Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 94

WW: What Book Kept You Up All Night to Finish?

Wickeds, I suspect we all have a long list of these books, so let us know about the most memorable ones. Is there a certain genre that keeps you up reading? Or do you get to a certain point and decide to finish it?

Jessie: I love this question, Julie! I had a torrid affair with A Prayer for Owen Meany. My first child was still quite small and I have to confess that I was not the most attentive mother in the couple of days I devoted to reading that gem! More recently, I stayed up all night to read the final Harry Potter. I went to an event the night before the release with my son who loved those books with all his heart. It was held at a music hall and the local bookstore owner read the first chapter of the novel beginning at 1:45 pm. At midnight we all were handed a copy of the book which had been part of the ticket price. My son read aloud while we drove home to continue the story. I stayed up all night to keep reading. We were both haggard ( not Hagrid), but happy, in the morning!

Sherry: I just finished an ARC of Death at Greenway by Lori Rader Day. It’s set during World War II at Agatha Christie’s home. There was more than one morning when I woke up late with dark circles under my eyes. She also got me with her book Under a Dark Sky when it came out. I was in Massachusetts for a Kensington event and stayed up until 3 am reading. The event was fun, but I was tired!

Edith: Lori definitely has the chops to keep anyone up late reading! I will stay up past my bedtime with any of Ann Cleeves’ books in any of her series. Lately I’m binge-reading Jaqueline Winspear, except I started with The Consequences of Fear, her latest Maisie Dobbs. I definitely lost sleep over that one – and it was totally worth it.

Liz: I finally got around to reading Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, which has been on my list for a while. It was so good I stayed up late two nights in a row to finish it.

Barb: I often stay up way too late finishing books. One I particularly remember is Hallie Ephron’s Come and Find Me. I remember because I wrote her a note complaining about my lack of sleep!

Julie: When I get to a certain point in a book, I have to finish. My most recent “sit up in bed so you don’t fall asleep” book was Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled. I’m not sure what took me so long to meet Mrs. Pollifax (that’s how my mother and I talk about protagonists, like they’re real and you meet them by reading the book), but I listened to the Mrs. Pollifax series this spring. I’d never read them. The last book wasn’t recorded (!), so I read it on my Kindle. A quick read, but it still kept me up way too late.

Readers, what’s the last book that kept you up late?

A Wicked Welcome to Nancy Gardner! **plus a giveaway**

I am SO THRILLED to welcome Nancy Gardner to the blog. Nancy and I have known each other for years–we served on the board of the New England chapter of SinC, always saw each other at meetings and Crime Bake, you know how it goes. I was delighted to see that her debut novel, Dream Stalker, comes out today, and invited her on the blog so that the Wickeds can help her celebrate.

Here’s a description of the book:

Can you uncover evil in another’s dreams? You can if you were born with the birthmark of a dream-walker. Lily Scott, a modern Salem witch, was born with this mark like the line of maternal ancestors that came before her. But Lily’s first adolescent attempt at dream-walking ended in disaster.

Now, decades later, her world explodes. Her husband is dead. Her daughter faces prison for the murder of a local witch. Her estranged sister, a Roman Catholic nun, struggles to protect the band of aging homeless women in her care. Lily must decide. Lily must decide: tap into her power to search for a killer or let her fear of the Dream Stalker hold her back?

Julie: Welcome to the Wickeds, and congratulations! Nancy, your sleuth, Lily Scott, is a modern Salem witch who must use her power to walk into other people’s dreams to save her daughter from being wrongfully jailed for murder. Here’s a link to the book trailer:

Book trailer for DREAM STALKER

 How did you come up with the idea for a sleuth who walks into dreams to solve crime?

Nancy: Dreams have always intrigued me from the time I was six and dreamed the Lone Ranger and Mickey Mouse took me horse-back riding on the Lone Ranger’s trusty white stallion, Silver.

Nowadays, I pay attention to dreams because they often explore hidden feelings about issues going on in my waking life. For instance, during Covid-lockdown I had a nightmare where enemy soldiers where hunting down people on the streets and I was trying to hide from them.

