Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 82

Dark Days — It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night is a very famous first line (you can find the history here). Wickeds, what is a favorite first line that you wrote? What book was it in? Do you remember what the inspiration was for that first line? Did it come easily or did you write and rewrite that line?

Julie: First lines are so important, aren’t they? My favorite, so far, is from The Plot Thickets, which won’t be out until next year. “If she was being honest with herself, which she usually was, Lilly Jayne had to admit that her days of slinking around outside peoples’ houses should be well behind her.”

Barb: That is a great one, Julie. For my own books, I have to go with Fogged Inn. “Jule-YA! There’s a dead guy in the walk-in.”

Jessie: I love a great first line! Julie and Barb, yours both grabbed me! My first line of my first novel, Live Free or Die, reads ” Beulah Price’s body looked like a hotdog that had been left on the grill too long.” I still feel a bit sorry to have been so mean to Beulah!

Edith/Maddie: All fabulous, ladies! I am still fond of the first line of my short story, “Just Desserts for Johnny,” which was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Short Story. “She hadn’t planned on killing Johnny Sorbetto at the end of winter. He had promised her so much.”

Liz: Love all of these! I really like the first line of one of my Pawsitively Organic books, Purring Around the Christmas Tree : “The whole night could’ve been straight from a Norman Rockwell painting, if only Santa hadn’t dropped dead in his sleigh as he rode up to light the Frog Ledge Christmas tree.”

Sherry: I love seeing what first line you all loved. I had a hard time deciding. I like the opening to All Murders Final! : “I didn’t expect to start my Saturday with a cup of Dunkin’s coffee and a dead body.” I always like to try something different in my books and with this one I wanted to see what would happen if I dropped the body in the first line.

Readers: Do you have a favorite first line that you’ve read or written?

Beginnings with Guest Lucy Burdette #giveaway

Edith here, writing from north of Boston on the darkest day of the year.

And delighted to welcome back our good friend Lucy Burdette! I just finished reading her new thriller, Unsafe Haven, and loved it. I love hearing here about beginnings that she rejected before she hit on the right one (and it is, definitely, the right one). One lucky commenter will win an audio copy of the book!

Here’s the blurb: After giving birth in a subway bathroom and thrusting her newborn into a newly jilted bride’s arms, a teenage runaway teams up with that stranger to save herself and her baby from the ruthless sex trafficker in pursuit.

Openings and Outtakes, aka Making the Sausage

As I read these days, a book needs to hook me right away. The hook can be character, setting, or plot, but if I’m to plow in and stay through to the finish, something must grab me. After twelve books in my Key West series, I’m comfortable writing those mysteries in the first person. There’s no question about how to open— it must be Hayley Snow’s perspective. She tells every story. If she’s not in the scene, I can’t describe it live in the book. Someone else can tell it after the fact, but you won’t see it on the page, in the moment.

My first thriller Unsafe Haven (out today in hardcover and audio!) took ten years to write and plenty of false starts. In the final draft, there are four points of view, all of them third person: the young runaway Addison aka Addy, the recently jilted bride and medical student Elizabeth, Detective Jack Meigs, and Addy’s so-called boyfriend, Rafe. I really struggled with where to start and in whose voice, and therefore, I wrote it several different ways.

I tried showing Elizabeth and her fiancé going to the church for their final marital counseling session. Instead of wrapping things up and worrying about last minute details about the wedding, her fiancé is about to announce that he can’t go through with it. It went something like this…

Elizabeth

            Elizabeth dialed up Kevin. This was a real emergency—not just a text message rundown of the gifts piling up in her parents’ living room or a minor scare about the boutonnières for his groomsmen.

            “Your Aunt Betty called Mom,” she told him. “Her sciatica improved over the weekend and she wants to change her regrets to a yes.”

            “I warned you my family is hard to pin down.”

            “You said wacky and unpredictable.” Elizabeth laughed. “And you were right. Mom called the caterer but now we have a problem with the seating chart. We could put her with your parents but—“

            “Can we talk about this after the minister?” Kevin asked. “I’m about to get my ass kicked for losing focus with the customers.”

