I had a lot of fun last week when my character, Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-a, not Marsha) Banks was interviewed on Anastasia Pollock’s blog. (She’s the character of author Lois Winston.)
Click HERE to pop over and check out what Marcia had to say about me and her latest adventure in Lord of the Fleas (plus what’s coming up for her).
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
This year, we would like to honor three groups: our fallen warriors, our first responders/ healthcare workers, and our readers.
First, we’d like to recognize all those who have given their all to defend our country! It is hard to even find words (and I’m a writer so words are my thing) to express our deepest appreciation for their sacrifice. Where would the U.S. be today without these selfless warriors?
And this year, we would like to include our gratitude to first responders and health care workers, who are on the “front lines” of our current war against coronavirus. Your fortitude and courage are amazing and awe-inspiring! Thank you so much for all that you are doing.
Also, today we’d like to honor our readers, and explore a bit the symbiotic relationship between writers and readers.
We ran a contest for free books recently, and, as you can imagine, we got a lot of responses. It was gratifying to connect with our readers through those comments. But one comment in particular touched my heart.
I love this blog. The authors are treating us like friends. That makes us very happy. Thank you so much.
comment from Joyce W.
That comment got me thinking about the symbiotic relationship between writers and readers.
Obviously readers need authors to produce the books for them to read.
photo by Dan Dumitriu on Unsplash
But authors need readers as well, and not just because of the “trying to make a living” thing. Authors, of course, want to be paid for their efforts … but I think if I were making a million dollars a year in book sales, and I never heard from a single reader, I would get pretty discouraged after a while.
The pleasure of receiving an email from a reader is right up there with the thrill of holding one of my new books in my hands for the first time. Yes, I love writing, and I love seeing my work blossom during the editing process into something worthy of sharing with the world.
But that sharing it with others is a huge part of the satisfaction of being a writer.
Early on in my writing journey, I went to my first writers’ conference. An established author asked if I was a writer.
When I stumbled over my answer, he said, “Do you write?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are a writer.”
“But I’m not published yet.”
“If you write, you’re a writer.”
I ran into him the next day, toward the end of the conference, and I said to him, “I’ve been thinking about what you said. Yes, I am a writer. And you know what? I’m going to get published, one way or another. I have to. Otherwise, my characters will die a slow death inside my computer.”
And that is the essence of the symbiotic relationship between writers and readers.
photo by Kourosh Qaffari RrhhzitYizg on Unsplash.com
You, the readers, keep our characters alive.
We create characters out of thin air, but they become real to us. We have a relationship with them.
Without readers, though, they would die.
Every time a reader opens a book, they breathe life again into the characters in that story.
So thank you, Readers! We love you!
We couldn’t do this without you. And to show our appreciation, we have new releases!
What could be more innocent than a country flea market?
When service dog trainer Marcia Banks takes up temporary residence with her best friend in Williston, Florida, her goals are simple: spoil her toddler godchildren and train her newest dog’s veteran owner, a vendor at a local flea market.
Ha, the universe has other plans. When the owner of the flea market is found dead and her client is a prime suspect, she discovers that nothing is as it seems—from the flea market owner himself to the ornate dragonhead cane he gave to her client.
The only true innocent seems to be her guileless client. But when he shares a confidence that puts her in a double bind with local law enforcement, she’s not sure she can even trust him. Despite her promises to her new husband, the only way out of her no-win dilemma seems to be to find the real killer.
The flea market, however, is hiding more secrets…and one of them could be deadly.
Just $2.99 for a limited time, so grab a copy quick!
Tea and Tarot room owner Abigail Beanblossom is used to running interference for her socially-awkward former boss, tech billionaire Razzzor. So when he invites her on a stakeout to investigate the sale of counterfeit wine from his latest venture – an upscale winery – she barrels on in. But the two stumble across the corpse of a wine merchant, and new wine in old bottles is now the least of their problems.
Good thing amateur detectives Abigail and her partner, tarot reader Hyperion Night, have a nose for murder. Their investigation takes them from elegant wine cellars to chic tea parties on the California coast. But just as the investigation starts to get its legs, Abigail discovers there’s more than wine at the bottom of this crime.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
We periodically introduce our readers to other mystery writers whom they might find interesting. Because as we all know, there is no such thing as too many books to read, especially in these strange times when distraction is a very good thing.
Today, please help us welcome Nancy Nau Sullivan. Nancy has led an interesting life and has many stories to tell…
Nancy Nau Sullivan began writing wavy lines at age six, thinking it was the beginning of her first novel.