As much as my own dream life intrigues me, I’m more intrigued by those who’ve had dreams that portend future events. Personally, I’ve never had such a dream, but recently I asked my blog subscribers if they or someone they knew had ever had one. Of the twenty people who responded, twelve responded yes and described dreams that most often portended family tragedy, though one lucky dreamer got introductions to people who would join her family at a future date.

Though my interest in dreams started when I was six, it was a decade ago when that interest morphed into the kernel of an idea—a sleuth with the power to dream-walk. It took a number of false starts before I was finally able to nail down the details the dream-walking world.

Where did Lily get her magical dream-walking power?

Lily comes from a long maternal line of Scottish witches who were born with a firefly-shaped birthmark signaling they’d inherited the power to dream-walk in the cause of justice. Lily’s grandmother was a dream-walker, and planned to train Lily when she was old enough. Unfortunately, Lily’s grandmother died before Lily could be prepared. Then the ancestral book that guides future dream-walkers was lost, leaving Lily fearful of using her power.

I love the ancestral lineage that’s at play. T ell us about Lily’s imagined dream world.

The dream world through which Lily must travel is called Shadow Land. When she steps into it, she finds a landscape filled with rust-red sandstone peaks that are honeycombed with dream-caves in an ever-unfolding universe of sleeping dreamers.

Sleeping dreamers–what an image. Y ou mentioned that Lily is afraid of using her power? Why?

When Lily was twelve, she went against her grandmother’s wishes and dream-walked in order to help her best friend. The dream-walk ended badly, and Lily nearly lost her life when she was grabbed by the dark presence, the Stalker, who guards dreams against intruders. From that experience she decided that, when she dug into other people’s secrets, she risked bringing harm to those she loves.

What a world you’ve created, Nancy! Congratulations again. Readers, she’d love your comments on your dream life. Have you had notable dreams or nightmares or even dreams that told you about something that happened in the future? Commenters will be entered to win a copy of Dream Stalker. The U.S. winner can choose between the e-book or paperback version.

BIONancy Gardner in Salem, Massachusetts

Nancy Gardner writes cozy mysteries with a paranormal twist. The first novel in her new series, Dream Stalker, tells the story of Lily Scott, a contemporary Salem witch who walks into people’s dreams to fight crime. One reviewer called it a gripping tale of witchcraft, family loyalties, and the cost of seeking justice.

A Wicked Welcome to Tessa Arlen

I first met Tessa when we were both nominated for Best First Novel Agathas five years ago. We’ve both moved on to new series since then, and I’m delighted to welcome her to the blog to talk about her latest novel, In Royal Service to the Queen. Welcome, Tessa!

The true story behind IN ROYAL SERVICE TO THE QUEEN

by Tessa Arlen

The Royal House of Windsor has been providing headlines ever since the glamorous and charismatic King Edward VIII abdicated the British throne. He ran off to Paris with the twice divorced Wallis Simpson, who looked good in clothes and was considered by the British government as having all the appeal of a rattlesnake, leaving the second son to step into the picture.

Reserved to the point of diffidence and plagued by a speech defect, Bertie, the Duke of York, came to the British throne as King George VI in December of 1936.  The new king appeared to have little to offer except a vivacious wife with an instinct for PR and two delightful little girls: Elizabeth and Margaret.

Within three years the world was at war, and the new king with the help of his savvy wife hauled the monarchy out of the yellow press and into the searchlights of the London Blitz to become Britain’s most loved and respected monarchs.  Queen Elizabeth proved quite a force to be reckoned with when it was suggested that the king and his family take shelter in Canada. “The children won’t go without me, I won’t leave without the King, and the King will never leave,” she said to the press as she picked her way through the rubble of bombed London streets in her three inch heels and powder blue ensemble to boost the morale of homeless and bereaved East Enders.

So where were the children during these dangerous years of war? They were scurried off to Windsor Castle, twenty-five miles outside of London, with their crew of nannies and Marion Crawford, or Crawfie as the family called this young, energetic woman who had already been with the family for seven years. It was Crawfie’s loving encouragement and sense of humor (important when working for the royal family) that undoubtedly kept morale high at Windsor.  

The war ended and the eighteen year old Princess Elizabeth announced to her parents that she was in love with a young man they considered highly unsuitable for a future Queen of England.  Tall, extraordinarily handsome, and with a worryingly liberal cast of mind, Prince Philip of Greece was doubly more royal than Elizabeth but penniless and an exile from his country.

