Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 42

How to stop procrastinating

By Liz, getting ready to hit the beach!

I’m a huge procrastinator.

I’ve been working on this for many years and while I’ve gotten better, I still haven’t completely kicked the habit to the curb yet. 

A great example of this is back in high school when I asked my math genius dad to help me study for my geometry final the night before the test. When he asked me which chapter I needed to study, my answer was, THE WHOLE BOOK. Yeah, I wasn’t really into geometry. 

He almost lost his mind.

(FYI – I still passed.)

But to this day, I’ve been known to be writing the last chapter of my book at 3 a.m. the day it’s due. Sherry probably remembers this story very well… But that only happened once, and for the record, my editor said it was his favorite ending. 

I still wouldn’t recommend it. 

We procrastinate for so many reasons. The biggest is fear. 

It’s not because we’re lazy, or incompetent, or any of those other reasons we come up with. We’re often so afraid of failing that it’s easier not to start, especially if it’s a project we’ve been dreaming about for most of our lives.

Then we judge ourselves. We put all this crazy pressure on something that we should be HAVING FUN DOING. And it literally freezes us in our tracks.

Or, sometimes it’s the opposite—we’re so afraid of succeeding, because we think, well, what happens if our book gets published, or our business idea takes off. We realize we’d have to leave our comfort zone and shift to a whole new reality. And even though that reality might be a million times better than your current reality, it’s scary!

But, if we don’t get over ourselves, we’re never gonna get anywhere, right? I’ve been working for a long time on strategies to overcome procrastination and these are the ones that have been working for me:

1. I take the pressure off. I don’t start out thinking about how I need to finish, publish, market, sell the book. I think about writing a scene – or somedays, even just a paragraph. Otherwise it becomes so overwhelming I just want to go back to bed.

2. I use my woo woo tools. For me, it’s meditation (always) to quiet my mind, with some crystals (jasper, rose quartz, or tiger eye are great for this) and some essential oils in the diffuser. Vetiver, cedarwood, and lavender are three of my focus faves.

3. I’m nicer to myself! Self-flogging never helps – it makes me feel worse, which will keep me in the slump. I’m trying a new thing – being kind to myself. Getting back into a state of joy brings me back to my project with a new outlook.

4. Reward myself for taking action. Whether it’s finishing, or simply starting, just doing one thing to move it forward – even one sentence, I try to remember to celebrate it. I’m not perfect at this yet, but I’m trying!

5. Be accountable to someone else. I have people for different projects who I to commit to checking in with and telling them what I did to move my goal further. And I do the same for them. 

Procrastination is tricky, but when you reframe what it’s about and approach it from a kinder perspective, it’s beatable. It might be a lifelong process, but hey, progress is better than perfection, right?

Readers, how do you overcome procrastination? Tell me in the comments!

What’s in a name? Guest Dianne Freeman and a #giveaway

By Liz, excited to welcome Dianne Freeman back to the blog! She’s talking about character naming, which can definitely get complicated. Take it away, Dianne!

I am something of a name collector. Names are such an important part of our personalities and often the first thing we learn about someone. If someone I meet shares a name with someone in my past, it isn’t uncommon for me to give them personality traits they haven’t necessarily earned. I have never met a Kelly who wasn’t optimistic, so when I meet a new Kelly, it’s easy for me to assume they will have the typical “Kelly” optimism. If they don’t, something feels off. Their personality just doesn’t match their name—for me.

This means naming a character can be a complicated process. The protagonist in the Countess of Harleigh series had a handful of names before I settled on Frances. I looked up popular baby names for the early 1870s, found one I liked, and that’s what I called her—until I got to know her better. In each draft of the first book, I gave her a different name. By the end of that draft, it didn’t fit her anymore. When I landed on Frances, I knew immediately it was the perfect fit.

Though none of my other characters went through so many iterations of their names, I rarely feel like I know a character until I’ve finished the first draft. At that point, I sometimes have to change a name. That means a character’s name as it appears in the outline that I submit to my editor is no longer correct. In itself, that’s not a problem, but my editor writes the cover copy—the blurb—for the book, so I have to be careful to let him know if a name has changed. 

This time, I missed it. 

Some of you may be familiar with the author, Ashley Winstead. She and I share the same agent and we’re part of a group chat. When I wrote the outline for A Newlywed’s Guide to Fortune and Murder, I used her name. It suited my purpose perfectly. I needed a name for a family of titled British aristocrats. The family name is Ashley. The title is Winstead. There’s a Jonathon Ashley, Viscount Winstead, an Augusta Ashley, the dowager Viscountess Winstead, and so on. In the final draft I kept Ashley, but changed the title. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell my editor when he wrote the cover copy, which was already on all the retail sites and marketing materials. The easiest fix was for me to change the title back to Winstead, which I did.

