Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 230

To Build a House

by Barb, in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where the beautiful weekend weather has turned cold and gray

I turned in the manuscript for Iced Under, the fifth Maine Clambake Mystery, in May. When I first proposed, and Kensington bought, books 4-6, I pictured all three books taking place during the off-season in my coastal resort town. But then I had a chance to write a holiday novella for the collection Eggnog Murder, and that meant I had written three off-season stories. I didn’t know how my readers would feel after reading them, but I was ready for sunshine and clambakes and trips to Morrow Island. I suggested to my editor that we ditch my proposed book six and he agreed. (Though I still love the premise, so in my mind, I’m not ditching it. I’m saving it for another time.) So that has left me footloose and fancy-free for the next book. Or should I say, screw-loose and plot-free?

One thing I know will happen in the next book is that renovations on Windsholme, the empty and damaged mansion on Morrow Island, will begin. The mansion’s been a part of the island landscape from the first scene in the first book, Clammed Up. And in Iced Under, we learn more about Julia’s mother’s family–like who built the mansion and when. But now that I’m renovating, I need to know a lot more about the house itself. We know it was built in 1880, but is it Queen Anne, or Shingle Style or New American Colonial?

(For the mansion that appears on my bookmarks and website banner, I told the artist to use the inspiration of Edith Wharton’s house in the Berkshires, The Mount. That turns out to be a little too recent for Windsholme.)

I make sure the research I do for the clambake books is about subjects that interest me, but I have hit the jackpot with this book. I have always loved houses. When I played with my Barbies, I was more interested in the “set ups”–the apartments we created in the bookshelves and toy boxes, than in the melodramatic plotlines that inevitably resulted from having too few Ken dolls to go around.

I have to work not to over-describe the houses my characters live in and visit. “Is the protagonist an architect?” a member of my critique group once inquired, way too politely, after my narrator had gone on and on and on about some building or another.

But for now, I am happily surrounded by house porn, researching away. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be on the front porch with a big book on my lap.

Readers: Do you love houses, or could you care less? Do you envy me with all these big books full of houses on my lap, or is that your idea of bor-ing?

Filed under: Barb's posts Tagged: maine old home renovation research

Forging My Own Culinary (Author) Path –Guest Shawn Reilly Simmons

Welcome back, Shawn! You have been one busy woman with three books out! Shawn is giving away a book — details at the end of the post! The third book in the Red Carpet Catering series, Murder on a Designer Diet, has just been released. I’m new to being a published author, and I’ve been thinking about how lucky I am. Not only to have been published, writing books that I love to write, but also how different events in my life set me on this particular path.

I’ve admired so many culinary mystery authors for years, and now I get to introduce myself as one to new readers. But I didn’t set out to write culinary mysteries, instead the sub-genre found me. I’ve worked as a cook and as a caterer over my career, but mostly I’ve had office jobs, mainly in sales and marketing. I knew my main character, Penelope Sutherland, would be a chef, but for some reason I still didn’t think of my books as culinary mysteries when I sat down to write them.

Of course, I didn’t think of myself as a culinary expert either, even though I’m a good cook and have a passion for food. I love trying new ingredients, and I rarely follow recipes, preferring to get the general idea of a dish and then putting my own spin on it. I enjoy making dinner for my family, working with simple, healthy, local ingredients. I grow a vegetable garden every year and look forward to all the tomatoes, peppers and herbs bursting into full bloom so I can incorporate them into our meals. So there’s no question I have a passion for all things culinary, but I still hadn’t made the connection to my writing.

My first year of college, I convinced the manager of one of the nicer restaurants near campus to give me a job, even though I had no previous restaurant experience. I was just 18, too young to serve alcohol, so they gave me a spot in the kitchen. My first position was on the salad station, where all the new cooks started. It was pretty safe, you can’t mess up a salad unless you really work hard at it. Shortly afterwards I moved up to cooking on the line, and eventually I took my turn as kitchen lead, calling out orders to the rest of the cooks and running the service window, making entrees, working the grill and sending food out to the wait staff. I was the only girl in the back of the house the entire time I worked in that kitchen.

