Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 76

Wicked Wednesday: Impressive Female Villains from the Past

Edith/Maddie here, with our third Wicked Wednesday celebrating the badass ladies who went before.

This week let’s dish on impressive lady villains from the past, real or fictional. Were they really bad, or acting as the Robin Hood of their day? A spy who is a villain to one side and a heroine to the other? Or did society condemn them for acting outside their expected role?

Julie: Another great question! I remember talking to an actor who was playing a truly evil character. I asked how he did it, and he said that he found the humanity in the character. If he couldn’t, then the character would be flat. All that to say, the best villains, IMHO, have a core of humanity that sparks a level of empathy in the reader. One of my favorite villains is Lady MacBeth. Depending on the director’s vision, she can be pure evil. Or she can be a woman thwarted by her time who tries to live through her husband. I’ve seen her played many different ways–and the best is when she’s complicated.

Edith/Maddie: I’m going with Madame Restell of New York City, whose actual name was Ann Trow Lohman. She was a late nineteenth-century radical who provided prenatal care and a safe place to give birth to unwed mothers, and she also offered contraception and safe (ish) abortion services to any woman. She was widely regarded as a villain for what she did and was excoriated in the press. I modeled Madame Restante in my Agatha-Award-winning Charity’s Burden, Quaker Midwife Mystery #4, on the real Madame.

Liz: I have to call out Hester Prynne, wearer of the scarlet A in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. She was so brave, standing up against the religious and “moral” high ground of Puritan life. One of my favorite books of all time.

Barb: I love The Scarlet Letter, too, Liz. I am going to have to go with Irene Adler, the only woman who bested Sherlock Holmes. She’s not necessarily a villain, but she thwarts him–and fascinates him. In many subsequent incarnations of the characters, she is Holmes’ love interest, or a true villain, or both.

Sherry: I find the trend to rehabilitate female villains as misunderstood in Wicked, Maleficent, and Cruella fascinating. Do we ever see them trying to do the same with men or is it just more accepted that men can be bad and women have to be good? I’m enjoying writing my character, Ann Williams, who has a somewhat ambiguous moral code that is outside societal norms. She sees justice a bit differently than other characters I’ve written and exploring that has been interesting.

Jessie: I adore the works of P.G. Wodehouse and absolutely love his creation, the overbearing Aunt Agatha. She is the catalyst for much of what goes on in the stories in which she appears and the Wodehousian world is far better for her interfering ways! One of the things I love about her is the fact that she is a villain for her nephew Bertie, but she is definitely the heroine of her own story.

Readers: Tell us your favorite female villain!

Two Exciting New Historical Novels!

Edith here, writing from north of Boston on the Ides of March. This year it’s turning out to be a positive auspicious date – take a look at the guests I’ve lined up for today! Rhys Bowen and her co-author daughter Clare Broyles, along with Jacqueline Winspear, agreed to endure my interview questions and to share their splendid new books with our readers.

Wild Irish Rose is the eighteenth book in the Molly Murphy series, returning Molly to her own arrival on Ellis Island when an eerily similar murder occurs while she is visiting.  “The clever and adventurous heroine dissects a complicated mystery while standing up for women’s rights.” Kirkus reviews.

October 1942. Jo Hardy, an Air Transport Auxilliary ferry pilot, is delivering a Spitfire to Biggin Hill Aerodrome, when she has the terrifying experience of coming under fire from the ground. In a bid to find out who was trying to take down her aircraft, she returns on foot to the area, and discovers an African American soldier bound and gagged in an old barn. A few days later another ferry pilot crashes and is killed in the same area of Kent. Although the death has been attributed to ‘pilot error’ Jo believes there is a connection between all three events – and she wants desperately to help the soldier, who is now in the custody of American military police.

Jo is advised to take her suspicions to Maisie Dobbs. As the psychologist-investigator delves into the case, she discovers the attempt to take down ferry pilots and the plight of the black American soldier are inextricably linked with the visit to Britain by the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. Maisie must work with speed to uncover the depth of connection, to save the life of the president’s wife and a soldier caught in the crosshairs of those who would see them both dead.

Edith: Rhys, Clare, and Jacqueline, I offer such a warm welcome from the Wicked Authors! It’s Women’s History Month, and who better to invite than the three of you? I have read every book in both series and am hugely excited to host you here today.

A Sunlit Weapon is number seventeen in the Maisie Dobbs series, Jacqueline, and Wild Irish Rose is number eighteen in the Molly Murphy series, which, Rhys, you now write with your daughter Clare. These are impressive records, and both series stay so vital and true to their characters and eras, even as the eras change. What thoughts can you offer on how to keep a long-running series fresh and new?

Jacqueline:  I move my characters through time, so they have to grow and change with the years. The events of the day, together with the challenges inherent in the “work” of the characters keeps the series fresh for me – and I just have to trust that a certain level of  freshness filters down to the reader.

Rhys: I think the aim is to make every book better than the last. We are lucky because New York in the early 1900s has so many delicious stories waiting to be told—women’s rights always feature in Molly’s life but she can move through levels of society and new immigrants bring their stories with them. I’m also lucky because Clare has breathed new life into this series with exciting new ideas for story lines.

Edith: A Sunlit Weapon takes place in 1942 England, thirteen years after the main part of the first Maisie Dobbs book is set. Wild Irish Rose happens in 1907, seven years after Molly escaped to New York City from Ireland. Both time spans are eras of major change in both England and the United States. Tell our readers how you decided to space out the stories in book time.