Then I had to contact Ashley, let her know what happened, and cross my fingers that she wouldn’t mind that I used her name. Fortunately, she didn’t, but she reserved the right to use mine for one of her books. I’m just hoping my namesake character doesn’t die a horrible death!

Readers, do certain names make you expect certain traits of people? Leave a comment below for a chance to win your choice of books 1-5 in the Countess of Harleigh series.

About A Newlywed’s Guide to Marriage and Murder:

With her new husband George busy on a special mission for the British Museum, Frances has taken on an assignment of her own. The dowager Viscountess Wingate needs someone to sponsor her niece, Kate, for presentation to Queen Victoria. Frances—who understands society’s quirks and constraints as only an outsider can—is the perfect candidate.

Kate is charming and intelligent, though perhaps not quite as sheltered as she might first appear. More worrying to Frances is the viscountess’s sudden deterioration. The usually formidable dowager has become shockingly frail, and Frances suspects someone may be drugging her. The spotlight falls on Kate, who stands to inherit if her aunt passes, yet there are plenty of other likely candidates within the dowager’s household, both above and below stairs.

Joining forces with her beloved George, Frances comes to believe that the late viscount, too, was targeted. And with the dowager seeming to be in greater danger every day, they must flush out the villain before she follows in her husband’s footsteps, directly to the grave.

Dianne Freeman is the author of the Agatha and Lefty award-winning Countess of Harleigh Mystery series and a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark and the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award. After thirty years of corporate accounting, she now writes full-time. Born and raised in Michigan, she and her husband split their time between Michigan and Arizona. Visit her at www.difreeman.com or find her on Facebook or Instagram.

Wicked Wednesday: Family vacations with a twist

Happy Wednesday! Liz here. We’re focused on summer this month, and today we’re still celebrating the release of Barb’s latest Maine Clambake Mystery, Hidden Beneath.

Huge congrats, Barb! Can’t wait to read, as usual!

In this book, Julia and her mother are diving into some mysteries and it got me thinking – given the fact that family dynamics are such a big part of this series, I want to talk about family summer trips today. Especially the ones drenched with drama and dysfunction, because those are often the most interesting – and the best basis for a murder mystery!

Wickeds, tell us about a summer vacation that didn’t go as planned!

Jessie: Continued congratulations, Barb! We haven’t had much for vacation drama except for the year we really couldn’t use our house at the beach unexpectedly. We usually move up as soon as school gets out and stay until a week before the new school year starts. Two summers ago the town started a public works project that spanned the summer and ripped up our street for months. Between the inability to access our driveway and the constant chaotic noise, we opted not to spend time at the beach that year. It was so disappointing!

Julie: Congratulations, Barb! I can’t wait to read this latest installment. Liz, you’re opening a can of worms with dysfunctional family vacation stories! I actually don’t have any terrible family vacation memories, but I should check with my sisters. We tend to have different memories, LOL. Seriously, I can remember moments that weren’t Disney approved, but in general we all rolled with it and figured it out. We also didn’t take “vacations” per se. I suspect it was a question of funds. We spent time with our grandparents, which was lovely. And we’d go to the beach. But no big trips when I was a kid.

Edith/Maddie: I’m so excited for another Maine Clambake book and can’t wait to dive into it, Barb. I don’t have any high-drama vacation stories in my past. My parents might have had a different memories about our annual excursion to tent-camp amid the giant Sequoias. Packing all that gear and four kids into a Dodge station wagon was a feat of engineering, but I have only the sweetest of memories. Oh, except for getting carsick when I insisted on reading as we drove up twisty mountain roads.

Sherry: Hidden Beneath is a fantastic book and mystery fans will love it! The biggest drama I remember was on a trip to the East the summer before I entered fifth grade. We’d done a big swing from Iowa, to Michigan, New York (I still remember the Corning Museum) New York City, Washington DC, Jamestown (I got to have a Coke for breakfast!) Williamsburg, and then heading home. We got lost in Louisville, Kentucky and a woman ran a stop sign and hit us. I was sitting in front with my parents (of course without a seat belt), hit the dashboard, and I got my first and only (knock wood) black eye. We spent a week at a hotel on the outskirts of town which fortunately had a restaurant and pool. By the middle of the week we were tired of the restaurant so we walked to the airport which was the only place close by. We got there and it was the SAME restaurant — Dobb’s House. We did love their salad and I found a link to their menu.