In the beginning, I was looked on doubtfully (or flat-out ignored) by the male cooks. They had doubts I would stay or if I did, be able to pull my weight. But eventually I won them over and we had a great time most nights, even when we were so in the weeds we couldn’t stop to talk for a minute. I loved that first culinary experience, even though the kitchen was hot and the hours were long and ran late into the night. The restaurant was also a popular bar, and we served a limited menu well past midnight. But the food was good and on the weekends there was live music, so it wasn’t the worst place to spend a Friday or Saturday night.

Me having my shift drink after working in the kitchen during college.

When I sat down to write my first book, which would eventually become Murder on a Silver Platter, I thought I was writing a book about the movies, told from an insider’s view behind the scenes. It was my unique take on the film making business, and it was something I hadn’t read before. It (very) slowly dawned on me that while I was writing that kind of story, I also had a culinary mystery on my hands. When all of that was revealed to me, I was so happy I had found a way to merge two of my greatest passions: cooking and movies!

Just like I’d become an accidental, learn-on-the-job chef, I became an accidental culinary mystery writer. It wasn’t the plan when I first started out, but I couldn’t be happier it’s where I ended up.

Readers: How about you all? Can you remember a time when you came to a fork in the road that set you on a path you hadn’t anticipated?

Giveaway! One lucky responder will get a signed paperback copy of Murder on a Designer Diet!

Shawn Reilly Simmons is the author of the Red Carpet Catering mysteries published by Henery Press. Murder on a Designer Diet, the third in the series, released on June 7, 2016.

Filed under: Guest posts Tagged: chef, culinary mystery, Henery Press, Murder On A Designer Diet, mysteries, Penelope Sutherland, shawn reilly simmons

In the Field: Visiting a Clock Tower

I didn’t know much about clocks before I started writing the Clock Shop Mystery series, so I needed to dive into research. I read, a lot. I googled. I visited the Amercan Clock & Watch Museum in Bristol, Connecticut. The museum gave me a lot to think about regarding styles, craftsmanship, and the history of clocks in New England. (Wonderful place to visit, highly recommended.)

I needed to meet a clockmaker, and mentioned that to my friend Susan Roberts. “My husband is a clockmaker,” she said. Bam.

I wrote to David Roberts a few weeks ago to ask some questions. I’d met him before, on a trip to the store he runs with his brother James, The Clockfolk of New England in Wilmington, MA. That visit helped me learn about the shop. But now I needed to learn about clock towers. “Well, I can give you a tour of one,” he said. We agreed to meet Saturday in Reading. He and his brother alternate weeks winding the clock tower there.

I climbed up two ladders, and got up to the tower. It was perfect. A four-sided clock with huge faces that let light in. Four arms are attached to a central mechanism, which was installed just over one-hundred years ago. With incredible patience, David talked me through how the clock works. He let me help wind it–which is quite a workout. 50 revolutions per day, and it needs to run for a week. The clock weights come in at 450 pounds, but because of counterweights, it took work but I could do it.

The Seth Thomas clock is a marvel of craftsmanship. Not many people will actually see the clock itself, yet it is painted with details, with beautifully crafted pieces. Everything serves a purpose, and it all needs to work together in order to work at all. We timed the visit so I could hear the bell ring, another mechanized activity that was amazing to learn about.

I am not ever going to remember everything David told me. But what I will remember, and what struck me the first time I went to the shop and met he and James, was the passion of the clockmaker. It takes years to learn the craft, and more years to hone it. Like writing, or performing, or any other craft, there has to be joy in the process, otherwise why do it? The Roberts brothers ARE clockfolk, and I am grateful that they share their passion with me.

