lonely pursuit so connecting with others is key and it helps if they understand what you’re going through. Some of my best notes come from the members of my writing group, and more importantly, I found some of my best friends there too.
Terrific advice. Thank you for spending time with us! Best of luck with your debut.Ana Reyes — Author of The House in the Pines
Ana Reyes has an MFA from Louisiana State University.
Her work has appeared in Bodega, Pear Noir, The New Delta Review, and elsewhere.
She lives in Los Angeles where she teaches creative writing to older adults at Santa Monica College.
The House in the Pines is her first novel.
To learn more about Ana, click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Instagram, Twitter & FacebookElena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. #1 Amazon Bestseller
Header image by jplenio on Pixabay.
The post The House in the Pines: Debut Thriller appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
January 1, 2023
Welcome to 2023: Home on the Prairie
Welcome to 2023 from the Big House on the Prairie!
Writing into 2023Read last year’s post. It’s still very relevant to a writer’s life! Click the link here.It’s hard to believe that 2022 is in our rearview mirrors. One of the things I love to do at the end of a year is look back at the year before and try to put things into perspective. 2022 had its ups and downs, but there were a few highlights I’d love to share.
The Foundation of PlotLaunched in July as an Amazon Bestseller! Thrilled to have that #1 in front of one of my titles. I made it to #2 with All We Buried, so bumping the other writing references books off the platform was a lot of fun. I’ve had wonderful feedback on the first in my Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) series, so I’m looking forward to launching book two, The Construction of Character, early in 2023.
All We Buried
My latest novel continued to gain readers and great reviews. I’m very appreciate of everyone who has taken the time to read the book and especially those who have recommended it to others, either one-on-one or through social media and online reviews. I am optimistic I’ll have news about a new novel soon! If you’d like to be one of the first to hear about all my upcoming publishing news, I’d love to add you to my newsletter. I send it out once a month.
Diggy!I have officially moved to Paradise. My crew and I now live south of Spokane out on the Moran Prairie. A lifelong dream has come true, and I have my horses on my own property. Radar and Jasper have been joined by Digs, the sweetest old man a horsewoman could hope for. Diggy retired with us when we moved, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome him to the herd.
Allegory EditingAllegory Editing continues to be my favorite home away from home. Through our virtual events, we have continued to connect with writers live and “in person.”
Every month we host a free Q & A about writing, publishing, and living a writer’s life. Our Ask an Editor series are on Saturday mornings at 10am Pacific Time. Bring your questions, or just your curiosity. Not sure what to ask? Listen in to other writers’ questions and enjoy the camaraderie. These events are not recorded, what happens in Ask an Editor, stays in Ask an Editor.
Want to register for our first event in 2023? Join us January 21 at 10am PT by Clicking the link here.We have also continued to do our monthly Writing Workshops. While these are paid events, we are thrilled to offer multi-class passes and gift cards.
To view our complete list of upcoming workshops, click the link here.You can also take advantage of past workshops by accessing the recordings. If you’d like to attend a recorded workshop, please email Andrea Karin Nelson, at andrea@allegoryediting.com.
Welcome to 2023Debut Authors! So excited about all the debut authors coming up this year. Especially those who are part of the International Thriller Writers Debut Author Program. It’s a program I have been working with since 2016. As many of you know, I try to interview every debut author for the launch of their book. I’ll be continuing with that practice in 2023.
Don’t miss any new author interviews, click the link here.I’m optimistic about 2023. I hope that you are too. Wherever you are, whatever your life situation, I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a line and let me know how you’re doing. I look forward to engaging with you in 2023! We are all in this together.
You can reach me at elenahartwell@gmail.com
A little sunshine, a little snow.Elena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. #1 Amazon Bestseller
The post Welcome to 2023: Home on the Prairie appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
December 27, 2022
Pets in Cozies by Olivia Blacke
Pets in Cozies — Vinyl Resting Place, the latest by Olivia Blacke
Author Guest Post + Book & Author info + Author Pet Corner!Looking for more posts on new books? Visit the rest of my blog posts. Click the link here.Vinyl Resting Place — And Pets in Cozies!
Vinyl Resting Place blends murder, music, and macchiatos in a delightful cozy mystery.
When Juni Jessup returns to her small Texas hometown, she and her sisters put all their beans in one basket to open Sip & Spin Records, the ideal place to enjoy musically-themed coffees like Espresso Yourself while listening to great music and town gossip, until – record scratch! – a body deader than disco falls out of the supply closet during the grand opening.
