Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 118

Welcome Cathi Stoler

Welcome Cathi Stoler! How could I not invite Cathi to the blog to celebrate Bar None the first book in her Murder On The Rocks mystery series? We both have new books out set in bars! While mine is set in a small town, Cathi’s is set in the heart of New York City! I have loved seeing and getting to know Cathi at conferences so join me in welcoming Cathi to the Wickeds!

Dear Wickeds, a big thank you to Sherry for having me as a guest on your blog. I’m very excited to be here and to discuss the setting of my first book [image error]in the Murder On The Rocks Mystery series, BAR NONE, which released last week.

I love writing, and I especially love creating the kind of atmosphere that lets readers become totally immersed in the story I’m telling—the setting. Whenever I start a novel, I know the setting is going to be very important. It supports the characters, voice, and plot and brings them together to create a perfect sense of place.

My husband was in the restaurant business for many years and I came to know it fairly well. When I decided to write BAR NONE, I wanted most of the story take place in a restaurant. But, I didn’t want this fictional restaurant to be in our quiet, calm neighborhood. Instead, I chose The Lower East Side of Manhattan as the home for The Corner Lounge, and made its owner, my protagonist, Jude Dillane, the owner. It’s where she lives, and works, and unfortunately, in doing a favor for her landlord and friend, Thomas ‘Sully’ Sullivan, finds a dead body in his apartment.

I’ve always been interested in the LES and its history. When I was a teenager, it was murky territory, which of course made  it all the more appealing. Then, as something slightly illicit. Today, as a great setting for a murder mystery and the unusual protagonist who solves it.

If you’ve ever seen or read anything about this neighborhood, you may know that it’s undergone a huge gentrification in the last twenty or so years, changing from a seedy, drug-filled area to a vital, thriving and diverse community with green spaces, historic buildings, and river-front promenades, all of which play a role in the story.

I spent many afternoons walking around the neighborhood, soaking up the vibe of the people, the thrift shops and vintage clothing stores, and the great restaurants that line its streets. Seeing it as Jude would see it. And, even  though it’s been transformed, it hasn’t lost all of its under-the-surface edginess that still makes it so compelling.

For me, viewing the elements of a novel through a setting like the LES makes the story so much more interesting. It puts the reader right in the moment, helping them experience the story, and visualize the action so they can feel exactly what the characters feel, hear what they hear, and maybe, even figure out who done it.

Jude belongs there. Like the neighborhood itself, she’d faced adversity, and undergone a transformation. It’s a backdrop that reflects her personality and her quirkiness. I couldn’t imagine a better place for Jude to start over than The Corner Lounge on Tenth Street and Avenue B where she’s found a new life and friends who’ve become her family.

Readers: It’s well known that bartenders have lots of good stories. Would you believe one who told you they solved a murder?

[image error]Bio: Cathi Stoler’s Murder On The Rocks Series features The Corner Lounge owner, Jude Dillane and includes, BAR NONE, LAST CALL and STRAIGHT UP. She’s also written the Laurel and Helen New York Mysteries, and the suspense novels, NICK OF TIME and OUT OF TIME. She is a board member of Sisters in Crime New York/Tri-State, MWA and ITW. You can reach her at www.cathistoler.com.

Blurb: Bar None, set in the heart of New York City, is an edge-of-your-seat mystery that features Jude Dillane, owner of The Corner Lounge on 10th Street and Avenue B. When Jude finds her friend and landlord Thomas “Sully” Sullivan’s work pal, Ed Molina, dead in a pool of blood in Sully’s apartment, she’s sure it wasn’t suicide as the police suspect. Jude investigates and adds murder to her plate as she delves into a case of major fraud at the Big City Food Bank.

Available at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3fSBv3s

Barnes And Noble: https://bit.ly/2WNrs8i

Kobo: https://apple.co/31Z4XAD

Apple: https://apple.co/31Z4XAD

Welcome Guest Susanna Calkins

I’m so glad to welcome Susanna to back to the blog! She’s smart, fun, and one heck of a writer. Here’s a bit about the The Fate Of A Flapper:

After nine months as a cigarette girl at the Third Door, one of Chicago’s premier moonshine parlors, Gina Ricci feels like she’s finally getting into the swing of things. The year is 1929, the Chicago Cubs are almost in the World Series, neighborhood gangs are all-powerful, and though Prohibition is the law of the land, the Third Door can’t serve the cocktails fast enough.

[image error]Two women in particular are throwing drinks back with abandon while chatting up a couple of bankers, and Gina can’t help but notice the levels of inebriation and the tension at their table. When the group stumbles out in the early morning, she tries to put them out of her head. But once at home that night, Gina’s sleep is interrupted when her cousin Nancy, a police officer, calls—she’s found a body. Gina hurries over to photograph the crime scene, but stops short when she recognizes the body: it’s one of the women from the night before.

Could the Third Door have served the woman bad liquor? Or, Gina wonders, could this be murder? As the gangs and bombings draw ever closer, all of Chicago starts to feel like a warzone, and Gina is determined to find out if this death was an unlucky accident, or a casualty of combat.

Susanna: When I was contemplating the story I wanted to tell in the second book in my Speakeasy Mysteries—the novel that became The Fate of a Flapper–I turned to the Chicago Daily Tribune for inspiration. I knew that I wanted to set my story around the Great Stock Market Crash which occurred in October 1929, but I wanted to understand what else was going on in Chicago during those last heady days before the glittery Roaring Twenties came to a screeching halt.

Three things struck me, as I read through every edition of the paper. First, the Chicago Cubs were once again in contention for the World Series title, and their victory seemed all but assured. (Spoiler alert—they don’t win). Still it was interesting to see how hopeful they were still, in those early fervent days, and how the series came to a shocking end.