Now, why did I need to visit a clock tower? You’ll have to wait until next August to find out! But get ready for the next adventure of our intrepid clockmaker Ruth Clagan when Clock and Dagger is released this August.

Filed under: Julie's posts Tagged: Clock and Dagger, Clock Shop Mystery Series, J.A. Hennrikus, Julianne Holmes, Just Killing Time, The Clockfolk of New England

Wicked Wednesday: Cars, Cars, Cars

Every sleuth must have a vehicle, from Nancy Drew’s blue roadster to Lord Peter Wimsey’s Daimler. (You can take a quiz to match famous sleuths to their cars here.) Stephanie Plum, as we know, can’t hold onto a method of transport. During the series her vehicles, both owned and borrowed, have been stolen, burned, exploded, repossessed, lost, crashed, and defiled by animals more than thirty times.

Wickeds, when it came time to choose a vehicle for your sleuth, what did you pick and how did you choose?

Edith: My farmer Cam Flaherty has an old Ford pickup truck she inherited from her great-uncle Albert. She’s a farmer, she has to have a truck! Robbie Jordan in southern Indiana has an old Econoline panel van. I have no idea how that popped into the series, unless it’s because she wanted something she could easily put her bicycle into, but that’s what she drives. Maybe it’ll break down in the next book and she can get a Mini-Cooper like Jessie’s (yes, I do covet that car) or a little Prius C with a bike rack.

Jessie: Dani Green is tiny and she drives an MG Midget that ends up being attacked by some exotic wildlife in Drizzled with Death.

My sleuth in Live Free or Die, Gwen Fifield,drives a Mini like I do. Truth be told, she got hers first because I had always wanted one but still had too many children at home to fit them all into one.

In my book that will be releasing in September, Whispers Beyond the Veil, protagonist Ruby Proulx has more experience of carriages, carts and bicycles than automobiles since the story is set in 1898.

Liz: Stan’s got an Audi left over from her corporate days. Although many of her former colleagues purchased cars that would look good to whoever saw them, she genuinely likes the Audi brand. However, she doesn’t drive as much as she used to, since most everything she does is within a three-mile radius. She’s become accustomed to walking or biking around, especially since she has to work off all the pastries from Izzy’s gourmet sweet shop. Or driving around with Jake in his truck. She’s thinking about getting a new ride, though, and wants something that can easily fit their growing furry family and deal with winter. She’s got her eye on a Subaru Crosstrek.

Barb: Julia didn’t have a vehicle in the first two Maine Clambake Mysteries. She’d come from Manhattan and was taking the family tour boat to work everyday, so she borrowed her mother’s car when necessary. However, after she cracked up Mom’s car twice (once her fault and once not), her mom told Julia to get her own transportation. Thus, they both followed a time-honored Maine tradition and bought “winter beaters,” old cars intended to be disposed of as soon as an expensive repair becomes necessary. Julia’s Caprice barely works. The heat is intermittent and it can’t be driven very far, so I think there may be a new vehicle in her future.

Julie: Ruth Clagan drives the same car I do–a 2004 Scion xB. Green. I love my car, which has less that 50,000 miles on it. It is perfect for a clock maker, since you can haul a lot. When I bought my car, my family made fun of me, until they sat in it. The headroom is amazing. Ben, the handsome barber next door, drives a Volkswagen bug from the 70’s named Betty, which also echos a car from my past–one that my college roommate owned. You couldn’t turn the heat off, so in the summer I’d stick my feet out the windows when we took rides down to the beach. Ah, memories.

Sherry: Sarah Winston needs something big to haul around all of her garage sale finds. When I had to decide what kind of vehicle to give her, I thought about all the fun trips my friend Nancy and I had going to garage sales in her white Suburban. So that’s what Sarah has. Hers is about ten years old but it’s taken her on some exciting adventures.

Readers: Do you have a favorite fictional car?

