Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 106

Opening Lines

Wickeds, do your best with an opening line for this wintry scene from Edith’s friend Howard W. Phillips. Friends, please add yours in the comments!

Julie: Blasted climate change. There wasn’t enough ice to keep the body hidden. She needed to come up with another plan.

Liz: The dog pulled me down the hill, past the broken tree limbs, all the way to the creek. And then I saw the hat floating on top of the water.

Sherry: I stared down at the reflections. That’s when I realized there was a body in the trees.

Barb: Margaret stopped and listened, her heart racing, her muscles tensed to fight or flee. Walking alone through the silent, wintry landscape by her cabin always brought her a peace she knew nowhere else. But today she wasn’t alone.

Jessie: She couldn’t understand why he had suggested a walk along the river. It wasn’t as though she was an outdoorsy sort and it semed to her that the sloped land above the river was too icy to be entirely safe.

Edith/Maddie: Josie cursed the early winter thaw. She’d expected Bill’s body to be gone by now, or at least more decomposed. She was going to have to clear town sooner than she’d wanted to.

Readers: Add your opening line!

It’s January Again, Dear Jane

by Julie, Austening in Somerville

Usually, on January 1, I watch Pride and Prejudice. The 1995 Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth version, of course. That that is the best version is not up for discussion, at least not with me. This year I skipped my ritual, which has thrown me off a bit. Because this year, more than any other in recent memory, I need my Austen fix. Writing this blog post is how I will begin.

Jane Austen died in 1817, and yet she endures. Her stories are of their time, but they are also universal. I find, as time goes by, my relationship to the different characters changes. Though Colin Firth in the lake is one of my favorite sites every year, Darcy would be a challenging partner, don’t you think? Does anyone else think that Eleanor should have married Colonel Brandon? Especially in the 1995 film? But I digress. Besides, these sorts of conversations are best done in person.

I’m so grateful that my writing life came of age with computers. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to type my manuscripts. But even that pales in comparison to writing longhand in the family drawing room with a quill. Or pinning edits to my manuscript. (She wrote her manuscripts with long text, and would write edits and changes on new paper, cut it, and pin it where it belonged.) To have both the imagination and the wherewithal to write a manuscript in the early 1800’s was amazing enough. To also write such wonderful novels? My Januarys are made all the better because of her genius.

Her work has also inspired some other work, and that helps her stay relevant. My nieces love the movie Clueless, a modern Emma. Like dress up like the characters for Halloween love. I recently discovered Lost in Austen, which is about a modern day Pride and Prejudice fan switching places with Elizabeth Bennett, and screwing up the storyline. Stephanie Barron wrote a mystery series, where Jane Austen is the sleuth. P.D. James wrote a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, a mystery. There’s also a Pride and Prejudice musical on Prime. The list goes on and on.

Jane in January renews my spirit, kindles the romantic in me, and inspires my muse. My immediate plans include rereading Persuasion, my favorite of her novels, and then watching a lot of Austen during this Covid winter.

Readers, what are some of the soothing rituals you have? Any other Austen fans out there? Tell me about adaptation you enjoy. And make a plan to watch them soon. We all need a little Jane this January.

Wicked Wednesday: First Published Book

For our next discussion of Firsts, let’s talk about the launch of your first published book. It’s been a few years for all of us. Which book was it? Did you throw a party? Celebrate at home on release day? Have you ever gone back and reread it? Dish, Wickeds. And I, Edith, will give away an ebook copy of Speaking of Murder, my first mystery, now re-released with fresh editing and a new cover!

Julie: Edith, I remember being at the launch of Speaking of Murder! That feels like yesterday, but SO much has happened since. My first published book was Just Killing Time, which I wrote as Julianne Holmes. It was published in 2015, and I did have a party, at the New England Mobile Book Fair. The party was glorious. My friend Courtney made me a clock cookie cake, and so many people from all parts of my life came. My folks sat in the front row, beaming. My niece ran up to me when I came in and said “Aunt Julie, one of the ladies on your bookmark is here!”. Sure enough, Edith was laying out bookmarks on chairs. I haven’t had a launch party since, mostly because I don’t think that one could be topped.

Liz: Kneading to Die was released in 2013, and it was so exciting to see my first book in print and hold it in my hands. I had a lovely party at The Big Biscuit, the pet food bakery in Massachusetts from which I was getting recipes for the book. There were dogs, treats, and my Shaggy even got her own special cake for being part of the book. It was such a great time.