[image error]A screenshot that Susanna took of a Chicago Tribune article.

Second, there was an unprecedented number of bombings that occurred throughout Chicago that year. The ability to make simple bombs was a skill that servicemen had learned and brought back from the Great War, and somehow became the brute force weapon of choice by the end of the decade. Banks, jewelry stores, ice cream parlors, private residences were all regularly targeted.  By October 1929 there had been over 100 bombings in that year alone, bringing about the formation of a special police task force, whose charge was to capture and bring to justice these bombers.

The last thing that fascinated me was how the ongoing war with alcohol was playing out every day in Chicago (and throughout the United States). Hundreds of people were still dying of alcohol-related deaths—mostly being poisoned by ‘bad hooch.’ There was obviously no regulation of alcohol—quite the opposite. The federal government had even changed denatured alcohol in 1927 to make it more poisonous to those who sought to convert it something more palatable. At the same time, pharmacies would sell alcohol for medicinal and cleaning purposes, marketed with a ‘poison’ sign on the label, side by side with emetics that could purge someone of poison. Chicago chemists, who had developed portable chemical kits for individuals to test alcohol before consumption, were targeted by federal agents (the ‘Drys.’)

Readers: What kinds of everyday details do you enjoy learning about in the books you read? 

[image error]Bio: Susanna Calkins, a historian and educator, writes the award-winning Lucy Campion historical mysteries set in 17th century London and the Speakeasy Murders set in 1920s Chicago. A Philadelphia transplant, she lives in the Chicago area now, with her husband and two sons.  The Fate of a Flapper is her sixth mystery. Check out her website at www.susannacalkins.com.

Guest Liz Milliron plus #Giveaway

Edith/Maddie here, always happy to host Liz Milliron as our guest on the Wickeds! Her new Laurel Highlands mystery, Broken Trust, releases on August 11 and, like many of us, she had to rejigger all kinds of plans for its release. Still, she stayed positive and is offering a giveaway here today (read down for details).

Here’s the blurb:

When Pennsylvania State Trooper Jim Duncan responds to a murder scene at a local mining company, the call hits close to home. The victim, Lonnie Butler, is a friend and neighbor who was just beginning to get back on his feet after a year of financial difficulties. Despite entertaining out-of-town family, Jim vows to stay involved in the case. Meanwhile, Fayette County assistant public defender Sally Castle faces an ethical dilemma. Her newest client, Ethan Haverton, may be deeply involved in Lonnie’s homicide. Technically, Sally could break privilege, but she chooses not to, a decision that put her at odds with Jim.

As the investigation continues, the rift in Jim and Sally’s friendship deepens. Can the battling couple patch the break and bring the killer to justice – or will their discord allow a friend’s killer to go free?

Looking for the Silver Lining

Thanks, Edith, for having me back at Wicked Authors.

Back in February of this year, right around the release of The Enemy We Don’t Know, the COVID-19 pandemic was a specter on the horizon. China was kind a mess, and Italy was a disaster, but we were pretty okay here in the United States. I actually had an in-person launch party at my favorite local independent bookstore, Mystery Lovers Bookshop. I had a full schedule of events at which I planned to promote the book.

And then the bottom fell out.

All of my winter events were canceled. But it was okay, because this wasn’t going to last long. A few weeks at most. I thought for sure my summer release of Broken Trust, the third Laurel Highlands Mystery, was safe. Wasn’t it?

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A few weeks turned into a couple of months. One of my favorite conferences, Malice Domestic, was postponed and then canceled outright. Spring turned into summer. Stay-at-home orders were common. Anything non-essential was closed. Mask-wearing became a thing. Gathering sizes were limited. Even when things started opening up in June, nobody much felt like getting together for a big party.

Folks, it could have been bad. Well, it was bad, but it could have been worse. Except for one thing: the strength of the mystery community.

Brick-and-mortar stores did online ordering and curbside pickup. Platforms like Zoom, Crowdcast, and even Facebook Live offered a virtual gathering replacement for those in-person events. Sure, it wasn’t quite the same, but you could still see and interact with authors and yes, maybe even get a signed book (or at least a signed bookplate).

Authors stepped up to host virtual events and invited their friends to participate. We promoted our friends’ work on our platforms, shared their posts, attended their events. Writing a book is always a solitary activity in a lot of ways, but it seems like the social aspect of the profession got more, not less, so as we were all forced to look for new and creative ways to get our book-babies out into the world. After all, we were all in the same boat. Why not help each other paddle?

There have been some benefits. I’ve met readers from other areas who wouldn’t normally have been able to attend an in-person event. When Dana Kaye and Lori Rader-Day took Murder & Mayhem in Chicago online, attendance skyrocketed from 250 people to over 900 (including me). I met people I never would have because going to Chicago, even without a pandemic, wasn’t in my budget for the year.

I saw a lot of support in crime fiction. I mean, there always is (I firmly believe that even for all its warts, our community is the best out there), but everywhere I looked, special groups were established for 2020 debuts, who like 2020 graduates had their parties rained on in a pretty spectacular way. People with a little (or a lot) of history lent a hand to those who were most impacted. After all, Michael Connelly and James Patterson are going to sell a million copies of their next book because they are who they are. They don’t need huge amounts of promo and marketing. But a debut or a midlist? The loss of all those events could have been crushing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be happy to see the backside of 2020 (my son is one of those 2020 graduates). This year isn’t something I want to do again. But as a friend of mine said, at least it happened when we had the technology to bring us together – sort of. I feel like I know a lot more people now.

Which means next year at Malice or Bouchercon, I’ll have more friends to hang out with at the bar.