 

Filed under: Wicked Wednesday Tagged: Audi, Bug, Caprice, Chevrolet Suburban, Country Store Mysteries, Econoline, Ford pickup, local foods mysteries, MG Midget, Mini Cooper, Sarah Winston, Scion xB, Volkswagon, winter beaters

Happy Book Birthday: Museum Style

Wicked Accomplice Sheila Connolly’s Dead End Street, her seventh Museum Mystery, is released today!

Here’s the blurb:

When the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society discovers it owns some unique real estate, a deadly plot unfolds . . .

Society president Nell Pratt believes life is finally going her way. Everything’s running smoothly at work, and her love life is thriving. Then some unexpected news rocks her foundation. Two members of a local neighborhood rescue program, Tyrone Blakeney and Cherisse Chapman, inform Nell that her society owns an abandoned row house in a rundown area of Philadelphia and they insist on taking her to see the property before its date with the wrecking ball.

But soon after they arrive at the house, Cherisse is fatally shot and Tyrone is badly injured. The police believe it’s just random violence in a bad neighborhood, but Nell thinks there’s more to it and is determined to find answers before someone else becomes history . . .

In celebration, we Wickeds are thinking about museums. Wicked, what is the first visit to a museum you remember and what made it memorable?

Liz: Congrats, Sheila! Another one to add to the reading pile! The first museum I remember visiting is Boston’s Museum of Science when I was six or so. My parents were big on education, even during vacation, so off we went. It was a big weekend – we were staying overnight in the city and everything. I loved looking at the dinosaur bones, but cool as those were it wasn’t the most memorable part of the trip. What stands out to this day is the fire alarm that went off in our hotel in the middle of the night. My father slept right through it, and I remember standing at the window listening to all the sirens coming our way and wondering if we were going to make it out of the building. I don’t think there really was a fire, but it certainly was a weekend to remember!

Edith: I’m excited to read this next installment, Sheila! I grew up near Los Angeles, and I remember going to the museum of the La Brea Tar Pits. In our family, we were fond of saying “The the tar tar pits,” since that’s what La Brea means. Anyway, the museum had ice age animal models and bones that had been preserved by the tar, as I recall. And that’s about all I recall.

Jessie:You never cease to amaze, Sheila! Congrats! The first museum I remember visiting was when I was in kindergarten. The thing I vividly remember about the place was an exhibit of human fetuses floating in jars. They were at all stages of development and it was really disturbing. It took me a long time to get so I wanted to visit a museum after that!

Barb: Congratulations, Sheila! You’re an inspiration to us all. I have two memories of early museum visits and I honestly can’t say which came first. One was a class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in elementary school. One skinny little kid, I wish I could remember his name, leaned all the way over an Egyptian burial urn, saw the desiccated body at the bottom, and dramatically threw up, much to the hysteria of the teachers, chaperones and museum guards. The second was also at the Met, seeing Rembrandt’s “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer” just after it was purchased, which the internet helpfully tells me was in 1961, when I was eight. There was a long wait, and I remember coming up some stairs, and the painting just punched me in the face, it was so dramatic and alive. It was the first time I’d experienced the emotional power of fine art and I’ve never forgotten it.

Julie: Congratulations Sheila! Happy Book Birthday! I love this topic, though I don’t remember! I suspect it was the Science Museum in Boston, though we lived near Plymouth growing up, and I remember going to some smaller Pilgrim themed museums, which count. I am a huge museum fan, and here in Boston you don’t have to go far without tripping over history. I am loving the Design Museum here in Boston, which includes nomadic exhibitions all over the city. Expanding the definition of what a museum is –I love that.

Sherry: I love museums and the different aspects Sheila tackles in this series! I grew up in Davenport, Iowa and we were lucky enough to have a wonderful museum (it was opened in 1867 and was one of the first museums west of the Mississippi) and Davenport Municipal Art Museum (now the Figge Art Museum). I was always fascinated with the geological section of the museum and you could buy a bag of polished rocks! When we were allowed to do that it was like taking home a bag of treasures. The art museum has the archives for Iowa artist Grant Wood — the painter of American Gothic. I love that the cover artist for Edith’s Local Food series, Robin Moline, does some paintings in a similar style to Wood. You can see more of Robin’s work here. I was lucky to live in a town with two such fabulous places to go.