It wasn’t. But she didn’t stop writing. After eight years of newspaper work in high school and college, she contributed to editorial posts at New York magazines and for newspapers throughout the Midwest.
Nancy grew up outside Chicago but often visited Anna Maria Island, Florida. She returned there with her family and wrote an award-winning memoir, The Last Cadillac-––a harrowing adventure of travel, health issues, and adolescent angst, with a hurricane thrown in for good measure.
She went back to the Florida setting for her first cozy mystery, Saving Tuna Street, creating the fictional Santa Maria Island. Nancy now lives, for the most part, in Northwest Indiana…or anywhere near water.
Kassandra Lamb (on behalf of the misterio gang): We like to start with an open-ended, “tell us about yourself” question. What two or three things do you feel people need to know in order to understand who you are?
Nancy Nau Sullivan: I must have been born with a bitty little suitcase in my hand, because I can’t sit still—except to write. I was born in San Francisco, but grew up in Lansing, Illinois, in the steel belt outside Chicago. I moved 19 times with my ex-husband, a West Pointer. Over the years, I’ve lived in Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Germany, the South, and now I’m back home in Indiana near the kids.
This peripatetic life has influenced my writing. My new series has an international bent, starting in Santa Maria Island, Florida, a fictional adaptation of Anna Maria Island, my favorite place in the world.
Kass: What subgenre of mysteries do you write?
Nancy: The Blanche Murninghan mystery series is somewhere between traditional and cozy, mostly the latter. The first book, Saving Tuna Street (due out June 23, 2020), takes place on Santa Maria Island when the quiet little island comes under threat from land-grabbing goons. They want to turn it into a mecca of McMansions. Blanche, who lives in a cabin on the beach, is having none of it—especially when her suspicions tell her the goons are also murderers, kidnappers, and a front for drug-runners.
I picked Santa Maria (fictional Anna Maria Island) because it’s the beloved setting for my memoir, The Last Cadillac. I’m inspired by setting. Blanche will go on to Mexico next, then Ireland, Spain, Argentina, and maybe Vietnam.
Kass: What was your favorite book/author as a child? Why was it your favorite?
I loved the Brooklyn “family” and their customs, and I can still see the maple syrup coming out of those trees in the “big woods.”
Later, I read all of Nancy Drew in her little motor car, finding lost jewels, with a doting father in the background.
Kass: I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books as a kid. So, where are you in your writing career? Tell us a little about your stories.
Nancy: I worked at newspapers all through high school and college, and in New York City publishing following graduation, then went back to my first love, newspapers, for almost 20 years. Along the way, I was always diddling with stories. But it wasn’t until the 1990s, when my life exploded, that I wrote my first book, The Last Cadillac, a memoir of high family drama.
I joined the Peace Corp in 2013, and with no TV (the writer’s enemy), I started writing short stories and sending them out for publication. I think that was a springboard to getting the memoir published in 2016. I went back to that setting to write Saving Tuna Street, my first mystery due out in June.
I’ve also written a novel about a woman who teaches in a boys’ prison and gets mixed up in their escape plan. The Boys of Alpha Block will be out next year. It’s based on my own teaching experience in a boys’ prison in Florida for five years. They did not escape, but they darn near did everything else in this novel.
Kass: What do you find to be the most fun and/or the most difficult part of the writing process—first draft, editing, researching? Why is that?
Nancy: I dread the first draft, and I don’t know why. Once I sit down to write it, it usually flows. I figure if the writing gets boring, then the reader will be bored, so I stop. Take a walk or mop the kitchen floor (I have a very clean kitchen floor).
I am pretty much of a pantser, but I can see the rough arc of the story when I sit down to write. Once I’m in, I don’t want to get out until it’s done. And I love to edit and research.
I’m an old newspaper type with a master’s in journalism, so I guess it’s coded somewhere in my brain to edit and research, or the writing just won’t work.
Journalism requires tight writing and deadlines and checking the facts. The practice has helped because I can see where to cut and fill in later, how long it’s going to take (always longer), and where to pace.
Kass: What’s the oddest and/or most difficult thing you ever had to research?
Nancy: How to make a mummy!
In the No. 2 mystery in the Blanche Murninghan series, Down Mexico Way, which should be out in the summer of 2021, Blanche discovers that a mummy in a museum exhibit is not “real,” but was more recently manufactured.
I had to research ancient methods, and it was fascinating. You should have seen what turned up on my news feed!