Readers: What’s one good thing that’s happened to you during the pandemic that you wouldn’t normally have experienced? I’ll give a signed copy of Broken Trust to one commenter (US only, please).

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Liz Milliron is the author of The Laurel Highlands Mysteries series, set in the scenic Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and The Home Front Mysteries, set in Buffalo, NY during the early years of World War II. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Pennwriters, and International Thriller Writers. Soon to be an empty-nester, Liz lives outside Pittsburgh with her husband, two children, and a retired-racer greyhound.

Guest Laura Jensen Walker, plus #Giveaway

Edith/Maddie here, happy to welcome a fellow Californian to the blog. Laura Walker has a debut mystery out in September and comes highly recommended by last week’s guest, Catriona McPherson.

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Here’s the blurb: Everyone in Lake Potawatomi, Wisconsin, knows Teddie St. John. Tall, curly-haired Teddie is a superb baker, a bohemian bon vivant, a grateful breast cancer survivor, and a mystery writer. Teddie is walking her American Eskimo Gracie, when her four-legged friend finds Teddie’s missing silk scarf. Only problem: the scarf is tied tightly around the neck of the fiancée of a touring British author. Before you can say “Wisconsin kringle,” Teddie becomes a murder suspect. With the help of her Three Musketeers friends Sharon and Char, can Teddie clear her name and deliver a killer’s just desserts?

Take it away, Laura!

Thank you so much to Edith and the Wickeds for welcoming this debut cozy mystery author—and to my friend, the fun and lovely Catriona McPherson, for introducing me to Edith. As a newbie to the mystery writing community, I was eager and excited to meet many of my fellow mystery authors and readers at Bouchercon, but, unfortunately, COVID-19 had other plans. I’m grateful and honored to launch my first mystery, Murder Most Sweet, here with the wonderful Wickeds. (I still can’t believe I wrote a mystery! How cool is that?) I’m loving this genre and my return to writing.

Murder Most Sweet is a tribute to my Racine, Wisconsin childhood and my Danish/Norwegian grandmother who baked the most delicious, delectable treats. I credit Grandma Florence, along with the Danish bakeries of my hometown, for my lifelong sweet tooth. Racine is the “kringle capital of the world.” (Kringle is a yummy, butter-layered Danish pastry first introduced to Racine in the late 1800s by immigrant Danish bakers. It is now Wisconsin’s official state pastry.)

My sister and I would walk to my grandma’s daily after school. When we pushed open the front door of Grandma’s house on a cold winter’s day, we were enveloped by warmth and the mouth-watering aromas of her delicious homemade sweets and treats. Every day was a fresh-baked surprise: Cookies of every kind—sugar, peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal-raisin, chocolate-crinkle, and more. Warm, deep-fried doughnuts sprinkled with powdered sugar. Crullers. Apple crisp. Cinnamon rolls. Brownies. Pies. Cakes. (I especially loved her chocolate cake with the boiled frosting that cracked when I bit into it.) When my grandma passed away my freshman year in high school, it was the end of a baking era.

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It wasn’t until we moved to Phoenix when I was fourteen that I discovered the delectable Danish pastries and mouthwatering baked goods I grew up with as a normal part of everyday life did not exist elsewhere in America. Definitely not in dry, dusty Arizona. This was a terrible shock to my sweet tooth system. No more cherry or apple kringle warmed with butter for breakfast on weekend mornings? No more Seven Sisters? (Seven Danish pastry rolls baked together to form a round coffee cake with luscious custard filling and almond paste.) No more special Napoleon kringle with its rich custard filling at wedding showers and baby showers? No more delicious Danish layer cake with its ribbons of raspberry and custard filling and thick buttercream frosting with fat buttercream roses the grown-ups always gave me at every birthday party and wedding? Sacrilege. Happily, I can now occasionally get my kringle fix from Trader Joe’s. (Imported from one of our famous Racine bakeries of course.)

Readers: What favorite baked treat from your childhood (baked by your grandmother, grandfather, mom, dad, favorite aunt, or local bakery) still sets your mouth to watering today? To celebrate the September release of Murder Most Sweet, Laura is giving away an ARC. Just leave a comment to enter.

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Laura Jensen Walker has loved mysteries ever since she read Trixie Belden in the fourth grade in her Danish-founded hometown of Racine, Wisconsin—America’s kringle capital. The author of several fun and frothy chick-lit novels and humorous non-fiction books, including Thanks for the Mammogram! Laura lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and their canine daughter, Mellie. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.

www.laurajensenwalker.com

https://www.instagram.com/laurajensenwalker/

https://www.facebook.com/laurajensenwalker/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49050951-murder-most-sweet

You can preorder the book at:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-most-sweet-laura-jensen-walker/1136014119?ean=9781643855028

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781643855028

Wicked Wednesday – Celebrating Beer

We’re so happy for Sherry’s series debut and the release of From Beer to Eternity, the first Chloe Jackson Seaglass Saloon mystery!

News Flash: Threadandstiches is Ramona DeFelice Long’s winner! Congratulations, and please check your email.

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So dish on beer, Wickeds – if you love it, what’s your favorite? Do you have a history with beer? Have you outgrown it or grown to adore it? Go. And yay, Sherry!

Julie: Congratulations Sherry! I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for a while. I’m a big fan of beer, and have enjoyed going to beer gardens here and in Europe. I have a few friends who are really into beer, and I love going out (back when I could) and trying different types, including sours, shandys and IPAs.

Edith/Maddie: Julie, I knew you would be first to chime in on beer! I’m so excited for Sherry and to pick up my copy of the book at my local indy bookstore. Since I met my Hugh in 2004, I have become a connoisseur of India Pale Ales – and hops. The hoppier the brew, the better! But sour beer? I run screaming. Can’t tolerate the stuff. And when I think back to when we thought Michelob or Coors was a great beer, I’m flat out embarrassed.