Jacqueline:  Almost from the beginning – when I realized I had written a novel that could possibly be the first in a series – I thought about what I wanted to create, and that was to take a group of characters (not just Maisie Dobbs), through arguably the most tumultuous time in the twentieth century.  I wanted to create a body of work encompassing two world wars, in which readers could witness those characters growing and changing with time and experience, and indeed explore how their growth as individuals is brought to bear in the work, which is chiefly the business of solving a mystery.  History is my guide and it’s the lesser known nuggets of historical truth that have inspired each book.  Those gems have come to me from various sources – letters archived at the Imperial War Museum, family stories, characters I’ve met, and of course my reading around a broad range of subjects. I’m interested in the human condition under pressure, and that pressure is acute in the archetypal journey from chaos to resolution which is at the heart of mystery (and mystery doesn’t have to mean crime).  Spacing out the stories has really been down to intuition and “feel” – as a writer, most of my decisions are not the result of conscious thought, but rather just a sense that something is right for me, be it the choice of year in which a story is set, or the historical events that form a backdrop to the narrative.

Rhys: Molly had been on hiatus for at least four years. Clare felt that we needed to remind readers or inform new readers how Molly had come to America and how the series had started. So we went back to Ellis Island and a murder that mirrored Molly’s own experience. I think each of the books comes from a place and historical experience more than a crime.

Edith: For the newest book, were you motivated by a particular historical event? Was it the germ of the mystery that prompted you to set the latest book where it is in time? Or do you simply follow the protagonist through her life and write down what she does, and this is where she ended up?

Jacqueline:  I had always wanted to write about the women of Britain’s Air Transport Auxiliary, so that was my starting point. Then I looked for my theme – in this novel, the theme is prejudice, whether it’s a level of discrimination based upon gender, class, country of origin or color.  The year in question is 1942 – and at that point everything fell into place, with the cherry on the cake being Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1942 visit to Britain to witness the country’s women engaged in war work.

Rhys: This particular book didn’t come from a particular event, although many of them have done (and the next book does). I think it was the next step in Molly’s life—coping with the demands of motherhood and a teenage ward and yet regretting that she is no longer an active detective. The incident on Ellis Island makes her want to champion a woman who is going through what Molly herself endured and spurs her into trying to solve the case (much to the horror of her husband).

Edith: Jacqueline, Rhys has written other historical series and in other eras. Do you get the urge to branch out from Maisie and her worlds, or is she challenge enough?

Jacqueline: I’ve already written a stand-alone novel (not a mystery), which was published in 2014 – THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF LIES.  I have another series on the back-burner, and my next novel is a stand-alone involving post WW2 organized crime in London.  I also write articles and essays for publication, which are definitely not historical.  I love interviewing people. I also believe in “cross training” as a writer – I look for any opportunity to grow as a writer, so I take on other commissions outside my work as a novelist.

Edith: Rhys and Clare, you must have run into a glitch or two working as co-authors. What can you share about that process? And Clare, please tell us what’s it’s been like to write fiction. Is this your first, or have you written other stories drawn from the imagination?

Rhys: Amazingly I don’t think we disagreed over anything. We talked through where we wanted the plot to go, then each chose scenes we wanted to write. (I have to say that Clare came up with the major plot first!) We gave each other comments and suggestions and these always made the story stronger. But Clare and I have had a very harmonious relationship from the beginning. She is sweet-natured and easy-going. When she graduated from high school we went around Europe together for a month and never had one cross word during that time, which is quite amazing.

Clare: I’m not sure I ever wanted to BE a writer, but I have always written—poems, parodies when I was young. Songs, a children’s opera when I did my degree in music . And I have come up with several ideas for novels, just not known where to start. Having read and taken notes on all seventeen of the previous Molly Murphy novels I had great faith in Rhys’ vision for the series. Her characters are so fun to write! My goal was to write this novel to seamlessly fit in with the other Molly Murphy’s. So I was much more likely to ask for advice than to argue. It has been such a gift to be able to work together because we have such fun. We would much prefer to make each other laugh than to disagree about anything. 

Edith: What’s next for each of you? Where can our readers find you in the next couple of weeks?

Jacqueline:  I’m off skiing next week, then it’s back to work and my usual routine (which is working on my next novel, plus training in the equestrian sport of dressage).

Rhys:  I am still writing as crazily as you, Edith. Molly makes it two and a half books a year, so I’m hoping to hand over more and more to Clare as the books progress. I have a big new stand-alone coming out in August called WHERE THE SKY BEGINS. It takes place in England during the worst of the Blitz and at a bomber command base, so quite intense.

Then in November the next Royal Spyness book comes out : Peril in Paris.  Chanel, food, Mummy and Mrs Simpson. What’s not to love?

And Clare and I are doing a Zoom interview 1 pm Pacific on March 16 at Book Passage. I’m doing an Edgar best novel symposium at 8 pm Eastern on April 5. Then several panels at Left Coast Crime (Clare will be with me). Then guest of honor at Malice and Edgars banquet.  All very exciting to be seeing people in the flesh again!

Clare: I’m currently teaching full time but I do have ideas for a series of my own. I’m particularly drawn to the nineteen twenties. So we’ll see. For now it’s a joy to be writing with my mom. And I’m really looking forward to attending conventions and meeting the rest of the mystery community. Do come up and say hello when I’m there!

Edith: I hope we see you at Malice, Clare! Thank you SO much to all three of you.

Readers: Do you have a favorite historical period to read about? Questions for the authors?

Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness mysteries, as well as several internationally bestselling stand-clones. Her work has won twenty awards to date and she is currently nominated for the Edgar best novel award. Rhys’s work is translated into thirty languages and she has fans from around the world.