Barb: That is an amazing story, Sherry. I’m so glad you liked Hidden Beneath. No major family dysfunction to report, but I do remember vividly a drive in a packed car to the eastern end of Long Island where my father’s family lived. My dad only had two weeks of vacation in those days and we spent a week with his parents and then a week on the Jersey shore with my mother’s parents. There were only two of us kids, but the dog had to sit by the window or she got carsick, so that left one window in the backseat and two kids fighting over it. I guess because we were going for two weeks, our goldfish was along for the ride, also wedged on a pile of stuff on the floor of the backseat. We went around a curve and the goldfish bowl went over. My father had to pull over on the side of the highway and rescue the goldfish who was wriggling on the floor of the car and dump him into the remaining bit of water. Dad was furious. I was loudly proclaiming my innocence, pointing out goldfish-middle seat-curve, but the truth is I had leaned into it rather dramatically. No murder mystery, except possibly for the goldfish, but it’s a scene that comes back to me to this day when something I’ve done on purpose, but unnecessarily, has unintended, negative consequences.

Liz: Love these stories. I hope the goldfish survived! My parents didn’t take us on too many vacations, but I do remember a trip to Disney when I was 7 when my mother insists she was almost run over by a motorcycle on Daytona Beach. I don’t remember that–I was more focused on my new Mickey Mouse ears!

Readers, what about you? Share your worst (or best!) summer vacation memories with us.

Hidden Beneath Release, a New Map and a #giveaway

by Barb, taking time out from book jail in Maine

Hidden Beneath, the eleventh book in my Maine Clambake Mystery series, releases today. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, but it’s actually almost exactly a year since the last book in the series, Muddled Through, was published. And only six months since the last novella, “Perked Up,” in Irish Coffee Murder came out.

To celebrate, I’m giving away paperback copies of Hidden Beneath to two lucky commenters below.

A New Map

Regular readers of the blog and the series will be familiar with the map of Busman’s Harbor, Maine that I had made for the release of Shucked Apart. My goal at the time was to capture the intricate world I’d created through nine novels.

Click on the image to see a larger version on my website

My motivation to create the new map was just the opposite. Instead of a sprawling world that threatened to get out of my control, I was dealing with a limited geography that was critical to the story. As I wrote Hidden Beneath, I had such a hard time visualizing my characters movements through this terrain that I had to rely on my hand-drawn map a great deal. Unlike Busman’s Harbor, which is deeply familiar to me at this point, Chipmunk Island, the site of the new novel, was terra incognito. I was making it up as I went along.

Chipmunk Island appears on the map of Busman’s Harbor and in several of the earlier books in the series, mostly as the Snowden Family Clambake tour boat, the Jacquie II, takes customers out to Morrow Island to enjoy their clambake meals. In other words, in passing. Up until this book, I had only the vaguest notion of who lived on the island, and aside from the shape that contributes its name, knew next to nothing about the physical island either. Hidden Beneath fills those spaces.

Click on the map to see a larger image on my website

As with the previous map, I worked with artist Rhys Davies. I drew a (terrible) draft of the map and researched the houses. That process was made much easier this time, because a) I hadn’t described the houses in multiple books prior to looking for physical examples, and b) Kensington did such a terrific rendering of the victim’s house for the cover that I had my starting point. Rhys did everything else. We went back and forth a few times, but we’re veterans of working together now. I highly recommend him should you ever need a map.

A new book and a new map. Feels like a day for celebration!

Readers: Do you like maps in books? Do you find them helpful or distracting? Comment below or just say “hi” for a chance to win one of two copies of Hidden Beneath.

Welcome Back Guest Valerie Burns! #Giveaway

I’m delighted to welcome back Valerie Burns! Not only is she an amazing, prolific author, she gives time back to the writing community. I’m so glad Valerie could join us today!

Thanks, Sherry Harris and all of the Wicked Cozy Authors for inviting me to spend time with you all today.

FROM IDEA TO BOOK PLOT

People often ask me where I get my ideas for my books. My answer is that I get ideas everywhere. So, I thought I’d take you along on the journey I went through from the seed of an idea to a plot for my newest Baker Street Mystery, Murder is a Piece of Cake.