Jessie: Super congratulations to you, Sherry, on the new series! What fun! I have to confess, I am not a fan of beer. I know there are all sorts of beers out there but so far, I haven’t found one I enjoy. If I were to visit the Seaglass Saloon I would love to order a glass of shiraz or sauvignon blanc, a bottle of hard cider, a dry martini or, my favorite thing of all, champagne!

Barb: I’m not a beer drinker, either. Since we’re in the Florida panhandle, I think I’d opt for something tropical–margarita, mojito, pina colada–at the Seaglass Saloon. But whatever was in it, I would lift a glass to you, Sherry. Congratulations on the start of a new series!

Sherry: Thanks to all of you, dear Wickeds. Your support during my writing journey has made it so much more fun. I turned to you with rants, fears, and joys. I can’t imagine my writing life without you. Funny story about beer — my dad would give me sips when I was little and I liked it. We were on vacation in Minnesota with friends. My dad ordered a beer, our friend ordered a beer, and I ordered a beer — I was three. I don’t drink beer as often as I once did (ahem, college), but I do still enjoy it occasionally.

Readers: Favorite beer? Have you ever been to the Florida Panhandle? Or just offer Sherry a big congrats!

Names, Quilts, and Release Day!

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I can’t believe it’s release day for From Beer to Eternity! The idea for the series started in an email conversation with my editor at Kensington in February 2018. Holding my book in my hands is a breathtaking experience whether it’s my first book or my ninth. I look at it and think “I wrote this!” So here it is world From Beer to Eternity. Look for a giveaway at the end of the post.

[image error]I’ve talked before about how hard it is for me to name characters. Some characters’ names like Scott Pellner from my Sarah Winston Garage Sale mysteries just pop into my head. But most names I have to fight to figure out. Ask Barb Goffman, my independent editor, about the manuscript for From Beer to Eternity. When I gave it to her almost everyone’s last name was Blank because I hadn’t figured the names out yet. And I may have forgotten to mention that to Barb. Her comment: That Blank family is really big.

So how did I come up with the name Chloe Jackson? I turned to a quilt that my paternal grandmother made. I’m lucky enough to have seven quilts that my grandmother and her friends and family made. (My sister has another seven.) I wish I’d asked my grandmother about when she made them and how, but I like to picture a group of women quilting together in her living room in front of the large picture window that looked out at the barn.

The quilt below was probably made in the late thirties or early forties. I suspect the colorful fabric is from feedbags. (I have another quilt that I know is fabric from feedbags.) I love how everyone embroidered their names. I know some of the people – my grandmother Ursula who was always called Zula and my aunt Virginia who was always called Ginny.

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Here is the block for Chloe.  Chloe Gates is one of my grandmother’s sisters. I don’t believe I ever met her or if I did, I was too young to remember. But the name just fit my character.

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Here is the block for Vivian. I shortened it to Vivi because it sounded more southern to me. I picked Slidell, which is a town north of New Orleans, for the same reason.

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I suspect more names from the quilt will appear in future books. How can I resist the temptation of Ora or Rowena or Mazie? I’m sad that one name has been lost forever.

Other names come from friends—Ann Williams, Edith Hickle, Leah Hickle, Michael. And some like Deputy Biffle just pop in as I write about the character.

I hope you get a chance to read From Beer to Eternity and I hope you love it as much as I do. I’m giving away a copy to someone who leaves a comment. I’ll also be doing Seven Days of Giveaways on my Facebook author page. Plus giveaways here:

July 28 7 to 10 pm eastern time Kensington July Mystery and Thriller Launch Party Click here for a link: https://www.facebook.com/events/755932971842445/

July 29 7 to 8:30 pm eastern time Facebook Launch Party with Catherine Bruns! Click here for a link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1256477704727682/

July 29 Jungle Red Writers https://www.jungleredwriters.com/

July 30 Dru’s Book Musings https://drusbookmusing.com/

Dollycas blog tour: https://www.escapewithdollycas.com/?s=from+beer+to+eternity

Thanks to all of you who read and support my books–you help my dreams come true!

Readers: Do you have unique name or nickname in your family or friends?

Guest Ramona DeFelice Long, plus #Giveaway

Edith here, so happy to welcome Ramona DeFelice Long to the blog.

Ramona, a friend of all the Wickeds, released The Murderess of Bayou Rosa, her debut novel, this month, and she’s giving away a copy to one lucky commenter today. She’s a personal friend, with whom I’ve shared several small-group intensive writing retreats in a convent retreat center – and lots of laughs in the evenings. She’s a brilliant lifelong storyteller and a kickass, no-holds-barred commentator on contemporary politics and culture.

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Here’s the review I posted:

The storytelling in this debut historical novel is atmospheric, compelling, and delightful. Defelice Long immerses you in 1920 bayou village life, with all its rivalries, prejudices, strengths, and secrets. The characters live with the immediate past effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic and the War to End All Wars, with family loyalties and past conflicts playing an equal part. The unfolding of the story’s layers is skillfully done, and the ending satisfies.

Several characters share the narration, but I most fell in love with Geneva. My reading over two days included tears and laughing and nodding in understanding. I recommend you get this book now and do nothing else until you finish it. 

And here’s the book blurb:

“In the summer of 1920, in the town of Bayou Rosa, Louisiana, a free-spirited woman named Joelle Amais shoots her lover in the back but won’t tell anyone why. Joelle is a woman with a checkered past, and as the weeks stretch between her arrest and a delayed trial, her defiant silence threatens to blow Bayou Rosa apart.