Barb: My first mystery novel, The Death of an Ambitious Woman, was published in 2010. I had a big party at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA. It seemed like every person I had ever told I was writing a book came. Porter Square sold out of books and then sold through the carton I had in the back of my car. It was glorious. I’ve never done a party since. It’s not something I enjoy, generically, and I always worry about my ability to draw a crowd. It feels like a shower for a second baby.

Edith/Maddie: I loved both Julie and Barb’s first-book parties. I remember Julie being at my first launch party, and Barb too? Like at Barb’s launch, the Book Rack in Newburyport sold out of Speaking of Murder, but I knew from friends like her that I should have a box in the car – they sold all those, too. The store had set up about ten chairs. I kept telling them, “I think you’re going to need more chairs.” Some dozens more, as it turned out! Friends from my writing, Quaker, local, tech-writing, farming, and childbirth worlds all came. As Barb said, it was glorious. I’ve had launch parties since, not for every book, but the walking tour for Delivering the Truth, my first Quaker Midwife Mystery, was memorable, with over sixty people walking, listening, and helping me celebrate a new series.

Jessie: I love to throw all sort of parties but my first launch was extra special! I held it at the local library and since the novel featured a protagonist that was as firefighter I themed the food around things that were smiked, melted and charred. I was so touched by all the people who came out to celebrate with me!

Readers: Have you been to a book launch party, in person or virtual? Writers, share about your first.

Guest Laura Walker #giveaway

Edith here, welcoming Laura Walker with Hope, Faith, and a Corpse, her first clerical mystery! I had a chance to read this book early, and here’s what I had to say:

Walker tells a engaging tale of new Pastor Hope Taylor, who manages to find a body in the Epsicopal chapel her first day on the job. This kind and curious sleuth, a widow with a vast knowledge of old movies and songs, gets to know the personalities in the northern California town of Apple Springs even as she seeks to uncover who murdered the church elder. The author’s humor engages, the twists and turns in the mystery intrigue – including when Hope discovers an old human skeleton in her back yard – and the resolution will both surprise and satisfy any reader who loves a good cozy. 

Here’s the blurb:

Hope Taylor arrives in Apple Springs to start her new life as the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church. But where is Father Christopher? The kindly old rector who hired Pastor Hope was supposed to meet her upon her arrival, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Hope goes looking for her boss but finds church elder Stanley King instead—his skull crushed by a fallen burial urn. The last time Hope had seen Stanley, he had shouted drunkenly that she would preach at Faith Chapel over his dead body. The new pastor is now the prime suspect in Stanley’s murder. With her black Lab Bogie’s four-footed assistance, Hope is determined to find the real killer and clear her name…even if it will require a bit of divine intervention.

Go for it, Laura!

Happy 2021 everyone, and Happy Book Birthday to me! I’m delighted to be back with the Wickeds discussing Hope, Faith, and a Corpse, the first in a new series (Faith Chapel Mysteries) releasing TODAY. Pastor Hope Taylor is a widowed 42-year-old Episcopal priest—the first woman priest in Faith Chapel’s 160-year-old history, which doesn’t set well with some of the old-timers in church. Hope loves old movies and frequently quotes from them. Early on while talking to one of her parishioners, Pastor Hope emulates Lauren Bacall’s sultry tone as she says that famous line from To Have and Have Not: “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

Weaving in Pastor Hope’s love of old movies came naturally—I’ve loved old movies since my father introduced them to me when I was a little girl. Dad used to tell me bits of trivia about the stars as we watched those classic films. Like the fact that Alan Ladd, hero of the classic Western Shane, was so short he had to stand on a box to kiss his leading ladies, and that Betty Grable, the 1940s musical star and pin-up queen of World War II had her legs insured for a million dollars. (Definitely a different time.) As a result of this movie classics education, I am now the queen of Silver Screen Trivial Pursuit, which I play with friends every year on my birthday. I’m only allowed to play it on my birthday though. No one wants to be obnoxious.

At the end of Hope, Faith, and a Corpse, I’ve included a list of Pastor Hope’s Top Ten favorite old movies she’d take with her on a desert island. (I actually included eleven—too hard to narrow it down to just ten.) Three of Hope’s favorites (and mine) are:

            Casablanca

            The Best Years of Our Lives

            Born Yesterday

I know it’s a cliché to list Casablanca, but this star-crossed love story with its themes of nobility, honor, and sacrifice is timeless. I dare you not to be moved when Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) the hero of the French resistance, leads the denizens of Rick’s nightclub in singing “La Marseillase” to drown out the Nazis. Always gives me chills.

