Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 123

Welcome Guest Kate Flora

Kate Flora is another of the amazing women writers I met when I became a member of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime. Her accomplishments are legendary. And now she’s tried something entirely new for her — writing a romantic suspense.

[image error]Here’s a bit about Wedding Bell Ruse: Callista McKenzie is a self-made woman. She’s left her toxic family, gotten educated, and built an accounting business, deferring life and love until she’s debt free. Then Devin enters her life. The perfect employee, perfect boyfriend, perfect fiancé, until the morning she wakes from a drugged sleep to find Devin and her personal and business assets gone, a note clipped to her pillow: Thanks for everything.

Devastated, Callie tries to pull her life back together, but the police are convinced she’s secretly colluded with Devin and will soon sneak away to join him. When her biggest client fires her, saying her judgment can’t be trusted, and the detective makes it clear that things will go easier if she provides sexual favors, she throws some clothes in a suitcase and runs.

Many hours later, out of physical and emotional gas, she pulls over on a cold Vermont roadside to rest, awakened by a police officer knocking on her window. He sends her on to the nearest town, where the coffee shop is just opening. Nearly penniless, she scrounges enough change for a cup of coffee. Then a man sits down at her table and says, “Smile, and pretend you’re glad to see me.”

His words open the door to a world of temptation, complication, and danger. Callie needs a place to hide. Tommy Morgan needs a wife. And someone doesn’t want them to marry.

There’s a mysterious stalker outside her room. Her car windows are vandalized. Someone tries to poison her. And then the detective shows up, carrying her away from happily ever after.

The story how the book came to be is fascinating! Join me in welcoming Kate!

Yes, Kate, but romantic suspense? Really?

Writers are often asked where we get our ideas. My usual response is that ideas are everywhere. In the things we see when we’re driving down the street, that we overhear or someone tells us, or that we read in the paper. Once in a while, though, a character simply appears. Trailing an interesting story, she walks into a surprising scene, and even I, the author, have to know what comes next. That’s what happened with Wedding Bell Ruse.

I can’t say where I was, or what I was doing, probably figuring out the how and why of killing someone, which is how I usually spend my time, but suddenly, like a waking dream, I saw this woman, exhausted from driving many hours, clearly running from something. It was late at night on a desolate Vermont road. She’s scared. She has no money. She’s running from her fiancé’s terrible betrayal and threatening cop with no idea where to go or what to do. She goes into a coffee shop, just opening for the day, orders coffee, goes to the ladies room to freshen up, and when she comes out, a stranger is sitting at her table. He looks at her with desperately sad eyes and says, “Smile and pretend you’re glad to see me.”

[image error]Kate with Deputy Chief Brian Cummings, Miramichi (New Brunswick) police

And so the book began.

More than a quarter of a century ago, when I started writing mysteries, I was joining other writers in what I call a “Nancy Drew comes of age” exploration. We were going to write books where the protagonists were women who rescued themselves or others, no brawny guys leaping out of the closet to save them. I thought the journey was straightforward. I would spend nine months writing a Thea Kozak mystery, three months promoting, and back to my desk.

The journey hasn’t been like that at all.

[image error]When my series got dropped, I was catapulted into taking chances. Joining Susan Oleksiw and Sky Alexander in founding Level Best Books, editing, publishing, and writing short stories. Taking a chance on writing male cops in my Joe Burgess procedural series. Learning to write true crime to help my friend Joe Loughlin tell a story that was important to him. I’ve now written strong women, cops, true crime, memoir, short story and straight nonfiction.

Callista McKenzie’s story, though, inspired by those scenes when she appeared in her car, and when Tommy Morgan sat across from her in The Copper Penny and asked her to smile and pretend she was glad to see him, was far from what is arguably my platform: the world of cops. It got written on a whim because I was so curious about what their story was. What had happened to make her run? Why did Tommy need to get married? Who was the mysterious person threatening her? Would things work out or would Callie get hauled off to jail?