Readers: Do you remember the first museum you went to?

Filed under: Book Birthday Tagged: Davenport Iowa, Dead End Street, Figge Art Museum, Grant Wood, Museum Mysteries, Putnam Museum, Robin Moline, sheila connolly

Follow Your Dream

It seems like recently the Wickeds have been coming out of their winter hibernation and are looking for places to go, people to see, new projects to start. And maybe, just maybe, summer has arrived.

I’m doing the same thing: tonight I’m leaving for Ireland to claim the cottage I’ve been fantasizing about for years, ever since I first visited County Cork in 1998.

We all need dreams, even if they never come true. Even the imagining part gives us comfort and hope—maybe that’s part of the writer’s “what if?” way of thinking. And if all we ever do is imagine, well, then we don’t have to deal with all the messy realities that might spoil the dream. As in our books, we can edit out the boring and annoying stuff and make the story come out the way we want.

Except I decided to follow my dream and make it happen: I bought an Irish cottage.

My cottage in Ireland

When I first came up with this mad plan, years ago, I had no money. But why let that stop me? I had my heart set on acquiring the last Connolly house in a tiny place out in the country in West Cork. I even went so far as to have a structural inspection—which showed that the sill was rotting and the roof was shaky, and by the way, there was a huge manure pile with a tarp held down by used tires just behind it (belonging to the neighboring farmer) and a definitely odorous pig farm just up the hill (and upwind), and the seller was asking for too much money, thinking I was a gullible idiot. I put that dream to bed, or so I thought.

But it wouldn’t let go of me. Among the first books I wrote, not long after that, was one set in Leap, in the pub that became the heart of the County Cork mysteries. Over time I rewrote it more than once. The characters changed, and the plot, but the setting never did. It took a few years to sell that as a series, but I kept going back to Ireland.

Fast forward to 2014. I was making some money with my books, hooray. I started looking at online property listings (which are very entertaining). I even applied for a mortgage at a local bank—twice. I was rejected twice. We could never make the numbers work, and that was for even the least expensive houses (that had plumbing and such indulgences).

Still, I kept looking at listings, and I kept saving my pennies, until finally the two lined up. I found a small place that didn’t need too much work, that had been on the market for a while (so they’d accept a low offer)—and that just happened to be in the village where my Cork great-grandmother was born. I made an offer, the owners accepted the offer, and as of a couple of weeks ago it was mine.

OMG, what have I done? I know nothing about setting up utilities there, and how to pay the bills, and what do I do with the trash, and who’s going to mow the lawn, and where the heck do I buy sheets, and…  And you know what? I don’t care. It will work out. And I have lots of friends to help, both in Ireland and on Facebook, where people have offered great suggestions.

The lane to the cottage–and the For Sale sign that’s no longer there

But the clincher? The first time I saw the place in person last year, as we approached it along a country lane there was a blazing rainbow over it. That sealed the deal. The rest is just details.

So I’m off to fix the gutters and the drains, and find furniture, and make sure the wifi is connected, and meet my neighbors (none are too close), and say hello to friends I’ve already made there, and just wallow in the fact that I finally made it happen. It took only 18 years.

The view from the front–and a landscape that is so very Irish

If you want a message, here it is: If something matters to you, never give up. This applies to writing too. And the County Cork Mysteries is the most popular of my series, because the place is special to me, and I hope that shows.

P.S. If I can turn it into a writers retreat, I’ll do it. But I assume people will want beds, and something to sit on, and maybe a lamp or two. Also you must like the country, where it’s actually dark at night and there are a million stars (look! It’s the Milky Way!), and cows and sheep grazing across the lane. But I’m thinking about it.