Joelle’s only ally is her daughter Geneva, the town schoolteacher, whose demure demeanor hides the stubbornness she inherited from her mother. Geneva is determined to see her mother get a fair trial, but now the town is faced with a legal and moral dilemma. With rows of new graves in the cemetery from a devastating world war and influenza epidemic, can a jury of twelve men vote to hang a woman they’ve seen grow up since birth?” 

I was thrilled Ramona agreed to an interview on the blog. Being part of her daily seven AM Sprint Club has gotten my work day started in the best of ways for years, and she has edited every book in my own (Agatha-winning) historical series. So let’s get started.

E: The Murderess of Bayou Rosa is set in Louisiana, where you grew up. The atmosphere in this book is so vivid and rich, I felt like I was there – and I have only been to the state once, for a conference in New Orleans a few years ago (I didn’t even leave the city). Can you talk to us about which aspects of the setting came from your own life or that of your older relatives? Which from research?
 
R: All of it, and none of it. The town of Bayou Rosa, the people who live in it, and the events of the story, are all complete fiction. However, bits and pieces are drawn from real places: the courthouse resembles one in my parish (county) seat; my great-grandfather grew lemons and Satsumas in a small citrus grove; my mother brought me to a traiteure for a tonic because I was skinny; my grandmother shopped in a general store with a gathering of old men (hat tip to Ernest Gaines) in the back; the same grandmother survived the Spanish influenza; in high school, my mother washed dishes in her aunt’s restaurant. All characters come from  my imagination except the horse. Cisco is based on my Uncle Johnny’s horse Frisco, who lived to be 37.

There are hundreds of little towns in south Louisiana that could be Bayou Rosa, but while I have a rather colorful family, none of our true-life antics made it into the novel.
 
E: I love that the book takes place in 1920, an era I’ve been looking into lately. Why did you set it then, and what were your favorite/most useful research sources and tools?
 
R: When most people think of the 1920s, they think of Prohibition and the Jazz Age, but the 20s was a time of great social upheaval in the U.S. There were race riots and the Great Migration, post-war advances in medical care, the vote for women, a resurgence of the KKK, and the introduction of electricity, automobiles, and telephones. In isolated places like Bayou Rosa, however, those advances would not happen for a few more years. And there were small towns that suffered the loss of so many taxpayers during the Spanish flu, it took years to recover—and then the Crash of ’29 happened.
 
I mostly chose the early 1920s because women were finally free of their corsets! It was so difficult to think of meals that could be prepared with all-fresh ingredients, but describing dresses that required a corset was a dealbreaker.
 
My favorite resource tool is Google. I have also built up a collection of Louisiana books. The most useful of those was the WPA project guide, published in the 1940s. For the scenes in Baton Rouge and Memphis, I used various city guides.     
 
E: I read your blog post about having written an open-ended short story that readers urged you to finish. Did you envision a full-length novel when you wrote the short story? What convinced you to write the book?
 
R: I wrote “Light of the Moon,” about a young woman jilted at the altar, for a charity anthology. In my mind, the story was over even though there was not a clear, tied-with-a-ribbon ending. I never considered a sequel until Sister Jean, our convent retreat facilitator, asked if there was one. She wanted to know what happened to the sheriff. I went to Catholic school, so I couldn’t say no to a nun!

[image error]The bell at the convent retreat house that Sister Jean manages.

I didn’t have any idea what happened after the short story ended, but I had a pretty good idea of the crime that put Mama/Joelle in jail, so I decided to write a prequel, hoping the prequel would held me find the sequel. (It did not.) I could not figure out how Geneva could tell the whole story, so I used multiple narrators. That ended up being lots of fun. I never made the decision that “I will write a novel now,” but my prequel got longer and longer, and I had not even touched the sequel part. The story decided for me that it had to be a novel.

[image error]Edith’s kitten Ganesh, getting possessive about Ramona’s book.

E: I have read many of your wonderful essays and short stories. Because of their length, my own short pieces normally don’t require as much time to produce as a novel. How long have you been working on this book?
 
R:  It took me about six months to write the events that happened in the short story (2/3 of the manuscript). The ending? I wrote at least ten endings. It took me a year and a half to write the sequel part. I only persevered because Catholic, nun, etc.  I started in June of 2018, so a tad over two years.
 
E: It was time well spent! The way the story unfolds is layered in so many brilliant ways (starting with the surprising end to the first scene). Did it unfold easily to you, or did you spend a lot of time going back and layering in nuances?
 
R: Expanding a short story to a novel is a strange experience. On the one hand, I knew the characters from the short story, but since a novel requires a larger and deeper  narrative landscape, I got to discover each character all over again. In terms of plot, the short story provided the inciting incident and the climax. I just had to provide the landfill in-between and the ending.

I am a pantser, so while I knew where the story was headed, I did a lot of meandering to get there. My writing habit is to write, write, write, and then cut cut cut. The first draft was 104,000 words. I cut back to 94k. Even with the meandering and the cutting, the first three parts did come easily. The final part was like pulling teeth from an angry rhinoceros.

 E: Is this your first completed novel, or do you have other books in the proverbial drawer (and if so, when do we get to read them, she asks selfishly)?
 
R: I have one practice novel in a drawer. I may take a look at it again to see if it should stay there.  I have short works out on submission. (Note to self, check Submittable.)
 
E: You have spent years improving other authors’ books as an independent editor, including all my Quaker Midwife Mysteries. Did a developmental editor look at this manuscript? If so, how was that experience for you? (I know for me, I always do a big head slap when you point out something in my story that I might have critiqued in someone else’s.)
 
R: I did have both a developmental editor and a proofreader review the manuscript. I have been in multiple critique groups, so weighing criticism and advice was not new to me. Sadly, my Trusted Reader and longtime critiquer, Russell Reece, was not able to review it for me. Most of my work goes through Russ. Every writer should have a Russ.
 