Wedding Bell Ruse, written between deadlines, ended up tucked away in a drawer. It joined a domestic thriller, a political thriller, and two books exploring new series characters. Last year I got impatient with those “books in the drawer,” pulled it out, and asked my Facebook friends where to send it. Following writer Mary Harris’s kind advice, I found a publisher and now I am holding my breath, wondering if my venture into yet another genre will work.

As for the title? Titles are definitely not my strong point. I had a working title: Runaway, that was blah and the editor didn’t like it. Once again, I turned to my friends on Facebook and asked for help. Fifty possible titles later, she chose this one.

Readers: Do you read more than one genre? Do you have a favorite?

Bio:

[image error]Kate Flora’s fascination with people’s criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general’s office. Deadbeat dads, people who hurt their kids, and employers’ discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of twenty-one books and many short stories, Flora’s been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Her most recent Thea Kozak mystery is Schooled in Death; her most recent Joe Burgess is A Child Shall Lead Them. Her new crime story collection is Careful What You Wish For: Stories of revenge, retribution, and the world made right. 2020 will see a romantic suspense, Wedding Bell Ruse, a story in The Faking of the President and one in Heartbreaks and Half-Truths.

 

Flora’s nonfiction focuses on aspects of the public safety officers’ experience. Her two true crimes, Finding Amy: A true story of murder in Maine (with Joseph K. Loughlin) and Death Dealer: How cops and cadaver dogs brought a killer to justice, follow homicide investigations as the police conducted them. Her co-written memoir of retired Maine warden Roger Guay, A Good Man with a Dog: A Game Warden’s 25 Years in the Maine Woods, explores policing in a world of guns, misadventure, and the great outdoors. Her latest nonfiction is Shots Fired: The Misconceptions, Misunderstandings, and Myths about police shootings with retired Portland Assistant Chief Joseph K. Loughlin. Flora divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine.

 

 

The Seven Arts

One last seven to celebrate the seventh anniversary of our blog. The following are considered the seven arts:

Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry, Dance, Performing

 If you could pick one other of these to do besides writing which would it be? What form would it take? How would you envision that life?

Julie: Ahem, where’s mystery writing? Just saying. I’ve worked in the performing arts, so I feel as though I know that world. I’d like to paint well. But being a sculptor would be really interesting. Completely out of my comfort zone, which would be the point, really. I’d love to live near the ocean and have a studio where I create epic sculptures that people have no idea of their meaning but they feel compelled to buy them. I’m imagining myself with chainsaws and welding torches. And crystals.

Jessie: You dazzle me, Julie, with your vision! I would love to see you doing exactly that! As for me, hands down it would be painting. I have mentioned here before that I have started to sketch in watercolors as part of a 100 Day Project. In fact, today is day 84! I have enjoyed it so much I am planning to start in on a 100 Days concentrating on oil painting starting June 14! If I like it, I can see myself rewarding myself for a good day of writing by painting en pein air at the seaside in the warmer months and at an easel in a light-filled indoor studio in the colder ones. I already have a space in my home in mind to set up!

Edith/Maddie: Both of those sound wonderful, Julie and Jessie, and I can picture you at them! I often thought when I retired I would do community theater. But since I’m not retired… Oh, that’s right. We’re dreaming. Then I would like voice training (and a naturally beautiful voice), and be able to make people happy by my singing. Let’s throw in cello lessons, too, which I abandoned at the start of ninth grade. I could sing and play the cello at the same time!

Liz: I always wanted to be able to sing and dance! I think I may have been a performer in a past life…but none of that talent has carried over. When I was kid, my mother was kindly asked to remove me from dance class so she wasn’t wasting her money. But I love music and if I had the talent, that would be my other creative endeavor for sure!

Barb: I’d love to be able to sing. Even more, I’d love to be able to write songs. People who can tell a story and convey emotion in 3 minutes floor me. So much admiration.