Kass: In Saving Tuna Street, your first mystery, what was your favorite (or hardest to write) scene?
Nancy: Those tense scenes involving the kidnapping were the most fun and the hardest. The sentences had to be short and snappy, and I had to put myself in the moment. Fortunately, I’ve never been kidnapped, but I do know fear, and so I channeled it. A friend who was once mugged also helped, and she picked apart that first draft.
At a conference I attended once, Lee Child said: The action scenes have to be longer, and the descriptive, backstory, more mundane scenes have to be on the shorter side (I paraphrase. Sorry, Lee.)
Kass: In Saving Tuna Street, what changed the most from the first draft to the last?
Path to the beach on Anna Maria Island
Nancy: The main character. The first time I wrote her up, an editor told me she was “flat.” How dismaying.
So I let that puppy out of the cage. Pretty soon she was using her anger as a tool and throwing back shots of tequila with her friend (Blanche is a bit of a drinker). I also got a good look at her appearance—She lives on the beach, and her T-shirt is stiff with salt and the only footwear she has are sandals.
That is a drag when you get kidnapped and have to kick your way out of a van.
Kass: And last of all, what question do you wish interviewers would ask you that they usually don’t? What is your answer to that question?
Nancy: Are you in it for the money?
And the answer is HAHAHAHAHA. What money?
Kass: LOL…Thank you so much, Nancy, for joining us today.
Readers, please check out her debut novel, Saving Tuna Street, now available for preorder! (see below) It’s due to be released by Light Messages on June 23, 2020.
Nancy will hang out for a while to answer any questions you may have. And you can also connect with her on Twitter (@NauSullivan), Facebook, Instagram and via her website.
Blanche “Bang” Murninghan is a part-time journalist with writer’s block and a penchant for walking the beach on her beloved Santa Maria Island. When land-grabbing tycoons arrive from Chicago and threaten to buy up Tuna Street, including her beachfront cottage, her seemingly idyllic life begins to unravel. Blanche finds herself in a tailspin, flabbergasted that so many things can go so wrong, so fast.
When her dear friend is found murdered in the parking lot of the marina, Blanche begins digging into his death. With her friends Liza and Haasi by her side—the latter a mysterious, tiny Native American with glossy braids and dark eyes, who seems to appear just when she’s needed most—Blanche stumbles into a pit of greed, murder, drug running, and kidnapping. She has survived her fair share of storms on Santa Maria Island, but this one might just be her last.
Tea and Tarot room owner Abigail Beanblossom is used to running interference for her socially-awkward former boss, tech billionaire Razzzor. So when he invites her on a stakeout to investigate the sale of counterfeit wine from his latest venture – an upscale winery – she barrels on in. But the two stumble across the corpse of a wine merchant, and new wine in old bottles is now the least of their problems.
Good thing amateur detectives Abigail and her partner, tarot reader Hyperion Night, have a nose for murder. Their investigation takes them from elegant wine cellars to chic tea parties on the California coast. But just as the investigation starts to get its legs, Abigail discovers there’s more than wine at the bottom of this crime…
What could be more innocent than a country flea market?
When service dog trainer Marcia Banks takes up temporary residence with her best friend in Williston, Florida, her goals are simple: spoil her toddler godchildren and train her newest dog’s veteran owner, a vendor at a local flea market.
Ha, the universe has other plans. When the owner of the flea market is found dead and her client is a prime suspect, she discovers that nothing is as it seems—from the flea market owner himself, to the ornate dragonhead cane he gave to her client, to the beautiful but not very bright young woman whom her client has a crush on.
The only true innocent in the bunch seems to be her guileless client. But when he shares a confidence that puts her in a double bind with local law enforcement, she’s not sure she can even trust him.
Despite her promises to her new husband, the only way out of her no-win dilemma seems to be to find the real killer. The flea market, however, is hiding more secrets, and at least one of them could be deadly.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
I recently released my first audio book. And I’m wishing I’d done this a lot sooner.
There are so many cool things about audio books, for readers and authors.
So K.B. Owen and I put our heads together and came up with 6 reasons why audio books rock!
1 – Boredom-buster!
K.B. here — There are so many boring things we do every day that can now be much less so. In one survey, 73% of those who listen to audio books do so while commuting, 33% while doing housework, and 25% while exercising. That treadmill is boring no longer!
2 – Road trip stimulant
Kass again — I take a lot of road trips, and normally I love to drive. But on a long trip, it can get boring, and even dangerous if that boredom starts to lull me to sleep. A stimulating audio book keeps me awake and makes the time really fly by. (Just keep your eye on the gas gauge; I almost ran out of gas one time when I was engrossed in an audio book.)