Clare Broyles is Rhys’s daughter and new co-author of the Molly Murphy series. Clare is a teacher and musician. She has worked as arranger and composer for the Arizona Theater company, winning a Zoni (Arizona Tony award). This is her first venture into fiction and her mother predicts a bright future for her.

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Consequences of Fear, The American Agent, and To Die but Once, as well as thirteen other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels and The Care and Management of Lies, a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two nonfiction books, What Would Maisie Do? and a memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing. Originally from the United Kingdom, she divides her time between California and the Pacific Northwest. 

Cover Reveal and a Giveaway

Jessie: In New Hampshire, running headlong towards a March 31 deadline!

There is nothing like an end of March deadline to help the winter not feel quite so long! With fewer than 3 weeks left and the ground thawing at a rapid clip, I am wondering which will come first, the earliest daffodil blossom or hitting send on my manuscript!

But the deadline for one book doesn’t mean nothing is going on with the others already in the pipeline. So, with that in mind, I am revealing the cover for the sixth Beryl and Edwina mystery, Murder through the English Post. It will be out on July 26 and is available for pre-order from all the usual outlets.

I have recently received my Advance Readers Copies of the novel and would love to give away three of them to randomly selected commenters.

Readers, what makes time pass quickly for you?

Guest Joyce St. Anthony plus #giveaway

Edith/Maddie, still hoping for signs of spring north of Boston.

New books are a good sign, though, and I’m super delighted to welcome Joyce St. Anthony – whom some of you know as Joyce Tremel – with the first book in a new historical mystery series! Front Page Murder begins the Homefront News series and it sounds fabulous. My copy dropped on my Kindle on release day earlier this week, and I’m excited to read it.

Here’s the blurb:

Irene Ingram has written for her father’s newspaper, the Progress Herald, ever since she could grasp a pencil. Now she’s editor in chief, which doesn’t sit well with the men in the newsroom. But proving her journalistic bona fides is the least of Irene’s worries when crime reporter Moe Bauer, on the heels of a hot tip, turns up dead at the foot of his cellar stairs.

An accident? That’s what Police Chief Walt Turner thinks, and Irene is inclined to agree until she finds the note Moe discreetly left on her desk. He was on to a big story, he wrote. The robbery she’d assigned him to cover at Markowicz Hardware turned out to be something far more devious. A Jewish store owner in a small, provincial town, Sam Markowicz received a terrifying message from a stranger. Moe suspected that Sam is being threatened not only for who he is…but for what he knows.

Tenacious Irene senses there’s more to the Markowicz story, which she is all but certain led to Moe’s murder. When she’s not filling up column inches with the usual small-town fare—locals in uniform, victory gardens, and scrap drives—she and her best friend, scrappy secretary Peggy Reardon, search for clues. If they can find the killer, it’ll be a scoop to stop the presses. But if they can’t, Irene and Peggy may face an all-too-literal deadline.

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH

Thanks for having me back Wickeds! It’s always great to visit.

I’m often asked how much research goes into writing historical fiction. The short answer is: A LOT. The next question is usually “It’s fiction. Can’t you just make it all up?” Well I could, but then it wouldn’t exactly be historical.

Historical fiction, whether it’s a romance, a mystery, or a thriller, has to have some basis in fact. Sure, I invent the characters and the plot, but the historical parts should be as close to true as possible. FRONT PAGE MURDER is set in a small fictional town in Pennsylvania in May of 1942.

Pittsburgh was a critical manufacturing hub during WWII so I decided Progress would be in that general area. Before the war, the fictional Tabor Ironworks had made parts for the automobile industry and when Roosevelt suspended car production, the factory converted to making parts for tanks and ships. Although Tabor only exists in my mind and on paper, the part about Roosevelt is true. Many industries converted to manufacturing material for the war. Auto plants converted to making airplanes, tanks, and Jeeps. Shipbuilders, like Dravo and American Bridge in Pittsburgh made war ships and the all-important LSTs (Landing Ship Tank, or as soldiers like to call them Long Slow Targets). Without LSTs, there would have been no landing at Normandy.

Since my main character, Irene runs a newspaper, I had to get other facts straight. I downloaded a day by day timeline for the month of May 1942. Thank heavens for the internet! I also made good use of the online Google news archives where I could see actual newspapers for each day. I made headlines for the beginning of each chapter that would have appeared in Irene’s newspaper, the Progress Herald. If something big happened on a particular day, I made sure Irene talked about it with her co-workers.

Irene, her younger sister, and her mother often listened to the radio in the evening. I found a radio and movie guide online—sort of a precursor to the TV Guide. I was able to find exactly what radio show they would have listened to at a certain time. I also researched the popular songs and movies that were out in May 1942. I couldn’t very well have Irene’s sister listening to a Frank Sinatra record that hadn’t been released yet!

Rationing was another thing I had to research. Not everything was rationed at the same time. Rubber tires, automobiles, and sugar were some of the first to be rationed. People didn’t drive as much. If a driver blew a tire, there was no way to replace it. No new cars were being made.

With the sugar ration, a family was only allowed a half pound per person per week. It sounds like a lot of sugar, but it’s really not—a half pound is barely a cup (I measured and weigh). Most people baked from scratch and there were no artificial sweeteners. If someone baked a cake and made a pitcher of lemonade, that would likely use the rations of two or more people in that household.

One thing I almost forgot to check was the weather. I only realized it when I’d finished the draft right before I sent it to my editor. Even though Progress isn’t a real place, I have it located near Pittsburgh. Some eagle-eyed reader would surely have noticed if I had written that it was sunny on May 20 instead of rainy. After doing some digging, I found weather charts for the area (thank you NOAA!) and was able to add some brief mentions of the weather. Whew!