I love the Olympics. In fact, I’m the type of person who puts the fan in fanatic. In 2023, we’re in between the winter and the summer games, but publishing is slow. So, this book was completed and turned into my publisher in early 2022 while I was still immersed in figure skating, ice hockey, and curling (no idea how it works, but. . . I watched). My main character, Maddy Montgomery, isn’t an athlete, unless shopping or posting to social media ever become Olympic events. #FastestFingersOnACellPhone. Maddy has inherited a bakery from her great aunt Octavia. The terms of the will stipulate that Maddy must stay in New Bison, Michigan, run the bakery and keep Great Aunt Octavia’s 250 lb English Mastiff, Baby, for one year in order to inherit. Like most champion athletes, Maddy had obstacles to overcome to achieve her goal. Her biggest obstacle was the fact that she can’t bake. Still, she didn’t let that stop her. She agreed and with the help of her new friends, she’s making it work. Now, how do I get Maddy into a competition? WHAT IF Maddy had to not only compete, but win a baking contest?

Contests are hot right now. You can’t turn on the television without landing on some type of competition. Not only are there singing and athletic competitions, but there are plenty of cooking and baking competitions. From The Great British Bake Off to Chopped, baking/cooking competitions are popular. So, now I just had to figure out how to put Maddy in a competition. That birthed the New Bison Spring Festival’s Baking Contest.

Great, so I have the setup. But what could motivate a woman who can’t bake to enter a baking contest? Her motivation would have to be something strong. Enter, C.J. Davenport. Davenport is a wealthy business mogul who breezes into New Bison, Michigan and announces his intention of opening another bakery across the street from Baby Cakes. You don’t need to be a financial wizard to realize that the small town of New Bison isn’t big enough to support two bakeries. WHAT IF Davenport isn’t just opening a bakery. WHAT IF he’s hiring a master chocolatier and pâtissier from Belgium? Now, that’s what I call “stacking the deck.” But, is that enough motivation for Maddy? Let’s amp up the stakes. WHAT IF C.J. Davenport is the husband of Maddy’s friend and tenant, Sheriff April Johnson? WHAT IF the only way Maddy can help her friend and save Baby Cakes Bakery and Baby is to enter that competition and win? It’s a winner-take-all baking competition.

That’s it. That’s how I got the idea and formed it into a plot. Next, I just had to write it. Pick up a copy of Murder is a Piece of Cake to find out how it turns out.

Readers: Do you enjoy watching baking competitions? Have you ever entered one? Let me know in the comments. One commenter will be randomly selected to win a copy of Murder is a Piece of Cake. To be entered in the giveaway, please type YES in the comments and include your email address. The giveaway is open to everyone (regardless of where you live) until midnight on June 27th. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, June 28th.

A Bit About the Book: With small town New Bison’s Spring Festival just around the corner, the pressure is on Maddy to continue her late great-aunt Octavia’s legacy. That means scoring the top prize and transforming Baby Cakes into Southwest Michigan’s must-visit bakery, even though her inexperience in the kitchen brings nightmares of humiliating tagged photos and scathing reviews.

There’s another reason for lost beauty sleep. A second bakery is opening in town under the ownership of CJ Davenport, a shrewd investor with a reputation for sabotaging anyone who gets in his way. And savvy, flashy Maddy tops his list. It’s a sticky spot to be in—more so when Davenport turns up dead with a Baby Cakes’s knife stuck in his back.

Maddy’s whole life just went from #thriving to barely surviving. Now, supported by the crafty Baker Street Irregulars and her new boyfriend, she must find the courage to face off against a killer who could very well get her name trending for the first and last time . . .

Buy Link—- Amazon, B&N

About the author
Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Edgar, and Anthony Award-nominated author. She is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, RJ Franklin, Baker Street Mystery series, and the soon to be released Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series. Valerie is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She is also a mentor in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction MFA program. Connect with Valerie at:

Website: http://www.vmburns.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vmburnsbooks/

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/v-m-burns

How not to research a mystery and a #giveaway with Krista Davis

Liz here, so happy to welcome our friend Krista Davis to the blog today! Krista has a hilarious take on the best way NOT to do research and I feel like she totally got in my head…Take it away, Krista!

I was wondering recently why it takes me so long to write a book. While I’m sure there are many reasons for that, I think I’m prone to being distracted by the research I do. I won’t mention all the curious headlines which pop up begging to be investigated. Important things like whether or not Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, wears pantyhose when the fashion trend is to go bare-legged. In case, like me, you simply must know, she wears Barely There Nonslip Tights from the department store which retail for about $6.50. I don’t know about you, but it makes me like her even more. She’s so sensible.