World War II is my favorite time period, so The Best Years of Our Lives, the forties classic starring Fredric March of three returning veterans having trouble readjusting to life back home after the war definitely made the list. Harold Russell, a real WWII veteran who lost both hands during the war and had to wear prosthetic hooks as a result, won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his sensitive portrayal of disabled small-town boy Homer. I ugly-cry every time at the scene where Homer’s loving fiancée Wilma (whom he’d tried to reject so she wouldn’t be saddled with him and his disability) says, “I love you and I’m never going to leave you . . . never.” Then she helps Homer into his bed, tucks him in, and kisses him goodnight. Talk about tearjerker.

In need of some laughter after these two war-related dramas, Born Yesterday, a modern-day Pygmalion story from 1950 starring the irrepressible and hilarious Judy Holliday as “dumb blonde” mobster’s moll Billie Dawn is a funny, overlooked gem. Judy beat out Bette Davis in All About Eve and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard to win the Best Actress Oscar for this delightful comedy that also stars William Holden. Be still my heart.

Readers: what about you? What’s your favorite Silver Screen classic? For a chance to win a copy of Hope, Faith, and a Corpse, please leave a comment on your favorite “old” movie (before 1975.) Since it’s tough to narrow it down to one, you can pick up to three.

Finally, I’d like to invite you all to my virtual launch tomorrow (Wed., Jan. 13 at 6 p.m. PT). Hope you can stop by as I talk to my friends and fellow authors Catriona McPherson and Eileen Rendahl about my first clerical mystery.

You’ll need to register in advance here. Thanks! I hope to see you there. And thank you, Edith and the rest of the Wickeds gang for having me back again. It’s always fun to be a guest of this great group.

Laura Jensen Walker has loved mysteries ever since she read Trixie Belden in the fourth grade. A former journalist and the author of several books, including Murder Most Sweet, her first cozy, Laura lives in Northern California where she sings in the choir of her neighborhood Episcopal church and plays Silver Screen Trivial Pursuit once a year. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.

Laura loves hearing from readers. You can connect with her through www.laurajensenwalker.com, on Twitter @LauraJensenWal1 or Facebook.

Cover Reveal and a #giveaway

Hi. Barb here. First post of the new year from Key West.

Today is the cover reveal for Kensington’s next holiday novella collection that includes a story by me, Halloween Party Murder. To celebrate, I’m giving away mass market paperback copies of the previous three books that I was part of in the series, Eggnog Murder, Yule Log Murder, and Haunted House Murder.

Here’s the cover. What do you think? So nice of them to use Wicked Authors’ purple, dontcha think?

This collection will be released on August 31, 2021. Here’s the description.

Small town traditions are celebrated throughout Maine during the holiday season. But when it comes to Halloween, some people are more than willing to reap a harvest of murder . . .

HALLOWEEN PARTY MURDER by LESLIE MEIER
Tinker’s Cove newest residents Ty and Heather Moon turn their Victorian home into a haunted house to raise funds for charity. But the Halloween fun turns to horrific fright when Heather overdoses on tainted drugs—and Ty finds himself accused of murder. Digging deep into the story, journalist Lucy Stone uncovers some sinister secrets in the Moons’ past linked to a conspiracy in her hometown . . .
 
DEATH OF A HALLOWEEN PARTY MONSTER by LEE HOLLIS
Everyone attending Island Times Food and Cocktail columnist Hayley Powell’s Halloween bash is dressed as their favorite movie monster from the Bride of Frankenstein and Jaws to Chucky and Pennywise the clown. But when partygoers stumble upon Boris Candy’s bludgeoned costumed corpse, it falls to Hayley to discover who among her guests wanted to stop the man from clowning around permanently . . .
 
SCARED OFF by BARBARA ROSS
Three teenage girls having a sleepover on Halloween night get spooked when high schoolers crash the house for a party. But no one expected to find a crasher like Mrs. Zelisko, the elderly third floor tenant, dead in the backyard—dressed in a sheet like a ghost. With her niece traumatized, Julia Snowden must uncover who among the uninvited guests was responsible for devising such a murderous trick . . .

I love writing these stories that fill in the time between the Maine Clambake novels. They work especially well because, given the holidays they celebrate, they fall during the off-season at the Snowden Family Clambake. At 25,000 to 30,000 words these novellas are half or a third the length of a typical cozy mystery and five to ten times the length of a typical short story.