3 – Convenience
K.B. again — I love the convenience of audio books. They are easy to load and listen to on your tablet or smartphone. According to the Wall Street Journal, audio books are now a $1.2 billion industry, which means more of our fave books are being made into audio than ever before. Audio book companies are even developing original stories, that have never been in print or digital form before.
4 – No reading involved
Our author, Vinnie Hansen, has a story in this anthology. Check out it out HERE
Kass — Audio books can open up the world of the written word to people who have difficulty reading. This may be because of vision problems, dyslexia, or other issues that have impaired the person’s ability to become comfortable with reading (or to continue reading in old age).
But now, that doesn’t mean such folks can’t enjoy fiction stories and learn cool stuff from non-fiction books.
Now they can listen instead!
5 – Versatile
K.B. — With Amazon’s WhisperSync technology (and hopefully other vendors will be developing something similar soon), it’s easy to switch between reading an ebook on your Kindle, tablet or phone, then continuing to listen to the story on audio as you jump in the car to run errands or have to wash the dishes.
6 – Stories come to life
Both of us — Great voice talent brings a book to life in a way that you may not have imagined. For us, just the experience of reviewing the audio chapters of our own books gave us a fun new perspective on our characters!
It’s hard to describe how much difference it makes hearing a story versus reading it. It’s so much easier to become immersed in the story, for one thing, and you feel like you have actually met the characters.
For example, here’s a sample of my new audio book. My narrator, Amy Deuchler, did such a great job. She really nailed the character of my protagonist, Marcia Banks.
Here are the links for To Kill A Labrador audio book!
And here’s K.B.’s latest audio book, Beloved and Unseemly, A Concordia Wells Mystery #6:
A stolen blueprint, a dead body, and wedding bells….
Change is in the air at Hartford Women’s College in the fall of 1898. Renowned inventor Peter Sanbourne—working on Project Blue Arrow for the Navy—heads the school’s new engineering program, and literature professor Concordia Wells prepares to leave to marry David Bradley.
The new routine soon goes awry when a bludgeoned body—clutching a torn scrap of the only blueprint for Blue Arrow—is discovered on the property Concordia and David were planning to call home.
To unravel the mystery that stands between them and their new life together, Concordia must navigate deadly pranks, dark secrets, and long-simmering grudges that threaten to tear apart her beloved school and leave behind an unseemly trail of bodies.
K.B. Owen has taught college English for nearly two decades at universities in Connecticut and Washington, DC, and holds a doctorate in 19th century British literature. A mystery lover ever since she can remember, she drew upon her teaching experiences in creating her amateur sleuth, Professor Concordia Wells…and from that series came lady Pinkerton Penelope Hamilton. There are now seven books in the Concordia Wells mystery series thus far, and three novellas in the Penelope Hamilton series.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 😉
I recently turned 66. My mind is amazed by that. It feels more like it’s 35.
But more and more my mind gets daily reminders from my aging body—it may THINK it’s still relatively young, but oh boy…
Years ago, a friend of mine, on the occasion of her 50th birthday, said, “How did my 25-year-old mind get stuck in this 50-year-old body?” That totally captures how I’m feeling these days.
Here are six things that absolutely boggle that young-thinking mind of mine regarding my aging body:
This sign has a whole different meaning for me and my aging body! (image from photo by Rob Farrow CC-BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons)
1. I waddle for the first few steps when I stand up after sitting for a while.
It takes a moment or two for my hip joints to remember what they’re supposed to do.
I sometimes consciously try not to waddle. I can do that by walking very stiffly with my legs sort of pinched together. But as soon as I stop doing that, guess what… I waddle for a few steps.
2. I can’t say “Hold, please,” when I hear the call of nature.
Used to be if I was in the middle of something—writing a scene, feeding the dog, fixing my lunch—I could wait until I was done that task before heading for the bathroom.
Nope, not anymore. Old lady bladders do not wait!
3. I can’t eat rich food without paying the price.
(photo by Robspinella CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, Wikimedia Commons)
And the definition of rich food is getting narrower. A few weeks ago, We went out to one of the nicer restaurants in town to celebrate our anniversary. I had Caesar salad, filet mignon (almost melted in my mouth!), and mashed potatoes, for Pete’s sake! And for dessert, cinnamon beignets with dark chocolate dip.