Oh, right, I have a book coming out tomorrow: Dead End Street, the seventh in the Museum Mysteries series. But as you can imagine, my head and heart are in Ireland, not in the slums of Philadelphia. If you want to find out how Nell Pratt and her crew are finding ways to make those slums better, check my website for the details.

Filed under: County Cork Mysteries, Ireland, Sheila's Posts

Opening Lines — Wedding

Thanks, Margaret S. Hamilton, for letting us use this photograph!

Margaret: I took it on a cold, windy September day in Chicago, watching the bridal parties line up for a photo opp in the middle of North Michigan Avenue, the Chicago skyline behind them. Photoshopping would have been much easier.




Edith: I had to come back for my bestie’s wedding, even though the witness protection guys told me not to, but I wish I hadn’t worn those black strappy sandals – I couldn’t move fast enough to avoid being photographed!

Julie: It was the perfect set up. He’d get them to pose for a picture while I rifled through the bags in the car, stealing all the cash. The one time I improvise just a little bit, and grab a pair of earrings, bingo bongo bungo. We’re on the lam. Did that look like a mob wedding to you?

Barb: I just did WHUT?

Jessie: Posing as a wedding party was a brilliant way to take photos for the bank job we were planning.

Sherry: I bit my nails almost down to the quick. If the photographer jerked his thumb one more time my sister, wedding dress or not, was going to take it off.

Liz: I saw him coming before he saw me, and had to think fast. Luckily, a wedding party was posing for a picture, and my snazzy suit blended right in. I just hoped he didn’t start shooting at me and take out the newlyweds.

Readers: Add your own mysterious opening line for the photograph!

Margaret S. Hamilton has published short stories in Kings River Life and the Darkhouse Destination: Mystery! anthology. When she’s not photographing her garden, she’s revising the first two novels in her proposed Lavender Cottage Interiors series. Margaret lives in Cincinnati with her scientist husband and two standard poodles. She has three children.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007010476948
 https://margaretshamilton.wordpress.com/
 https://margaretshamiltonblog.wordpress.com/

Filed under: Opening Lines Tagged: bridal parties, bridal photographers, brides, Chicago, Chicago Illinois, opening lines, photographers, weddings

Wicked New England–Favorite Summertime Activities

In January, we chatted about our favorite winter activities. If anything, New England suffers from a glut of dizzying choices in the summertime: the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, camping by a lake in New Hampshire, toodling in and out of the shops on Nantucket, or spending time at the Cape Cod National Seashore.

Choices must be made. Wickeds, what is your favorite New England summer activity?

Edith: It’s a toss up between going to the beach at the start or end of the day, or going into

my garden to pick dinner – sun-warmed tomatoes, skinny eggplant, lettuce, garlic, carrots,and more! Both activities are so wonderful, and the period in which we can do them in the Northeast so fleeting. Here’s a shot of my early-morning spot at Jenness Beach in Rye, New Hampshire last July. Bliss. (I go home once the sun gets too high. And then I harvest my dinner…)

Liz: It’s not very original, but give me the beach any day. We love the beaches in Rhode Island – Second Beach is the best – and even though it’s a bit of a drive, it’s so worth it. My absolute favorite thing to do is sit by the water and read. I could stay there for the entire summer and be totally happy, as long as someone brought me water and potato chips.

Sherry: I love to go down to the North End (the Italian section) of Boston and walk around. Grab a piece of pizza and a beer. Stop by one of the Italian bakeries and have a cannoli. People watch. And, of course, visit some of the historic sites. One of my favorites is Christ Church or The Old North Church as it is more famously known. If we time it right there will be a feast and procession going on. Since I grew up in Iowa, I’d never seen anything like the processions that go on in the North End. Here’s a website with a list of them!

Jessie: I love walking the beach. As soon as it gets the least bit warm I head to the shore and unless there is still snow on the ground I usually take off my shoes for the pleasure of the sand between my toes. Being barefoot is decidedly more pleasant once summer rolls around!