Yes, but back to the book and what originally threw me off. In The Diva Delivers on a Promise, I researched a number of things, as I do for every book. I needed to understand delivery kitchens, also known as ghost kitchens. They are a fascinating development. Much like a restaurant, they cook meals. But there is no dining room, and you cannot drive-through or pick up your food. They are delivery only. As you might imagine, this cuts down on expenses a lot. No servers for starters! No tables or chairs. And no high rent because they don’t have to be located in popular high traffic areas where the rent is steep.

But that led me to another question. Can you pay with a ghost credit card? Hah! It turns out that you can. Will this be the wave of the future? Maybe! With a ghost card, a bank gives you a one-use number. After it is used, it’s not valid anymore, making it a waste of time to steal the number. Pretty cool, huh? Kind of a hassle, though. But surely, it’s only a matter of time until some genius works out the kinks. Oh, wait. My favorite skin care company is having a sale. 20% off! 

What was I saying? Things I research. Are daffodils toxic? Answer below in the comments before you read on. Good golly! Valerie Bertinelli is 63! She looks great, though. And is now happily divorced after a toxic marriage. Good for you, Valerie!

The answer is yes! Like Valerie’s marriage, all parts of the daffodil are toxic, especially the bulb. So keep them away from dogs, cats, and babies. But wait! While they make you very, very sick and you should hurry to the hospital or the veterinarian if anyone eats one, daffodils probably won’t kill you. For most people that’s great news! But for someone writing a murder mystery where a victim needs to be poisoned, it’s kind of a letdown. Off to research other poisonous plants. 

Why would the BBC have an article titled How Do People Learn to Cook a Poisonous Plant Safely? Aha. Cultures evolve and people learn through trial and error (rather horrific and deadly error) how to prepare a plant that could kill them. Apparently, cassava root must be treated and cooked in a long list of steps before the cyanide in it is detoxified. Yikes! Do people know that? Now that has possibilities!

Readers, how do you do approach research? Share in the comments for a chance to win a copy of The Diva Delivers on a Promise!

Wrapping Up a Series: Poppy Harmon’s Last Case and #giveaway – Welcome Lee Hollis

By Liz, excited to welcome Lee Hollis back to the blog! Lee’s here talking about wrapping up the Poppy Harmon series today – which we’re all sad about but thankful to have a chance to meet these delightful characters. Take it away, Lee!

When I started writing the fifth book in my Desert Flowers mystery series, I did not know it would be the last. Sometimes series can last for years (our 16th Hayley Powell Food & Cocktails Mystery, “Death of a Clam Digger” will be out next month with three more novels and three more holiday novellas in the pipeline) and my Maya & Sandra mysteries keep chugging along (with “Murder at the Spelling Bee” out in June 2024). But although the first two Poppy books performed well, the last two have lagged in sales, and during the development of Poppy #5, it became clear I should make a decision with my editor about wrapping up the series. 

It was not an easy one to make. 

When you write five books with the same set of characters, you spend a lot of time with them and you grow fond of them. Every time you sit down to write a chapter, it can be like spending time with old friends. I loved Poppy. I had based her on a Hollywood actress named Francine York, who had played the mother of a character I played in a long running web series I co-created and co-starred in called “Where the Bears Are”. Francine, who passed away in 2017, was so regal, so elegant, but had a sharp wit and a wonderfully naughty subversive side whenever she’d draw you in with one of her jaw-dropping, gossipy Hollywood stories. She was eighty years old when I met her, having first made a splash as a blonde bombshell in the 1960s appearing on popular TV shows such as “Batman”, “Lost in Space”, “Bewitched”, “Gomer Pyle: USMC”, “Green Acres”, “The FBI”, “Ironside”, “I Dream of Jeannie”, and so many others, all the way up to more contemporary shows like “Hot in Cleveland” and “The Mindy Project”. Francine never stopped working until the day she left us. But Poppy did. In my version, Poppy hated staying too long in such an ageist business and retired in Palm Springs with her husband Chester. Unfortunately, when Chester died suddenly, Poppy discovered her husband had an undisclosed gambling problem and had left her penniless. Her Screen Actors Guild pension would not not enough to cover her husband’s crushing debt let alone her monthly bills, so Poppy had to do something drastic. Her solution? She got her private investigator’s license. I mean, how hard could it be? She had played the loyal secretary Daphne to hunky TV detective “Jack Colt, PI” for three seasons on ABC in the 1980s. She could just transfer that experience to real life and call her own shots. It gave her life fresh purpose. 