E: I loved the dedication to the women who helped shape you, and I’m pretty sure you listed your grandmother, your mother, your sister, and your granddaughter, which touched my heart. Will you share a bit more about these women?

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 R: We lived with my grandmother until I was seven, and I was very close to her. I used to sneak into bed with her at night. She wore a soft white nightdress, and her chenille bedspread and long curtains were white, so in the dark, her bedroom seemed to glow. My first memory is of snuggling against her, watching the curtains blow around from a thunderstorm. They looked like ghostly arms, but I felt safe with her. (See what I mean about meandering?) I have written a lot about my mother, who was the baby of her family and lost her father when she was 9 months old. In first grade, she decided she would be a nurse, and she made it happen despite a whole lot of obstacles. My sister Annette is the most generous person I know. She’s also a huge cozy mystery fan. Sydney? She’s proven that old saying to be true about not really knowing love until you have a grandchild (or a dog).
 
E: What’s your next publication – of any kind – coming up?

R: Eek, nothing! I have some pieces out on submission. Right now, I’m promoting and trying to enjoy the rush.
 
E: You gather writers in many genres on Facebook every morning at seven for the Sprint Club, an hour of uninterrupted writing work. For me, it’s a perfect start to my work day, and it’s so heartening to know others in many locations are joining in at their own desks. When did you first start urging others to join you, virtually, for this devoted hour? 
 
R: I think I began sprinting on Twitter in 2011. In 2012, I wrote my first blog post about it. That’s about the time I transferred to posting on Facebook instead of participating on Twitter, so the quick answer is 2012. I really wish I’d made note of the first sprint thread I posted, but alas, I did not realize at the time what a phenomenon (smile) it would become.

E: It’s definitely a phenomenon. Thank you for joining us!

Readers: Do you have a favorite grandma memory? Or an influential nun in your life? And for Sprint Cub regulars, please identify yourselves! Ramona will give away a signed copy of the book, and if the winner wants a copy of the anthology from whence the novel arose, please say so.

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Ramona DeFelice Long writes short fiction, essays, memoir and one novel about family, women, and quirky things that come her way. Her work has appeared in numerous literary and regional magazines. She is a Louisiana native now living in Delaware.

Website: www.ramonadef.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ramona.d.long
Ramona’s Sprint Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/270472177602954/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ramonadef

Kensington’s Fabulous Cozy Card Program

[image error]Recently my friend Elisa A. Varey posted the picture to the right on Facebook showing she received a free copy of From Beer to Eternity through the Kensington Cozy Card program. I realized not all of our readers knew about the program so I invited Larissa Ackerman, Communications Manager at Kensington Books, to join us to explain the program.

 Love Cozies & Free Books? Join Kensington’s Cozy Card Program!

Do you love cozy mysteries? Do you also love free books? Then sign up for Kensington’s Cozy Card program!

The Cozy Card program is a rewards program created by Kensington Publishing to support the cozy mystery genre and get people excited about cozy mysteries via a loyalty card that rewards fans for reading cozy mysteries. It’s like coffee shop punch cards where they offer a free coffee after ten punched purchases, only this loyalty punch card is for free books—exclusively cozy mysteries—provided by the publisher, Kensington!

The best part is it’s a FREE program (besides the cost of a stamp) for bookstores, librarians, and cozy readers.

How does it work? It’s simple!

[image error]If you’re a reader, you can either sign up for a Cozy Card on this form [https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/kensingtoncozies/reader/] or ask your bookseller or librarian for a card. If a bookstore or library isn’t aware of the program, invite them to visit KensingtonBooks.com to learn more, or email Larissa Ackerman (LAckerman@KensingtonBooks.com). She will reach out to the bookseller or librarian with more info. If the bookstore/library won’t stamp or initial your card, just contact Larissa at Kensington and she’ll make special arrangements for you!

[image error]If you’re a library or bookstore, visit Kensington’s Website and sign up for a Cozy Card Starter Set (it includes: 50 cozy cards, instructions/information to keep at your counter, and a stamper), through this form [https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/kensingtoncozies/library/]. Distribute the cozy cards to interested readers, or simply make them available at your counter. Any time a patron checks out a cozy mystery from your library or purchases from your store, stamp their card with the Kensington Cozies stamp. Once a patron/customer checks out/purchases 10 cozies, they must mail the card to Kensington Publishing who will take care of the rest by sending the patron a free advance reading copy of an upcoming cozy mystery AND a new cozy card.

Here are some of the advance reading copies already sent to readers in Kensington’s Cozy Card Program: Sherry Harris’ FROM BEER TO ETERNITY, Maddie Day’s NACHO AVERAGE MURDER, Cate Conte’s WITCH HUNT, Cheryl Hollon’s STILL KNIFE PAINTING, Mary Marks’ KNOT OF THIS WORLD, Daryl Wood Gerber’s A SPRINKLING OF MURDER, and many more!

[image error]Thayer Library, photo taken by Kensington author Leslie Meier’s husband Gregory Meier.

A reader can redeem up to ten (10) cards total, which means they can send in a total of 10 stamped/punched cozy cards and Kensington will mail them 10 total cozy mysteries. They are keeping track of how many are redeemed by each reader and will let a reader know when they’ve reached their max. They are also keeping track of which books have already been sent so readers never get the same book twice. Completed cozy cards must be mailed to:

Kensington Publishing

c/o Larissa Ackerman

119 W 40th St., Floor 21

New York, NY 10018

We love when librarians and booksellers help readers discover books published by Kensington, that’s why we created the Cozy Card program to build excitement and community around the cozy mystery genre. All cozy mysteries qualify, regardless of publisher or author, although we understandably appreciate it if the cozy mystery is from Kensington Publishing!