Sherry: As a child I wanted to be a ballerina. One of my best friends took ballet lessons and I adored her beautiful pink tutu. Plus there seemed to be a plethora of ballet focused books when I was growing up. Boarding school and ballet? Be still my young heart. But my adult dream would be to conduct the Boston Pops or some similar type of orchestra. Getting all of those talented musicians to work together to produce something magical would be amazing.

Readers: Which of the seven arts would you choose and why?

The Walking Cure

By Liz, happy that summer seems to (mostly) have arrived here in New England

I’ve been trying to find ways to change up my exercise routine (on those days when I actually exercise) in this strange new environment. I love being able to do my normal workout classes here at home thanks to live online classes my gym has been providing while they’re closed, but sometimes I need to, well, leave the house, get outside, get some fresh air. As a work-from-homer even before this happened, sometimes it’s hard to remember to leave my desk. Especially these days.

But lately, I’ve been trying to get out and walk more. I love my neighborhood – I’m right near the water, there’s a lot of different routes to take with all kinds of different water views, and honestly, the quarantine fifteen (or some version of weight gain) is no joke.

You might think that daily walks would be a no-brainer given that I have two doggies who go out at least four or five times a day. This is true, but my dogs don’t always love walking in our neighborhood. Even with the quarantine in effect, it’s busier here than my two southern dogs really like, and sometimes a walk around the block can come with a bit more stress than any of us care to have in our lives.

So I’ve had to get a big more creative. I’ve been taking the dogs out for their first walk of the day early so the noise level is low enough that Molly doesn’t get upset. (She’s afraid of loud noises and our neighborhood is urban enough that there are a lot of them.) Then at some point during the day, or after dinner, I’ve been taking longer walks on my own and trying to vary my typical routes.

For instance, the other day I walked through an old cemetery I’d always seen on my walks, but never found the time to check out. I love cemeteries anyway, but this was historical and interesting and a cool place to just linger. I even found a rock to take home with me. (Yeah, you know me and my rocks.)

On the weekends, weather accommodating, I’ve been trying to find new places to hike, where dogs are allowed of course. As long as there aren’t too many people around (Molly is also not a fan of crowds, even before the virus), they love parks.

[image error]The girls on their way to our hike this past weekend.

This past weekend, we checked out Sleeping Giants State park in Hamden – which was really cool. We are trying to find new places as much as possible, get out more, see new things.

And getting some extra exercise in is never a bad thing.

Readers, what are you doing to alter your routines these days?

Memorial Day Musings

It’s the last Monday in May, which means it’s the day when we remember those who have died in the service of our country. In my family, the only one we’ve lost was my grandfather’s only brother, Dr. Leslie Maxwell, during WWI. Hugh lost his uncle in the Pacific in WWII.

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We so much appreciate all those who lost their lives fighting for our freedoms.

This year, at least where I live, there will be no parades, no speeches in the park or the cemetery, no group cookouts or beach parties. It’s still too dangerous to gather in groups, according to the scientists who know about these things.

Also, as a quarantined self-employed writer, I barely notice that it’s a holiday. I was talking to my agent Friday, and he wished me a happy long weekend. What? Oh, right, Memorial day.

I do have a book set over Memorial Day, Mulch Ado About Murder. The fifth Local Foods mystery, it depicts Westbury’s classic New England small town parade, which I stole directly from my former town of West Newbury.

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The parade is complete with riding lawnmowers, equestrians, Civil War reenactors, the mom’s volleyball group, and marching Girl Scouts herded by a certain leader. The last four feature cameos by four actual friends of mine – who participated in the parade in exactly those roles.

I’ll be planting my tomatoes, peppers, and more flowers today. Yesterday I got the cucumber seedlings into big pots set up on sawhorses. My raised box is full of greens and peas, and if I plant tender crops in the ground the bunnies and woodchuck will have a midnight snack party.