Julie: In Boston there are a ton of things to do in the summer. Open markets, free Shakespeare thanks to companies like It’s A Fiasco and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. The Highland Street Foundation supports Free Fun Fridays, offering free entry into 10 sites a week for 10 weeks throughout the summer. (This is Massachusetts wide, so check the site.) As Sherry pointed out, there are festivals every week in the North End. The arts are everywhere in the summer–I’m very much looking forward to Outside the Box on the Boston Common July 13-17 this summer. I enjoy the beach, reading on a hammock, eating seafood, ice cream at Christina’s or Somerset Creamery, an annual trip to Canobie Lake Park. But my favorite part about summer is not having to wear layers, eating outside, and being able to walk to great arts adventures.

Barb: At the risk of being boringly repetitious, my favorite summer activity is sitting on our front porch in Maine, in a rocker, with a book in my lap, looking at this view.

Readers, how about you? What’s your favorite summer activity?

Filed under: Group posts, Wicked New England Tagged: A Cookbook Conspiracy, Boston, cannoli, Canobie Lake Park, Christ Church, Christina's Ice Cream, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Free Fun Fridays, gardening, Highland Street Foundation, It's a Fiasco, Italian food, Jenness Beach, newport rhode island, North End, Outside the Box, Rye New Hampshire, Second Beach, Somerset Creamery, The Old North Church

Wicked Wednesday: It’s Twins!

The Wickeds are celebrating Edith’s double book birthday. Two on the same day. Yes, it’s twins! Or since one mom is Edith Maxwell and the other is Maddie Day, maybe it’s something more darkly complicated. Like clones via surrogacy. Or a man’s wife and mistress giving birth on the same day.

Twins are a staple of fiction down through the ages, from mythology to the Bobbseys. Shakespeare loved fraternal boy-girl pairs, like his own children.

Wickeds: Tell us your best twin story–real or fictional.

Barb: My favorite twin story is absolutely true. Most people who read this blog know my Maine Clambake Mysteries are set in a highly fictionalized version of Boothbay Harbor, Maine. There’s a swing bridge between Boothbay Harbor and Southport Island, that is a bridge that opens up to let boats go through. The bridge must have a tender day and night, and for forty-five years those tenders were identical twins Duane and Dwight Lewis. Imagine the fictional possibilities! The hapless protagonist who drives to the bridge in the morning and chats with the bridge attendant as she waits for a sailboat to glide through. When she comes back at night, and the guy has no idea who she is! This could go on and on.

Sherry: My daughter and I were renting videos in a video store (remember those?) in Shalimar, Florida. Elizabeth was in third grade and as we were checking out, she tugged on my arm and said, “Mom that lady looks like you.” The woman and I looked at each other — we did look like each other! Even stranger her name was Janet as is my sister’s. We also went to the same church, people would often mistake me for her or ask if I was Janet’s sister. We never did find any family connection between the two of us.

Liz: There aren’t too many people with my last name in the world. And there are certainly not a lot of people with the same first and last names. But I happened to find my “name twin” on Facebook – yes, there’s another Elizabeth Mugavero, and she went to the same private high school I did, and lives right near where I grew up. I don’t think she looks like me aside from the same color hair, but it’s still weird!

Jessie: When I was in kindergarten there was a girl named Lisa in my class who also had long dark hair and dark eyes. In some sort of weird psychic-link way our mothers would dress us almost identically every day. The teacher was completely incapable of telling us apart. She called us by each others’ names the entire year and would yell at us when we didn’t answer her.