IN ROYAL SERVICE TO THE QUEEN, is Crawfie’s story. She was twenty-two when she was first employed as the Windsor’s governess: a Presbyterian Scotswoman from a humble background who put her life and marriage to the man she loved on hold to do her duty during the war years and support Elizabeth’s determination to marry Philip after it. There is very little information about Marion Crawford except a few photographs of a tall, slender, and rather shy looking young woman. She is never mentioned by the royal family—not even in the well-researched series The Crown. And the British public had never heard of her until 1950, when she wrote her book THE LITTLE PRINCESSES after she retired. Crawfie’s book is a loving and loyal account of the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. The book was immensely popular internationally, lifting Crawfie and her husband out of the straitened lives they were living in post-war London, and earned her complete banishment from the royal family and her rent free cottage on Kensington Palace grounds.

Bio

Tessa Arlen is the author of both the Lady Montfort and The Woman of WWII mystery series. She lives with her family in the Southwest where she gardens in summer and writes in winter. For more information on IN ROYAL SERVICE TO THE QUEEN and the Royal House of Windsor please visit Tessa’s website at www.tessaarlen.com

How to Find Order

Edith here, loving summer! I’m also loving that I have a new collection of short stories to dive into. Author and editor Judy Penz Sheluk is here to talk about how she decided on the order of the stories in the just-released Moonlight & Misadventure.

Take it away, Judy.

The Natural Order of Things

Before I became a magazine editor and journalist, and eventually, an author, I spent the better part of thirty years working in the corporate world as a Credit Manager and other accounting-related positions. As a result, I have a better-than-average knowledge of Excel, which came in handy when, as Senior Editor, I was managing the freelance budget for New England Antiques Journal, and I’ve used it for my own bookkeeping records. Even so, I never thought I’d use it as a tool to help me determine the order of the short stories in my Superior Shores Anthologies. But that’s exactly what I did. Even better, it works like a charm.

Let’s take my most recent multi-author anthology, Moonlight & Misadventure: 20 Stories of Mystery & Suspense, released on June 18th. Admittedly, much of the heavy lifting lies in culling down the 93 submissions to a manageable number but turning the selected stories into a cohesive collection isn’t quite as simple as it might seem on the surface. That’s where my handy-dandy spreadsheet comes in. Here’s a step-by-step look at how it works:

Set up five columns: Order (1-20), author name, title, word count, and comments.Select which story will be first and mark that as number 1 under the Order column. I spend a lot of time deciding what story will be first, because that sets the stage for the rest of the collection. In the case of Moonlight & Misadventure, I selected Joseph S. Walker’s ‘Crown Jewel,’ the story of a vinyl collector obsessed with The Beatles White Album. At 5,417 words, it’s one of the longest in the anthology, which isn’t necessarily ideal (there’s a theory that the first story should be relatively short, creating a quick intro), but the unique premise and Walker’s skill as a storyteller convinced me this one had to be the leader of the pack.Mark ‘Strawberry Moon,’ my story, as number 20, the last entry. Set in Northern Ontario, at 1,419 words, it’s the shortest in the collection.Select #19: the lead-in to the final story. Preferably long, and completely different in every way. In this case, I selected M.H. Callway’s ‘The Moon God of Broadmoor,’ the story of an eccentric middle-aged man (Thoth, the Moon God) and a civil service worker who has been charged with cleaning up a literal mess at Broadmoor Apartments.Sort the remainder of the stories by word count. In this way, I can begin to vary the order by story length, i.e., long, medium, short, long, medium, short, and so on.Of course, just sorting by length isn’t enough. That’s where my Comments column, where I’ve entered a one-sentence reminder about the content, comes in. It wouldn’t do, for example, to have two stories that take place in Hollywood appear one after the other, even though Buzz Dixon’s ‘Not a Cruel Man’ features the murder of a 1960s Hollywood producer, and Robert Weibezahl’s ‘Just Like Peg Entwistle’ takes place in 1932. It’s also important that a light-hearted or humorous story is wedged between something dark.Tinker with the order until it’s right. Sort, re-sort. Re-read the intro of each story until I’m finally satisfied it’s as good as it’s going to get.