And so on and on and on…Maybe I needed to know that detail for background, but unfortunately, it was a little D-U-L-L, as my sister-in-law used to say. This was not the moment that would grab readers and pull them in. I realized that Addy’s story is what drives the narrative of Unsafe Haven, so I had to start with her. I tried a scene describing a slice of Addy’s life in the brothel before she escapes:

Addison

            Addy waited half an hour after she heard the lock click in the door and then the last heavy footsteps creak down the hallway. Her roommate’s breathing evened into its soft nightly rhythm. She felt sick about leaving her behind but two of them would never make it out. Besides, Rafe had dismissed the idea of bringing Heather before she’d even finished saying it.

            “Just you, and if you’re later than midnight, I go without you. Got it?”

            She got it.

She turned the covers back, slid out of bed, and crept across the cold floorboards to the closet. Her throat constricted with fear as a gust of frigid air rattled the window. Her stomach pitched and growled—she’d had wicked indigestion all day. Breathing into the cramps, she groped for the plastic bag stashed in the back of the closet and removed some of its contents: a soiled down jacket she’d found in a dumpster two blocks south, a faded blue sweatshirt, and the pair of knock-off Uggs she’d lifted from the street merchant’s table. Pulling the sweatshirt over her pajamas, she eased the window open and squeezed outside, her distended stomach catching on the splintered wooden lintel.

Again, it felt important to me to know exactly what Addy was running from. But wouldn’t it make more sense to start in the middle of the action, rather than dither around describing what came before? Here’s the opening of the real chapter one:

Tonight, Addy’s worst enemy might be an irritable cop, just bored enough to be curious. She ducked into the station and melted into the waiting crowd, most of them jazzed up to celebrate the night before New Year’s Eve. As she groped in her pocket for the change she’d been saving, she caught a glimpse of herself in the metal frame of one of the posters lining the stairs to the subway. White face, huge eyes, the dirty and oversized clothing of a runaway. She bought a one-ride MetroCard, slashed it through the reader, and clacked through the gate onto the platform, softly chanting the directions Rafe had made her memorize: Subway from Harlem to Grand Central, shuttle to Times Square. N, Q, R, or W train to 33rd Street, PATH train to Hoboken.

‘Chicklet! What brings you out tonight?’

Her heart plunged, hearing her street nickname. It was Des, the dealer who worked the grid a couple of blocks away from Georgia’s place. Addy always tried to stay far away from him. She’d seen what had happened to some of the other girls, who’d taken the samples he offered and then got hooked and desperate. Bad enough to service the special gentlemen Georgia introduced them to.

Des sauntered over and squeezed her chin with cold fingers, turning her face, forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘Where you going, girlfriend?’ He wore his hair greased back into a ponytail, a fringed vest, his eyes dark and mean like a hungry reptile.

Fear and the fetid heat of the subway tunnel pressed in, making her feel nauseous and crampy. She wrenched free, bolted to the trash can, Des on her heels, and heaved out the contents of her stomach.

‘Whoa,’ said Des, stumbling back. ‘What you been drinkin’, baby?’

Readers: what kinds of things draw you immediately into a new book? And writers, how many false starts does it take you to find the right beginning? (I hope I’m not the only slow learner.) I’ll send one commenter an audio code to Unsafe Haven.

Lucy Burdette aka clinical psychologist Roberta Isleib is the author of the popular Key West Food Critic mystery series, including the latest, A SCONE OF CONTENTION. Lucy’s first novel of suspense, UNSAFE HAVEN, has been published by Severn House. Her books and stories have been shortlisted for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. THE KEY LIME CRIME won the bronze medal for popular fiction from the Florida Book Awards in 2020. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and a past president of Sisters in Crime. She currently serves as president of the Friends of the Key West Library.

Read the first chapter and buy the book on Lucy’s website: https://lucyburdette.com/books/unsafe-haven/

Follow Lucy on Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub, and Twitter!

https://www.facebook.com/LucyBurdette, https://www.instagram.com/lucyburdette/, https://www.bookbub.com/profile/lucy-burdette, https://twitter.com/LucyBurdette

Whimsy

Jessie: In New Hampshire where there is a fresh layer of snow blanketing the village

I don’t know about all of you but, from time to time, I feel a bit like my creative well is in danger of running dry. It has been a very productive year for me in my writing life and I have noticed that there is only so much dipping out I can do before I have to find ways to replenish my supply.

