Elizabeth Wein
For Valentine's Day, my sophomore year in college, someone left an enormous fudge heart iced with blue and red frosting outside my dorm. It came with an acrostic poem whose first letters of each line spelled out "I THINK I LOVE YOU." There was no name signed. The whole gift was anonymous.
My next-door dorm friend and I joked at the time that the fudge might be poisoned. We ate it anyway and, over the next couple of days, checked up on each other just to make sure we were ok. We were fine.
But, OVER FORTY YEARS LATER, I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO SENT THE FUDGE AND THE POEM.
My first mystery novel, The Pearl Thief, comes out next week in the USA, the UK and Canada. There's no poisoned fudge or anonymous Valentine's day candy in it, but the hint of menace that can lie in physical attraction and the meaning of gifts is certainly present in this book. It's a young adult novel set in Scotland in 1938, and is my tribute to the classic mystery writers of that time.
Whether there was malice or affection intended in my long ago Valentine's day gift, it remains and unsolved mystery in my life and maybe someday it'll spark a story!
My next-door dorm friend and I joked at the time that the fudge might be poisoned. We ate it anyway and, over the next couple of days, checked up on each other just to make sure we were ok. We were fine.
But, OVER FORTY YEARS LATER, I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO SENT THE FUDGE AND THE POEM.
My first mystery novel, The Pearl Thief, comes out next week in the USA, the UK and Canada. There's no poisoned fudge or anonymous Valentine's day candy in it, but the hint of menace that can lie in physical attraction and the meaning of gifts is certainly present in this book. It's a young adult novel set in Scotland in 1938, and is my tribute to the classic mystery writers of that time.
Whether there was malice or affection intended in my long ago Valentine's day gift, it remains and unsolved mystery in my life and maybe someday it'll spark a story!
More Answered Questions
Julia
asked
Elizabeth Wein:
The story goes from 1938-1943, with the primary action in late 1943. So that's over five years, and Maddie and Julie have to be over 20 by the end of the story. They were enlisted when they met, they'd have needed to be 18, the military wouldn't have wanted to take charge of under-age girls, they didn't boys. So why is this YA? The content isn't especially YA (not that it's R) and the characters are in their 20s.
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