Family is everything to the Jessup sisters, so when their off-beat uncle is arrested, they’ll do anything to help, including putting Sip & Spin Records up for collateral. Unable to face the music, Uncle Calvin takes off, leaving the future of the shop in peril. Can Juni and her sisters catch the real killer before the trail – and the coffee – goes cold?
To purchase Vinyl Resting Place, click on the following links: Amazon, B&N & IndieBound. Click here for additional sellers.“A charming cozy for a new generation of mystery readers . . . Vinyl Resting Place is a delight!” –Elle Cosimano, USA Today bestselling author of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It
“Vinyl Resting Place is bolstered by the sisters’ genuine bond, colorful personalities, and not-so-gentle conflicts. It’s a winning combination.” –New York Times Book Review
Pets In CoziesBy Olivia BlackeIf you’re anything like me, you love pets. Not just your pets and your friends’ pets, but every pet you meet. If you’re also a cozy mystery aficionado, then you’re in luck, because most cozies are chock full of adorable fuzzy (and sometimes scaly or feathered) pets! So instead of talking about some of my favorite cozies, I want to talk about some of my favorite cozy pets.
Wait a second, what’s a cozy you ask? A cozy is the lighter side of murder mysteries. Usually set in a tight-knit community, cozies have two distinct traits. First, they’re rated PG-13—no graphic violence, gore, or other “adult” situations or language. Second, there’s a hook—a central theme revolving around what the amateur sleuth does when they’re not hot on the trail of a murderer. Even when the hook isn’t specifically animal-related, there’s often a pet involved. For example, Diane Kelly has two ongoing series (The Mountain Lodge Mysteries, starting with Getaway With Murder and the Southern Homebrew Mysteries, beginning with The Moonshine Shack Murder) that prominently feature cats.
In Vinyl Resting Place, my new cozy, Juni Jessups and her sisters own a record shop-slash-coffee bar called Sip & Spin, so the hook is music (with a shot of espresso). When the sisters were getting the shop ready for customers, a stray cat named Daffodil (or Daffy for short) moved in and made himself at home. Daffy is a big orange and white cat that resembles a giant plush candy corn. He’s affectionate (and sometimes demanding, as cats can be) to the sisters but wary of strangers. In addition to keeping Juni company when she’s alone in the shop, he has a knack for helping find clues. Daffy’s also featured prominently on the cover, because he really is the bestest kitty.
In the Colorado Wine Mysteries by Kate Lansing, starting with Killer Chardonnay, wine maker Parker Valentine also has a wonderful cat named Zin (short for Zinfandel, of course. What else would a self-respecting wine maker name her cat?) But the feline hijinks don’t end there! As the series progresses, readers are introduced to more adorable cats. Even when Parker goes on vacation in Mulled To Death and has to leave Zin at home, she manages to befriend a very mischievous kitty.
Not every pet in cozies is a cat. There are some spectacular pups, too! Oliver is introduced to us in To Fetch a Felon, the first in the Chatty Corgi Mystery Series by Jennifer Hawkins. Oliver is a very special corgi, indeed. In addition to loving scones and living it up in an idyllic village in Cornwall, Olivier can “talk” to tea shop owner-slash-amateur sleuth Emma Reed. This talent comes in very handy, because who better to sniff out clues than an adorable talking corgi?
Speaking of pets that can talk, Marshmallow, the Persian cat in Jennifer J. Chow’s Sassy Cat Mystery Series (beginning with Mimi Lee Gets a Clue) is able to help pet-groomer Mimi Lee solve murders that stymie the local cops. Marshmallow can not only eavesdrop on suspects, but he can also communicate with other pets and bring even more information to the investigation. And while we’re on the subject of Mimi Lee, she runs a pet salon called Hollywoof in L.A. How cute is that?
I’m not saying that I’m obsessed with Longganisa, Lila Macapagal’s Dachshund in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries, but when she was first introduced in Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo, I felt compelled to crochet a copy of her. Okay, maybe I’m a little obsessed. But can you blame me for falling in love with a sassy sausage dog named after a Filipino sausage? Longganisa doesn’t talk, but she helps Lila stay in shape with long jogs, and on occasion, even helps her find a dead body or two.
Like Daffy in Vinyl Resting Place, in the Beloved Bookroom Mystery Series by Dorothy St. James (starting with The Broken Spine) librarian-turned-sleuth Tru Beckett’s cat started out as a stray. We don’t know much about the aptly named Dewey Decimal’s life before he adopted Tru, but in true cozy mystery companion fashion, he’s got a patch of fur in the shape of a skull. Dewey also has a hidden talent—he’s a matchmaker!