[image error]Lindsey Tomsu from the Algonquin Area Public Library District

Sometimes the line between a cozy mystery and a regular mystery can be thin. If you are uncertain whether a book qualifies as a cozy mystery, we encourage you to err on the side of inclusion, especially if it is a traditional, historical, or light mystery. However, thrillers, dark mysteries, hardboiled mysteries, and crime novels don’t count!

Due to COVID-19 restrictions set in place, there are some updates to the program related to the coronavirus outbreak—we thank you very much for your patience during these abnormal times!

Please keep in mind mailings for the cozy card kits, cozy cards, and redemptions are delayed and can take over three weeks to arrive.If you already signed up for a cozy card over a month ago but haven’t received it yet, please contact Larissa Ackerman at LAckerman@KensingtonBooks.com. If you recently signed up for a cozy card, please know it is most likely on its way!If you mailed in a completed cozy card over a month ago but haven’t received your redemption yet, please contact Larissa.We understand many bookstores and libraries are either closed or only doing curbside pickup and thus readers can’t have their cards stamped by a librarian/bookseller. If this is the case for you, please contact Larissa and she will chat with you on a way to make it work!

We hope you enjoy Kensington’s Cozy Card program!

Readers: Did you know about this program?

[image error]Bio: Larissa Ackerman is a Communications Manager at Kensington Publishing Corp., where she handles publicity and marketing campaigns for many of their cozy and historical mystery series. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College in 2012 and has been working in book publicity ever since. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two cats, and she is still trying to solve the mystery of how to stop eating so much chocolate.

Guest Catriona McPherson

Edith here, always so happy to host Catriona McPherson on the Wickeds.

She’s a brilliant writer, a champion of others, generous with praise, and funny as all get out. Speaking of that, her third Last Ditch Mystery comes out in two weeks and you won’t want to miss it.

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When the bronze statue of local legend Mama Cuento is stolen on Valentine’s Day and a big bronze toe is found along with a ransom note – “Listen to our demands or you will never see her again. There are nine more where this came from” – Lexy Campbell is on it. It’s a great distraction from her non-existence love life. So non-existent that when her ex-husband Bran turns up in tears saying his new wife is gone and he needs Lexy, she’s briefly tempted. Crossed-wires! He means Brandee has vanished and he needs Lexy to find her. Right now, all he’s got is one of her false nails and a ransom note hinting about nine more.

Are the two cases linked or is a copycat on the loose? Who would want to kidnap a bronze statue or, come to that, Brandee? Can Lexy put aside her bitter grudges long enough to find out?

Take it away, Catriona!

If I had a chisel . . .

I’m not very creative. Words, I can do. But music, paint, all fabrics . . . every non-verbal art form defeats me. If I had to choose one to be adept at – and this would require a fairy godmother, believe me – I’d love to be able to sculpt. And I wouldn’t mess about with found objects either. I’d be in the market for a big block of granite, marble, or bronze, to make a proper, honest-to-God statue.

Instead, I had to settle for writing about them. SCOT ON THE ROCKS is full of statues. I wrote it long before the recent re-evaluation of who it is we choose to honour with enormous pieces of public art, but my interests and inclinations shone through. As follows.

I invented one statue – Mama Cuento – named for the fictional town where the Last Ditch mysteries take place, and beloved of her citizens. She’s made of bronze, eight foot tall, sturdy and barefoot. This matters because when she’s stolen, early on in this book, one of her toes is sent back to the town with a ransom note.

I love Mama Cuento. (When I pass by her spot in the real-life town of Davis, it’s always a bit of a shock that she’s not there.) And she’s not out of place with the real statues I put in the story.

This is Dignity, in South Dakota. She is considerably bigger than Mama Cuento (unstealable, I’d have thought) and jaw-droppingly beautiful. You can’t miss her if you’re driving through the state (as I was in 2018) and I wouldn’t think many people manage not to stop.

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Dignity is a mythical representative of the Lakota/Dakota people, but Sacagawea was a real Lemhi Shoshone woman, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and as a result she is memorialised all over the west. Here she is in Salmon, Idaho.  

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Another real woman, honoured in bronze, is Phyllis Wheatley. She was abducted in Senegal and sold into slavery in the US. She was also the first published African-American poet. Her statue is in Boston, alongside those of abolitionist and suffragist, Lucy Stone, and first lady and all-round bad-ass, Abigail Adams.

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I absolutely adore Boston’s public art, by the way. Some of it is very close to the heart (hah!) of any crime-fiction writer.

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See? It’s not only women (real and ideal) whose statues I admire. It’s just that I seem to notice them.

Edith: I have one of those pictures!

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Catriona: After all, any first-time visitor to the USA (at least if you arrive in New York) is welcomed here by Herself. Besides, I’ve never been to Rio to see Christ the Redeemer, or to Easter Island to see those guys. I’ve never even seen Mount Rushmore, actually. We were there. The plan was to look at Crazy Horse Mountain, have lunch, then take in the presidents in the afternoon. But it started to rain so hard you couldn’t see the end of your own nose, so we ate in the Rushmore café and carried straight on to Deadwood (to lay flowers on Calamity Jane’s grave).

It was quite a day. There was a clash between the real Calam – protector of vulnerable sex workers in a dangerous world – with the Doris Day Calam – sanitizing genocide. And it came after we witnessed Native families spending masses of time in the visitor centre at Crazy Horse, reading, reading aloud to toddlers, sometimes praying, occasionally crying. It was impossible, at the end of that outing, still to think statues are “just” art, or “just” a record, or “just” anything. Who is honoured and how and who by and why and where are crucial questions. Would I find Dignity beautiful if it was my people who had been killed and were now being memorialised? Would I be enraged? Is it too easy to look at her, find her awe-inspiring, and move on? I have no answers for these questions. But I still think it’s important to ask them.

