New Bernie O’Dea audiobook, reader’s companion on their way

Happy 2025 all! And I’ve I said every year since 2000, where the hell is my jetpack? Remember back when the 2000s seemed so far away? And we figured by 2000 we’d all have jetpacks? Anyway, that’s not what I’m writing about today.

A few weeks ago, we had a group post about what we have coming up in 2025. At the time I mentioned that readers can look for my fifth Bernadette “Bernie” O’Dea mystery, coming out in the fall. Title NEWS FROM AWAY. More info to come.

I wasn’t ready yet to unveil my two other projects, both of which I’m pretty excited about. Now I am!

Number 1 is the DYING FOR NEWS audio book, which is in production and will be out next month. I’ve once again teamed up with awesome narrator Trudi Knoedler, who also narrated the previous three books. When I first auditioned narrators, I asked for someone who sounded like a trusted friend telling a story. Trudi nails it. If you want info on how to turn your books into audio, hit up friend of Maine Crime Writers Dale Phillips. He’s awesome and he got me on my way with mine all those years ago.

The audio version of DYING FOR NEWS will be out in February, with a great cover by Tim Barber of Dissect Designs

I was also thrilled to have Tim Barber, of Dissect Designs, do an audio cover for me. [My previous three audio books still have the covers they were originally published with, when my print books were published by my former publisher.] Tim designed the covers for the reissue of my first three Bernie O’Dea print and ebooks books last year, as well as DYING FOR NEWS, and will, of course be designing NEWS FROM AWAY.

Trudi lives in Oregon and Tim lives in London, England. Equidistant in both directions from my home in Central Maine. Isn’t 2025 awesome? Who needs a jet pack when authors like us can partner with creative people 3,000 miles away that help make our books as good as they can be? Although a jetpack still would be fun.

Project 2 is something that’s been germinating in my brain since summer and has finally burst forth. I do a lot of, well, “busy work” as I write my books. Hand-drawing maps, writing twice as much content as I’ll use, just so I understand where the book is going and what characters are doing.  As a consequence, I have a lot of scenes, bios and all sorts of stuff that will never get before readers’ eyes. Until now.

My map of Redimere, Maine.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be publishing the Bernie O’Dea Reader’s Companion: A Guide for Fans of the Bernadette “Bernie” O’Dea Mystery Series — that’s the working title. I’ve created maps of my fictional town, Redimere, Maine, as well as bigger maps; am buffing up the character bios I’ve created; am doing a brief list of recurring characters; FAQs; timeline; book synopses; and a 60-plus page “vignette” made of outtake scenes and stuff I wrote that also I had no intention of putting in a book, but wrote because I wanted to get to the writing. If that makes sense.

Making a map of a fictional town is a slippery slope. I’ve done some by hand for myself, just so I can figure out where things are in the plot. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do one that would be publicly available, and paint myself into a corner. But my obsession with doing it won out. I explored online the map-making software that fantasy gamers and people like that use, but it seemed complicated and free trials were few. Then I was like, what the hell, the map doesn’t have to be fancy. I’ll just do it on Word. So I did. I also splurged on a simple Maine map on iStock, so I could do another map where certain things in the books happen. That was fun, too! And I did a third map, a more regional one than the downtown one, to show where fictional things just out of town are.

The book is aimed at people who have read at least the first three books and want to know more, and will also have some spoiler alerts, though I’ve tried to keep specifics that will spoil the books at a minimum. I wanted the outtakes in included to have some structure, and ended up doing kind of a mini-book that is vignette-like. There’s a situation that happens right before my third book that a lot of readers have asked me about. Spoiler alert! When my two main characters, Bernie and Pete are briefly broken up — Bernie thinks it’s permanent and has a fling with Pete’s best friend, Sandy, the fire chief. Since it happens between books, and is only referred to but not detailed in any big way, with only the necessary information included in the books, I get a lot of questions about what exactly happened. Now all will be revealed. Well, not all. It’s probably PG-14 rated. Bernie takes most of the hits from my readers on the whole thing, as she does for most things. Pete tends to get a lot of breaks from readers. I’m hoping this will help Bernie out a little. All three of them are good people. No one was “wrong” or “bad.” Including Sandy, the fire chief, who’s a living doll.

But I digress.

One thing I discovered this year when my fourth book came out, is how very very many people there are out there who read my books and are invested in my characters and who want to talk to me about them and know more. That was another motivation for the reader’s companion.

For now, at least, it’s only going to be a print publication. I don’t want to deal with the ebook issues with the maps. That doesn’t mean, though, I won’t do an ebook version int the future.

An author acquaintance I was talking to about this project recently said, “Gee, seems like a lot of work. Are you going to make any money on it?” [Don’t worry! He is NOT a Maine Crime Writer]. My response is the same one I have whenever the M word comes up in author discussions. Money is great. I love it. I sure would love more so I didn’t have to drive a car with 245,000 miles and clutch that’s about to go. But that’s not why I write or do projects like my reader’s companion or audio books. I’m not saying I’d turn down any money anyone wanted to give me. What I’m saying is, though, I love to write. I love my books. I love the world I’ve created and I love being immersed in it. I really love the fact other people do, too. I feel compelled to share it. It is a joy in life to be doing this stuff. I can’t imagine what life would be like without it. So, yeah, it is worth it.

For all my sarcasm and everything else, I’m an optimistic person. I always feel like something good is going to happen if we just stay persistent and do what we can. That just doesn’t go for books, but the world around us. At the end of your life, you want to be able to say you did what you could, right? My character, Bernie O’Dea, frequently says, when the chips are down, “Let’s move forward, like a shark.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Whether it’s writing books and getting them to readers, or saving democracy, let’s do it, folks. We can, even without jetpacks.