It has become a predictable ebb and flow of my work life and over time I have developed a strategy that seems to be the most efficient at getting those creative juices flowing once more. In a word, whimsy. Yes, Lord Peter will do for a start, but there are a bunch of other ways I have found to refresh my enthusiasm. There is just something about looking at life through a lighthearted lens that seems to bring everything back into alignment, at least for me. If you are feeling in need of some whimsy in your own life, maybe one of these will work for you too!

Looking online at images of sweaters for dogsVisiting a hat shop and trying on everything that tickles my fancyMaking rainbow-inspired food like unicorn sushiTrying out a new sort of art supplies like a box of metallic watercolor paints Knitting something cheery and different like a pattern from Field Guide to Knitted Birds by Arne and Carlos. Borrowing or purchasing a stack of books that are in a genre I don’t usually read or that simply strike me as fun Viewing online webcams like the ones at the Monterey Bay AquariumPutting less frequently played records on the turntable and turning up the volumeListening to fun and creative podcasts like It’s a Wonderful LieBuilding online jigsaw puzzles

Readers, what feels like whimsy to you? Writers, how do you refill your creative well?

Glamping with Guest Heather Weidner #giveaway

Edith/Maddie writing from north of Boston, where the weather is ping-ponging and I’m still not ready for Christmas!

I’m delighted to welcome author Heather Weidner and her debut in a new series, Vintage Trailers and Blackmailers. I love the premise and can’t wait to read this one, especially since Mac Almeida – in my Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries – lives in a tiny house! Heather’s going to give one lucky commenter an e-version of the new book.

Here’s the blurb:

There is nothing like finding a dead body, clad only in red satin thong, on your property to jolt you from a quiet routine. Jules Keene, owner of the posh Fern Valley Camping Resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains, is thrust into the world of the Dark Web when one of her guests, Ira Perkins, is found murdered in the woods near her vintage trailers. Jules quickly discovers that the man who claimed to be on a writing retreat was not what he seemed, and someone will go to any length to find what he left at her resort. Jules, along with her Jack Russell Terrier sidekick Bijou, has to put the rest of the missing pieces of a blackmailing scheme together before her glamping business is ruined.

Jules’s resort, set in the heart of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville in the quaint town of Fern Valley, offers guests a unique vacation in refurbished and upcycled vintage trailers. Hoping to expand her offerings, she partners with her maintenance/security guy to create a village of tiny houses, the latest home DIY craze, but a second murder of a reporter interrupts Jules’s expansion plans. Curiosity gets the best of her, and she steps up her sleuthing to find out what Ira Perkins was really doing and what he hid at her resort.

I Know it’s December, But I Want to Go Glamping

Hi, all. I know it’s almost winter, but my thoughts are drifting toward summer and the mountains. I want to go glamping, or glamorous camping. I’m not a roughing-it kind of gal. My two requirements for camping are indoor plumbing and a door that locks. My husband likes the more rustic get-aways. (I’m not keen on tying our food in tree branches to keep it away from foraging predators, but that’s another story.) If you’ve never seen the glamping craze, hop over here to see some amazing accommodations and views. There are some really creative campsites.

I’m Heather Weidner, and I write the Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries, set in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In the series, Jules and her father upcycled old, beat up campers into posh trailers with wine chillers, plush beds, and all kinds of electronic doo-dads for a luxurious experience. They saved about fifty trailers from the scrapheap and preserved their history for future generations. The resort also has a lodge for gourmet breakfasts and lots of traditional camping activities like hiking, bird-watching, watching movies and concerts in the amphitheater, and making s’mores at the fire pits. The resort sits on 25 acres in the mountains near Charlottesville, Virginia in the fictional town of Fern Valley.

In the 1970s, my aunt and uncle owned a campground at Crabtree Falls in Nelson County, Virginia. It was located on several acres in a valley, bordered by a mountain stream. The campground was such a fun and magical place to visit. The hikes to the waterfall and fish hatchery and playing in the stream opened up new outdoor worlds for a suburbia girl like me.

I grew up in flat Virginia Beach, so the forest and the mountains were a new experience. I even learned some life skills about hiking in the woods. and that’s where I learned to play pinball, too. Jules’s property is based on my fun memories in the Virginia mountains.

At the Fern Valley Luxury Resort, Jules themed each vintage trailer with special décor like the 1947 Robin Hood Trailer that is decked out in honor of its namesake; the 1959 Sunliner Caravan that sports a posh pink Barbie fashion design in honor of the year that the camper and the doll debuted; the 1953 Redman New Moon decorated in honor of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball’s movie from the same year, The Long, Long Trailer; the 1954 Airstream decked out in honor of Elvis and his recordings at Sun Studios; and the 1955 Terry decorated in honor of James Dean and Rebel without a Cause.