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Nacho Average Murder – Country Store #7, releasing June 30 – was recently one of only two cozies named as a Most Anticipated 2020 Summer Read by Crime Reads! And I finished writing the first draft of No Grater Crime on Saturday, so Hugh and I will celebrate by grilling a couple of steaks this afternoon. It’s the ninth Country Store mystery and the last one under contract. Once again I don’t know if the series will be renewed – although it easily might. But I’m leaving everybody in a good place in the book, just in case.

I’d like to also remember all who have lost their lives to this awful pandemic, whether in service to others or not. Most didn’t have the benefit of leaving their lives in a good place.

Readers: Who do you remember today? What will your sparsely populated celebration look like?

Welcome Back Guest Lori Rader-Day

[image error]I’m happy to welcome Lori Rader-Day back to the blog. We first met when she moderated a panel we were both on of debut authors at Left Coast Crime in 2014 — I got the date right this time, Lori. We’ve both been writing away since and I love Lori’s books — they are always suspenseful and surprising. Her latest book The Lucky One came out in February. And she is rocking it as the current national president of Sisters in Crime.

Here’s a bit about the book: Most people who go missing are never found. But Alice was the lucky one…

As a child, Alice was stolen from her backyard in a tiny Indiana community, but against the odds, her policeman father tracked her down within twenty-four hours and rescued her from harm. In the aftermath of the crime, her family decided to move to Chicago and close the door on that horrible day.

Yet Alice hasn’t forgotten. She devotes her spare time volunteering for a website called The Doe Pages scrolling through pages upon pages of unidentified people, searching for clues that could help reunite families with their missing loved ones. When a face appears on Alice’s screen that she recognizes, she’s stunned to realize it’s the same man who kidnapped her decades ago. The post is deleted as quickly as it appeared, leaving Alice with more questions than answers.

Embarking on a search for the truth, she enlists the help of friends from The Doe Pages to connect the dots and find her kidnapper before he hurts someone else. Then Alice crosses paths with Merrily Cruz, another woman who’s been hunting for answers of her own. Together, they begin to unravel a dark, painful web of lies that will change what they thought they knew—and could cost them everything.

Twisting and compulsively readable, The Lucky One explores the lies we tell ourselves to feel safe.

Thanks for joining us today, Lori!

Happy 7th birthday to the Wicked Cozies blog and authors!

Seven is supposed to be a lucky number—possibly having to do with its status as a prime number? Or with a sports thing? Seven is a religious touchstone in several cultures—seven deadly sins, seven virtues (you hardly ever hear about those), and on the seventh day, “God rested.” Number of days in the week, number of colors in the rainbow, number of Great Wonders of the world, the number given to super-spy James Bond. Seven is either lucky, or we just think it is.

With my latest novel being titled The Lucky One, I’ve had a little time to think about what it means to be lucky, and not.

Do I believe in luck? Not in the rabbit’s foot school. I believe rabbits should keep their feet. My lucky number is 11, but I haven’t assigned any magical powers to it. I just like it.

But yes, I absolutely believe in good fortune, in being in the right place at the right time, in taking chances and snapping up opportunities when they rain down—in trying new things and working hard toward goals so that I might meet them some “lucky” day. Here’s the kind of luck I believe in, best represented by this quote I found (luckily!) this week from an Entertainment Weekly interview with comedian and actor Chris Rock:

“Naive people will tell you ‘There’s always tomorrow and you’ll always get another chance.’ The smart people will tell you ‘You probably get three chances at anything in life and you’ll probably be busy for the first two…that third one you better be f*#!ing ready.'”

But we write or read crime fiction, in which characters often have the worst possible luck.

In the kinds of stories I like to write, the fictional crime looks an awful lot like real crime. The Lucky One, in fact, is based in part on a real crime that happened to my neighbor, and in part on a moment that had really happened to me as I scoured for story ideas online. (A full essay about the convergence of those two stories is in the back of the published book, if you want to take a look.) The Lucky One is about a group of online amateur sleuths, based on the real-life online amateur sleuths of The Doe Network. When I went to do some research, trying to understand what information an amateur can get about cold case missing persons, I used the real-life crime of a girl gone missing from my childhood neighborhood. That’s a lot of actual crime undergirding a fictional story. Which is fine, right?

