Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 2

The Joy of the Amateur Sleuth by Valerie (V.M.) Burns

Cozy mysteries almost always feature an amateur sleuth. These individuals aren’t trained members of law enforcement and aren’t getting paid to solve mysteries and bring down evil doers. Critics of the genre often disparage the use of amateurs to solve crime as “unrealistic.” But is it? 

I would argue that the most important skill needed to solve mysteries isn’t a knowledge of the law, weapons training, or physical fitness provided and enhanced at the police academy. Those skills are important, but aren’t critical. The biggest factor that will dictate success in solving mysteries is a heightened level of observation and critical thinking. Police officers are trained to observe details. A trained observer will notice even the most minute objects present as well as what’s missing from a crime scene. In addition, police are trained to observe behavior. Observation and critical thinking can be trained, but it can also be an innate skill that can be honed over time.

One of my favorite cozy mystery sleuths is Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead in England. Miss Marple is a nosy, busybody who sees everything that goes on in her village. Her ability to solve mysteries centers around the fact that she has lived her entire life in a small village where she has observed human nature up close and personal. When introduced to someone new, Miss Marple observes and then associates that person with someone in her village with a similar nature. This isn’t unusual. We’ve all met someone who reminded us of someone else, either by the way they look or the way they behave.

From an author’s perspective, the amateur sleuth provides a vast opportunity for intrigue and mischief. Amateur sleuths are not professionals and rarely get from beginning to end without mistakes. In fact, it would be unrealistic if an amateur behaved perfectly with no missteps. Unlike the police, an amateur sleuth isn’t bound by rules of law. They boldly go down paths where a trained professional would never tread. Ignorance often places the amateur in some very sticky situations. However, it’s those situations which can be the most entertaining.

Amateur sleuths in cozy mysteries represent average people who are capable of extraordinary feats. Even without extensive training or specialized skills, the average person can use their wits to solve mysteries. Maddy Montgomery is a social media influencer and fashionista who inherits a bakery. Even though she can’t bake, Maddy uses her skill set so that Baby Cakes bakery not only survives, but thrives. In the fourth Baker Street Mystery, Maddy and her friends use their unique skills to solve the murder of a wedding planner at a bridal expo releases July 29, 2025. Preorder your copy today.

Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Next Generation Award-finalist. Writing as V. M. Burns, she is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, and RJ Franklin Mystery series. As Valerie Burns, she writes the Baker Street Mystery series. She also writes the Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series as Kallie E. Benjamin. In addition to writing, Valerie is an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction MFA Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in Northern Georgia with her two poodles. Connect with Valerie at vmburns.com.

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Animals in Cozy Mysteries by Sharon Marchisello

One of the tropes in cozy mysteries is a furry pet, likely a cat or a dog. More often than not, the animal appears on the cover, signaling to the reader that there’s a feel-good story inside about a kind person, and no animals will be harmed. (But a human will probably die.)

Sometimes the animals have magical powers. Sometimes they can talk. Some of them even solve crimes or at least provide essential clues for their human sleuths. But the animals are almost always pets.

My latest mystery, Trap, Neuter, Die, the first in the DeeLo Myer cat rescue mysteries, contains many elements of a traditional cozy: small town, amateur sleuth, clean language. No explicit sex or graphic violence on the page. And there’s an adorable cat on the cover.

But most of the felines in my story are feral cats, not pets. After a traffic infraction, DeeLo is sentenced to community service with a local animal rescue group and assigned to their Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return program (TNVR). TNVR has proven to be the most humane method of controlling the overpopulation of free-roaming cats. The reader learns about how the program works and its benefits along with DeeLo.

However, not everyone likes cats, especially not feral ones, and not everyone agrees that TNVR is a good idea. Some of these cat haters threaten people who feed or otherwise try to improve the lives of feral felines.

On DeeLo’s first night of TNVR duty, she finds the strangled body of a feral cat caretaker and local bookstore owner. Several of the suspects are cat haters who have threatened the victim and the felines.