At the end of the book, she partners with her maintenance/security guy to add tiny houses to the resort’s offerings. I am fascinated by these compact structures where all the floor plans and storage are minimalistic. These dwellings usually range from 400-1,000 square feet.

A tiny house Edith spied at a campground

Jules decorates all of the ones at her resort with author and book themes, and each has surprises for the guests like reading nooks, storybook touches, and revolving book cases. Her tiny house neighborhood on the edge of the resort has houses named for Beatrix Potter, L. Frank Baum. J. K. Rowling, and Bram Stoker.

Jules and her trusty sidekick, Bijou, a spunky brown and white Jack Russell Terrier, spend most of their days (and nights) keeping the resort viable. She is always promoting on her social media sites and looking for ideas for fun get-aways like crafters’ weekends, writers’ retreats, wine tastings, and romantic Valentine weekends. It’s a full-time job and then some trying to keep the resort out of the red.

So even if it’s not the season for camping, I can still dream of posh amenities and travel fictionally to Fern Valley to glamp at Jules’s resort.

Readers: Jules themes each of her vintage trailers and tiny houses. What author should she add to her collection for the next tiny house and what would you add to the décor in his/her honor? Do you have any fun camping or glamping stories from adventures past? I’ll send one commenter an ebook version of Vintage Trailers and Blackmailers!

Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. Vintage Trailers and Blackmailers is the first in her cozy mystery series, the Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries. She also writes the Delanie Fitzgerald mystery series and the Mermaid Bay Christmas Shoppe Mysteries (2023).

Her short stories appear in the Virginia is for Mysteries series, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Deadly Southern Charm, and Murder by the Glass, and her novellas appear in The Mutt Mysteries series.

She is a member of Sisters in Crime – Central Virginia, Sisters in Crime – Chessie, Guppies, International Thriller Writers, and James River Writers.

Originally from Virginia Beach, Heather has been a mystery fan since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. She lives in Central Virginia with her husband and a pair of Jack Russell terriers.

Website and Blog: http://www.heatherweidner.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeatherWeidner1

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heather_mystery_writer/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8121854.Heather_Weidner

Amazon Authors: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00HOYR0MQ

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/HeatherBWeidner/

LinkedIn:

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/heather-weidner-d6430278-c5c9-4b10-b911-340828fc7003

My Wicked Holiday Mood

by Julie, decking the halls in Somerville

I’m having a bit of an issue getting into the holiday spirit this year. I’m taking some time off over the next couple of weeks, and besides lots of rest, I’ve made a list of the things that I think will help. When I wrote it down, it felt like the outline for a new series–grumpy middle aged woman trying to find the spirit.

Stop watching Hallmark movies live. DVR them all, so that if I lose interest I can jump forward to the end. Some of the movies stand out, and I have a few that I rewatch every year. Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane is one. Others blur together. So I’m going to start just watching the end.When someone asks if I’m free at a particular time, I’m going to start asking why they’re asking first. I’ve been roped into too many Zoom calls and in person meetings that just make me crankier.I’m going to finish three knitting projects before I start a new one. Two of them are well underway, but for a baby due any day, so the race is on. The other project is finishing squares for an afghan for my niece. I was hoping that would be a Christmas present, but looks like it will be a February surprise instead. I’ve been starting new projects rather than finishing existing ones, so I need to buckle down. I’m only going to partake of entertainment that makes me happy. No “you should watch” or “it’s so deep” experiences for me until well into the new year. The only tears I want to shed are over the sappy ending of a holiday movie. The only fear I want to feel is running out of tea. Light and bright this season.I’m going to daydream a lot. I’ve had an idea nipping on my imagination, but I haven’t given it a chance to bloom. So I need to stare, knit, and let the muse come in to visit. She doesn’t show up when I’m tired or stressed, so I’ve got to get into the zone.I’m only going to see people who make me smile. No obligation visits for me this year. I’m not going to plan for 2022. Planner friends, don’t panic. I will the first week of January, trust me. I have my pile of planners waiting. But for the next two weeks. I’m going to sit back and make sure 2021 leaves.

