Bernadette Calonego's Blog: Eventful, page 3

After the Thaw

My latest author letter starts with this paragraph: " I remember a great short story that I read many years ago. This is a short summary: A murderer escapes a prison and the people in the entire region are in panic because of it. All of a sudden, there is a string of break-ins, and soon dead bodies are found. Victims of the murderer, it seems. There is no trace of the fugitive, however. He remains elusive. Winter comes and goes. As the snow melts, another dead person is found: It is the killer`s body. It turns out that the other murders were committed long after the escaped prisoner had frozen to death. The allegedly oh so innocent people in the area had exploited the situation in order to commit crimes that would be attributed to the murderer. A ingenious story."
Every month, I send out an author letter (for which you can sign up on the homepage of my website www.bernadettecalonego.com) with news that I normally don't share anywhere else. You get more than one glimpse of my life in a tiny fishing village on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland.
The snow has disappeared now, but I haven't discovered any bodies like in the short story above. They are entirely on the pages of my mystery novels. But on the beaches, there are carcasses of seals that were crushed between the ice pans of the pack ice. Nature is not always benevolent. Nor are the humans.
In this rural, rugged existence of mine in an isolated, mostly COVID-free environment, everything is reduced to the essentials. With so few distractions and stimuli, I can concentrate on my writing - and publishing: My mystery thriller “Cries from the Cold” is almost ready to launch in the paperback version. Publication will be before the end of May. I’m so excited! You can also preorder the e-book that will be out June 25. It is the first case for detective sergeant Calista Gates. A German reader wrote to me: “I like Calista Gates, she is tenacious but very good at handling people and she also has a vulnerable side to her. I hope you keep her as a character in your next book.” I do, and now I have a Calista-Gates series! I hope to have the second book translated soon.
Four days ago, I discovered the first flowers under the snow-free bleached old grass. My life is complete!

Cries from the Cold

I walk a dog named Coco almost everyday, it is not my dog but belongs to a family in the remote fishing village in Northern Newfoundland where I am staying. Coco is shedding her winter fur right now: instead of looking like a lion she resembles more a seal (she is a labrador/husky mix). I wonder if there is an analogy with humans. Am I shedding something, too, now that it is April?
There are still ice floes in the bay and heaps of snow everywhere but luckily I don`t need any crampons and long johns anymore.
When one is shedding something, one must feel lighter, I suppose. I think I'm shedding books (smile). I'm in the process of publishing a German mystery novel and an English title: "Cries from the Cold". The latter is a crime thriller set on the wild coast of Labrador, with RCMP detective Calista Gates as the main character. It is the first book of a series, my first series, by the way. "Cries from the Cold" can be pre-ordered now on Amazon, the paperback will be out in approximately three weeks, the e-book on June 25.
You probably assume that I'm fascinated by cold regions, and you are right. I've never been a person who can stand searing heat. I would probably be a good candidate for a heat stroke in that kind of temperatures. I just spent my first entire winter in Northern Newfoundland but it turned out to be an exceptionally mild winter for this area. I've come to realize that the crucial thing is to dress appropriately. Even a face covering, if necessary.
I've just read the mesmerizing book "Ghost of Everest", about a search expedition in 1999 that found the body of famous climber George Mallory who died in 1924 on the highest mountain on earth. Mallory had none of the modern clothing that today's mountaineers have. Just silk underwear and layers of sweaters made of wool, jackets made of canvas, simple leather boots and a pilot hat for his head. It is hard to imagine how Mallory could venture like this into the Death Zone on Everest. But he did.
I like to be adventurous, too, but with a calculated risk. The heroine of my latest book "Cries from the Cold", Calista Gates, cannot afford that luxury. She is thrown into the brutal Labrador winter without any ropes or guard rails.
Would you like to find out how she was doing?
Three more weeks to go!

Missing

Recently I read that book ads with the word "missing" in them are very successful. I have no way to verify this claim but what I know is that stories of missing persons fascinate and scare me. People go missing all the time. Many, many people. In the isolated region in Northern Newfoundland where I am spending the winter, five people have gone missing in the last thirty years. One case is probably a murder.
I have read several books about people who went missing in the wilderness because I am surrounded by the vast barren tundra. One thing strikes me over and over: It is easy to get disoriented and lost in the wilderness. One doesn`t even have to make a huge mistake. A wrong turn, then another one, and soon you cannot find your return path anymore. Most lost persons keep going, first with hope, then in panic, putting distance between their starting point and the trail they are on. Which makes it more difficult to locate them.
Bad weather especially works against you when you are out there in the harsh unknown. Or the heat. I read an incredible story from 2006 about a young couple who drove up a mountain in Southern California on a train, hiked a short distance to a view point with other tourists and to a waterfall and got lost. They spent three hot days and three cold nights in the wild. They had no food, no cell phones and no adequate clothing. Eventually they found the camp of a dead hiker who also got lost. With his matches they started a forest fire that would be seen from a helicopter. It worked: they were rescued. What an amazing story. But it could easily have ended with their deaths. Here is a link to the story: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna12737512
My advice: Always tell somebody where you are going to.
If you like to read more about my life in a tiny village in Northern Newfoundland, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter on my website www.bernadettecalonego.com/eng

Murderous Morning: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end.