Readers: What say you? Novellas yay or nay? Answer the question to be entered to win. If you say you hate novellas in your comment I won’t hold it against you. I’ll see it as a challenge!

Guest Victoria Thompson

Edith here, so happy I have another Counterfeit Lady mystery to read! Victoria Thompson joins us today to present City of Schemes.

Here’s the blurb:

The Great War is over, and Elizabeth and Gideon are busily planning their wedding and welcoming home old friends now discharged from the army. One of them, Captain Logan Carstens, the son and heir of a wealthy family, seems less than happy to be home and with good reason. While Logan was in France, he fell in love with a beautiful French woman named Noelle. He desperately wanted to propose, but he was already engaged and felt bound to honor his commitment.

When Logan receives a letter supposedly from Noelle begging for money to help her flee the terrible conditions in France and come to America, Elizabeth is suspicious. There is no way to verify the letter is actually from Noelle, and she fears that a con man or woman might be trying to take advantage of Logan in his vulnerable state. 

But that is not all Elizabeth has to worry about. Vicious thug Oscar Thornton has gotten wind of her wedding announcement and realizes the woman who conned him is still alive and well. Gideon and Elizabeth have to figure out a way to help their friend while making sure their worst enemy does not destroy their future. . . 

Take it away, Victoria!

Have you ever wondered how writers come up with their clever plots? Well, sometimes it is by sheer accident!  That’s what happened to me when I was writing my new Counterfeit Lady book, City of Schemes.  As you may already know, the series features the adventures of reformed con artist Elizabeth Miles. Elizabeth now uses her skills to help people with problems for which the law cannot get them justice. I’ve been wanting to use the Spanish Prisoner con in one of these stories, so I started with that one.  A returning soldier is asked to send a large sum of money to help a young woman he knew in France during the war escape to America, but is she really the one making the request?  Elizabeth and her fiancé Gideon Bates must help him!

But now that the war is over, Elizabeth is also planning her wedding to Gideon.  What would she fear most about marrying Gideon? Why, having her old nemesis, Oscar Thornton, see the wedding announcement in the newspaper and realize she isn’t dead, as he believed.  Sure enough, he does, and he returns to blackmail her. She must figure out how to con Thornton and eliminate him as a threat to her and Gideon once and for all.

Then there’s the problem of Gideon’s dear friend being engaged to a perfectly horrible woman when he really wants to marry someone else. Shouldn’t she help him as well?

Before I knew it, Elizabeth was involved in three very complex cons.  What fun!  I was halfway through the book, and then I realized that each of the cons could be satisfactorily tied up with about one page of dialogue.  Oops!  The book would be way too short if I did that, so I sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and actually drew a chart of each con and who was involved and where they overlapped. Suddenly, I saw the second half of the book coming together as Elizabeth used all the players and their situations to make everything come out right.

Will Elizabeth and Gideon’s wedding come off without a hitch? Do you even need to ask?

Fortunately, most of us have no personal experience with con artists, but the internet has opened many new opportunities for people to be cheated.

Readers: what warnings have you found most helpful in avoiding online scams?  Leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of City of Schemes.

Victoria Thompson is the USA Today bestselling author of the Edgar® and Agatha Award nominated Gaslight Mystery Series and the Sue Grafton Memorial Award finalist Counterfeit Lady Series. She has published 26 mysteries. She currently teaches in the Master’s program for writing popular fiction at Seton Hill University. She lives in Illinois with her husband and a very spoiled little dog.

Contact her at: www.victoriathompson.com

Facebook: Victoria.Thompson.Author

Twitter: #gaslightvt

Stay Safe and Well

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

Wicked Wednesday: First Friends

Welcome to the first month in a brand-new year!

Edith/Maddie here, wishing a happy 2021 to all the Friends of the Wickeds. Fingers crossed for a better year on all kinds of fronts.

We’re also starting a new blog project. We run the Wickeds by each of us taking two months a year to wrangle: make sure all the days are filled and things run smoothly. During this year, the wrangler will give away a book every Wednesday to celebrate you, our loyal readers. I’m the January wrangler, and I’d love to give away a copy of Murder at the Taffy Shop. It fits today’s theme of best friends, because Mac’s friend Gin owns the taffy shop – and discovers the body.

I’m hosting a month of Wednesdays talking about firsts for the Wickeds. Most of our readers know we six are good friends in addition to being blogmates. Wickeds, let’s talk about our first BFF. Where did you meet? What did you do together? Are you still (or again) in touch? Photos a bonus!