And to make it more fun, she recruited her two best friends, plain-speaking German Iris and sweet-natured retired high school principal Violet to form the Desert Flowers Detective Agency. These two characters were also based on a pair of wonderful women who, lucky for me, came into my life when I moved to Palm Springs, Brigitte and Helen.

Rounding out the agency were Violet’s grandson, Wyatt, a computer whiz with an impressive knack for hacking, who proved invaluable in navigating the digital world, while Matt, the charming and handsome actor, added a touch of Hollywood glamour to the agency. Matt initially came on board as the face of the firm, the actor playing the of character Matt Flowers, the head of Desert Flowers, when the ladies discovered to their dismay that many people were hesitant to hire women of a certain age to solve their cases. Poppy, Iris and Violet did all the work and Matt got all the credit in a nod to the classic TV detective show “Remington Steele”. But over the course of the books, Matt took a back seat and just became one of the gang, loyal to the core. Together, the group formed a formidable team, their individual strengths complementing one another perfectly.

The cases were mostly set in Palm Springs, but given my history as a Hollywood screenwriter, they always seemed to have a Hollywood connection. There was the murder of an actress writing a juicy tell all memoir in a retirement community in “Poppy Harmon Investigates”, the murder of one of Poppy’s fellow jurors after a court trial who had a mysterious connection to the rebellious daughter of Poppy’s TV co-star Rod Harper in “Poppy Harmon and the Hung Jury”, the mercurial star of a Netflix reboot of “Palm Springs Weekend” was suffocated in her trailer in “Poppy Harmon and the Pillow Talk Killer”, and a murderous reality TV star loose on the set of a Bachelorette-type show in “Poppy Harmon and the Backstabbing Bachelor”. In her final case, Poppy’s new client is a former acting rival who hires the agency to do a background check on the man she is about to marry, and then winds up plugging a would be burglar with three bullets days before the wedding in “Poppy Harmon and the Shooting Star”. 

Once it became clear this would be Poppy’s last case, I had to decide how to wrap it all up. I won’t spoil the ending, but I knew I wanted readers to believe that Poppy would continue  her life as a successful private eye, no doubt well into her seventies and perhaps eighties. She had come too far, discovered hidden reservoirs of strength and resilience within herself. There would be no point in stopping now.

No, the final chapter had to be personal. Starting with the second book, the series had featured a love triangle between Poppy, her “Jack Colt PI” co-star Rod Harper (think Tom Selleck), and Sam Emerson, a former law enforcement officer turned TV cop show scriptwriter and consultant (think Sam Elliot). I was not above taking advantage of that classic cozy mystery trope of “Who will the heroine choose?” Would it be Rod or Sam? Or neither one of them? I wanted to show that Poppy’s growth as a detective has paralleled her journey to find love again, and that finally she would find fulfillment in both. I will not spoil the ending of Shooting Star for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, but I hope that when you do say goodbye to Poppy in that last chapter on page 281, those of you who have grown to love her as much as I do will have a big satisfied smile on your face.

Readers, what series (besides Poppy) were you sad to see end? Leave a comment below – three readers will win a copy of Poppy Harmon and the Shooting Star!

Lee Hollis is the pen name for a brother and sister writing team. Rick Copp is a veteran film and television writer/producer and also the author of two other mystery novel series. He lives in Palm Springs, California. Holly Simason is an award winning food and cocktails columnist for the Mount Desert Islander newspaper in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she resides. Find out more on Lee’s website.

Wicked Wednesday: Summer Solstice

Happy Solstice! Today is the longest day and shortest night of the year here in the northern hemisphere. It’s also officially the first day of summer, and in the world of spirituality, the solstice is a time for opportunity, change and growth.

And since it’s the longest day of the year, that means we’re going to start ticking down in daylight hours after today (so make sure you get outside and enjoy the extra light!)

So Wickeds, I’m curious. Even though we’re technically heading into the “dog days” of summer and hopefully some fun and relaxation, are you working with the solstice’s energy in your life? Any big changes or growth opportunities you’re thinking about on this big day?

Julie: Liz, you know that I love the lunar cycles, and understanding (or trying to) how they affect me. And they do indeed. I think that the solstice is a wonderful opportunity for reflection, to take stock, and the think about the rest of the year. It’s also a great time to celebrate summer!