Even the beignets weren’t all that rich. They were these light little cinnamon pastries, mostly air really, and I dipped just a corner in the chocolate. Delish!
I left the restaurant feeling pleasantly full and pleased with myself that I’d resisted the much richer dishes on the menu.
Yeah, about that… To avoid going into TMI territory, let’s just say that my system was not happy and it let me know about it. (I decided the steak and dessert were still worth it.)
And speaking of the dessert…
4. I can’t do ANY caffeine after 5ish if I want to sleep that night.
Sleep becomes more fragile as we age, the multiple reasons for insomnia increasing geometrically with every half a decade over 45.
Used to be I couldn’t do coffee or strong hot tea (the only way I like it) after 5 p.m. Then I could only have them in the mornings. But I could drink iced tea or colas well into the evening.
Then it was one cup of hot tea in the a.m. and iced tea until 6ish, but I could still eat chocolate in the evenings.
Yeah, you guessed it. Even that little bit of dark chocolate in the dip was too much. I was up every hour or so all night. (Again, still worth it!)
5. When I look in the mirror, my mother is staring back at me.
I love this pic of my mom laughing over a gag gift at my sister-in-law’s baby shower. She’s 63 here.
I’ve looked more like my father’s side of the family for most of my adulthood. That was a good thing. They’re slimmer with higher metabolic rates than my mother’s clan.
Also, I don’t really remember what my mother looked like when I was a kid. Your mom is just your mom. You don’t actually LOOK at her.
So most of my memories of my mother’s appearance are from my teen years and beyond, when she was middle-aged… and beyond.
And now I am “beyond” and I look a lot like she did at my age. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my mom. But I do not want to BE her.
6. I have no reserve tank, energy-wise. When I’m done, I’m done.
I used to be a very active person. I still am, I guess, “for my age.” I walk or do Zumba almost every day.
My cute new sideboard that it took three days to put together. The mind was willing, but the aging body, not so much.
But I also have five chronic health issues that cause fatigue. (Yup, five!) I’ve learned to pace myself, and I’m pretty good at it, most of the time. But there are times when I start something I can’t finish.
I bought a new piece of furniture recently. It came in pieces. It wasn’t that hard to put together, but I had to do it over three days, a couple of hours a day.
Okay, other oldsters out there, what aspects of your aging body tend to startle your still-youngish mind?
AND we have a new release for you, from Kirsten Weiss.
This is a really fun read!! And Kirsten will be posting later in the month with more about UFO sightings and such.
Planet of the Grapes, A Doyle Cozy Mystery (A Wits’ End Mystery #2)
Aliens, fairies and murder, oh, my!
In small-town Doyle, California, UFO abductions are a budding tourist attraction. So when Susan Witsend brings a UFO festival to town, she’s ready for some well-deserved time in the sun.
What she gets instead is the corpse of a UFO conspiracy theorist, brained with a bottle of local wine.
Susan may be the owner of a UFO-themed B&B, but she doesn’t wish on stars to get what she wants. She’s a woman with a planner. Plan A) Milk the UFO festival for all it’s worth. Plan B) Stop lusting after her best friend turned security consultant, Arsen Holiday.
But murder isn’t the only thing threatening Susan’s best-laid plans. Beset by alien protestors, aging nudists, and hidden secrets at every turn, Susan’s nearing her wits’ end. And now Plan C is to stay on the good side of a grumpy local sheriff.
Susan may not have a clue, but she knows she wants a certain security consultant at her side when the killer goes supernova.
Planet of the Grapes is book 2 in the Wits’ End series of cozy mystery novels. If you like laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, you’ll like Planet of the Grapes. Buy the book to start this hilarious caper today! Breakfast recipes at the back of the book.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
Not all of us started out as cozy writers, but now all of the misterio press authors have written at least some cozies.
I first stuck my toe in the cozy pond with my Kate on Vacation series that parallels my regular Kate Huntington series. (I have a new release! See below.) This started out as a fun way to give my readers a light Kate snack while they were waiting (sometimes not all that patiently) for me to finish the next full-length novel/meal.
What I discovered was that I really enjoy writing cozies. They’re fun!
But there are some challenges involved when one switches over from writing regular mysteries (which I’m still doing) to writing cozies.
Here are 6 differences between this subgenre and the main genre of mysteries, and the challenges cozies pose for authors.