Edith/Maddie: I’ll start. My best friend from before I can remember was JoAnn Genest. Our birthdays were ten days apart, so we were a month from being the youngest in our class. She was always the tallest and I was ever the shortest. She lived two blocks away, and we were in Brownies together. Our moms were friends, our younger brothers were friends (and still are). JoAnn and I skipped and played and made up stories and laughed, a lot. Our friendship faded when we went to junior high, and I only know she now lives in Oregon somewhere. I wish I could find her.

Me in the dark hair, JoAnn in the light. I graduated from high school with most of these kids.

Barb: My friend Hilary Hinds, now Hilary Hinds Kitasei, has had a profound influence on my life. For one thing, when we were in second grade, she mentioned she was reading these chapter books called, “Nancy Drew.” She inspired me to do the same. I have a strong memory of sitting on our sun porch at 67 Watchung Avenue in Montclair, New Jersey, reading book after book. Hilary is definitely NOT the woman in my short story, “Key West,” who had a baby girl and then girl twins eleven months later, but some of the stories she told me about those early harrowing days made it into the story. And her family’s big old house may be in my upcoming novella Scared Off, but the old woman who lived in their third floor auxiliary apartment is definitely NOT the tenant in that story. I just got a holiday message from Hilary. In response to my Christmas card she said she felt sure that if she was seven years old again, my granddaughter Viola would definitely be her friend. I believe she is right.

Sherry: I love that you are still in touch with Hilary, Barb! My first best friend was Tommy Williams and his sister Margaret Mary. They were from a big Catholic family that lived in a small house just a couple houses down the hill from us. We played house, rode our wagons down the hill, made houses out of leaves, etc. They had an elaborate train set in their basement that we weren’t allowed to touch, but could watch their older brothers play with. I couldn’t understand why Margaret Mary could spend the night but Tommy couldn’t. They moved away when I was five to the DC area and I lost track of them.

Liz: So funny, because I was just thinking of my first best friend the other day! Kelley Nelson – we met in kindergarten. We used to play outside at recess together on the monkey bars and swim at each other’s houses (we both had above-ground pools). I taught her how to ride a bike in an afternoon after her dad literally spent months trying to teach her and she just couldn’t get it. We went to different schools in sixth grade and although we remained in touch throughout our twenties, we kind of went our separate ways when she got married and had a family. I always thought we’d be BFFs forever. But, we’re still Facebook friends!

Julie: My first friend was/is my sister Kristen, who is 14 months younger than I am. I am so blessed to have sisters I consider friends as well. Outside the house, my first friend was Holly Simoes. We moved to Duxbury, MA when I was five, and the story is that her mother sent her over, across the field, because she saw girls playing in the yard. We became best friends. I was the oldest child. She was the fourth of what would be six kids. I only had sisters. She had two brothers. In my family, my father was the yeller. In her family, it was her mother. We both became extra kids in each other’s families. We moved away from Duxbury when I was in going into ninth grade, but we stayed in touch for a few years. I am very, very sorry to say that Holly died at the age of 39. My sister and I still talk about her, and I can’t help but think she’s with us when we do.

Jessie: Julie, your story about your friend brought a lump to my throat! I too would say my sisters are my best friends. When I was very small I had an extremely large and dramatic imaginary family, which included a completely perfect, and entirely biddable, baby sister. When my own real life baby sister arrived on the scene when I was almost four, I was completely underwhelmed. She did none of the things I had come to value in my imaginary one. Fortunately for me, the real child grew into the sort of person who was much more than worth the wait. My other sister came into my life a bit differently. We moved a lot when I was a child and since I was excruciatingly shy, I found it a misery. The school bus was the worst. On my first day at at a new school in the third grade, an exuberant older girl with the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen invited me, yes nervous and queasy me, to sit with her. We became inseperable and spent all out of school hours together. When her family circumstances hit some bumps a few years later, she came to live with my family permanently. Truly, I am blessed beyond all measure.

Readers: Tell us about your first good friend! (And if you already own Murder at the Taffy Shop, let’s talk about which other book of mine you’d like.)

Winter Reads, 2021 Version

What better time to read than January? Where the Wickeds live, it’s cold (well, maybe not for Barb, if she’s already landed in Key West). Snuggling on the couch with a hot drink and a great story is just the ticket for chilly days and evenings. Some of us probably got new books at the holidays. So dish, Wickeds. What are you reading this winter?