Edith/Maddie: I spent last night with my bestie of forty-six years, which is always a treat. We reflect and talk about plans and laugh (and drink wine). What better way to celebrate the solstice?

Liz: I’m all about taking stock and celebrating summer, Julie! I’m doing a bit of a mindset reset (or trying to) for the rest of the year, especially related to the way I approach my work and my creativity. I’m intending to find more FUN in the process!

Sherry: I can’t believe it’s the summer solstice already! No big changes, but I am writing a short story and I always find them particularly challenging.

Jessie: Great topic, Liz! I am working on a novel that is due in September and have just started on renovations at our house at the beach. I am totally looking forward to experiencing how the project will turn out!

Barb: As everyone knows, I’m in Book Jail, so I won’t be celebrating summer until July 1!

Readers, what about you? How are you celebrating the solstice? Tell us in the comments!

A Wicked Welcome to Myra Jolivet *giveaway*

by Julie, enjoying temperate temps

I am delighted to welcome Myra Jolivet to the blog today! I’ve had the pleasure of working with Myra through Sisters in Crime. She’s a wonderful writer, and I’m glad to introduce her to the Wicked readers.

I Was Searching For My Writing Voice and Found It Hiding In Plain Sight

by Myra Jolivet

As I set out to learn the craft of mystery writing, my bold spirit shriveled with insecurity. I’ve been called a mouthpiece by journalists because in my career life, I transitioned from TV reporter to spokesperson for elected officials and organizations at the other end of a paycheck. I wasn’t shy about putting myself and my work on public display, but when it came to the thing that mattered most, I shrank under self-imposed pressure to make no mistakes. That’s another issue. The first hurdle was finding my unique voice. 

I sat with different characters inside my head, starting and stopping their stories until the day a movie title spoke to me. It was, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the story of a Greek American woman who comes to terms with her heritage and cultural identity before getting married. She was ashamed of her big, loud family. I could relate. For most of my life, I was ashamed of my big, loud, talking-to-the-dead, spell-casting family. 

To put it mildly, Louisiana Creoles, from rural areas (not New Orleans) have their own rhythm.  My relatives were part of the Great Migration from rural south Louisiana to parts of California, escaping overt racism. They wrote to those in Louisiana, “there’s gold in the streets here and they pay colored people the same wages as white.” Let that sit for a moment. 

And they kept their culture. Culture is carried in traditions, foods, and language. My father wanted us to learn his first language, Louisiana Creole French, but we refused. Even in 1960s Berkeley being that different was just too much. When we told daddy that people couldn’t understand him, he’d reply, “Piss on them, this is my language.”  I’ll let that sit, also.

Weekends with extended family were celebratory times of great food, mysterious stories, and card games. Looking back on those visits opened the path to my voice. I realized I had lived experience to share.

The characters in my Sarah Doucette Jean-Louis Mysteries are composites of relatives and friends. Within the stories, Sarah learns to embrace her culture, as I did. And when I’ve visited with book clubs and writing groups, most of their questions center around the unique aspects of it.

Besides awkward attempts at the patois, the Louisiana Creole culture has rarely been portrayed by writers of movies or books in the way I experienced it. This inspired me to write from our family’s perspective and share that humor, mysticism, and humanity, with love.

I will continue to tell stories propped up by the backdrop of Creole ways as I pull from the many characters who lived and breathed and touched my life.

Like Fotoula “Toula” Portokalos in the Greek movie, I now value all that was handed down to me. My only regret is I didn’t do this before my parents and older relatives passed on. I’d like to believe, they are happy with me and don’t care if my writing is not yet perfect. The larger accomplishment is that I’ve found my voice and the pride to share it.

Laissez les bon temp rouler, mon cher!

Readers, using a 100% scale, let me know what is most important to you in a mystery, characters, or plot? How accepting are you of the supernatural in a book? What makes it work for you? I will give away a copy of Pushed Times, Chewing Pepper to one reader and Secret Spells and Snake Eyes to another, with a recipe card from the kitchen of Sarah Doucette Jean-Louis. There’s a recipe for Okra Etouffee on the back of the card! 