1. The main character is an amateur sleuth.
This may also be the case in regular mysteries, but it’s a requirement in cozies. No police officers or private investigators allowed, except as significant others and/or secondary characters. But the amateur sleuth has to do the bulk of the sleuthing, or at least has to figure out whodunnit around the same time as law enforcement does.
photo by Stéphane Magnenat CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, Wikimeida Commons
The challenge here is coming up with plausible reasons why an average citizen would keep stumbling over corpses. In police procedurals or private detective stories, this is not a problem.
And there has to be a good reason why the amateur sleuth gets and stays involved in crime investigations, even when the local law enforcement folks are often telling him/her to butt out.
The stakes have to be high for the main character personally.
2. Something – the setting, the main character’s vocation, etc. – is out of the ordinary.
Cozy readers want a peek into places and activities that they themselves might have never experienced. So the settings may be small towns or exotic locations, and the characters may knit, or give dance lessons, or train dogs for a living.
There are a lot of cozies that involve food, in which the main character owns a restaurant or is a caterer or writes a baking blog. But something has to be unusual, in a way that makes the story more fun and interesting.
A beach on Maui (photo from our Hawaii vacation last fall)
For my Kate on Vacation novellas, this means going to the interesting places I will have Kate visit, so that I can include a lot of local color in the story and get the details right (it’s a tough job and all that 😀 ).
For my new cozy series, the Marcia Banks and Buddy mysteries, it was a little more challenging. I had to invent a small town and give it an odd-ball history.
Fortunately, in Florida, that’s not hard to do. It’s a bit of an oddball state. I created a now-defunct tourist trap, an alligator farm, and the town that sprang up around it, which is now struggling to avoid ghost-town status.
3. At least some of the secondary characters are quirky.
Wouldn’t this make a great setting for a cozy? (photo by beige photos CC-BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
So I had to populate Mayfair, Florida, with some unusual neighbors, like the eccentric elderly owner of the Mayfair Motel. And with each book, I have to come up with new ways to develop their quirkiness and yet not make them totally unbelievable. I’m finding this challenging but also fun.
In my new Kate on Vacation book, I didn’t have to invent a quirky character. Instead I borrowed one from JoAnn Bassett, our author emeritus (with her permission, of course). Her protagonist, Pali Moon isn’t that much of an oddball–just a little bit of one–but she definitely has a penchant for ending up in oddball situations.
4. Crimes happen, usually murder, but minimal on-screen violence and no gory descriptions.
I’m fine with this. Despite the fact that I write crime fiction, I’m a pacifist at heart, so I’m just as happy to have most of the violence happen off-screen. The challenge comes with the final confrontation scene that is a requirement in the mystery genre, including cozies. The protagonist and/or someone near and dear has to be in jeopardy, and usually comes face to face with the bad guy(s) or gal(s).
One needs to make this scene scary and exciting without too much gore and with no one actually dropping dead in front of the protagonist’s (and reader’s) eyes.
5. Sex is off-screen.
You can elude to it, but nothing more than a few fully-clothed, preliminary kisses are allowed on screen.
This is my one major regret with writing cozies. Because I can do a wicked sex scene!
6. No cursing.
Nothing stronger than a “darn” or “heck.” I usually avoid cursing as much as I can in my books anyway, because I know it’s a turn off for some readers, but I am also trying to write realistic characters.
It can be hard to come up with ways for characters to express strong emotions without cursing (’cause after all, bad things are happening) and without sounding totally dorky.
The work-around in my new series was that my main character, Marcia Banks, comes from a religious family–her father was an Episcopal priest (and yes, they marry and have kids).
With the Kate on Vacation stories, this is tougher, because she does cuss some in the main series. So in these cozy stories, I sometimes have her not finishing a sentence:
“What the…” Kate trailed off, shocked speechless for once.
How about you? Which do you prefer to read, regular mysteries or cozies? Or some of both? Mystery writers, have you written cozies? What did you find most challenging about them?
It’s an awkward situation at best, and a deadly one at worst.
Days before Kate Huntington is scheduled to leave for her niece’s wedding on Maui, she receives a frantic call from said niece. Amy’s mother–Kate’s rather difficult sister-in-law–is at it again, alienating the groom’s family and even the wedding planner. Can Aunt Kate come early and run interference?
Soon after her arrival, Kate discovers that young women are going missing on the island, and Amy’s maid of honor is hanging out with a notorious local player. Is he involved in the disappearances?
Hawaii is supposed to be a relaxing paradise, but Aunt Kate is kept busy locating a new wedding planner (the delightful Pali Moon), refereeing between Amy and her mother, and chasing down errant wedding party members… Oh, and facing off with a psychopath.
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