DeeLo soon learns that the way the county’s animal ordinance is written, the practice of TNVR is illegal. Like many local laws throughout the country, the ordinance in my fictitious Pecan County assumes all cats are pets and thus have owners. Therefore, a rescue volunteer or Good Samaritan who feeds feral cats and/or traps them to be neutered and vaccinated is considered their owner. Pecan County has leash laws and restrictions on the number of “pets” a person can “own.” And, when they release the sterilized cat back to its outdoor home, they are guilty of “animal abandonment.”

Most Pecan County citizens are not aware of the draconian ordinance, and neither the director of Animal Control nor her predecessor have any intention of enforcing it. But one local cop, who has a grudge against DeeLo’s mentor, Catherine Foster, uses the animal abandonment clause to arrest Catherine.

DeeLo is appalled at the law’s stupidity and makes it her mission to get it updated. But the quest for legislative change is harder than she thought it would be. As she seeks allies among Pecan County’s most prominent citizens, she encounters some who might have motives for murder.

Like other cozies, Trap, Neuter, Die actually does feature a pet cat as well as feral felines. DeeLo ends up adopting Manny, the formerly feral cat who lived with the bookstore owner. Manny was the sole witness to his owner’s murder, and, as DeeLo discovers, he’s an excellent judge of character.

Sharon Marchisello is the author of the DeeLo Myer Cat Rescue Mysteries, beginning with Trap, Neuter, Die (2024) from Level Best Books. The second in the series, Trapped and Tested, is scheduled for a September 2025 release. Her other mysteries were published by Sunbury Press: Going Home (2014) and Secrets of the Galapagos (2019). Besides novels, Sharon has published short stories in anthologies and online magazines; one was a Derringer finalist. She has written travel articles, training manuals, screenplays, book reviews, and a nonfiction book (Live Well, Grow Wealth - 2018). She earned a Bachelor's degree in French from the University of Houston and a Master's in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California. She is an active member of Sisters in Crime, the Atlanta Writers Club, and the Hometown Novel Writers Association. Retired after 27 years with Delta Air Lines, Sharon now lives in Peachtree City, Georgia. She serves on the boards of the Fayette Humane Society, Hometown Novel Writers Association, and the Friends of the Peachtree City Library.

Website: sharonmarchisello.com

https://www.facebook.com/SLMarchisello 

https://twitter.com/slmarchisello 

https://www.instagram.com/slmarchisello/

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A Foolproof Plan by Judy Penz Sheluk

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m an author. I’m also an editor, as well as the owner of the independent publishing imprint, Superior Shores Press (SSP). Part of what I publish under the SSP umbrella, beyond my own work, are multi-author anthologies. Number five, Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense, launched on June 18th. 

Here’s the thing. In addition to selecting 20+ stories out of 80+ submissions, I also include a story in each collection that I’ve written. You might think that makes my story a sure win. After all, I’m unlikely to send myself a rejection letter, right?

Okay, fine, if you must know, there was that one time, when I was the volunteer intake coordinator for Bouchercon Toronto’s anthology, Passport to Murder, when I had to send myself a rejection letter. 

Humbling? That goes without saying. But with the judge’s feedback and a few revisions, it eventually found a good home. 

Fast forward to my story, ‘A Foolproof Plan’ in Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers. It began life as a third-person account of a woman, Amanda, plotting her escape from an unhappy marriage. The title, depending on where it was in the revision process, alternated between ‘Running  Away’ to ‘The Second Last Supper’ to ‘Just Ten More Minutes.’ 

After a couple of well-deserved rejections, I put it in my WIP folder and forgot about it for the next five years. Except I hadn’t, not really. When the time came to write something for Midnight Schemers, and pulled it out of the bin and dusted it off. 

I wish I could tell you that my first attempt at revival was a rousing success. Instead, my beta readers were far from enthusiastic. As for my longtime editor (because here’s a head’s up, even editors can’t edit their own work), she was considerably more forthright: “This is a great ending that deserves a much better story.’

