Will They or Won’t They? By Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell

Thanks so much, Debra for having me back to your blog.

My next Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, Murder at Cape Costumers, releases August 26th. It’s the seventh in the series of stories that take place in fictional Westham on upper Cape Cod. Bike shop owner Mac Almeida and her Cozy Capers book group sometimes never get to the cozy mystery of the week because they’re too busy investigating murder.

As I was writing it, Cape Costumers was the last book under contract. I didn’t know whether my publisher would renew the series for more books or if the seventh would be the last.

I’ve been in that position before. I wrote book three AND book five in the Local Foods Mysteries without knowing about a contract extension. Both times I left Cam Flaherty and her friends at the farm in a good position. If the series ended there, I’d be satisfied, but I didn’t burn any bridges to prevent it from continuing.

It did end with book five, and the books have been re-released as ebooks authored by Maddie Day.

Ending my seven-book Quaker Midwife Mysteries series was my business decision.

I was also in charge of deciding to finish the Country Store Mysteries at book thirteen, despite knowing how much I’d be disappointing dedicated fans of Robbie Jordan and her gang in South Lick, Indiana.

With both those series, I left everybody with all loose ends tidied up and the characters in a good place.

But with the Cozy Capers Book Group stories, I wanted the series to continue, except I didn’t know if Kensington would offer me a contract for more. 

I’m not much of a plotter, and as the book went along, I realized something big was going to happen in Mac Almeida’s personal life beyond the murder investigation. 

And it did. Once again I ended the book feeling satisfied that I could walk away from Mac and Tim and her family and the Cozy Capers book group and Mac’s Bikes if I had to.

But I didn’t have to! I was offered a contract extension.

I’m now polishing book eight, Murder at the Toy Soldier. It’s my fortieth novel, so yay, me! I’m not sure what’ll happen in book nine, but I’ll figure it out. I always do. 

Readers: Have you been able to end a job, a project, or a chapter in your life to your own satisfaction? I’ll send one commenter a copy of the new book (toward the end of the month after I get my copies).

Just in time for Halloween, a new costume shop has opened on Main Street in Westham, Massachusetts. Cape Costumers is a cut above the usual seasonal pop-up stores with their flimsy mass-produced outfits and cheap plastic masks, mostly due to co-owner Shelly, a former Broadway costume designer. But when Shelly discovers her elderly boyfriend Enzo—a Broadway star who retired to Westham—dead of unnatural causes, Halloween suddenly gets a lot scarier.

Sleuthing, Mac has found, is a lot like riding a bicycle: once you learn how, you never forget. Far from being spooked, Mac and the members of the Cozy Capers Book Group put down their weekly book selection and put their heads together to see past a bag of tricks and find a malice-making murderer who’s hiding in plain sight . . .

Maddie Day writes the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, the Cece Barton Mysteries, and the historical Dot and Amelia Mysteries. As Edith Maxwell, she writes the Agatha-Award winning historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Maxwell/Day lives north of Boston with her beau and their cat Martin, where she writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at her website and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen .

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