The process took several hours over the course of three days, but it’s all about achieving balance and what should seem, to the reader, to be the natural order of things. And so, when one early reviewer wrote: “These individual stories flow so nicely together. They are notes in a phrase of music. And to tap into your moonlight theme, when I read the stories of these authors, I thought of Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune,” it truly was music to my ears.

Readers: Have you ever thought about the order of short stories in a collection? What’s your favorite piece short crime fiction (until now)?

About the book

Whether it’s vintage Hollywood, the Florida everglades, the Atlantic City boardwalk, or a farmhouse in Western Canada, the twenty authors represented in this collection of mystery and suspense interpret the overarching theme of “moonlight and misadventure” in their own inimitable style where only one thing is assured: Waxing, waning, gibbous, or full, the moon is always there, illuminating things better left in the dark.

Featuring stories by K.L. Abrahamson, Sharon Hart Addy, C.W. Blackwell, Clark Boyd, M.H. Callway, Michael A. Clark, Susan Daly, Buzz Dixon, Jeanne DuBois, Elizabeth Elwood, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, John M. Floyd, Billy Houston, Bethany Maines, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Joseph S. Walker, Robert Weibezahl, and Susan Jane Wright.

About the editor

A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreaks & Half-truths, and Moonlight & Misadventure, which she also edited.

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime National, Toronto, and Guppy Chapters, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves as Chair on the Board of Directors.

Find the Book: https://books2read.com/u/47NPkj

A Wicked Welcome to Diane Vallere

Diane Vallere is a force. Her conference packing is legend. (Follow her in Instagram, you won’t be sorry.) She has written several series, all of which are a lot of fun. She’s also a former president of Sisters in Crime. One of my favorite memories of Diane was a Malice event where she got the entire room singing a Doris Day song (Que Sera, Sera?) trying to break a record. Anyway, let’s all give Diane a Wicked Welcome.

The Much-Maligned Mistake

by Diane Vallere

Mistakes, I’m starting to believe, get a bad rap. I mean, nobody likes making mistakes, and we don’t like admitting we made mistakes, but those mistakes sometimes teach us things we didn’t know we needed to learn.

Hear me out.

In a recent, regular weekly newsletter, I included a link to my website with details about an upcoming book. I quickly learned that there was an odd capitalization in the link, which sent the link to my error page. I knew I’d be sending an (extra, unscheduled) email the following day to alert them to a new promo so I made a note to send the corrected link, assumed I could live with the shame of making a mistake for the 24 hours it would take until I fixed it, and went on with my day.

The second day, I sent the new email with the new link. And made another typo! Oh no!

I am generally okay making mistakes. (It’s not my favorite part of the being-me experience, but we’re all human, we all make mistakes, and if I held myself to a standard at which I never did anything that wasn’t perfect, I’d never do anything.) But still, there is a point at which mistakes beget more mistakes and it seems like nothing I do will never be correct again.

Please tell me that’s not just me.

In the most recent Madison Night Mystery, TEACHER’S THREAT, Madison is dealing with the repercussions of a mistake that came with a high price: her decorating business. (If you’re not familiar with Madison, she’s a decorator who specializes in mid-century design which she taught herself thanks to a lifetime of binge-watching Doris Day movies.) Madison learns that fixing her mistake is not as easy as sending an email with corrected information (or not, as the case may be), but that starting over at the ripe age of fifty-one is going to be an uphill battle.

Mistakes, by nature, are unplanned. They leave us shaking our heads, spouting curse words, reaching for the cookies (or the wine). They can sometimes be fixed easily and sometimes have repercussions that throw off our carefully planned agendas. But mistakes are life’s teachers. They force us to slow down and pay attention. They make us do things over and over until we get them right. They hold us accountable for sloppy or rushed work, or maybe even working while preoccupied.

When I first had the idea to give Madison business troubles in the previous book, I didn’t understand the ripple effect that her mistake would make into future books. All I knew at the time was she needed some complications. It turns out, she and I both thrive on complications; we have that in common.

I sometimes feel like my mission in life is to make mistakes and then keep on truckin’ like it’s no big deal. (My newsletter subscribers, who get lots of stories about my life, probably already know this about me!) I find the same behavior in most of my characters. In Madison Night’s case, her mistake led her to business school. In mine? My mistake uncovered a much bigger problem on my website which I fixed before sending another (correct! I swear!) link.