Recently, in the north of Britain, two pieces of sculpture have been conceived, fought over, installed and – apparently – universally embraced. At least, I can’t find anyone with a bad word to say. It’s been enlightening to watch it happen in real time – to see how deeply public art affects people. It’s notable, though, that both pieces are right at the very far end of the “dead general on his battle horse to idealized being” continuum.

The Angel of The North is over sixty feet tall and he spreads his enormous wings out over the people of the north east of England. He was completed just before the millennium and, once everyone accepted that drivers on the A1 motorway weren’t going to crash trying to take pictures, he was admitted into the hearts of northerners for keeps.

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I think the Angel must have been in the minds of the sculptors who conceived of the Falkirk Kelpies (my favourite statues ever and anywhere, partly because they’re fifteen miles from  my birthplace). Since 2103, these gargantuan, mythical water-horses have guarded the eastern end of the Forth Clyde canal, in a clever set of references, to Scottish folklore, to the horse power of the early industrial revolution, and to the importance of the canal system in Scotland’s prosperity. Also they’re gorgeous. And big. Look!

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One last example. Just a wee one. Wojtek the Soldier Bear, is a life-size statue in Princes St Gardens in Edinburgh. He was a real bear, adopted as a cub by a unit of Polish soldiers and brought with them to Edinburgh during WWII. After VE Day, when many of them declined – understandably – to go home, Wojtek lived out his life in Edinburgh Zoo.

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I think the statue is supposed to honour the soldiers, and their courage, but it’s typical Scots “don’t make a fuss and don’t ever EVER  talk about your feelings” to filter that through a love of animals. I don’t get the impression that Polish people living in Scotland find this problematic, overall. In fact, my Polish sister-in-law told me that Wojtek was important to the new Polish immigrants who came after Poland joined the EU, because he connected them to that first wave of Polish arrivals, and reminded the Scots about why there were Polish people around in the late forties onward too. He’s got extra poignancy now as Britain, led by England, cuts itself off from Europe to go it alone.  And he’s a good example of how complex public art is, especially when it’s trying to address history, and – I’d say – how rewarding it is to ponder.

Edith: I love this tour of statues – and their meanings! I have been to the Cristo Redentor statue in Rio. It’s very impressive and watches over the entire city.

Readers: What’s your favorite statue?

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Catriona McPherson, multiple award-winner, multiple Mary Higgins Clark award loser, was born in Scotland and lived there until immigrating in 2010. She writes the Dandy Gilver series, set in the old country in the 1930s, as well as a strand of darker (not difficult) psychological thrillers including the latest, STRANGERS AT THE GATE.

After eight years in the US, she kicked off the humorous Last Ditch series, which takes a wry look at her new home. The ebook of number three, SCOT ON THE ROCKS, is coming out early what with one thing and another. It will be available on 3 Aug.

Catriona lives on 20 scruffy acres in NorCal, with a black cat and a scientist.

Low Down Dirty Vote Volume 2

Edith here, with special guest David Hagerty and a new anthology! (Note: while the topic of voter disenfranchisement might seem political, something the Wickeds strive to avoid here, the right to vote is basic to our democracy. We all approved this post.)

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David Hagerty, a fellow member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, says, “With all the recent talk about voting rights and election fraud, now is the time for a volume of crime fiction about disenfranchisement. Low Down Dirty Vote 2 came out July 4th with 22 short stories about cheating in politics and polling. The anthology is a fundraiser for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which supports voting rights and opposes vote suppression.”

Here, three of the writers whose stories appear in the anthology talk about the inspiration for their pieces.

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David Hagerty recalls his mother’s participation in the League of Women Voters when he was a child. “One of my favorite memories is of her marching in the 1976 bicentennial parade dressed as Lady Liberty, complete with crown and gown, so I used the image to introduce my story about the fight to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in my home state of Illinois. Here, Governor Duncan Cochrane, the hero of my political mystery series, uses his political savvy to lobby a legislature dominated by men for women’s suffrage.”

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Ann Parker finds unexpected sources for her tale of voter purges. “My usual milieu for mystery writing is historicals—my Silver Rush series takes place in the 1880s American West, and I initially thought I would write a short story in that setting.

However, present-day homeless issues loomed large in the local news and grabbed my attention. I found myself wondering: with everything else they must deal with, how did homeless folks manage to vote? How do you register if your “home” is a street corner or under a freeway overpass? What if you don’t have a photo ID? My short story “Purged” is the result of my research into that topic. (To see the welter of differing regulations and requirements by state, check out this chart on nationalhomeless.org.)

Camille Minichino uses her latest heroine to illustrate the voter suppression. “I have a  new series, written as Elizabeth Logan: The Alaska Diner Mysteries. I thought I’d take advantage of the research I did for the novels to spin a short story. “Three Funny Things Happened On The Way To Vote” is set in an outpost in Alaska, about a young woman trying to bring her grandfather into the 21st century with respect to problems of voter  fraud. On the way to the polls, they meet perfect examples of what it means to protect the voting rights of all Americans.”

The collection, along with its predecessor, Low Down Dirty Vote, Volume 1, was conceived and edited by Mysti Berry, who tired of ranting on Facebook about the state of this country. “I’m proud of every writer and every story in the collection. The creativity and passion for voting rights resonates from beginning to end.”

Low Down Dirty Vote 1 and Low Down Dirty Vote 2 are for sale on Amazon in ebook and paperback, with all proceeds going to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Readers: Have you had experiences with voter suppression? Can you vote by mail this fall in your state?