One of the things I love the most about Zoe, the dog in Misha Popp’s not-quite-cozy Pies Before Guys Mysteries, is that she’s a rescue pit bull. In Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies, people think that Zoe must be fierce or mean because pit bulls have a bad reputation. But in reality, Zoe’s a sweetie-pie (pun intended). It’s her pie-baking mommy, Daisy Ellery, that people should keep an eye on, but by the time they figure that out, it’s already too late.
There are so many wonderful cozies to choose from, and many of them feature wonderful pets. Whether they’re companions or sleuthing partners, they all add a special spark to the mystery. From Koko and Yum Yum in Lilian Jackson Braun’s classic The Cat Who… series to Camo the kitten in Raquel V. Reyes’s Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series (beginning with Mango, Mambo, and Murder), I personally hope that cozies continue to feature fantastic pets!
Elena agrees 100 percent! Great to have you visit on my blog.Author Pet Corner!
Baileycakes!I’m fortunate to have a derpy little puggle named Baileycakes in my life. What’s a puggle? She’s ½ pug, ½ beagle, and all snuggles. She has a special place in my heart (and apparently has a special place on the couch, formerly known as *my* place on the couch). She’s a little dog with a big attitude who often makes appearances on my video calls and virtual events because she loves attention.
Baileycakes is a rescue puggle. Although she was bred as a “designer” dog, someone dumped her in a parking lot where she was found by a good human and taken to a shelter. Baileycakes would love to remind everyone to chip and spay/neuter their pets, and to adopt, not shop!
Her favorite things are bacon, cuddles, bacon, getting the zoomies, bacon, doing circus-level acrobats (she once scaled a bookshelf to get a stuffie she wanted), bacon, sleeping under the covers, and bacon.
Olivia Blacke
OLIVIA BLACKE (she/her), author of the Record Shop Mysteries, beginning with Vinyl Resting Place, and the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries (Killer Content and No Memes of Escape), finally found a way to put her Criminology degree to good use by writing quirky, unconventional, character-driven cozy mysteries.
Olivia is a little nerdy, a lot awkward, and just the right amount of weird. She is a recovering ex-Texan who resides with her husband Potassium and Baileycakes, their roly-poly rescue puggle.
When not writing, reading, or spending way too much time on social media, Olivia enjoys Amigurumi crochet, scuba diving, collecting tattoos, watching hockey, and baking dog cookies. She wants to be a unicorn when she grows up.
Connect with Olivia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or check out her website OliviaBlacke.com.Elena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
Header photo by tiburi on Pixabay
The post Pets in Cozies by Olivia Blacke appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
December 25, 2022
Happy Holidays from the Moran Prairie
Happy Holidays!
It’s hard to believe Christmas and the New Year is upon us. No matter what holiday you celebrate, or even if you hide out from November to January and ignore all the hubbub, I wish you a joyous end of the year.
Love, light, and peace,
—Elena
Looking for something new to read over the holidays? Check out the latest interviews with authors and their latest releases. Click the link here.Happy Holidays from . . .Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
The post Happy Holidays from the Moran Prairie appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
December 20, 2022
Never Let Go: New Thriller
Never Let Go, the latest thriller by Lori Duffy Foster
Spotlight + Book & Author InfoDon’t miss any blog posts! Click the link here.Never Let Go
“A dark and suspenseful page-turner about obsession and betrayal, from a veteran storyteller. I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended.”
—William Landay, bestselling author of All That Is Mine I Carry With Me
Most people have nightmares while they sleep. Carla Murphy awakens to find herself living one. Carla is excited when her best friend asks her to lunch and tells her to bring the baby. Rachel dislikes children and had been distant throughout Carla’s pregnancy.
But Carla should have known that people don’t change that quickly. Lunch was a ruse. Carla emerges from a drug-induced slumber sealed in a room in Rachel’s basement with her son gone. Her best friend is no friend. She is obsessed with Carla’s husband and will kill them both if she doesn’t get what she wants. Carla has no choice.
She must help Rachel, her confidant since childhood, seduce her husband or they all die, and her baby will be lost to her forever.