Mistakes sometimes they lead us to places we never expected to be, and sometimes—if we’re lucky—those mistakes turn out to get us exactly where we needed to go.

QUESTION: What mistakes led you to a new opportunity?

DIANE’S BIO:Diane Vallere

National bestselling author Diane Vallere writes funny and fashionable character-based mysteries. After two decades working for a top luxury retailer, she traded fashion accessories for accessories to murder. A past president of Sisters in Crime, Diane started her own detective agency at age ten and has maintained a passion for shoes, clues, and clothes ever since. Subscribe to her newsletter (if you dare!) at dianevallere.com/weekly-diva.

ABOUT TEACHER’S THREAT:

A professor murdered during office hours. A decorator enrolled in his course. Can she outsmart the killer who designed the perfect crime?

Madison Night just learned that business isn’t sexy. She modeled her decorating career on a Doris Day movie, but after losing her company in a legal battle, the local banks are unimpressed with her unique sales angle. Determined to get her MBA, she attends night school – until her professor is found dead in his office after an intensely-heated lecture. Now the only degree she can think about is murder in the first.

While the college recovers, Madison’s last hope for a loan is denied. The dean resumes the coursework himself, and Madison can’t help wondering if the curriculum holds the clues to the murder. Continuing her education is not without risk; pursuing her MBA may leave her DOA.

Can Madison’s sleuthing make the grade or will failure be a fatal lesson?

Teacher’s Threat is the eighth captivating mystery in the Madison Night series. If you like smart protagonists, classroom controversies, and Cabot Cove syndrome, you’ll love Diane Vallere’s enjoyable book.

WW: How Do Your Sleuths Celebrate Finishing a Case?

Wickeds, how do your sleuths celebrate finishing a case?

Jessie: They invariably celebrate with some form of cocktail that Beryl ably mixes up. Then Beryl lolls about doing nothing for a bit and Edwina sneaks some time in with her novel.

Edith/Maddie: In the Country Store Mysteries, you’ll often find Robbie Jordan hashing over the final details of the case at night in her country store sharing a bit of Four Roses bourbon with her gang: Aunt Adele, Lieutenant Buck, Robbie’s boyfriend Abe, and one or two of her staff members or friends.

Barb: In the Maine Clambake Mysteries that take place during the tourist season, the books usually end with a gathering at the Snowden Family Clambake of all the parties in the mystery. Sometimes it will be weeks or months later, when some of the plot threads will have played out. The books and novellas that take place in the off-season usually end with a dinner party at Julia’s mother’s house. Jacqueline often gives a toast that serves as a coda to a theme in the book.

Liz: In the Cat Cafe series, workaholic Maddie James usually celebrates with her best pal JJ, Grandpa Leo, Lucas, and her collection of cat-rescuing friends by planning new things for the cafe. Sometimes Lucas can even pry her away for dinner and a drink if things have gone particularly well at the end of a case.

Sherry: This is so interesting — first the question and then the answers. I don’t think Sarah has ever celebrated, but most of those books ends with her surrounded by her friends who have become her family. Now, I want to go back and take a look to see.

Julie: Sherry, I wrote the question and had to figure it out for my own books. In the Garden Squad series, there’s usually a wrap up scene with Lilly explaining the gaps to whoever missed them. Sometimes there’s a meal. There’s always the entire Garden Squad there. Lately I’ve been adding another wrap up scene for any other loose ends.

Readers, do you enjoy a good wrap up scene beside the mystery being solved?

Take Care of Yourself

By Liz, loving the summer weather that’s finally here

Every now and then, we all need to take it a little easy and be kind to ourselves. Whether we’ve been dealing with something that’s been tough on us, working ourselves too hard, or simply feeling the need to take a break, it’s really important to pay attention to those signs.

I used to get this message in different forums–self-help books, my social media feed, yoga classes–and intellectually I’d agree with it, but in practice, I could never really do it. I always felt guilty/lazy/insert insult here, and I would spin my wheels trying to do “productive” things, but never make much progress. Which always made me feel worse. And then I would swear I would do things differently the next time.

A couple weeks ago the opportunity arose for that whole “being kind to myself” thing. And this time, I challenged myself to put this into practice.