Now I’m just waiting for someone to find something I missed. As hard as I’ve tried to get things right, it’s inevitable that I missed some little detail. Just do me a favor—don’t go looking for one!

Readers: does it bother you if an author doesn’t get something right? Does it depend on how wrong? Or do you forgive some things if it’s a good story? I’ll send one US commenter a copy of the new book!

Joyce St. Anthony was a police secretary for ten years and more than once envisioned the demise of certain co-workers, but settled on writing as a way to keep herself out of jail. In addition to the Homefront News Mysteries, she is the author of the Brewing Trouble Mysteries, written under her own name, Joyce Tremel. She lives in the beautiful Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania with her husband.

Populating My Cozy Town and a #giveaway

by Barb, still in Key West

At the end of the blog, I’ve included instructions for how to enter a giveaway for one of 15 Advance Readers Copies of Muddled Through, Maine Clambake Mystery #10, which releases on June 28, 2022. Scroll down for that information.

A year ago I blogged about how I worked with an artist to create a map of Busman’s Harbor, the town in Midcoast Maine where my Maine Clambake Mysteries take place. A later blog post explained how the artist and I came up with the buildings on the map.

Today I’m writing about how I populated my little town.

The major characters in the Maine Clambake Mysteries go back to the original series proposal. Julia Snowden, her mother Jacqueline, sister Livvie, brother-in-law Sonny, and niece Page were there from the start. As was Julia’s middle-school crush Chris Durand, and the newest member of the Busman’s Harbor Police Force, Jamie Dawes. Restaurant proprietor Gus Farnham was also in the original proposal.

State police detectives Lieutenant Jerry Binder and Sergeant Tom Flynn appear in the first book Clammed Up, and are in the series ever after (except for a couple of the novellas). This is not in the least surprising, since in Maine only the Portland and Bangor police departments are large enough to have detectives. The rest of the municipalities (including at least one fictional one) rely on the state police to investigate major crimes. Faulty research on my part led them to have inflated titles and once they existed out in the universe there was no way to demote them. Also, I wrote at least three books before I realized I had created the detecting team of Tom and Jerry.

The Snugg sisters, Fee and Vee, who run the B&B across the street from Julia’s mother’s house, appear in Clammed Up and almost every book since, as well as most of the novellas. The Snowden Family Clambake’s silent investor, Quentin Tupper, also makes his first appearance in Clammed Up. He’s only in residence in the summer, so he appears in the books that take place then. Captain George, who pilots the boat that takes the tourists out to Morrow Island for the Snowden Family Clambake, also appears in the books that take place during the summer.

On Main Street

Since Clammed Up, the town of Busman’s Harbor has grown and grown. I’ve added shops to Main Street as I’ve need them to tell the stories. Gordon’s Jewelry and its proprietor Mr. Gordon first appear in the Christmas novella, “Nogged Off.” He plays a central role in the fifth book in the series, Iced Under, when he tells Julia the value of the black diamond necklace her mother has received in the mail. He returns again in the sixth book, Stowed Away, and in the novella “Scared Off.” He must have a first name, but he’s an older gentleman and Julia always calls him “Mr.” His wife, Alicia, has sadly suffered from worsening dementia through the series.

Al Gleason runs Gleason’s Hardware, a family business so old there’s a post in front of it where customers once tied up their horses. Gleason’s is a pivotal location in Clammed Up, but we don’t meet Al until the novella “Scared Off.” He turns up again in the novella “Perked Up,” that I just turned in. It will be published in Irish Coffee Murder in the spring of 2023. Barry Walker of Walker Frames and Art Supplies is a major character in the fourth book in the series, Fogged Inn. He also reappears in “Scared Off.” To this cast of Main Street characters, I’ve added a new one in Muddled Through. Zoey Butterfield is the owner of Lupine Design, a pottery studio and retail shop at the far end of the commercial part of Main Street. Livvie works there in the off-season. Zoey reappears in “Perked Up.”

The Townspeople

Mark Hayman works in the Town Enforcement Office and has access to records about everyone’s property, who owns it, where the tax bill goes. He helps Julia out the seventh book, Steamed Open and again in Muddled Through. Floradale Thayer runs the historical society. She helps Julia understand her mother’s family history in Iced Under, and also in Sealed Off. She appears again in “Perked Up.” Chief Beaupre is the Chief of Police in Busman’s Harbor. You’d think he’d be more important, what with all the murders, but since Binder and Flynn rush in and take over, and Julia gets all her info from Jamie Dawes, the chief isn’t as much of a presence. He doesn’t even get a name until Steamed Open. Bud Barbour has a boat repair shop and we often find him whiling away his late afternoons at Gus’s restaurant. He plays a big role in Boiled Over, a smaller one in Musseled Out, and comes back in Muddled Through. Clarice Kemp is the town gossip. In Clammed Up she works as the receptionist at Lighthouse Inn, a Busman’s Harbor crossroads. I really had high hopes for her as a character, but she doesn’t appear again until “Scared Off.” By that time she’s retired and is applying her considerable skills and strong personality to the annual auction for the Star of the Sea Catholic Church. Sonny’s father, Bard Ramsey, a lobsterman, a major character in Musseled Out, appears again in Fogged Inn and in Sealed Off.