To purchase Never Let Go, click on any of the following links: Amazon, B&N, Joseph-Beth, Bookshop.org & KoboReviewers can download from NetGalley here:NEVER LET GO: NetGalleyPraise for Never Let Go“How far would you go, what would you be willing to do, to find your stolen baby? Never Let Go is a compulsively readable tale of old feuds, secret jealousies, and a long-ago murder. Author Lori Duffy Foster takes us on an exciting journey of high stakes and high suspense. Unforgettable!” – Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins
“Once I started reading, I could not put this well-written and fast-paced drama down. … There were so many plot twists that kept me in the game and when I thought I was on firm grounds with where the narrative was going, the author changed the direction all to keep me emotionally invested as the drama unfolded to its conclusion.” -Dru Ann Love of Dru’s Book Musing, Raven Award winner and two-time Anthony Award Nominee.
“Wow! This book has so many plot twists and turns and just so much going on that you can not predict what’s coming next. I couldn’t put it down…I just had to know what was going to happen! When you pick this up be prepared to put your life on hold. Excellent read! Thank you to Lori Duffy Foster for venturing into the psychological thriller genre. It’s my favorite!!” – Tina, Goodreads
“This book was so intriguing, I initially read the first few pages and then got busy, but last night before bed I got back into it and I couldn’t stop, I had to read the entire book. I stayed up until 3am and it was so worth it.” – Sofia, Goodreads
“Never Let Go is a page turner that will have you hooked from page 1. It’s intense, emotional, gripping and unexpected to say the least. I couldn’t put this book down and when I did, I thought about it all the time! It’s a definite must read! “ – Jenny, NetGalley
Lori Duffy Foster
Lori Duffy Foster is a former crime reporter who writes from the hills of Northern Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and four children.
She was born and raised in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, where a part of her heart remains.
A Dead Man’s Eyes, the first in her Lisa Jamison Mysteries Series, was a 2022 Shamus Award finalist and an Agatha Award nominee.
Never Broken, book 2 in the series, released in April. Her debut thriller, Never Let Go, releases December 20 from Level Best Books.
Lori is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, The Historical Novel Society, International Thriller Writers, Private Eyes Writers of America and Pennwriters.
To learn more about Lori, click on any of the following links: Website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook & Goodreads Elena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
The post Never Let Go: New Thriller appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
December 18, 2022
Sleuthing in Stilettos: Cozy Mystery
Sleuthing in Stilettos, a Resale Boutique Mystery by Debra Sennefelder
Kelly Quinn, owner of a high-end consignment shop, is a booster for her Long Island town’s small businesses—but now a store owner’s murder has brought big trouble . . .
Locals in Lucky Cove seem to harbor hostility toward Miranda Farrell, proprietor of a new shoe store. Nevertheless, Kelly invites her along to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. But soon afterward, Miranda’s body is found in her shop, with Kelly’s uncle—who’s had multiple public arguments with her—standing nearby. Could her uncle really have committed murder over a business dispute? Or is Miranda’s death related to her late husband’s long-ago embezzlement case?
Kelly feels compelled to investigate, despite her detective boyfriend’s objections—not to mention her commitment to promoting Small Business Saturday. But her effort to pump up sales may fall flat. After her presentation to the committee is sabotaged, the Chamber gives her the boot—and tongues start wagging. Now she has to do some fancy footwork to find the killer . . .
Sleuthing in Stilettos (A Resale Boutique Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Setting – Lucky Cove, NY
Lyrical Underground (December 6, 2022)
Paperback : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 1516111044
ISBN-13 : 978-1516111046
Digital ASIN : B09VCWFVRQ
Lucky Cove is a fictional small beach town not too far from NYC.
In the summer months, its population swells thanks to the weekenders. This is a good thing for the shops on Main Street, like Kelly’s resale shop, and other businesses. In the colder months, the town tucks in for a long stretch of winter as the community settles back into its slower pace day-to-day.
What are your favorite personality quirks about Kelly Quinn, protagonist of Sleuthing in Stilettos?Oh, my gosh. There are so many things I love about Kelly. The first thing that comes to mind is her protectiveness over her family and friends, even when she may not be on the best of terms with someone close to her. That trait plays a big role in Sleuthing in Stilettos.
This is book five in your Resale Boutique mysteries, although this can be read as a standalone, is anything readers might want to know about the earlier books?I don’t think there is because I don’t want to give away any spoilers. What I can say is that there is drama going on in Kelly’s family and if a reader is new to the series, that issue is explained so I don’t think there will be a feeling of “missing something”.