First, I took a week or so off from writing. I just didn’t have the energy. In theory, writing makes me feel better, but I couldn’t get my brain back into the story enough that it was flowing. So I gave myself some grace and took a break.

I focused on doing some mindless things that made me feel better. For me, that’s watching Gilmore Girls and Grace & Frankie. Both shows make me feel like I’m hanging out with friends and best of all, they make me laugh. Also, crime shows – which can help me get the juices flowing for my own writing.

I took a lot of walks with the doggies and listened to some podcasts. My current obsessions are Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things and — how cool is this — a new one with Scott Patterson, who played Luke on the Gilmore Girls. It’s called I Am All In and goes through each episode of the beloved show and features cast members and really fun stuff. It’s been so fun to listen.

I made lots of tea, journaled, and finally went back to yoga. And I did a little shopping–trying not to let that be my go-to coping strategy, but old habits die hard, I guess.

And I’m happy to say, it worked. I’m back at my laptop, working on the next Cat Cafe book. And even though I’m slogging through the middle slowly and painfully, I’m working it out and keeping at it. And it feels pretty good.

So this is my PSA – if you need to take some time to heal something, or simply take a much-needed break, do it. Listen to yourself and find the things that give you joy, even if they seem like a colossal waste of time. They’re not. It’s all part of the healing.

Readers, how do you take care of yourself? Leave a comment.

When the Sun Stood Still

Edith here, writing from a hot, summery north of Boston.

Yesterday the sun stood still. That is, it was the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. The word is from the Latin solstitium – “point at which the sun seems to stand still” (according to Etymology Online, one of my favorite word history sites).

I love marking those days during the year when the light changes. From today onward, even though temperatures will increase and everyone calls it summer, the days begin to shorten in length until September’s autumnal equinox.

In my garden, the garlic and onions mostly cease producing new green stalks and instead pour their energy into swelling into bulbs underground.

A little of Edith’s garlic crop after harvest and curing a couple of years ago.

Birds take note of day length, as do other, above-ground crops. Ancient peoples did too. Perhaps most famously, Stonehenge’s Neolithic builders seem to have made it so the sun on the summer solstice rises above the Heel stone and falls in the center. On the winter solstice it sets also perfectly centered.

Summer Solstice Sunrise over Stonehenge by Andrew Dunn, 21 June 2005,  http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/ This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

I haven’t yet visited Stonehenge, but hope to before I shed this mortal coil. Meanwhile, I’m celebrating the start of summer with several online cozy events. We listed them in the last Wickeds newsletter, but I’ll give you a quick recap:

I, along with Barb, Jessica, and a bunch of other cozy author pals, will read and schmooze at the Mystery Writers of America New England “Keeping It Cozy” virtual event on June 23, 2021 at 7:00 pm ET. Register here. I’ll celebrate my cozy mysteries with three other authors on a Bibliomystery panel, a free virtual event hosted by Houston’s Murder by the Book and Kensington Publishing on June 26 at 2 pm EDT. Register here.At “Hot Cozies, Cool Summer Reading,” twelve Kensington cozy authors, including Sherry Harris and me, share our picks for cool summer reads from 8-10:15 PM EDT. There will be giveaways in this free online Facebook event.

Back to seasons – and writing – I find it a comfort that the solstice happens every June and December, just as the spring and fall equinoxes occur without fail. To everything, its season. I’m glad I’m not a person who was scared every year that the sun would burn me up if the days didn’t start to shorten, or that I would freeze and never eat again if the days continued to shorten in December and the sun didn’t return, as ancient people feared .

The process of writing a book similarly has a season, although for me they aren’t tied to the calendar seasons. There’s always the first page, the story building in the beginning chapters, the terrible sloggy middle, the exciting ending – all of it together making the first draft. I then revise and revise and revise. With every book I send in the manuscript (and cross my fingers my editor will like it). Copyedits come in for each book, then proofs, then publication date arrives, with the flurry of promotion accompanying it. And always there’s the trepidation this will be the book no one likes.

But even if it is, I’ll write another. And another and another. I can’t NOT add one more book season to my life.

Readers: What one thing must you do? Does it have seasons?