So that’s it, that’s the list. I think it’s going to work. Dear readers, what would you add?

Dark Days — Dark Horse

As the dark days of December continue it made me think of dark horses. Do you have a favorite book/TV show/movie that you loved that you don’t think enough people know about?

Julie: This is such a great question, and I’ll bet the readers are going to get a great list out of the Wickeds. Some of my “more people should know about this” delights of late include S.G. Wong’s Lola Starke series, a 30’s noir alternate reality mystery. Another dark horse is the Australian TV series Mr. and Mrs. Murder, which only lasted one season. The crime scene cleaners solve cases with Nick and Nora Charles banter.

Liz: Fun question, Sherry! I really have become obsessed with British crime dramas, and Broadchurch was hands down one of the best. There were three seasons, but the first one was my favorite – hard subject matter, but riveting.

Edith/Maddie: We LOVED Broadchurch, Liz. Unforgotten is another fabulous British crime series, with the amazing Nicola Walker (and Sanjeev Bhaskar) working on one cold case per season. And if folks haven’t watched Shetland yet – based on the Ann Cleeves’s novels by the same name – you should!

Jessie: I love this question too! I absolutely adore the Emma Graham novels by Martha Grimes and have yet to meet anyone else who read them. As for television, I really enjoyed the single season of Battle Creek, a cop show set in the city of the same name in which I lived as a kindergartener. I still wonder what would have happened to those characters if the show had continued.

Barb: For books that didn’t get their due, I loved Rebecca Pawel’s Carlos Tejada Investigation series, which begins with The Death of a Nationalist in 1939 in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. There are four books in the series, which ends in 1945, each taking place in a different region of Spain. For television series, I recommend Borgen, about a fictional, female Danish prime minister, which was recommended to us by Lucy Burdette and her husband. While not normally a fan of subtitles, I was all in on this one. And, I think I have finally internalized how parliamentary government works. I mean I get it intellectually, but this is a wonderful inside look. There are three seasons on Netflix with a fourth coming soon.

Sherry: I didn’t realize how much I’d be adding to my TBR and TBW list with this question. I swear every TV show I like gets canceled. I loved Timeless but there were only two seasons and a movie to wrap it up. NBC.com has episodes available. Another fun show was Take Two about a actress who played a cop on TV and then works for a PI.

Readers: How about you?

Welcome Back Guest Tara Lush!

I’m so happy to welcome back Tara Lush. The second book in her delightful Coffee Lover’s Mystery, Cold Brew Corpse, released on December 7th. If you need a Florida getaway, this is the book for you! Look for a giveaway at the end of the post!

Tara: For years, I was a cat person.

I lovingly accepted a tabby and a tortie into my home, and the sounds of purring and their little murder mittens padding against my hardwood floor were a balm for my soul. Sadly, both passed, and my husband and I were petless.

One day, we stared at each other. “What about a dog?” I said.

We got two in quick succession, and now I’m a certified dog person. It happened somewhere in between our Shih Tzu puppy adorably learning to play fetch and our Tibetan Spaniel snuggling in bed on a cold night.

Don’t get me wrong; I love cats. Always will. But dogs — in all their goofy, enthusiastic glory — have stolen my heart. Our home now resembles a puppy kindergarten, even though the dogs are now nine and ten. We have beds and a mountain of toys, and schedule our days around walks.

I have a shirt that says, “Dog Mom.”

So it makes total sense that the puppers would make their way into my fiction.

When I crafted my first cozy mystery series, I knew that my heroine, Lana Lewis, would have a dog. Initially, I started the series with her and the dog, but determined that she needed to adopt the puppy somehow at the beginning of book one, Grounds for Murder.

Lana wasn’t sold on being a dog owner, but quickly warmed to the life when she realized that wee Stanley the Shih Tzu would be homeless now that the victim was dead. By the end of book one, she’d bought Stanley a dog car seat. In book two, she and Stanley attend training classes together.

Stanley has become a fan favorite, I’m pleased to report. His temperament—stubborn, curious, loving—is inspired by my own two dogs. I try to incorporate the best and quirkiest details from both pets into Stanley. He’s become one of the funniest characters to write, and I often chuckle as I’m working on his scenes.

Before I start a new book in the series, I even draw up an entire plot for him chapter by chapter, because I need to know where he is and what he’s doing. To me, there’s nothing more distracting than reading a book where a pet is introduced, and then the main characters seem to forget about the pet for several chapters!