I haven’t worn high heels in years, but I used to rock them. What is your relationship with heels?The relationship is good. I love heels. Always have.
I guess it started with my mom’s shoes. There are photos of me when I was little wearing her heels. They were way too big and I was way too young so I didn’t get very far. But the obsession had begun.
Then in the 70’s I was obsessed with platforms, the higher the better. In the 80s there was the colored jeans phase with stilettos. And after college, I wore heels most of the time at work. But since I work at home now I don’t get to wear them very often. So whenever there’s a chance to slip into a pair, I’ll do it.
As a native New Yorker now living in Connecticut, what do you miss about the Big Apple?Not as much as I used to. Though, I always miss Christmas in the city and NYC pizza.
What are you working on now?I have a work-in-progress but I’m keeping the details under wraps for now. I’m also preparing for the release of HOW THE MURDER CRUMBLES, it’s the first book in the Cookie Shop Mystery series and it releases in June 2023.
Words of wisdom for aspiring authors:Believe in yourself. Believe in your writing. And enjoy the process.
Great advice! And fabulous interview. Thank you for visiting with us!Author Pet Corner!
Connie, a three-year-old Shih Tzu, loves to cuddle, play tug of war and enjoys a good belly rub.
She’s also my writing companion.
Though, she spends a good part of the day on the look out for UPS trucks and Amazon vans.
When she sees them, she alerts me. With her, we don’t need a doorbell.
Sleuthing in Stilettos Author — Debra Sennefelder
Debra Sennefelder is an avid reader who reads across a range of genres, but mystery fiction is her obsession. Her interest in people and relationships is channeled into her novels against a backdrop of crime and mystery.
Her first novel, THE UNINVITED CORPSE (A Food Blogger mystery) was published in 2018.When she’s not reading, she enjoys cooking and baking and as a former food blogger, she is constantly taking photographs of her food. Yeah, she’s that person.
Born and raised in New York City, where she majored in her hobby of fashion buying, she now lives and writes in Connecticut with her family. She’s worked in retail and publishing before becoming a full-time author. Her writing companion is her adorable and slightly spoiled Shih Tzu, Connie.
To learn more about Debra, click on any of the following links: WEBSITE, FACEBOOK AUTHOR PAGE, INSTAGRAM, GOODREADS, BOOKBUB & AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE a Rafflecopter giveawayVisit all the Stops on the Tour!
December 5 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
December 5 – Lady Hawkeye – SPOTLIGHT
December 6 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
December 6 – Jane Reads – AUTHOR GUEST POST
December 7 – StoreyBook Reviews – AUTHOR GUEST POST
December 7 – I’m Into Books – SPOTLIGHT
December 8 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
December 8 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
December 9 – Baroness Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT
December 9 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog – SPOTLIGHT
December 10 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
December 11 – The Book Decoder – REVIEW
December 12 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST
December 12 – Books a Plenty Book Reviews – REVIEW
December 13 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
December 13 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW
December 14 – Hearts & Scribbles – SPOTLIGHT
December 14 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT
December 15 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
December 15 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
December 16 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
December 17 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
December 18 – The Mystery of Writing – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Elena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
The post Sleuthing in Stilettos: Cozy Mystery appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
December 16, 2022
Chaos at Carnegie Hall: Historical Cozy
Chaos at Carnegie Hall, a Fiona Figg & Kitty Lane Mystery by Kelly Oliver
Author Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Giveaway!Don’t miss any blog tour posts! Click the link here.Chaos at Carnegie Hall
Agatha Christie meets Downton Abbey in the Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane Mystery series opener.
Can Fiona catch a killer and find a decent cup of tea before her mustache wax melts?1917. New York.
Notorious spy, Fredrick Fredricks, has invited Fiona to Carnegie Hall to hear a famous soprano. It’s an opportunity the War Office can’t turn down. Fiona and Clifford are soon on their way, but not before Fiona is saddled with chaperon duties for Captain Hall’s niece. Is Fiona a spy or a glorified babysitter?
From the minute Fiona meets the soprano aboard the RMS Adriatic it’s treble on the high C’s. Fiona sees something—or someone—thrown overboard, and then she overhears a chemist plotting in German with one of her own countrymen!
And the trouble doesn’t stop when they disembark. Soon Fiona is doing time with a group of suffragettes and investigating America’s most impressive inventor Thomas Edison.
When her number one suspect turns up dead at the opera and Fredrick Fredricks is caught red-handed, it looks like it’s finally curtains for the notorious spy.