A Wicked Welcome to Beth Kanell

Being a member of the New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime afforded me the opportunity to meet so many wonderful writers throughout the region. Beth Kanell is one of those people. I was delighted to learn that she has a book coming up later this month, and thrilled when she agreed to be on the blog.

I am living in a tent camper this week, having sold my long-time home and jumped up the road to what’s still an unfinished structure; background music here, after the morning birds, is mostly saws, drills, and contractor exclamations!

It’s a good contrast to the magic I’m contemplating as This Ardent Flame moves toward publication June 23. This is the second in my Winds of Freedom series of historical mysteries, seeing the approach to the Civil War through the eyes of Vermont teenaged girls. In 1852, to be 14 was to be on the verge of womanhood—and to contemplate big questions, like Abolition, Temperance, and votes for women. Also, if you are Alice Sanborn, to confront the wickedness of a man who beats a horse and probably does the same to humans.

Writing This Ardent Flame became magical for me as Alice and her bosom buddy Caroline, deaf from childhood and newly home to Vermont after years of boarding at the School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT, were riding the train north from Boston. Their mission at that moment was to help provide a merry family distraction around two Black men traveling with Alice’s brothers. The men were freemen, but still at risk even in New England, due to the horrors of the Fugitive Slave Law.

As the girls were “conversing” in their adapted language of American Sign Language, lip reading, and already being well attuned to each other’s thoughts, a woman paused to observe and then to ask them about the exchange of Sign. Fascinated, she assured them she’d be following up on this, then leapt off the train for her connection to Maine.

I suddenly knew who it was, before the girls were aware, of course: Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a woman who would later meet President Abraham Lincoln, who supposedly said to her, “So this is the little woman who started this big war.”

Students and teachers at the American School for the Deaf

Abashed at my own hubris in walking such an important person into the scene, I emailed one of my consultants: the historian at the American School for the Deaf. “Do you mind,” I asked with shaking typing fingers, “if Harriet Beecher Stowe walks through a scene? Could that be historic?”

The quick reply was basically: “Go for it!” Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister Catherine, it turned out, had been close friends of Alice Cogswell, who ran the school! And in Alice’s scrap book was (gulp) an unpublished poem by the famed Hartford author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin!

And that, my friends, is the magic of writing historical mysteries—that every now and then, an unexpected guest walks into the scene, and turns out to uncover a real-life revelation.

Has that happened to you recently? Have you said or written something without a lot of prior intention, only to discover a magical new connection? I hope you’ll share your own experience! And I wish you delight in reading This Ardent Flame.

BIO:

Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont, with a mountain at her back and a river at her feet. She digs into Vermont history to frame her “history-hinged” mysteries: This Ardent Flame (publication June 23), The Long Shadow (SPUR award winner in frontier fiction), and others. Her poems and historical articles scatter among regional publications and online. So do her short stories and memoir pieces. She shares her research and writing process at BethKanell.blogspot.com. A former Civil War reenactor, she is a member of both Sisters in Crime and the National Book Critics Circle. #amwriting #Vermonthistory #historicalmysteries #CivilWar #SinC #SinCNE

Genre Hopping with Tracy Clark

I’m very happy to welcome Tracy Clark for this month’s genre hopping post. Tracy’s Chicago Mysteries series centers around Cassandra Raines, a former homicide cop turned uncompromising private investigator. Her novel What You Don’t See is up for an Anthony award at Bouchercon–congratulations Tracy! The 4th book in the series, Runner, will be released on June 29.

Name (s): Tracy Clark

Genre(s): PI novel/Suspense

What drew you to the genre you write? I was inspired to put my own spin on the PI archetype by all those talented female crime writers I used to read back when I dreamed of writing a book of my own but didn’t know how. I read a lot of series, then, I still do. I like diving into the lives of strong, capable characters and seeing what makes them tick. I enjoy following them from book to book to see how they change and evolve, or don’t. I particularly enjoy Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and Paretsky’s VI Warshawski, but there were so many others–Valerie Wilson Wesley’s Tamara Hayle, Eleanor Taylor Bland’s Marti MacAllister, Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, Margaret Maron’s Sigrid Herald, Paula L. Wood’s Charlotte Justice, Robert B. Parker’s Sunny Randall. Strong female characters getting the job done. Love it. I read across genres, too. I read cozies and suspense, thrillers. I read Dickens and Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, De Maurier, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker. Everything. Part of teaching yourself to write is immersing yourself in the language of fiction. You read whatever you can get in your hands, you listen to the rhythm of the sentences, you see what works on the page, what elicits a response in you as a reader. You can then take all of that, internalize it, flip it, work with it, and figure out a way to accomplish the same effectiveness in your own writing. Reading is part pleasure, part surrender, part education. I was particularly drawn to the fictional PI because he, or she, lives way out of the box. They’re like three-year-olds high on sugar who won’t go to bed, only the PI’s got bad guys chasing her and there are bullet holes in her car door.