Except that when I write a story that has real-world connections, I start wonder about my right to do so. Am I the right person to tell this story? Can I tell it with the right gravitas, so that if someone who has experienced this crime themselves or within their family, they won’t feel violated all over again? For example, for The Day I Died, my third novel, I wrote about domestic violence, something I had never experienced. But I had at least one friend who had survived a violent marriage, and someone I had known in high school had been killed in college (the college where I was also a student) by an ex-boyfriend. The story I was writing wasn’t about either of those women, but as I worked on that book, I wondered if I could write a story that didn’t somehow blame the victim for not being lucky enough to survive. My character survived her violent relationship but not because she possessed more virtue than someone who hadn’t, not because she was smarter or did things “right.” The woman from my high school did everything right, too.

I don’t believe in that four-leaf clover sort of luck, but what I really don’t believe in is assigning virtue for those who seem to possess it.

Am I lucky? Oh, yeah. Every word I write comes from a place of privilege. I’ve been given a lot of breaks. That’s the thing I try to remember, that I’ve had a lot of hands up. That’s what luck really looks like, which means I can give it, too.

So happy 7th anniversary to the Wicked Cozies. If my luck holds, and yours, have me back for your 11th anniversary.

Readers: What story based on real life do you recommend? Writers, I would love to hear about one of your lucky breaks.

[image error]Bio: Lori Rader-Day is the Edgar Award-nominated and Anthony Award- and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Under a Dark Sky, The Day I Died, Little Pretty Things, and The Black Hour. She co-chairs the mystery conference Murder and Mayhem in Chicago and serves as the national president of Sisters in Crime. Her new book is The Lucky One, set in a true-crime amateur online sleuth community.

 

 

Thankful Thursday

Dear Readers,

We are in the millionth day of the coronavirus pandemic. Wait, what? It only feels like the millionth day? My part of Northern Virginia is still on stay at home orders and even if we weren’t I’d still be staying at home. But I continue to find much to be thankful for and I hope all of you do too.

One person leaving a comment will win a book from each of the Wickeds.

Sherry: I’m grateful that my writing mojo has returned — I was starting to worry. I’m grateful that writing friends Lori Rader-Day, Kellye Garrett, and Barb Goffman nudged me to get back at it. One day a few weeks ago Lori said just go write 100 words. That worked and of course I wrote more. I will give an ebook of any of my books!

[image error]Barb: I’m grateful because I finally got to meet my newest granddaughter who was born in February over a delightful four-day mother’s day weekend. And back in Maine, it’s finally spring. Hooray! I’m giving away a hardcover copy of my first novel, The Death of an Ambitious Woman.

Edith/Maddie: I am thankful for the spring birds and all the greenery, at last, and the for the advent of the fresh produce season in New England. And I’m especially thankful to have won the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel for Charity’s Burden! To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage amendment, I’d love to give away a signed copy of Turning the Tide, the third Quaker Midwife Mystery.

Julie: I’m grateful for the 21-Day In-Between Challenge I’m doing. I love going live on Facebook every day and talking about the prompts. I’m also grateful because, as always, the teacher is learning. I’m also grateful to have finally figured out the plotting issues in Book #4 of the Garden Squad series. I’m giving away a copy of Pruning the Dead.

Liz: Like Sherry, I’m grateful that I seem to have overcome my creative drought and am back on track with Full Moon Mystery #2. Also grateful for the upcoming holiday and a break from the day job that I can spend writing. I’m giving away a copy of one of my Pawsitively Organic Mysteries, Murder She Meowed.