But all the evidence points to his innocence. Will Fiona change her tune and clear her nemesis’ name? Or will she do her duty? And just what is she going to do with the pesky Kitty Lane? Not to mention swoon-worthy Archie Somersby…
If Fiona’s going to come out on top, she’s going to have to make the most difficult decision of her life: the choice between her head and her heart.
Genre: Historical Cozy Mystery
Published by: Boldwood Books
Publication Date: November 2022
Number of Pages: 298
ISBN: 9781804831564
Series: The Fiona Figg Mysteries
After thirty years writing philosophy books—on such a broad range of topics that some scholars in my field wondered if I was writing philosophy at all—one stormy afternoon in August 2014, I decided to write a novel. I had never written a word of fiction, so the task I set myself was a bit daunting.
Fortunately, I was on sabbatical (shhhh… don’t tell Vanderbilt I spent it writing a novel). By another stroke of luck, that very weekend, there was a mystery writer’s convention in Nashville called Killer Nashville. In three days, I learned just enough to make me dangerous. The next Monday I started writing my first novel.
I joke that if it had been a sci-fi convention, I’d be writing sci-fi. Or, if it had been a romance convention, I’d be writing romance.
Seven years—and fourteen novels—later, I’ve learned a lot.
First, it’s never too late to try something new.
Second, if you’re a woman and you’ve got the guts to get a Ph.D. in philosophy—a field still dominated by men—then you’ve got the grit to write a novel.
Third, research is research, no matter if it is for a book on French philosophy or an historical murder mystery—except with fiction you can make stuff up so it goes a lot faster (for comparison, in thirty years writing philosophy, I’ve only authored sixteen books. Hahaha… For all the nonacademics, I’m joking. Sixteen scholarly books is way more than most professors publish in a lifetime. Yes. I’m a workaholic.)
The most amazing thing I’ve learned writing fiction is that you can change an entire world with just one sentence or one phrase. It’s like a miracle. Perhaps that’s true of philosophy too, only again it happens a lot slower, like the difference between human time and geological time.
Unlike philosophy, where you get right to the point and tell your reader where you’re going from the beginning, in fiction, you meander and hide the destination for as long as possible. Still fiction allows for a certain kind of truth-telling that is difficult to reach in nonfiction. Affective truth.
I was trained in phenomenology, which focuses on lived experience. Writing fiction requires creating a lived experience for the reader. Whereas phenomenology gets to the bones of lived experience, fiction fills out the flesh.
Writing fiction is also an exercise in empathy that forces you to imagine stepping into another person’s shoes and demands taking up views that aren’t your own. You can’t create believable characters if you can’t imagine life from their point of view. Hopefully, you open up your reader to new ways of seeing the world.
In both my scholarly work and my fiction, I’ve been concerned with women’s issues. In fiction, you can bring those issues to life.
What I love most about writing fiction is that you can imagine a world where justice is real.
Kelly Oliver — Author of Chaos at Carnegie Hall
Kelly Oliver is the award-winning and bestselling author of three mystery series: the seven-book suspense series, The Jessica James Mysteries; the three-book middle grade series, Pet Detective Mysteries; and the four-book historical cozy series, The Fiona Figg Mysteries.
Chaos at Carnegie Hall is the latest Fiona Figg mystery, and the first to feature sidekick, Kitty Lane.
When she’s not writing novels, Kelly is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.
To learn more about Kelly and her books, visit: www.KellyOliverBooks.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @KellyOliverBook, Instagram – @KellyOliverBook, Twitter – @KellyOliverBook & Facebook – @KellyOliverAuthorVisit all the Stops on the Tour!
12/05 Review @ Guatemala Paula Loves to Read
12/07 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
12/08 Review @ Novels Alive
12/08 Showcase @ Novels Alive
12/09 Showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
12/10 Guest post @ Mythical Books
12/11 Showcase @ The Mystery Section
12/12 Interview @ Hott Books
12/13 Interview @ Cozy Up With Kathy
12/13 Review @ sunny island breezes
12/14 Showcase @ Im All About Books
12/15 Showcase @ Silvers Reviews
12/16 Guest post @ The Mystery of Writing
12/16 Review @ Cozy Up With Kathy
12/17 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
12/18 Review @ Melissa’s Bookshelf
12/19 Review @ Urban Book Reviews
12/20 Review @ 5 Minutes for Books
12/20 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
12/21 Review @ nanasbookreviews
12/23 Podcast reading and review @ Books to the Ceiling
12/26 Review @ From the TBR Pile
12/28 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
The post Chaos at Carnegie Hall: Historical Cozy appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
December 14, 2022
A Poisoned Garden: New World Magic
A Poisoned Garden, the latest novel by Kim Alexander
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!Don’t miss any author interviews! Click the link here.A Poisoned Garden
A unicorn walks into a bar and…wait, what was I saying?