The Pets

I never intended to have a cat in the series. Then I went to the real Cabbage Island Clambake and saw what an unbelievably cushy life a cat has on an island with no cars or natural predators and where mountains of seafood are served everyday. Le Roi, the Maine Coon cat belongs to the island caretakers in Clammed Up. Then he moves in with Julia, but spends his summers on Morrow Island with Livvie’s family. Finally, he takes up permanent residence in Julia’s mother’s house, the perfect place, since he gets to see Julia every day when she works in the clambake office there. Fee Snugg’s dog, Mackie, is one of a long line of Scottish terriers that Fee loves more than people. It takes a special dog to live in a B&B, where strangers are constantly coming and going, but Mackie handles it with aplomb. Bud Barbour’s dog, Morgan, a black lab, is a youngster, but so well-behaved Gus allows him to doze in the restaurant while he and Bud jawbone.

In or Out?

I’m fine with telling characters, “You’re not in this book.” I dislike series that bring everyone we’ve ever met forward into each new book. I’ve given some up because of this. But it’s nice, now that I’m writing book eleven, to know I have characters I can call upon to play roles, large or small, and I don’t have to make everyone up from scratch.

Readers: How do you feel about secondary and tertiary characters in series? Do you like to see them reappear or would you as soon forget them when the book is done?

The Giveaway

If you can’t wait until June 28th to find out what happens next to Julia and the gang, you can enter to win one of 15 Advance Reader Copies of Muddled Through by clicking the link below and filling out the form. The giveaway ends on March 18th and entries will be accepted from any country.

Enter the giveaway here.

Thanks so much for entering and good luck!

Wicked Wednesday: Impressive Fictional Women from the Past

Edith/Maddie here, with our second Wicked Wednesday celebrating the ladies who went before.

Last week we talked about real-life impressive woman from 1950 or before. Today let’s list impressive fictional heroines from books set in the past. Who is your favorite historical female protagonist, and why?

Julie: I am so glad I get to answer this first! Hands down, Amelia Peabody. Who’s with me? I ADORE the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, who was really Barbara Mertz, an Egyptologist. The books start in 1884, and the series ends in 1922-23, during the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. The series has romance, adventure, history, Egyptology, and wonderful characters. Amelia Peabody was partially inspired by real life 1880’s explorer Amelia Edwards, and she’s a funny, fierce, smart and stubborn. I’ve read the series a couple of times, and listened to it a couple of more and can’t recommend it highly enough.

Edith/Maddie: Amelia is fabulous, Julie. I started reading those books because of you! I’m voting for Elizabeth Miles, the con artist in Victoria Thompson’s Counterfeit Lady series. I absolutely love that Elizabeth still runs the occasional Robin Hood con with her father even while doing her best to live a conventional life with her new husband in 1920 New York. She’s a true badass.

Barb: I have to go with my pandemic-related Outlander obsession here and say Clare Fraser. Whether it’s in the modern story, where Clare was born in 1918, or in the time-traveling one, where she lives in the 18th century, she qualifies. World War II combat nurse, triage healer at the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745, settler in the western reaches of 18th century North Carolina, or female surgeon in Boston in the 1960s, all make her heroic.

Jessie: I am going to vote for Tuppence Beresford from the Agatha Christie novels. We share a love of hats and I adore her sense of adventure. I also love the way Christie shows her to the reader at different stages in her life, from a Bright Young Thing to a young wife and mother to a middle-aged woman. In many ways I think of her as the person Christie created who feels the most real. She casts her in different roles and with different responsibilities and challenges, but she is always Tuppence at heart. She never loses her spirited nature or her willingness to shake things up. I admire her immensely!

Sherry: I love reading about everyone’s fictional heroines. I have to go with my often mention beloved Betsy Ray from the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. The books start when Betsy is five and continue through her marriage with each book being age appropriate to the reading level of her age. Betsy taught me that it’s okay to blush easily, have weak ankles, scatter commas around, love to read, and to purse a dream of being a writer. She valued friendships and family, loved a man, but also was brave enough to sail around the world when her heart was broken. While she might not be a modern day version of a badass she definitely was for her time.

Readers: Who is your historical fictional heroine?

Guest Ann Parker plus #Giveaway

Edith/Maddie north of Boston, where spring might be peeking at us!

I’m super happy to welcome Ann Parker back to the blog. I love her historical mysteries, which began in Leadville, Colorado, and followed Inez Stannert to San Francisco. I can’t wait to read The Secret in the Wall, book #8 in the Silver Rush Mysteries series, which came out last month.

Here’s the blurb: Inez Stannert has reinvented herself―again. Fleeing the comfort and wealth of her East Coast upbringing, she became a saloon owner and card sharp in the rough silver boomtown of Leadville, Colorado, always favoring the unconventional path―a difficult road for a woman in the late 1800s. Now living in San Francisco, Inez works hard to keep a respectable, loving home for her young ward, Antonia. But risk is a seductive friend, difficult to resist. When a skeleton and a bag of gold coins tumble from the wall of her latest business investment, Inez uses her street smarts and sheer will to unearth a secret that someone has already killed to keep buried.

Inez Stannert and her ilk—Badass Women of the West

When Edith asked me if I’d like to contribute a post on this month’s theme, “Badass Women from the Before Times,” I jumped at the chance. Such women—real or fictional—are always fascinating to explore.

My protagonist Inez Stannert made her appearance in Silver Lies, the first book of my Silver Rush historical series set in Leadville, Colorado, in the American West. Publishers Weekly  described her as “the poker-playing, straight-talking, gun-toting owner of the Silver Queen Saloon.” If all those adjectives don’t sum up her badass-ery, I’m not sure what would. In 1879, when Silver Lies opens, if a woman strayed a bit outside the lines of propriety, she risked getting slammed for it. However, in the U.S. “Wild West” those lines were often a little less distinct and there was a bit more room to breathe (corsets allowing) than in the East.