My website: 

https://myrajolivet.com/

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

Pushed Times, Chewing Paper: Sarah’s Story

Sarah Doucette Jean-Louis is a rare woman. She is marked for murder while a suspected accessory to the mysterious murder plot. She is a trained family therapist who has a difficult time tolerating her own family for more than lunch. She is a contemporary California native with old world, Louisiana Creole roots. Her aunts and grandparents regularly talked to the dead and cast spells. They thought everyone did. In one year, Sarah’s life is a haze of martini hangovers, a stalker, the wrong man, fights with a bitch cousin and the voodoo wisdom of her Aunt Cat. Then comes Michael . . . and it gets worse. Deception and disappointment bring Sarah the hardest times she’s ever known and propel her into a new life. The Creoles say, “Pushed times will make a monkey chew pepper.” It means that challenging times inspire unique actions. Sarah learns to use her psychic gifts for guidance and to open her mind to unique actions. Her worst year becomes the best life-changing time of her life.

Buy the book here.

Secrets, Spells and Snake Eyes

Back home from a Godforsaken Louisiana family reunion, Sarah Doucette Jean-Louis jumps heart first into a murder investigation with her hot and sexy former attorney, Manuel. It’s a new life for the Oakland family therapist post-scandal. Manuel’s client is charged with murder and he wants Sarah to use her gift of visions to help his investigator find the real killer. In her unique and humorous style, Sarah brings her head-spinning psychic intuition, large vodka bottles and a few other surprises to the case. Yadira Lopez’s stepson is the accused, but Sarah feels there’s something spine chilling and eerie about Yadira. Sarah props up her visions with help from some unbelievable sources. And if the case weren’t complicated and odd enough, Sarah’s life long nemesis, cousin Stacy, shows up in California. Her year will be mysterious and murderous with a touch of crazy! Life remains a contrast of contemporary northern California and old-world Louisiana Creole traditions for Sarah. She is a trained family therapist with volatile relationships. Her background of science and logic is defiled by persistent visions into the future. And while it is Creole tradition for a woman to marry, Sarah has had many loves but no husband. In Secrets, Spells and Snake Eyes, Sarah’s second journey, she learns to handle her mystical second sight and prepares to fall in love—again. We laugh and feel a bit tipsy from all of the action and the Sunday martini brunches with her girlfriends. Laissez les bon temp rouler, mon cher!

Buy the book here.

ABOUT MYRA JOLIVET:

Myra covered true crime as an award-winning television news reporter, but her love of traditional mysteries inspired her Sarah Doucette Jean-Louis Mystery series. Based in California, they honor her Louisiana Creole culture. Myra has appeared in two true crime series; Geraldo Rivera’s, “Murder in the Family,” and “For My Man.”

The ARCs are Here and #Giveaway!

Edith/Maddie writing from north of Boston and awash in books.

In the life cycle of a book, the day the publisher sends a box of advance reader copies (ARCs) is always exciting.

And when they’re copies of the first book in a new series, it’s even more thrilling. Murder Uncorked kicks off my new California-based Cece Barton Mysteries.

June is also my tenth anniversary of being published by Kensington Publishing. A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die first released in June, 2013. Much to celebrate!

Here’s the official blurb for Murder Uncorked:

Raise a glass to Cece Barton, a widowed single mom and recent L.A. transplant to California wine country, who suddenly finds herself at the center of a murder investigation in this sparkling new mystery series from Agatha Award–winning and national bestselling author Maddie Day.

As the manager of Vino y Vida Wine Bar in Colinas, Cecelia “Cece” Barton’s first Alexander Valley harvest is a whirlwind of activity. Her twin sister, Allie Halstead, who owns a nearby Victorian bed & breakfast, is accustomed to the hustle and bustle of peak tourist season. But Cece barely has a moment to enjoy her new home in between worrying about her estranged college-age daughter, juggling her responsibilities at the bar, and navigating the sticky politics of the local wine association. Just when it seems things can’t grow any more intense, Colinas is rocked by a murder within the wine community . . . and Cece is identified as a possible suspect!

With her reputation and her livelihood on the line—and the Sonoma County deputy sheriff breathing down her neck—Cece has no choice but to open up her own murder investigation. Tensions are already high in the valley, as a massive wildfire creeps toward Colinas, threatening homes, vineyards, and the vital tourist trade. And now, with a murderer on the loose, and Cece’s sleuthing exposing the valley’s bitterest old rivalries and secret new alliances, Colinas feels ready to pop! But with Allie’s help, Cece is determined to catch the killer and clear her name before everything she’s worked so hard for goes up in flames . . .

Are you as excited as I am? The book comes out in late October, but right now I want to give away all seven ARCs shown in the photo. I hope you love the read and, if you do, that you’ll leave a short positive review on Goodreads.

Readers: Tell me your favorite spot in my home state of California or your favorite place to sip your favorite beverage. Or ask a question or just say hi!