Look, between what I’m pretty sure is premature senility and wanting to barf all the time, I’m barely hanging in there. At this point, I need a break after solving xeno murders, fighting murderous fox shifters, and my best friend nearly murdering me for…reasons.
But do I get a break? No, I get an invitation to the court of the Unseelie fae, and it’s the kind of invitation you can’t refuse because it’s from the king who flip-flops between wanting to share a pizza with me and stabbing me.
The upside is that I can see my best friend Marly, the newly minted and slightly murderous Unseelie fae queen. The downside? Apparently, I have to prevent a civil war between powerful magical beings, and I don’t even get a can opener for self-defense.
Just like clockwork, I’m back to running from supernatural squids, double-dealing with triple-dealing fae who probably all want me dead, and getting tangled up with a beautiful, broken-hearted unicorn who makes me feel guilty, and I don’t know why.
After all, we’ve never met before…have we?
To be honest, I would recommend they start with book one, Pure.
But if they’re the sort that likes walking into cocktail parties and just jumping into conversations, the short version is:
Ruby, a bartender in D.C., is on her way home from her shift one early morning, and stumbles across an attempted poaching—some folks are trying to saw the horn off of a unicorn. (I should stop right here and mention that in this world, xenos—in other words, fairy tale creatures—are real and you might be living next door to one of them. Some are charming and beautiful, some are very much not!)
Of course Ruby does her best to save the unicorn’s life—who wouldn’t? He turns out to be a shifter named March, who is extremely new to the human experience. As the book (and the series) progress, we meet their friends, lovers, ex-lovers, enemies, and therapists—some human, many not. A Poisoned Garden is set mostly in the fae Unseelie Kingdom (they’re not the nice ones) and Ruby is tasked with preventing a civil war.
If she had any sort of weapon, that would help.
If she had all her memories, that would help even more!
Tell us about Ruby, the protagonist of A Poisoned Garden :Ruby grew up in Florida and was having a great time attending the University of Miami when something awful and traumatic (and xeno related) happened.
After that she withdrew from school, friends, family—she finally went to see a therapist, and when her doctor relocated to D.C., she followed. So Ruby is not a fan of the xenos and does her best to avoid them. She in general keeps her head down. Saving March, (who is a total babe, by the way) feeling responsible for him, and then protecting him from the very creatures she’s spent years avoiding goes against everything that’s made her feel safe—yet for the first time since she was attacked, she feels truly alive.
Ruby can be quite observant but often misses clues about herself. She has a dry sense of humor. I loved writing in her voice!
What is your process for world building in the New World Magic series:
I’d written an enormous epic fantasy series, and my brains needed a break. I wanted to try something shorter, fast paced, contemporary, and in the first person. I knew I wanted to write about my home town. D.C. doesn’t appear much in books that aren’t political or crime thrillers, but it’s also called The City of Trees, and I think it’s beautiful here.
Pure, book one, takes place in the neighborhoods I visit all the time. The bar Ruby works in, The Hare, is loosely based on a great bar called Wonderland. Ruby and March also have field trips to the Shenandoah’s and to Chicago (for reasons!)
But I love fantasy and I adore world building, so each book is longer and more complicated than the last. The Unseelie Kingdom is also heavily featured, and I wanted an air of decaying glamour, sometimes seductive and sometimes grotesque, a world of ritual and rules that we get to see through the eyes of the human characters.
The fae are fun to write in general because (at least in my version) they can’t lie, but they sure love bending the truth like a balloon animal. I’m forced to look at all their dialogue through that lens, which is a complicated treat. I also had the singular pleasure of having a couple of the secondary characters take me by the throat and insist on being front and center, and book three, The Great Shatter, is the result.
In addition to the New World Magic series, you also wrote the Demon Door series. Tell us about those books.
Oh man, those books are my darlings. For some reason I decided my debut series would have two worlds with two different timelines, and over forty named characters. I regret nothing! (except the conflicting timelines—that was murder to keep straight.)