Another writer might have given up, but I’m an optimist. I focused on “great ending” and went back to the keyboard.

I started by changing the point of view from third person to first. That helped, because instead of being an observer on the sidelines, it got me into Amanda’s head. A half-dozen revisions later, and I was ready for another round of feedback.

My editor still liked the ending. My beta readers, not so much. “This is going to be the last story in the collection,” one of them lamented. “Do you really want to leave readers on such a downer?”

I thought about that. True, the ending I’d written, the one my editor had found “great,” was dark. But was there a way where it could be, if not all sunshine and roses and wrapped up in a tidy bow, at least a bit more hopeful? I thought there was, though it would mean bit more tinkering to make it work.

‘A Foolproof Plan’ may bear little resemblance to its earlier iterations, but it’s finally found its way out of the WIP bin and into a book. And all it took was five years and fifteen revisions.

READERS: What’s your favorite sort of ending and why? 

About Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 stories of Mystery & Suspense

Desire or desperation, revenge or retribution—how far would you go to realize a dream? The twenty-two authors in this collection explore the possibilities, with predictably unpredictable results.

Featuring stories by Pam Barnsley, Linda Bennett, Clark Boyd, C.W. Blackwell, Amanda Capper, Susan Daly, James Patrick Focarile, Rand Gaynor, Gina X. Grant, Julie Hastrup, Beth Irish, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Jim McDonald, donalee Moulton, Michael Penncavage, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Peggy Rothschild, Debra Bliss Saenger, and Joseph S. Walker.

Find it at www.books2read.com/midnight-schemers/

Find out more about Judy Penz Sheluk at www.judypenzsheluk.com

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Curious South – Or Five Weird Things About My Writing by Lexi George

Hi, I’m Lexi, and I write fantasy and southern-fried paranormal romance set in Alabama. While there is no right or wrong way to write, here are a few odd things about my so-called process:

Supernatural oddities: In book one of the demon hunting series, Demon Hunting in Dixie, there is a talking dog and a fairy cat. In book two, Demon Hunting in the Deep South, there is a demonically possessed Chihuahua. Book three, Demon Hunting in a Dive Bar, has a vegetarian zombie (a secondary character), and book four has a sentient car. There are six books and a novella in the demon hunting series, and every book has what I call critters, some based on mythology, and others strictly from my imagination. Hannah, the fictional town that is the setting of my books, is a magnet for supernatural creatures.

Hair fetish: I had no idea when I started writing that I apparently have a hair fetish. In book one, Addy, my heroine, gets a supernatural do-over and her hair turns platinum blonde. In Demon Hunting in a Dive Bar, Verbena Skinner, a downtrodden and woefully mistreated secondary character, gets a new “do,” after her hair is ruined, or rurnt, as we say in my neck of the woods, by her evil sisters. Even the pampered debutante heroine in book four, Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb, cannot escape my follicular obsession. Poor Sassy gets fairyfied, and a side effect of her transformation is glittery hair that sparkles whenever she gets upset. Told you. Hair fetish. 

Food: Anyone who reads my books quickly figures out that I like food, and I like to eat. The local watering hole in my imaginary town is The Sweet Shop, and I enjoy describing Southern food in great detail. Fried chicken. Mashed potatoes swimming in butter. Cornbread with a crunchy crust. Ribs. Pies piled high with lightly toasted meringue. Food is important, and my mama never had to call me to supper twicet. 

Crater: The source of the supernatural woo-woo in my small town is a crater created millions of years ago when a meteor smashed into earth. It so happens there’s a similar crater (without the magic, unfortunately) in the small town where I live, and people come from all over to study the impact site. When I was looking for a reason to explain the woo-woo in my fictional town, the crater seemed a feasible explanation. Write what you know, right?