Jessie: I love everyone else’s notes of gratitude! I’m thankful for my screen house! My sons set it up on the deck for me on Mother’s Day and we moved patio furniture inside it. We added a record player, potted plants that thrive in shade and some cozy quilts and throws to ward off the chill in the evenings. We have enjoyed gathering there together by candlelight each evening that hasn’t rained ever since! I will give away a copy of Murder Flies the Coop!

Readers: What are you thankful for?

Seven Natural Wonders

Continuing with our seven theme — there are seven natural wonders of the world. Here’s the list I found:

Aurora BorealisRio de JaneiroGrand CanyonGreat Barrier ReefMount EverestVictoria FallsParicutin, Mexico

Have you been to any of them or seen the aurora borealis? If you could only pick one place to visit which one would it be and why?

Julie: I’ve been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times. It well deserves its place on this list. I’d love to visit the others, with no intention of seeing Mt. Everest from the top. Ever.

Jessie: I’ve seen the Northern Lights on two occasions. I enjoyed seeing them during a trip to Iceland for a conference in 2016. The first time I saw them was several years earlier on Beggar’s Night, which in my village has been customarily celebrated on October 30. Children in costumes were running about trick-or-treating and ther, dancing in the skies above them were the most magnificent plumes of coloredlights. It was utterly magical. And a little spooky besides!

Liz: So, once I tried to go to the Grand Canyon, and it was…closed. Yep, I’m not kidding. Like you, Julie, I have no desire to visit Mt. Everest, but would also love to see the others!

Edith/Maddie: Closed, Liz? But why? In January 1970, I landed in Rio de Janeiro to begin my year as an exchange student. It is a stunningly beautiful city, just like in the pictures. Forty other American high school seniors and I spent two weeks having language and culture training before we dispersed to our host families (mine was in the southernmost state). I again stayed in Rio for a week at the end of the year with a temporary host family. We went up to the Christ Redeemer statue and to the beaches. Amazing. Also amazing is that, as a person from Los Angeles, I have never been to the Grand Canyon. I’ve been to Mexico and all over west Africa, but never to any of the other wonders on the list

Barb: I am feeling like a piker because I’ve never seen any of these. The closest I came was a business trip to Cairns, Australia, a popular jumping off point for the Great Barrier Reef. Bill and I have talked about a trip to the Grand Canyon, but nothing concrete has happened.

Sherry: Between my second and third grade years we took a car trip from Iowa to California and back. By the time we got to the Grand Canyon on the way home we’d already been dazzled by Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak, the cliff dwellings, in Mesa Verde, cactus in Arizona, Disneyland, and Knott’s Berry Farm. It was hotter than the blazes when we looked over the edge and shrugged. I would love to see the Aurora Borealis.

Readers: Have you see any of these natural wonders? Are there any you’d like to see?

Welcome Guest Lynn Chandler Willis

Welcome Lynn Chandler Willis! I love stories about how authors incorporate bits of their real lives into their books. This one is intriguing and something I’ve never heard of.

Talking the Fire Out

My daddy was the one in the neighborhood people called on for a little bit of everything. Help building something, or what to do about this or that, or talking the fire out. The what? A fire talker. I was probably ten years old when I saw the gift for the first time.

[image error]A neighbor across the street was grilling out. She’d doused the coals with lighter fluid and when she went to drop a match, the entire grill went up in flames, catching her clothes, and herself on fire. Her screams coupled with the neighborhood kids’ screams who had witnessed the horrific accident echoed through the neighborhood.

While someone called for an ambulance, someone else called my daddy. They knew he was a fire talker. While we waited for the ambulance, daddy went to work. He quietly talked with the neighbor to calm her. He did his thing and when the ambulance got there, the scene was nowhere near the chaos it had been earlier. I don’t remember if the neighbor spent time in the hospital or not but I do know she didn’t scar. Her pain was minimal and even the doctors were taken aback by the “miracle.”