In my newest book, The Secret in the Wall, it is 1882. Much has transpired between Silver Lies and this, the eighth book in the series. Inez has moved to San Francisco and is guardian to 13-year-old Antonia Gizzi, who keeps Inez on her toes and is a badass-bitch-in-training. Inez owns a music store and provides financial assistance to local women-run businesses on the side. She still plays poker on occasion, but only friendly, penny ante with a few of the musicians who frequent her store… nothing like the high-stakes, high-octane games she ran at the Silver Queen Saloon.

Watch out for the women! Late 19th-century playing card by B.P. Grimaud – Catalog Photo, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64616279

Inez is determined to weave a new life for herself and Antonia in San Francisco, but trouble—and mystery— complicate her efforts to walk the straight-and-narrow. In The Secret in the Wall, Inez has formed a business relationship with the very prim and proper boardinghouse owner, Moira Krause. Together, they bought the vacant residence that adjoins Moira’s house, so the common wall can be knocked down and Moira’s business expanded. All their plans go sideways when the wall is breached, and a skeleton dressed in tattered military wear tumbles out, along with a bag of gold coins. Compounding the horror of those present, a glass eye disengages from the skull and rolls across the floor. Antonia’s eyes widen, and she whispers, “Pirates!” Knowing Antonia’s penchant for the tale of Treasure Island, Inez fears her ward’s mind is awhirl with devious little thoughts. But Inez has her own concerns to address, such as determining the identity of the long departed and making sure the gold remains with its rightful owners—that is, herself and Moira.

As a woman who marches to the beat of her own drummer in the 19th century, Inez may be unusual, but perhaps not as unusual as you might think. Coinciding with Inez’s time in San Francisco, for instance, is Mary Ellen Pleasant, an entrepreneur, financier, real estate magnate and abolitionist, who listed herself in the 1890 census as “a capitalist.” Pleasant is mentioned on this Wickeds post on favorite women in history https://wickedauthors.com/2019/03/06/wicked-wednesday-favorite-woman-in-history/, and you can read more about her on FoundSF  https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Mary_Ellen_Pleasant.

Self-made millionaire Mary Ellen Pleasant, called “The Mother of Human Rights in California,”  also fought for racial equality in the West.

Much earlier in San Francisco’s history, there was landowner and businesswoman Juana Briones https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Juana_Briones. When California became part of the United States, Mexican landholders were required to certify their land ownership through a complicated legal process. Briones hired a lawyer and took her legal battle for property ownership all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, emerging victorious. Many other fascinating, strong-minded women populated the 19th-century West, including Lillie Hitchcock Coit (“Firebelle Lil”), Lotta Crabtree, and Donaldina Cameron in San Francisco, and Molly Brown, Doc Susie, Mattie Silks, and Alice Ivers (Poker Alice), who made their names in Colorado and elsewhere.

With so many role models out there, you may be wondering who my female protagonist is based on. To create her, I turned, in part, to my forbearers for inspiration. I gave her my Granny Parker’s maiden name, Inez Stannert, and my Grandmother Elsie’s olive skin, hazel eyes, dark brown hair, and cool demeanor.

My Grandmother Elsie, who is the physical model for my protagonist, looked demure but was tough as nails.

These are women you won’t read about in the pages of history, but their stories tell of a generation. My Granny Parker moved west from Pennsylvania as a child, when her blacksmith father found employment in Leadville. My Grandmother Elsie left Iowa to teach in Arizona, when it was still a territory. They both married (for better for worse), and raised their children through the  1918 Flu Pandemic, a world war, and the Great Depression, doing the best they could during very tough times. They had steel in their spines, not just their corsets. So, I gifted my fictional Inez with the grit and determination of these women and others I’ve known throughout my life, as well as those I’d read about in my research.

With such real women from historical “before times,” it almost seems unnecessary to defend my Inez as being “of her time.” Although she would consider being labelled a badass as fightin’ words indeed, she would probably embrace the admiration and nod of approval such an appellation carries today.

Readers: What saying / piece of advice from a “strong-willed” woman has stuck with you? (For me, it’s “Life’s not fair.” This was invoked regularly by my mother when we kids whined… and I guess we must have whined a lot!)

I’ll send one of you (US-only) a copy of the new book and a Starbucks gift card – because books and coffee/tea just go sooooo well together!

California native Ann Parker is a science writer by day and fiction writer at night. Her award-winning Silver Rush historical mystery series is set in the 1880s U.S. West. Of the newest in the series, THE SECRET IN THE WALL, Kirkus Reviews says, “The year 1882 launches Inez Stannert―sleuth, card shark, musician, saloon owner, and helper of ambitious women―on another adventure…a mystery based on true events and replete with rich period detail, that’s a delight to read.” SECRET was released in February 2022 by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, and is an Historical Novel Society Editors’ Choice. 

Ann is listed in the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame and is a long-time member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Women Writing the West, Western Writers Association, National Association of Science Writers,  and a whole passel of other organizations (because, yes, she is a joiner). Find out more about Ann and her books at https://annparker.net/

I Would Have Made a Lousy Pioneer and Other Mid-Winter Musings

by Julie, wintering in Somerville and dreaming of spring

Last week the power went out in my apartment. There were some inconveniences–I was in the middle of doing laundry, and my bed needed to be made. However, my apartment was warm, and holds on to heat, so comfort wasn’t compromised. My phone was charged with audiobooks at the ready, I had a flashlight handy, and it was late enough in the day that I was winding down.