Characters sometimes just “appear”: I’ll be writing along, thinking I know where the story is going and wham! A character will show up with no warning. It happened in the novella The Bride Wore Demon Dust. My heroine finds out on her wedding day that her husband is an immortal demon hunter. To add insult to injury, she also discovers that the “mugging” he’d saved her from hadn’t been a mugging at all. She’d been attacked by a demon (the demons in my books are interdimensional wraiths, not the biblical kind), and she’s no longer human. Understandably rattled by these revelations, she jumps into a Mary Kay car and runs away from her wedding. A few miles down the road, she has a sugar craving and darts into a convenience store, and that’s when the Random Character Distribution Network kicked in, and the woman behind the counter appeared, fully formed and without any conscious thought on my part. Nicole, AKA “Mullet Woman,” turned out to be such a fun character to write that I brought her back in other books. 

This unplanned character manifestation happened again in Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb. Grim, my hero, wakes up in the woods after going on a chocolate bender. Turns out my tough, macho demon hunters are impervious to alcohol and drugs, but they get totally smashed on chocolate. A few M&Ms, and the big guys are toast. Grim wakes up feeling like death warmed over and accidentally sets the woods on fire. Ching! The Random Character Distribution Network does its thing, and Taryn Kirvahni, a female demon hunter, appears. Taryn is supercilious and condescending and generally annoys the stew out of Grim. Sibling rivalry at its finest. I’d been kicking around the idea of introducing female demon hunters for quite some time, but I had no idea Taryn was going to make an appearance...until she did. 

 So, there you have it, a few curious things about my writing!  

Lexi George writes fantasy and sexy, snarky paranormal romance set in Alabama about hunky, immortal demon hunters and the Southern women they love. There are six full-length novels in the series, plus a novella. The latest book in the series is Demon Hunting with a Southern Sheriff. She is currently shopping an urban fantasy about an expatriate elf named Gill who runs security for a casino. The casino caters to humans and supernatural types, and things really go sideways when a Regency vampire appears on Gill’s doorstep one night seeking protection from the Bloodfather. Lexi’s books are available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BooksaMillion.com, and indieBoßund.org. Demon Hunting in Dixie, the first book in the demon hunting series, and the novella, The Bride Wore Demon Dust, are also available on Audible. Visit Lexi at her website:  www.lexigeorge.com

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Family Ties and Writing Inspiration by Ann Michelle Harris

As writers we want to tell compelling stories to keep readers turning the pages. One way to do that is to use universal themes to connect emotionally. Whether your primary story is violently intense or adorably cozy, relatability is an important way to drive a reader’s psychological investment.  Family is one of those elements that everyone can relate to—for better or worse. Exhausting sibling rivalries, close ties to a grandmother, an overbearing parent, intense protectiveness of a child, the lack of a family, or the creation of a found family, are all story elements that evoke strong emotions in real life and, consequently, a strong emotional investment in a story.  

Family ties can provide a powerful motivation for either committing or solving a crime. In Wanda Morris’s All Her Little Secrets, the protagonist is a high powered corporate attorney who gets caught up in a murder mystery, but a key element of the character is her relationship with her brother. In my short story “Drive,” a quiet woman’s weekend getaway takes a turn when her famous younger brother goes missing. Audrey prefers a peaceful life in the shadows while her younger brother Joshua is an outgoing and popular musician. Although they couldn’t be more different in personality and life choices, they grew up together and they love each other. When Joshua goes missing, Audrey’s intense search for him has heightened emotion because of the sibling connection. “Drive” is part of the Eighth Guppy Anthology, Gone Fishin’: Crime Takes a Holiday. Since the theme of the anthology is crime on vacation, several of the stories feature variations of family ties or family dysfunction.

Absence of a family or the use of a fake family can also be a useful theme. In my short story, “Changeling,” Shane, a grifter, uses a little homeless girl as a prop to con money from people at a fancy hotel. Shane initially treats the girl as an object for profit, but as the day progresses, she gradually begins to feel a connection to her, as if they really were the mother and daughter they are pretending to be. The story resonates with readers because of the poignancy of the inverted, iconic mother-child relationship.