The Waiting Game

Right now I feel like the reader of a slow-burning crime novel where not much happens at the beginning but the suspense gradually builds up and one expects something horrible to happen soon.
I am staying in a remote village in Northern Newfoundland and I have told many people how bad the winter is there, how brutal the storms, how cold the air coming down from the Arctic. Elaborating on the dangers, I felt almost heroic for the things I would have to endure. But so far the winter has been very bearable, sometimes even mild, with lots of rain instead of snow.
It doesn`t mean, of course, that the situation cannot change soon and that things will be really rough and scary. The unknown kills me.
I am also waiting for the feedback from my beta readers who are going through my latest German novel right now. They are the first humans to have laid eyes on this novel (except me). Will they like the book? Will they give a thumbs up or down? It is nerve-racking and - in contrast to the winter weather in Northern Newfoundland - I cannot protect myself with Arctic clothing and snowmobile helmets.
The only comfort is that virtually all authors go through the same dreaded waiting game. If my novel gets the approval from my beta readers, I will gladly endure whatever the next winter months will bring.
And if you like to play the waiting game, too: the translation of my next English crime novel is almost finished. Publication is planned for May. Stay tuned.

Obsession

Murderous Morning: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end. I have recently read the book "We keep the Dead close" by Becky Cooper. The author was obsessed with a then unsolved murder that happened about 50 years ago. The 23 year old Harvard student Jane Britton was raped and killed at night in her apartment. Cooper researched the case meticulously for ten years. Not least thanks to her efforts the cold case was solved two years ago. I was totally fascinated by this book, maybe because I know this kind of obsession for an unsolved or mysterious crime.
I remember many years ago I obsessed about the Lindbergh murder case (the baby of famous pilot Charles Lindbergh and his wife Ann was abducted and killed) because I had seen a documentary that disputed the fact that a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was the killer. Hauptmann was convicted and executed.
Is there an unsolved or disputed murder case that you obsess about? Or any unexplained deaths? I`m still captivated by the Dyatlov Pass mystery. You may have heard of the nine Russian college students who set out on a 16-day-trek through the Ural mountains about sixty years ago. When they didn´t return, a search party found their tent cut open from the inside. For some unknown reason, the experienced skiers had fled in panic, into a raging blizzard, without boots or coats, to a forest below. They all perished in the dark and freezing temperatures. There are a lot of conspiracy theories around this incident and I am not a friend of conspiracy theories. But the case is mysterious and tragic and triggers one's imagination.
Personally and as an author, I stick to fiction. That doesn`t mean I won`t be inspired by real incidents or cases (as probably a lot of authors are). But I really hope I won´t become obsessed like Becky Cooper because it would mean to be occupied by a case for a decade. I could write a lot of crime fiction in ten years.

What is lurking in an isolated village?

When one of my beta readers (what a word, not my invention) had finished my new crime novel "Murderous Morning", she said that what impressed her most was how I had captured life in a small town. The gossip, the backstabbing, the living-in-each-others-pockets, the intrigues, the pettiness, the jealousies, the hidden conflicts. Of course, that is not all there is, and I am witness to that. I grew up in a village on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Our neighbours were a farmer and a nursery. I have fond memories of my childhood in that village. I was not totally sheltered, for which I am thankful, because my days were full of small adventures.
I`m sure that there are intrigues in cities, too, but because a village is more transparent and everybody knows everybody, the conflicts are more out in the open. Even today, I remember a lot of dramas in small town life. And tragedies, too. A girl in my class was raped at age 14, and I was one of the the young pallbearers for babies who were buried in tiny white coffins. In school, I was taught by a Catholic nun who told us girls not to go swimming in the lake (she probably didn`t like our bathing suits).
In "Murderous Morning", the drama is heightened by murder and the fact that the mining town of Whatou Lake in Northern British Columbia is surrounded by wilderness. The people there are facing a whole range of challenges that make life precarious and different. Every year, I spend many months in an isolated village in Northern Newfoundland and I can see how the forces of nature, the weather and the wilderness shape people`s mind sets and reactions.
I like my books not only to be a source of suspense but also a source of knowledge about other cultures and other ways of life. Next time, I will tell you how I am staring down winter in Northern Newfoundland. Maybe the winter and cold will be staring me down...