I’ve read several great cozy series with dogs lately, and wanted to share my favorites:

J.C. Eaton’s Sophie Kimball Mystery series features Streetman, a chiweenieLaura Jensen Walker’s Bookish Baker Mystery series has an adorable American Eskimo dog named GracieHarper Kincaid’s To Kill a Mocking Girl’s heroine has a German Shepherd named RBG — after late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgV.M. Burns features Snickers and Oreo, two unforgettable toy poodles, in her Mystery Bookshop Mystery series.

Check out my latest book, COLD BREW CORPSE, which is the second in the Coffee Lover’s Mystery series, published by Crooked Lane Books. You’ll get to know Stanley the Shih Tzu and all of his human companions as they sleuth a murder. The book releases Dec. 7, 2021 — and read on for a special giveaway of Book One!

ABOUT COLD BREW CORPSE: Espresso bar owner Lana Lewis returns in Tara Lush’s second Coffee Lover’s mystery, a stimulating read that fans of Cleo Coyle and Laura Childs will savor to the last drop.

It’s a steamy September, and business is brisk at Perkatory, the hottest coffee shop in Devil’s Beach, FL. Much of the clientele pours in from Dante’s Inferno, the hot yoga studio next door. But the bright, sunny Gulf Coast days turn decidedly dark-roast when the body of the studio’s owner turns up in a nearby swamp.

Between running Perkatory and training Stanley, her golden Shih Tzu puppy, reporter-turned-barista Lana Lewis is too busy to go sleuthing. But when the editor of the local paper asks her to write about the murder, Lana’s dreams of getting back into journalism start to percolate.

Lana discovers that the yogi has a nefarious past and her share of mug shots, so grinding her way through the suspect list is a large task. She learns that the victim was fatally beaned by an SUV before she was dumped in the swamp. But was the killer one of her students? An envious yoga teacher? Or a local photographer who seems to know too much?  

But no one tells Lana Lewis what to do. Hunting the caf-fiend who killed the yogi puts Lana and Chief Noah’s relationship—and Lana’s life—in very hot coffee.

LINK: https://books2read.com/ColdBrewCorpse

SOCIAL:

Website: www.taralush.com

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authortaralush/

BIO: Tara Lush is a Rita Award finalist, an Amtrak writing fellow, and a George C. Polk Award winning journalist. She was a reporter with the Associated Press, covering crime, alligators, natural disasters, and politics.

She also writes contemporary romance set in tropical locations under her real name, Tamara Lush. A fan of vintage pulp-fiction book covers, Sinatra-era jazz, and 1980s fashion, she lives with her husband and two dogs on the Gulf coast.

GIVEAWAY: I’d like to give the readers of Wicked Authors a chance to win book one in the series — on audio CD!

Readers: Tell me your favorite cozy involving dogs in the comments, and I’ll pick someone on Dec. 15!

This and that…and a #giveaway

by Barb in Maine, baking, shopping, wrapping, addressing cards and packing for Key West

A research trip

Last week my husband and I went on a research trip to central Maine. Normally, I’m writing about the Maine coast, but in the next Maine Clambake novella, coming in 2023, Julia and company take a research trip to central Maine, and for various reasons I decided Google and Wikipedia weren’t going to do it. There were things I needed to see for myself.

We started out from Portland the day after our first sticking snow. The sun was shining, which was important to the enterprise, since part of what I needed to see was the view. We drove along routes 295 and then 95, north and east, two hours to Bangor and then an hour more. I can’t tell you exactly where we went, because that would be a spoiler. I don’t expect any of you to remember the spoiler until March of 2023, but you know, once something is on the Web, it’s there forever.

We passed through Bangor, and Orono, home of the main campus of the University of Maine, and later past the signs for Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, then past the exit for the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and Baxter State Park. And kept going.

There’s a place on Route 95 where you come around a curve and across a lake, there she is: Mount Katahdin. I know our eastern mountains don’t impress our western readers, but she really is a beauty. 5269 feet, solid-looking as the granite she’s formed from, Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, just beyond the part of the trail know as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.

View of Katahdin from our secret location

I found exactly what I needed and, our mission accomplished, we had a lovely lunch at a local diner and headed home again. We were a lot closer to New Brunswick than we were to Portland at that point, but if we’d turned north toward Fort Kent, there would have been a whole lot of Maine left to go. It’s a big state by New England standards.