There were other times daddy was called upon to talk the fire out. After I had kids of my own, daddy wanted to make sure I had the gift in case a little one got burned. But, as the tradition goes, daddy couldn’t share it with me because you can’t share it with a member of your immediate family. And it has to be shared by a member of the opposite sex. I found all these stipulations a bit tiresome and lost interest until I received a phone call one afternoon from my panicked mother. Daddy had been working on an electrical panel (he was an electrician by trade) and it blew up on him. He was taken to the hospital with 3rd degree burns over 60% of his body. His face, shoulders, and chest received the brunt of the damage.

Daddy was admitted and they got him settled in his room. An elderly black man in a wheelchair sat at the door to daddy’s room and asked if he could come in. He wanted to talk the fire out. Because we believed, we welcomed him in. A day or two later when daddy was talking again, he asked the man if he’d share the gift with me. The old man took me to the end of the hallway, him in his wheelchair, and me sitting on the window ledge, and he told me. I’ll never forget his cloudy eyes and bent and gnarled hands as he shared this gift. And daddy walked out of there with one small scar on his shoulder.

[image error]I think about that old man a lot and I’ve used the gift many times myself. When I was writing Tell Me No Secrets (Book 2 in the Ava Logan series) I delved into research of Appalachian granny women. I based a character, Mary McCarter, on one with the gift. Mary and her son, Keeper, became two of my all-time favorite characters. Their story continues in book 3, Tell Me You Love Me. Both books have characters who believe in the old ways of the mountains, and those who don’t. Like real life. I’ve had someone back away, fearfully, after witnessing me talking the fire out of a co-worker’s steam burn. “It’s voodoo,” she whispered.

Readers: How about you? Have you heard about the old mountain ways? I’ll giveaway the complete digital set of the Ava Logan series (US only). All three eBooks to 1 winner.

[image error]Bio: Lynn Chandler Willis is a best-selling, award-winning author from North Carolina. She was the first woman in a decade to win the St. Martin’s Press Best 1st P.I. Novel competition. Her novel, Wink of an Eye, went on to earn a Shamus nomination. Her latest, the Ava Logan series, is set in her beloved Appalachia mountains. 

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7W7DU

 

Armchair Traveling

Jessie: In New Hampshire, wishing the blackflies would practice more social distancing.

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The fifth Beryl and Edwina Mystery is due to my editor on June 1. Which is exactly two weeks from today, according to the yearly calendar looming menacingly over my shoulder as I sit at my desk. Naturally, my mind offers a wide variety of distractions from the task at hand. I wish I could say that I always manage to ignore the allure of such sweet suggestions and instead focus with laser-like precision on the revisions I know need to be made before the book could be allowed to be seen by anyone besides myself.

Sadly, this not the case. I have, over the years, gotten to be more and more adept at managing my mind in the face of temptation but I am not entirely immune to suggestions by some nefarious part of my brain that delights in offering up sidetracking enticements. I have, however, learned through a great deal of trial and error that it is possible to bribe that wiley part of my mind with promises of treats if only it will go play quietly elsewhere until my work is done for the day.

And what does it seem to like best, this unruly toddler part of me? Even before the global population was encouraged to remain in their homes, armchair travel always topped the list. For years, a promise to allow myself to wander via books and even websites has been enough to buy myself a few hours each day of focused effort.

Old favorites to re-read, set in distant lands, travel magazines promoting life in tropical locales and online resources like Atlas Obscura and The National Archive can always be counted on to do the trick. Even suggesting a session for dreaming of trips to be taken when travel is once again possible by perusing the cruise schedule for the Cunard Line or looking at the cost of winter rentals on a beach in Brazil is sure to quell the clamor and stay on task long enough to make progress.

The upside of all of my mental gymnastics is that not only should I have a book completed in two weeks, I may have a vacation scheduled for sometime in 2021!

Readers, how do you get yourself to do those things you know you ought? Writers. what makes it possible for you to honor your deadlines?