Murderous Morning

At last! My fifth crime novel has been translated into English. Publication date is November 7, if everything goes according to plan. Here is the blurb because it hasn´t made its way into Goodreads yet: "A remote farm in Canada`s wilderness. A man`s lifeless body in the grass. The rooms in the farm house splattered with blood. Three children, brutally murdered. No trace of their mother.
Five years ago, family lawyer Tessa Griffins fled to Vancouver from the isolated mining town of Whatou Lake. Now she returns to her parents’ home there in order to search for the dead children’s mother, her stepsister Fran. And she wants to find the killer - just as Detective Sergeant Ron Halprin does, head of a special RCMP unit in Vancouver who is sent to Whatou Lake, to solve the case.
Tessa is stonewalled everywhere. What secrets does her father, the respected town doctor, have? And why does her mother, who had welcomed many foster children into their home, suddenly stop telling the whole truth? Does Fran lead a secret life? And why of all people is it Tessa's former boyfriend, Tsaytis Chelin from the Sitklat’l First Nation, who finds the dead bodies? On the third day, Tessa makes a gruesome discovery. As she crosses the wilderness on the track of the murderer, she finds herself under a deadly threat."
The book is ready for pre-order. So get your copy as long as it only costs 1.99 dollars US. Enjoy the read!

Who am I really?

Recently, a German magazine asked me for an author photo as they wanted to publish an interview with me. I wondered what kind of photo they had in mind. Posing with one of my books? Outside in nature? In a room in my house? What kind of clothes? "It`s entirely up to you how you want to present yourself", the editor said. I pondered the question all day long. How do I want to be presented? Not easy. Authors don`t only write books nowadays, they have to know what their "brand" is. And how to market this brand. Eventually I concluded that I present myself not how I would like to be seen but how I am. Starting with my clothes: I wore blue jeans and a lumberjack shirt on the day of the photo shoot. And cowboy boots. (I had thought about hiking boots and cargo pants but decided against it, although it would have been a good fit, too.) The photo session was on a windy day in Newfoundland where I am currently spending the summer. The wind made shooting a bit difficult, there was always hair in my face. But on the other hand, I`m an outdoorsy person, so why not? Is my brand now a Swiss-Canadian natural woman? An adventurer? A female lumberjack?
The truth is that I like a simple life. The situation with Covid-19 has even facilitated it. I have started a potato garden! Who would have thought? I`ve been berry picking in the tundra and have enjoyed it very much. I´m making natural yogurt from scratch and – like so many others – I`m baking my own European style bread with a crust. It is especially good with fresh cod from the North Atlantic that my fisherman brings home. I have also discovered wild peas along the shore. And the beauty of flowers is just stunning in Northern Newfoundland.
But I`m not only a nature lover, I can also be intellectual and brainy. And sometimes I like to be a coach potato reading all day long. The reality is that we are a lot of things, and many of us possess contradictory traits. Which makes us interesting, doesn`t it? I`d say: Ditch the brand. Embrace your contrasts!

Intimidating Giants

Do you want to feel small and exhilarated at the same time? Get up close with an iceberg in Newfoundland, Canada. A few days ago, a local fisherman took me out in his boat. He always keeps a safe distance (it is all about physical distancing these days, smile) because these giants can break apart anytime, especially when the weather gets warmer. I studied several icebergs with great interest because there will be an incident with an iceberg in my next murder mystery. I also took lots of pictures. The fisherman gave me additional information. He estimated that the invisible body of one of the icebergs reached a depth of 300 feet. He told me the iceberg sailed into these waters along a deep trench in the ocean floor and then got stuck. In the meantime, the berg has become lighter because it lost some of its weight, and it has moved out of our immediate area.
It is important to take one's mind off worrying situations that we cannot change, like Covid-19. Researching and writing books helps me to focus and bundle my energies. And hopefully my books will provide you with some hours away from it all so you can relax and recharge. Let me know how you liked them!

The Second-best Adventure

Sometimes I cannot decide what gives me more pleasure: to experience adventures through good books, or to go out and live the adventure myself. This is the reason why I do both. I have travelled to the Arctic and to other remote places in Canada for instance. These exotic locations inspire my mystery novels. My next crime novel is set in Labrador, called THE BIG LAND. But recently I have read some excellent adventure stories: "Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World" by Joan Druett. It is a true story of survival on the Auckland Islands near New Zealand. What a nail-biter! I couldn`t put it down and didn`t want it to end. Another great adventure book is "Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada's Arctic": Canadian Author and explorer Adam Shoalts trekked across the Arctic in four months - alone! He was confronted by grizzlies and muskoxen and bitten by thousands of mosquitoes. Shoalts is proof that real and raw adventure is still possible in our modern times. Writer Peter Heller mixed thriller and adventure in his novel "The River". This is a recipe that I use for my mystery novels, too. The locations are based on my travels and adventures. Then I pour a murder mystery into the mix. Some of my readers travel in my footsteps, with one of my books in their luggage. I can relate to that. I would love to go to the Auckland Islands to stand on the beach where the poor people were shipwrecked and where they built a cabin and hunted sea lions. Maybe one day, I will do it!