Today, the water is being shut off to my building from 9am – 2pm so the city can do work. I found out last Wednesday, so plenty of time to store some water, take a shower, and prepare. In both these instances, my first thought was “I would have made a lousy pioneer”. No heat, no lights, no water–I can deal with them for a bit, knowing they’ll be back. But traveling in unknown parts, not knowing when the next time I’ll have any of them? No thank you. (Needless to say, I’m not a camper, but that’s another post.)

Now, where did that thought even come from? It’s not as though I’d been thinking about pioneers or covered wagons. Why did my imagination go there right away? From my mid-winter musings, that’s where.

This is the time of year when the days are getting longer, and a titch warmer, but there’s still a long way to go. I’m cold, and tired, and a bit cranky. And my mind wanders about, like a toddler prodding a bruise affirming that it still hurts. Lights out? Water cut off? Prod, probe. What must it have been like to be a pioneer? Would I have been any good at it? Answers–difficult, and no.

Other musings of late?

I love charming books and television shows, but find them in short supply these days. People don’t fully commit to the charm–they feel the need to mix in dark, or a bit of horror, and that doesn’t work. Or the charm moves into stupid, which also doesn’t work. Charm, true charm, is underrated. I saw a thread on social media that celebrated the character actors of yore, and bemoaned their absence today. More accurately, the actors who looked like ten miles of a bad road, and wore it proudly. You could tell they smoked, drank, and ate terrible foods, and used all of that to fuel their work. Think about the older reporters (Martin Balsam, Jack Warden, Jason Robards) in All the Presidents Men or Shelly Winters in the Poseidon Adventure. How about William Conrad in Cannon? With our obsession about youth, fitness and beauty, what’s happened to the place for those character actors? Please note–in England, they’re alive and well. This feels like more of US issue.I’ve always wanted to learn how to crack a safe and pick a lock. Even before I could use “but I’m a mystery writer” as an excuse. (That excuse is wicked handy in all sorts of situations, trust me.) Do other people harbor the same desire? Where does that even come from? My sisters have no such interest. On further musings, I’ve decided to learn how to at least pick a lock. Seems handy to know.I find myself looking at an actor, or person in the news, figuring out their age, and if it’s around mine asking myself do I look better than them? What’s my age, you may ask. Heartthrobs of my youth are now playing the grandfather in bad movies years old.

Readers, do you have odd mid-winter musings? Let’s commiserate in the comments.

Guest Libby Klein, plus #giveaway

Edith here, so happy to welcome Libby Klein back to the blog. She has a new mystery out and it looks like a fun one!

Here’s the blurb for Antique Auctions Are Murder:

When vintage items go up for auction, gluten-free baker and B&B owner Poppy McAllister discovers some people will pay the ultimate price. . .
 
It’s peak summer season at the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, with tourists fluttering in and out and wreaking enough havoc to rival a Jersey Shore hurricane. Also back in town is Courtney Whipple and his family of antique dealers for the annual Cold Spring Village antique show. Courtney’s son Auggie has a unique piece he believes will fetch them a fortune if he can get it authenticated in time—a piece rival dealer Grover Prickle insists was stolen from his store.
 
Poppy and her Aunt Ginny attend the auction, hoping to bid on an armoire for the B&B, and discover a veritable armory for sale—everything from ancient blades and nineteenth century guns to such potential killing devices as knitting needles and a blacksmith hammer. Strangely, they don’t see either Auggie or Grover—or the mysterious item they both claim to own. Then during the auction, a body falls out of the very armoire Poppy was hoping to acquire, stabbed through the heart. Now, surrounded by competitive dealers and makeshift weapons, she must find out who turned the auction house into a slaughterhouse . . .

Before eBay, auctions happened in the likes of giant barns, tents, and ballrooms. One would register for a paddle – i.e. give your credit card and personal identification to someone in charge. This was so the auction house knew whom to shakedown should you have buyer’s remorse over your vintage deer antler candlestick holders and try to skip out on paying. Then you would sit in a stuffy room that smelled like your grandparents’ house while the auction staff paraded treasures across a stage to test your impulse control. 

BIRD-IN-HAND, PENNSYLVANIA – JULY 21, 2018: Annual Haiti Benefit Auction. Volunteers hold up a three-dimensional painting being sold to help the needy in Haiti.

If an item was really hot, or attendees were super jazzed, a bidding war would ensue with paddles flying and the auctioneer raising the bid in a frenzy of excitement. Winning was a rush! You didn’t just buy the beloved treasure. You beat out that yokel across the aisle who tried to steal “the precious” out from under you. The audacity of some people. It serves them right to lose that antique bronze candle snuffer. You take a moment to gloat over your winnings, and naturally, you tell them if they want it, they’ll have to pry it from your cold, dead, fist.

It was only later, while you were trying to figure out how to cart your new heirlooms home in your hatchback with bucket seats, that you had to face facts. You may have been tricked by your own competitive nature to spend the rent money on what some would call a frivolous purchase. Where exactly were you going to store a carousel horse? And would the blue velvet painting of a St. Bernard in a red smoking jacket even match your sage green sofa in the harsh light of day?

I will confess to being taken in by an exuberant auctioneer and my own lust for winning on at least two occasions. There may be more – but I’m only admitting to these. One was at the annual Cold Spring Village Antique show many years ago. The very same venue that is happening in my new release, Antique Auctions Are Murder. While perusing the various stalls showing their wares, I spotted a beautiful armoire that I just had to have. I gave no thought to the fact that it didn’t fit in my tiny bedroom, or that it would never fit in the trunk of my sporty Subaru. And knowing absolutely nothing about antiques and how to judge their worth, I plunked down my credit card and claimed my prize. 