Welcome Guest Abby L. Vandiver

I am so delighted to welcome Abby L. Vandiver who also writes as Abby Collette. Her first book as Abby Collette is A Deadly Inside Scoop an Ice Cream Parlor mystery. Look for a giveaway at the end of the post. Here’s a bit about the book:

[image error]Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family’s ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she’s going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors—many from her grandmother’s original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away.

To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win’s father is implicated in his death. It’s not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she’ll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown…

A Supporting Cast Member

Abby: I love a good whodunit. Following the amateur sleuth as they figure out the clues and catch the killer while the reader tries to see if they can guess, too, gives hours of enjoyable and satisfying reading. But as a writer of cozies, I know my main character wouldn’t get far in solving the mystery without the help of secondary characters, or the “supporting cast.” It goes without saying, a good story needs to be populated with memorable characters.

Cozy mystery protagonists need reliable, relatable sounding boards to bounce their ideas off of, to ground them and provide additional insight. In most cozies it’s usually a best friend, family member or a romantic partner.

But people aren’t the only secondary “characters” a story can have. I believe that writers can make the “setting” of their story a character in its own right.  Like a character’s personality, a setting can cause conflict and evoke feelings of familiarity. Giving the setting of your story a personality through the description of place and the experiences of the characters as they interact—the combination of details and the emotions attached to them—can make it into a living thing. Through the eyes of the reader, the setting can become an anchored emotional center to the story.

In a cozy, it is almost per definition that the setting of the story is a quaint town (or village) giving off a homely feel. It evokes all five senses from the bookstores, libraries, bake shops and knitting circles to the lives of the neighborly inhabitants–close knit, quirky, nosy people who don’t mind exchanging gossip, whether it’s helpful or not. It’s usually the place where the protagonist has moved back to and considers “home.” And what’s better than home? Everyone can relate to that. They know exactly how it makes them feel. (Although, most people in real life wouldn’t be tempted, no matter what feelings are evoked when home is brought to mind, to move into a place where murder abounds as it does in cozies.) 

In my cozies, I’ve love adding some life and personality to my settings—Southern charm, small town life and in my newest book, A Deadly Inside Scoop, waterfalls and a family business that has been in the same location for generations, permanent fixtures in a world that is constantly changing. I’ve tried to write my setting so that my readers can snuggle in and get lost inside the world I’ve built.

A Deadly Inside Scoop is set in Chagrin, Ohio a real suburb of Cleveland where I live. It is a charming little village with big old houses, a quaint main street with shops and people, and it has local annual events that have tradition and lots of history. In real life, people flock all year round from all over to the village of Chagrin Falls to see the waterfall and visit the place where I have my story takes place. The book’s fictional ice cream store, Crewse Creamery, sits over the waterfall and the inside was created with the hope of evoking the feeling of being in a 1950s soda shop. Bright. Colorful. And of course cozy.

I hope you’ll drop by and meet Win, her family and enjoy a scoop of the delicious ice cream she makes because, in the book, recipes are included!

Readers: Ice cream can evoke memories of special times, chase your blues away and just the thought of its creaminess and decadent and fun flavors can dial up your cravings to full blast. In A Deadly Inside Scoop, Win makes snow ice cream because it reminds her of her grandmother. What feelings or memories does ice cream evoke for you and have you ever concocted your own homemade flavor?

(To celebrate the release of A Deadly Inside Scoop, I’m giving away a signed paperback. Just leave a comment to enter.)

[image error]Bio: WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY and internationally bestselling author, Abby L. Vandiver, also writing as Abby Collette, is a hybrid, writing both as an indie and traditionally published author. She has penned more than twenty-five books and short stories, including her Logan Dickerson Cozy Mysteries and Romaine Wilder Mystery series.  She resides in South Euclid, Ohio and enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and is looking forward to writing more of her new series, An Ice Cream Parlor Mystery.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/abbyvandiver Instagram: www.instagram.com/abbylvandiver Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorabbyl.vandiver Website: www.abbyvandiver.com Amazon: bit.ly/myamzpg