The giveaway

In case you missed it in my newsletter, I’m giving away one copy each of Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody, and Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman Next Door to ten lucky winners.

The giveaway ends tomorrow, so enter here. (US only, sorry. I could drive your prize to parts of Canada more cheaply than I can send it.)

If you prefer ebooks to print, or if you want a sure thing, Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody is on sale for $1.99 today only.

Have you signed up for my newsletter? You can do so here. You will receive very occasional news from me. The next thing will probably be a giveaway of Muddled Through Advance Reader Copies sometime in the spring.

Readers: Do you enjoy author newsletters? What do you like to see in them? Are you signed up for the Wickeds group newsletter? Let us know in the comments below.

A Wicked Welcome to Cynthia Kuhn

by Julie, decking the halls in Somerville

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Cynthia Kuhn to the blog so that we can all celebrate her new series!

Day by Day

How to Book a Murder is a rather cheerful book, which is surprising, all things considered. It’s a cozy mystery about Emma Starrs, a bookseller/literary event planner trying to save the family bookstore in Silvercrest, Colorado—but when a murder mystery dinner party turns murderous, she takes on the role of amateur sleuth to protect her beloved aunt, a famous author accused of the crime.

I started writing it right before we all went into quarantine. Many people took a break from work when the world shut down—and understandably so. We were overwhelmed and scared. Nothing was certain. Publishing opportunities were unclear. Some people did amazing things with their time—they found new talents and hobbies, they made and shared content, they imagined new ways of connecting with loved ones. Kudos to them! But I didn’t have that kind of energy. Initially, all I could do was spin out (oh no! what if? oh no!) and watch the news with my laptop open, cursor blinking.

There were times, watching the nonstop reporting of heartbreaking awfulness, when I longed for the distraction of writing, but it was difficult at first to focus on an imaginary cast of characters who were blithely going about their lives in a world where there was no Covid. Not to mention that cozy mysteries typically have a lighthearted tone; I certainly wasn’t feeling capable of producing that. Yet I kept coming back to the file. I started putting more words on the page. Slowly I discovered that if I stayed in the writing session, the momentum of storytelling could take over and lull me into a zone where it was okay to be lighthearted in the moment. So I kept going. Little by little. Day by day. With no sense of deadline, just a desire to create something.

There were some necessary adjustments: I couldn’t bear the thought of putting a pandemic into the book, but I also found myself removing a lot of hugs and handshakes, which didn’t feel quite right while, in the real world, we were trying to stay at least six feet apart and not even touch our own faces. At some point, I also had the sobering realization that we might never have large gatherings again, and here I’d just written (and would be trying to sell) a story about someone who threw a huge bash at her store that was attended by everyone in town. Eventually I was calmed by the idea that we’d either reach some semblance of normal where parties were back on the schedule or this book could serve as an homage to a not-too-distant past.

In any case, as the manuscript took shape, Silvercrest—where beloved books line every shelf and banter prevails—became a sort of haven. Inside the book was a positive, lighthearted space to counter the negativity that was going on outside. And now, if How to Book a Murder manages to generate a little lightness for someone else while they read it, I would be overjoyed.

How has reading, writing, creating, or doing something else lifted your spirits during the pandemic?

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BIO

Cynthia Kuhn writes the Starlit Bookshop Mysteries and the Agatha-Award-winning Lila Maclean Academic Mysteries. Her work has also appeared in Mystery Most Edible, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD, and other publications. She is past president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado and currently serves on the national board. Originally from upstate New York, she lives in Denver with her family.  For more information, please visit cynthiakuhn.net.

ABOUT HOW TO BOOK A MURDER

To help save her family’s floundering Colorado bookstore, Starlit Bookshop, newly minted Ph.D. Emma Starrs agrees to plan a mystery-themed dinner party for her wealthy, well-connected high school classmate Tabitha Baxter. It’s a delightful evening of cocktails and conjecture until Tabitha’s husband, Tip—hosting the affair in the guise of Edgar Allan Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin—winds up murdered.