After renting a U-Haul that cost as much as the armoire to get it home, we struggled to drag it up the ninety-degree L-shaped steps to the bedroom without destroying it or the walls completely. There was blue paint on one of the legs, and a piece was chipped out of the front panel showing that the supposed wood was actually a veneer. It was short and fat so you couldn’t hang anything full length inside without it dragging on the bottom. And there were three very large drawers on one side for all the sweaters I didn’t have, making it totally impractical to hold anything other than my thin layer of socks and underwear in each. 

It was too tall to place a TV on, too short to hang a dress in, too flimsy to hold anything heavy, and too narrow to store a winter coat. It took up so much space that you had to sidestep past it to get into the room. At one point it was such an eyesore that we stuffed it in the closet just so we could move around. 

The other treasure I had to have was an oil burning lamp because clearly we live in an Amish farmhouse in the eighteen hundreds where an oil burning lamp would be useful. Not to mention the attraction of having a small breakable item, literally on fire, at a toddler’s eye level, for my children to be obsessed with. When a genie didn’t pop out of the top, I realized I’d need to buy oil for the lamp, and having absolutely no idea where one would acquire Victorian genie lamp oil it was put away to collect dust like a knockoff Hummel figurine.  Over the years I broke the globe, chipped the paint, and moved it around to every room in the house because it never fit quite right no matter where I put it. 

Don’t even get me started on the number of eBay auctions I’ve overbid on just to win against someone who dared bid against me during the final moments, only to have to relist the item later because it wasn’t actually what I wanted in the first place. My antique-scouting skills obviously leave much to be desired. However, I can attest that no one was ever murdered at an auction I attended. I can’t speak to the ones where I wasn’t there. It is South Jersey after all.

Readers: Have you ever bought anything at an auction – live or on eBay? Was it everything you’d hoped for or did you have Libby-level buyer’s remorse? I’ll give a copy of Antique Auctions Are Murder to one lucky commenter who makes me feel better about myself.

Libby Klein graduated Lower Cape May Regional High School in the ’80s. Her classes revolved mostly around the culinary sciences and theater, with the occasional nap in Chemistry. She writes culinary cozy mysteries from her Northern Virginia office while trying to keep her naughty cat Figaro off her keyboard. Libby was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents her from eating gluten without exploding. Because of her love for cake, she now creates gluten free goodies from her professional kitchen and includes the recipes in her Poppy McAllister series. Most of her hobbies revolve around eating, and travel, and eating while traveling. She insists she can find her way to any coffee shop anywhere in the world, even while blindfolded. Follow all of her nonsense at www.libbykleinbooks.com

The Making of a Mystery Author

First a little back story. For my birthday, my very lovely daughter, reached out to my friends, to create a memory book for me. The notes made me laugh and made me cry. One in particular made me laugh so hard I cried. Lynn Avelchas Smith is possibly the first non-family member I met. She was born the day after me at the same hospital so we assume our beds were next to each other in the nursery. and that we “talked.” We went to the same elementary, junior high, and high school together. Lynn sent in not one but three very funny memories. One of them is very telling and I had to share it with you!

Lynn: At Adams Elementary School Sherry, Amy and I were partnered in Mrs. Schroeder’s fifth grade class to write a diary, one that would have been written by a young girl making her way west to Oregon in the year 1850. We folded a piece of manila-colored construction paper in half to use as the diary cover and then inserted folded lined paper. We then hand sewed the inserted paper to its construction paper cover.

We filled those pages with a first-person narrative detailing the young girl’s adventures as she traveled along the Oregon Trail with her parents and her siblings, Sarah, Danny, and Billy. Sherry wanted the girl’s name to be Betsy Dean (I’m now certain Sherry must have been a reader of the Betsy book series.) Secretly, I preferred the name Barbie (thus exposing our depth of interests). Amy and I did not argue…so, Betsy it was.

A couple of pages into the diary, Indians attacked, and Sherry suggested that the brother of Betsy’s friend Anna dies. Oh, wow. This was getting serious, and sad, but Amy and I did not argue. It WAS a historical “novel,” of sorts, and this kind of thing did happen…so, Anna’s brother dies. Then, half through the creation of this diary, and argument DID ensue.

When the Dean family’s wagon train reached the mountains, Sherry had another suggestion. How about another Indian attack and this time Betsy’s little brother, Billy, DIES! I was flabbergasted! Is she out of her mind? This was getting out of hand. Just how many characters was she planning to kill off? Truly, I wondered how Sherry could be so heartless and really begin to worry about her psyche.

I argued, but apparently Amy did not…so, Billy dies. After the dairy was finished, handed in, graded (undoubtedly an “A”), and returned, Sherry and Amy graciously let me keep the dairy (maybe because I had illustrated the cover.) I was thrilled. The first thing I did when I took the dairy home was to edit it. Luckily, part way through this diary, Betsy had run out of ink and there were no berries around to make new ink, so she was forced to use a pencil. Billy’s death was in pencil! Billy’s death was erased. Billy was now ALIVE and well and made it to Oregon! I could sleep now and Sherry? She continues to write stories where she kills off her characters! True story!  

Sherry here: Thank you Lynn for sharing this story which I’d forgotten but have some vague recollections of. I must have had a bit stronger personality than I remembered. (Lynn also had a story about the day we were supposed to turn in our information cards to be Brownies.) I love that Lynn took the book home and rewrote it. Oh, that makes me laugh. And I did read the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace and loved them. I still do!

Three Shots to the Wind, the third Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon mysteries, comes out on March 29th. And someone dies. Maybe my new tagline should be: Killing people since fifth grade (fictionally of course).

Readers: Do you remember writing stories in elementary school? Or working on group projects?