The idea of a found family is one of my favorite tropes. A found family is a group of unrelated people who grow to love and rely on each other as if they were a family. Found families have an extra layer of comfort, vulnerability, and intentionality. In my novel North, family is a distant memory for the orphaned protagonist and, when he is taken in by a powerful household, he feels like a fish out of water. But soon his new friends become his real family. This adds complex emotions to ground the action and adds depth to the characters.

When stuck for inspiration, you may want to think about family ties in all of their various forms. Family connections can create powerful motivations for the core crime. Or, they can also add much needed complexity and authenticity to characters, whether it’s a cynical police detective with a doting grandmother or an overly curious amateur sleuth with a sister who tries to keep her out of trouble. For better or for worse, family, in its many variations, is a concept to which all readers can relate.

Ann Michelle Harris is a lawyer by day who writes crime, romantic suspense, and fantasy. She was a finalist for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award from Sisters in Crime. Her crime short stories are featured in the 2023 grifter crime anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker and the 2025 vacation crime anthology Gone Fishin, Crime Takes a Holiday, both from the Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter. Her YA fantasy novel North debuted January, 2025. Find her at annmichelleharris.com  

Buy Links:

Gone Fishin’ Crime Takes a Holiday, The Eighth Guppy Anthology 
Hook, Line, and Sinker, The Seventh Guppy Anthology
North

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ShortCon – June 7 – Alexandria, VA

Debra will be attending a special workshop for short story authors.

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Writing Under The Gun by Cindy Goyette

When I wrote my first book, I did so with a gun on my hip. I worked at the New York/Quebec border for ICE (although it wasn’t called that then). I routinely volunteered to work the least favorite shift: midnight to 8 a.m. because I could squeeze in some writing. We had what we called “out ports,” which were small crossings only manned by one person during the night. Traffic slowed after midnight, and once I completed paperwork, I had nothing else to do. This was the late eighties, and I brought my word processor (yes, I’m old) with me and a small black-and-white TV. The TV played Perry Mason reruns. I didn’t watch them, but the noise helped distract me from the unexplained noises coming from the creepy basement. 

That first book is in the closet where it belongs, but I’ve been writing ever since. Not always. I left that job in 1990, and work and family obligations often had to come first, leaving me little writing time. But I wrote when I could. After producing two more closet books, I started a series about my job as a probation officer. After about twenty years of fits and starts, I had something that resembled my 2024 release, OBEY ALL LAWS, A Probation Case Files Mystery. I signed with an agent who ultimately could not find a publisher. Once we parted ways, and in one last ditch effort, I submitted the manuscript to Level Best Books. And, to my surprise, they offered a 3-book contract for the series. Then, they offered me a 3-book contract for my cozy mystery series as well. Book 1: DIAMOND IN THE RUFF, A Wiggle Butt Manor Mystery released in May 2025.

So, after taking my sweet time, even twenty years on one book, to produce a manuscript worthy of publication, I now have…. DEADLINES! What a scary word for something so big, so complex, as a book. And having two series running at the same time means I now have to produce two books a year. I had to change my procrastinating ways.

It helped that I recently retired from my day job. I quickly learned that I needed a schedule. That means butt in chair by a reasonable hour. How long I spend there depends on if I’m writing a first draft or editing. I can edit all day, but creating new content usually drains my brain after a few hours. Bottom line, I need to be disciplined. I’m most successful when I stick to a schedule. My latest effort to be productive looks like this. Day starts at 7 a.m. Coffee and social media—I know, but it's a hard habit to break. 8ish I head to the gym 5 days a week. When I get home, it’s writing time for most of the rest of the day. If I’m not creating new content, I’m editing, reading stuff for my critique partners or the thing I hate most, marketing. I’ve stopped saying I’m retired because I’m working harder than ever. And, if I’m lucky, I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life. If it ever feels to be too much, I look at my reviews. Knowing readers are connecting with my stories makes it all worthwhile.