The very short answer is: They’re like Dune but with more sex. The longer answer involves two worlds; one human, one not, and the magical war that closed The Door—the portal between them. The series follows one young man and one young woman who will either find each other and bring the two realms together, or close The Door forever.
There’s murder, kidnapping, betrayal, poisoning, annoying siblings, bad parenting, near-fatal hangovers, a mysterious book within the book, and at the heart of it, a lovely romance. Rhuun, my male MC, is a half-human demon prince with severe social anxiety that he self-medicates with alcohol. Lelet, my female MC, is a bored and restless heiress who just knows an adventure is out there somewhere. She’s right—he’s it.
You have interviewed a lot of authors for Sirius XM Book Radio, any favorite interviews to share with us?There were so many! And I can’t remember who it was—I want to say JT Ellison–who introduced me to ITW. It was an incredible honor to be in the Debut Class of 2016 (that was one million years ago, I believe.)
A high point for me was the opportunity to run and moderate a panel at NYCC called How to Survive the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. I got Gail Ann Hurd (executive producer) and Greg Nicotero (executive producer and make up wizard) of The Walking Dead, along with Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan of the CDC, who had just put out their zombie emergency survival guide (it’s real, and it crashed the CDC website) to sit on the panel for the standing room only event. I still can’t believe I pulled it off.
By the way, the best advice was from the CDC: duct tape, and get to an island.
As far as interviews I did at XM, a few certainly stand out. I got to talk with Anne Rice, George RR Martin, Neil Gaiman, David Baldacci, (who was kind enough to blurb The Sand Prince) Katherine Neville, some cool chic named Elena Hartwell (Elena says thank you!!) and my very last interview was with Stephen King. I can’t remember anyone who wasn’t gracious and delighted to talk about their work, and I took notes! It was like a ten-year master class in how to write a book. I will always be grateful.
What are you working on now?Book five of New World Magic. I like to have the next one well underway while the previous is being edited, so I’m not looking at a terrifyingly blank PAGE ONE. I’m about 20,000 words in and all I know is there will be KNIVES.
I think there’s one more book in this series, and the next project will probably be about time traveling crime fighters. It begins in 11th century Norman France so it looks like I’ll have to do research. I guess I’d better find out how to do research.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:I can only speak for indie and self-published authors, but okay. You can’t fix a blank page. Get a team. Get the best editor you can afford. Get the best cover art you can afford. Get people you are not related to and don’t owe you money to read your work. But don’t let anyone see it until it’s done. When will it be done? Hahahahaha, sucker.
Great advice! And great interview. Best of luck with all your projects!
Author Pet Corner!
Onion and Frida!Onion is my tuxedo angel baby, 20 pounds of love. When he sits on my lap he dislocated both my hips but it’s worth it.
He’s not what you’d call a deep thinker, but makes up for it with charm and good looks. He doesn’t know any tricks because apparently drinking from the toilet doesn’t count as a trick.
Favorite things: getting a brushing, cookies.
Turn-offs: When F*&(*g Frida won’t leave him alone and also steals his cookies.
Frida came to me via magic. See, we’d lost our Norwegian Forest cat Leeloo (of blessed memory) and Onion was sad and lonely.
I had a dream in which my best friend Stevie Nicks and I were just hanging out at her house, and her Siamese cat had a litter, and she gave me one of the kittens.
(This was 100% in my dream, by the way—tragically I’ve never met her.)
Next day I put it out on the ol’ Facebook, and a friend of mine who works with an animal rescue DMed me saying they just happened to have a lil’ baby snowshoe Siamese, and I could go pick her up that week.
Frida!
Onion!So Stevie Nicks and my friend Randy brought Frida to us! This poor thing had every cootie known to man, and some that haven’t been named.
The only person I saw during the first year of the pandemic was the vet. But now she’s a little over two and is perfect in every way except that she’s a total demon.
Also my husband is in love with her and if the house catches on fire, let’s just say I’d better find my own way out.
Onion and Frida may both be found on Instagram: #OnionWhatAreYouDoing and #FridaTheDestroyer.
Kim Alexander
Kim Alexander grew up in the wilds of Long Island, NY and slowly drifted south until she reached Key West.
After spending ten rum-soaked years as a DJ in the Keys, she moved to Washington DC, where she lives with two cats, an angry fish, and her extremely patient husband who tells her she needs to write at least ten more books if she intends to retire in Thailand, so thank you for your patronage.
To learn more about Kim, click on any of the following links: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Goodreads, BookBub & InstagramElena Taylor/Elena HartwellAll We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook.
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