Barb: I am recommending The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. It’s a comic mystery that also serves up poignancy and heart. Kate Atkinson blurbed it as “A little beacon of pleasure in the midst of the gloom…SUCH FUN!” And who can’t use that?

Jessie: Barb, I am so glad of the reminder of that book! I’ve heard so many interesting things about it! I just added Escaping Dreamland by Charlie Lovett to my fiction queue. I loved his novel The Bookman’s Tale so I am eagerly looking forward to diving into this one! Next up for non-fiction is The Journey to the Mayflower by Stephen Tomkins. I have been enjoying all sorts of English history of late and am very curious about what set some of my relatives on their path from the old world to the new!

Sherry: I’m reading The Thursday Murder Club because Barb had mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. It’s a delight. Next up I’m looking forward to reading two books from fellow members of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime. Murder in the Parador by Paula Mays and They’re Gone by E.A. Barres who also writes as Ed Aymar. I gave Ed’s book to my husband for Christmas so I could read it!

Edith/Maddie: I just finished – and loved – Frances McNamara’s Death on the Homefront, her eighth Emily Cabot mystery set in Chicago, this one in 1917. Next up are Sherry Harris’s and Jess Lourey’s new ones, as well as a non-fiction book about Blacks settling in California. Good reading, all!

Liz: I finally started reading Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda – it’s been on my list for years and since she has a new book out I figured I’d start with this one. Also, Sherry’s Absence of Alice!

Readers: What’s your pleasure this winter?

Guest Ellie Alexander #giveaway

Edith here, happy to welcome Ellie Alexander to the 2021 blog. She has a new Bakeshop Mystery out, and she’ll send one lucky commenter a signed copy of Chilled to the Cone.

Take it away, Ellie!

Blurring Facts and Fiction

Thanks so much for inviting me on the blog today as we step into this new year. I don’t know about all of you but last year feels like a strange blur, like a mashup of fiction and reality, which in many ways parallels my writing and that of so many other mystery writers. When we sit down to pen a new story we have to set aside some semblance of reality. After all, what’s the likelihood that a pastry chef (or any other cozy sleuth) would ever be invited on a crime scene or for that matter be able to piece together the gruesome clues of a murder before the professionals? I’m going to say quite unlikely. But, isn’t that the gift of escaping into a cozy? We get to set aside the real world and venture into quaint villages and charming locales while helping our favorite amateur sleuths bring right to the world. To me that is exactly the salve for the soul that reading provides me.

One of my favorite parts of writing mystery series is getting to bring touches of fact into my fiction. My Bakeshop Mysteries are set in the very real Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where the stunning Siskiyou Mountains stretch as far as the eye can see and where it’s not unusual to find someone dressed in pantaloons quoting Shakespeare in the center of the plaza or spot deer frolicking in Lithia Park.

Writing about a real place provides me with endless inspiration, from the artisan shops and restaurants to the Elizabethan theater, the welcoming community, and the gorgeous landscapes of the lush Rogue Valley, I’m never at a loss for ideas. And, I enjoy getting to bring the place that I call home to life on the page and introducing the beauty of Ashland to readers.

There is one glaring error when it comes to blurring the lines of fact and fiction though, and that is the murder of course. The 12th book in the series, CHILLED TO THE CONE just released and in the two years since Juliet Capshaw (my pastry chef turned crime solver) has been home the body count has piled up. Sweet, little Ashland is murder central. If I were writing about a purely fictional place that might not be a problem, but since Ashland is indeed real I feel like my books should come with disclaimer that explains that while Ashland is even more charming than I could possibly describe, the murders are one-hundred percent fiction.

If you come visit there’s a good chance you’ll see flocks of wild turkeys or bump into an actor dressed in Shakespearean garb, but you don’t need to worry about crazed killers lurking in dark alleyways or have to fear that your latte might be laced with poison.

So here’s to a new year of cozy reading filled with an abundance of fiction and a few fun facts mixed in.

Readers: What about you? Do you enjoying blurring facts and fiction when reading? I’ll send one of you (North America only) a signed copy of Chilled to the Cone and a cone sticker!

Ellie Alexander is a Pacific Northwest native who spends ample time testing pastry recipes in her home kitchen or at one of the many famed coffeehouses nearby. When she’s not coated in flour, you’ll find her outside exploring hiking trails and trying to burn off calories consumed in the name of research. She is the author of the bestselling Bakeshop Mystery and Sloan Krause Mystery series. Ellie loves hearing from readers and interacting with them on social media, you can connect with her and find her on social media here: http://www.elliealexander.co