What sets your book apart from what is out there? There’s nothing new under the sun, isn’t that the axiom? I’m not the first to write about PIs and, luckily, won’t be the last. My main character, Cass Raines, is your typical fictional PI, following the conventions set down for that type of character – up to a point. What sets her apart, besides the fact that she’s female and Black when Philip Marlowe was neither, is that she brings to the page a certain level of compassion and empathy that maybe the classic PI of decades past didn’t have? They were tough guys, Cass is not a tough guy, but she’s no creampuff either. My books dive deep into community and place. They highlight the city of Chicago and the people who live in it—rich, poor, Black, white. Cass approaches her job with a clear understanding of how the world works for the people she’s called upon to help.

Do you write a series or standalones? Why? The Cass Raines novels are part of a series. I wrote the books as a series because I enjoyed the main character so much that I wanted to continue writing about her. I intentionally wrote her flawed and multilayered because I wanted to give myself somewhere to go beyond a handful of books. Cass has secrets she hasn’t yet divulged. She will always surprise me, I think. I’m also currently writing my first standalone. Everything about this standalone is different from the series. It’s a little frightening, but exciting too. I think every writer appreciates the opportunity to stretch and grow and learn more.

What are you currently writing? HIDE, my first standalone, will release December 2022. New characters, new problems, new everything, except location. Still Chicago. I love Chicago.

What are you reading right now? I’ve just started CHILDREN OF CHICAGO by Cynthia Pelayo. It’s great. I wish I could just sit down and read it straight through, but time is not on my side here. LOL. I read in fits and starts whenever I get a free half-hour or so.

Do you have a favorite quote or life motto? Nothing that pithy and profound. What I do have is an internal motor that gets me to my writing desk every morning at 5:30 AM. Maybe I don’t have a motto, but I do have a spirit animal. It’s the mule, and a clear representation of my pigheaded drive to get the work done. That pigheadedness also kept me writing when all those rejection letters tried to slow me down back in the day. Those people had no idea who they were dealing with. LOL.

Favorite writing space? My writing desk. I write best there because it’s my spot, but I can write other places too. I wrote over five thousand words on an airplane once. I’ve never been able to repeat that, but it was an amazing feeling when it happened. I also write in physician’s waiting rooms, car dealerships, church (just kidding), but my desk is my number one spot. I cannot write in bed. I’ll just fall asleep.

Favorite deadline snack? Twizzlers. Write a little, chew a little. Chew a little more, fix a plot hole. Perfect snack for writing. They have to be strawberry, though, and not the pull-apart variety. Old-school Twizzlers. One-pound bag. Brain food!

What do you see when you look up from writing? Window blinds. Closed, of course, or else I’d spend my writing time looking into my neighbors’ back room wondering what they’re up to. Writers are nosey, also very observant, also not above making up stories about what might be going on at the neighbors’ place.

Thank you so much for being on the blog, Tracy! Congratulations on Runner, and on Hide! Readers, I loved Tracy’s list of PI novels that inspired her. Who would you add to the list? Leave a comment–Tracy is going to do a giveaway!

Bio:

Tracy Clark, a native Chicagoan, is the author of the award-winning Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series, featuring ex-cop turned PI Cassandra Raines. An Anthony, Lefty and Shamus Award finalist, she is also the 2020 winner of the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Tracy serves on the boards of Mystery Writers of America Midwest, Sisters in Crime Chicagoland and Bouchercon national. Her fourth book, RUNNER, releases in June 2021.

Socials:

Twitter: tracypc6161

Insta: tpclark2000

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

Website: http://www.tracyclarkbooks.com