Former law enforcement officer Cindy Goyette loves dogs and the Pacific Northwest. She combines these things in her first cozy mystery, DIAMOND IN THE RUFF, A Wiggle Butt Manor Mystery. She’s also published The Probation Case Files Mystery series, OBEY ALL LAWS and EARLY TERMINATION and has a short story in the anthology LOST & LOADED, A Gun’s Tale. OBEY ALL LAWS won an award from PSWA for the best suspense and was a Lefty finalist for the best debut mystery. She lives in Washington State with her husband and two Cocker Spaniels.

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A Happy Accident by Jenny Adams

I sometimes call myself an “accidental” mystery writer. I’m not an accidental writer, by any means; I’ve been telling stories since I could speak, and began writing them down shortly after. I have notebooks upon notebooks filled up with stories from my elementary and middle and high school days - stories written during class, when I should have been paying attention to things like math or chemistry. When I graduated from college, I started writing seriously. I was a big fantasy reader, and, since it was 2010, a voracious YA reader. My first manuscript was a YA fantasy.

So was my second. 

By the time I signed with my agent, in 2021, I was on my sixth YA fantasy manuscript. I worked so hard at knowing my age category and genre; I threw myself into world-building and magic systems and learning romance beats and making friends with other YA fantasy writers. I was convinced, beyond a doubt, that when I was (finally) published, I’d be published as a YA Fantasy author. 

I was wrong. 

I should back up a bit. I’ve always read widely. Even as a child, I gravitated towards stories with strong female main characters and knuckle-biting action.. My great-grandmother, who lived with us, would take me to the library every week and fill up her bag with Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton and Elizabeth George and Janet Evanovich, and I’d read them right after her, as soon as I finished up my own stack of Nancy Drew or the Boxcar Children. In college, I read so many thrillers and romantic suspense novels that I wasn’t able to sleep if I was home alone. Mysteries and thrillers always kept me company, and I loved books that blended fantasy and mystery, like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. So, when my agent (gently) prodded me and said that maybe I should try writing in another age category, I pivoted to adult and wrote the first draft of the book that would become A Deadly Endeavor. It was still fantasy–in it, Edie saw ghosts and Gilbert was an accidental necromancer–but it was just as equally a mystery. I had so much fun plotting the whodunnit and leaning into the beats that when it went on submission, my-now-editor called and asked my agent if I’d be open to rewriting it as a historical mystery, and leaving out the magic all together. 

I hesitated. I had never pictured myself as a mystery writer! I didn’t know anyone writing mysteries! I was a fan, not a peer! I worried that other mystery authors would know I was a total fraud. That I didn’t belong. That I never meant to be among them. I almost said no, out of nothing more than imposter syndrome.

But then, by chance, I came across a box of childhood belongings my mom had packed up for me. In it was a slim, hardback, handwritten book. I remembered it instantly; I’d written it for a school project in third grade. It was a Nancy Drew-inspired mystery, complete with illustrations. I’d even given it a copyright page, and the bio read, “Jenny Adams is the author of mystery books. This is her first novel.” 

I told my agent I’d do the revise & resubmit. I rewrote the manuscript again–this time, putting my world-building skills to work making the 1920s Philadelphia setting come alive. None of the skills I’d honed in YA fantasy went to waste; I was a stronger writer for those six manuscripts. I wrote and rewrote, and two weeks after sending the R&R back to that editor, my agent called, and my life changed forever. 

Now, A Deadly Endeavor and the sequel, A Poisonous Silence, sit beside that third-grade project on my shelf. Jenny Adams is an author of mysteries. Every word I wrote, every book I read, every dream I chased led me here. So don’t be afraid to say yes, to pivot, or to try something new. It might just be the happiest accident you’ll ever make. 

Bio

Jenny Adams has always had an overactive imagination. She turned her love of books and stories into a career as a librarian and Agatha Award-nominated novelist. She holds degrees in Medieval Studies and Library Science from The Ohio State University and Drexel University, and currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her family.