In a heartbeat, Emma and her aunt Nora, a famous mystery writer, become suspects. Emma is sure the party’s over for Starlit events, until celebrated author Calliope Nightfall, whose gothic sensibilities are intrigued by the circumstances, implores the bookseller to create a Poe-themed launch event for her latest tome. Throwing a bash to die for while searching for additional clues is already enough to drive Emma stark raven mad, but another shocking crime soon reveals that Silvercrest has not yet reached the final chapter of the puzzling case. Someone in this charming artistic community has murder on the mind, and if Emma cannot outwit the killer, she and her beloved aunt will land behind bars, to walk free nevermore.

How to Book a Murder (Starlit Bookshop Mystery #1) is available now: https://bit.ly/3hvzCgw

Fact or Fictionalized? Welcome Back Guest Jenn McKinlay!

I’m so happy to welcome back Jenn McKinlay! You are going to want to pack your bags and head to Connecticut after reading this post! We are celebrating the release of the twelfth book in her wonderful Library Lover’s Mystery series!

Jenn: How delightful to be invited to visit with six of my absolute favorite mystery authors on their spectacular blog — The Wickeds. Having grown up in Connecticut, I have a special place in my heart for writers from New England. Sherry, thanks so much for inviting me.

My latest library lover’s mystery Killer Research came out last month. Yay! It’s set in the fictional town of Briar Creek, which is based on the real village of Stony Creek on the Connecticut shoreline. Why did I fictionalize it? Because town historians can be persnickety when you write about a specific place and, frankly, I didn’t want to hear the whining and complaining when I twisted the facts to suit my nefarious purposes.

Thankfully, most old towns have a rich and glorious history, which we fiction writers can sift through for the golden nuggets of a story. The village of Stony Creek and the archipelago off shore, the Thimble Islands—which I call the Thumb Islands in the series—has a delightful past which I have plundered like a pirate to plot my murder and mayhem.

Interesting characters that have inhabited the area are the novelist Ayn Rand, who spent the summer in Stony Creek in the late 1930s where she developed some key plot points of her novel The Fountainhead. Other island residents of note who have contributed, unknowingly, to my mysteries, are General Tom Thumb, President Taft, cartoonist Gary Trudeau and broadcast newsperson Jane Pauley. In fact, doubling back and speaking of pirates, Captain Kidd is said to have buried some of his treasure on one of the islands, appropriately named Money Island. And, yes, I used this in one of my stories. Of course, I did!

There is a tour boat you can take around the islands that tells all of the juicy gossip and I’ve taken it several times to get a feel for life on the islands. There are hundreds of islands, if you count the big rocks, many are inhabited and six even have electricity. At the height of their popularity, there were grocery stores, a movie theater, and even a bowling alley out on the islands. Of course the hurricane of 1938 changed all that, wiping out many of the homes. But for me the islands still offer so many possibilities for mystery and murder…bwa ha ha…ahem.

If you want to read more about this magical area, here is a fun site: https://www.ctexplored.org/cruising-the-thimble-islands/

So, how about you, Wickeds? Do you fictionalize your settings or do you stick to accurate histories of actual places? Readers, do you have a preference? Do you care if an author fictionalizes a real place or no?

Thanks so much for having me visit today! Always a pleasure!

Spring has sprung in Briar Creek, but it is not all sunshine and roses, in the newest Library Lover’s Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of One for the Books.

Spring is livening up Briar Creek after a long, cold winter, and newlyweds Lindsey and Sully could not be happier. Even though the upcoming mayoral election is getting heated, everything else in town is coming up daffodils…until a body is found.

Ms. Cole, a librarian and current candidate for town mayor, is shocked when she opens her trunk to discover a murder victim who just so happens to be a guy she dated forty years ago and the founder of the baking empire Nana’s Cookies. As the town gossip mill turns, a batch of rumors begins to circulate about Ms. Cole’s rebellious youth, which–along with being a murder suspect–threatens to ruin her life and her budding political career. But Ms. Cole is one tough cookie who will not go down without a fight.

Has the campaign for mayor turned deadly? It is up to Lindsey, Sully, and the rest of the crafternoon pals to see how the cookie crumbles and figure out who is trying to frame Ms. Cole for murder and why.

Bio: Jenn is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author of several mystery and romance series. She is also the winner of the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for romantic comedy and the Fresh Fiction award for best cozy mystery. A TEDx speaker, she is always happy to talk books, writing, reading, and the creative process to anyone who cares to listen. She lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets, and her husband’s guitars. 

Visit her website at: http://www.jennmckinlay.com

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