Julie: My favorite twin story happened around fourteen years ago this month. My sister was expecting her first child. Though she wasn’t due until December, she looked really pregnant really early. We saw my parents on Memorial Day weekend, and my father said “are you having twins?”. She hit him on the arm, and everyone laughed. My sister had changed a half dozen diapers in her life, and the thing she loved most about babies is that they became toddlers. That next week, she went in for an exam, and came by my house. “There are two heartbeats,” was all she could say. She let me listen in while she called my folks. For the first, and perhaps only time in his life, my father was speechless. The best part of the story was the end, when my beloved nieces were born on December 23. We celebrate their half birthday on June 23, my grandmother’s birthday. Looking forward to it!

Barb: Julie–what a beautiful story. I reminds me of another of my favorite true twin stories.

Dinner guest to exhausted mother of twins: “But you knew you were having twins, right?”

Exhausted mother: “Not at conception.”

1972 college-break camping trip in the California desert. From left, Cathy Corwin, Nancy Willets, my sister Janet Maxwell, Sara Tarr, and me .

Edith: I love all these stories! I think my books are astral twins: born on the same day, same year, but otherwise unrelated. I met my astral twin in college in 1971. Nancy Willets was my sister’s roommate at the University of California, Irvine, where I also studied. Nancy was delightful, fun, smart,and both taller and slimmer than me. I’m sorry to say my sister and I have both lost touch with her, though. (Why do women go and change their names when they marry, anyway? It makes it so hard to find them again decades later. But that’s another story.) Actually, lots of people thought my sister Janet and I were twins in those college days – see the picture. And doesn’t it remind you of the Wicked Cozy banner shot? Friends walking and laughing…

Readers: What’s your favorite twin story? Are you one or do you have them in the family? Ever met your astral twin?

Filed under: Wicked Wednesday Tagged: astral twins, Country Store Mystery, Edith Maxwell, Grilled for Murder, Local Food Mysteries, Maddie Day, Murder Most Fowl, Nancy Willetts

An Author’s Surfeit of Riches!

Edith here, with a double release day! Two books on one day – Murder Most Fowl and Grilled for Murder – from the same publisher but in different series. 

Here’s what happens in Murder Most Fowl, the fourth Local Foods mystery:

Spring may be just around the corner, but organic farmer-turned-sleuth Cam Flaherty has to set aside her seedlings for the time being as she tills the soil for clues in the mysterious death of a local poultry farmer. Murder, blackmail, cover-ups. The kind-hearted chicken farmer didn’t have any enemies–or did he? A wealthy financier has been working hard to convince him to sell her his land, while a group of animal rights activists recently vandalized his property. Money troubles were threatening to sink his marriage. And a thirty-year-old scandal was driving a wedge between him and one of his oldest friends. There’s a fox in the hen house. But where? With some help from her off-again, on-again flame, police detective Pete Pappas, Cam will have to crack this case before the killer flies the coop forever.

You might wonder how I came to have two books in different series – but from the same publisher – released on the same day. Yeah, me, too. My editor said it just worked out that way, and by the time I saw the Grilled for Murder release date he said it was too late to change it. And now I won’t have another release out until April, 2017.

But it’s all good. I’m happy to have books out in the hands of you, the reading public. I hope you enjoy Murder Most Fowl and Grilled for Murder – and Grilled also releases in audio book today. Isn’t this a fun cover for that?

Here’s what goes on in Country Story Mystery number two:

Erica Shermer may be the widow of handsome local lawyer Jim Shermer’s brother, but she doesn’t appear to be in mourning. At a homecoming party held in Robbie Jordans’s South Lick country store, Erica is alternately obnoxious and flirtatious–even batting her eyelashes at Jim. When Erica turns up dead in the store the next morning, apparently clobbered with cookware, the police suspect Robbie’s friend Phil, who closed up after the party. To clear Phil and calm her customers, Robbie needs to step out from behind the counter and find the real killer in short order…

Readers: Have you had a surfeit of riches lately? Any double blessings descend upon you?

Filed under: Book Birthday, Edith's posts, Uncategorized Tagged: audio books, Country Store Mysteries, Kensington Publishing, Laural Merlington, local foods mysteries