Links:

Website: http://jenny-adams.com 

A Deadly Endeavor: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741924/a-deadly-endeavor-by-jenny-adams/ 

A Poisonous Silence: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/770231/a-poisonous-silence-by-jenny-adams/

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If Walls Could Talk: Historic Houses in Crime Fiction by Kate Michaelson

Old homes have always fascinated me. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a hundred-year old farmhouse hearing stories about those who lived there long before our family. I remember looking at the towering maples in the yard, thinking of the people who planted them a century ago, and marveling at how different their lives were from ours. But more than anything, I’ve always been intrigued by the human dramas these houses witnessed. Several homes in my community served as stops on the Underground Railroad, only increasing my fascination with the stories they could tell. That’s why when I wrote my debut mystery, Hidden Rooms, I knew it would be set in a rural community full of historic homes where both the people and the houses held their secrets close.

Of course, I’m following in a long literary tradition of using historic settings to enhance atmosphere and intrigue. If you’ve ever removed wallpaper or remodeled an old home, you know that just like people, buildings have lifetimes’ worth of layers, making them rich symbols for the mysteries that unfold within them. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca provides the perfect example of how the past can linger in the present. The overgrown grounds and dark interiors of Manderley embody the presence of the narrator’s predecessor, Rebecca. As the main character explores the estate, she uncovers hints of a past that everyone else would prefer remain hidden. 

Silvia Moreno-Garcia uses similar techniques in Mexican Gothic, where the rotting grandeur of High Place, an isolated mansion in the Mexican countryside, becomes a malevolent force in its own right. The estate is intricately tied to the twisted secrets of the family living there. As the protagonist, Noemí, delves deeper into her surroundings, the house itself increasingly becomes an active antagonist.

While both Rebecca and Mexican Gothic are set in the past, Tana French uses historic homes in modern settings to develop characters and themes. In The Likeness, the almost otherworldly home of a group of students becomes integral to the mystery. When the main character, Cassie, assumes a false identity to infiltrate a group of friends, she finds herself seduced by the sense of belonging and intimacy of this tight clique living apart from the world in their graceful Georgian mansion. In French’s The Witch Elm, the setting of Toby’s familial home—dubbed the Ivy House for the thick vines that encase it—becomes a metaphor for the fragmented memories and misunderstandings that drive a group of cousins apart and lead to murder.  

In Hidden Rooms, the idyllic, old houses of the Midwestern countryside serve as perfect cover for the secrets of their inhabitants. As characters restore buildings, they discover truths about the people within them, spurring them to confront uncomfortable questions about those they thought they knew. From classic novels to newer works of mystery and suspense, old homes are not merely settings; they are characters in their own right, reflecting the internal struggles of the people who live there and serving as catalysts for the story. 

Kate Michaelson’s debut mystery, Hidden Rooms, was inspired by her own struggles with chronic, invisible illness and won the 2022 Hugh Holton Award. Her articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in academic and literary journals. In her free time, she loves hiking and anything else that takes her outdoors and away from her laptop. She lives in Toledo with her husband and their small but mighty herd of pets. You can follow Kate at www.katemichaelson.com , on Instagram, and BlueSky.

You can get the Hidden Rooms ebook and audiobook on sale for a limited time at the following links:  

eBook: https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Rooms-Kate-Michaelson-ebook/dp/B0CB1S4M24/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0 

Chirp audiobook sale: https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/hidden-rooms-by-kate-michaelson

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Malice Domestic – April 24-27 – Bethesda, MD

Debra will be moderating the Influencers in the Cozy Community panel featuring Heather Harrisson, Tiffany Gullion-krieg, Dru Ann Love, and Joanna Campbell Slan on Friday, April 25 from 3-3:50 p.m. in the Glen Echo room.

The post Malice Domestic – April 24-27 – Bethesda, MD first appeared on Debra H. Goldstein.

The post Malice Domestic – April 24-27 – Bethesda, MD appeared first on Debra H. Goldstein.