MYSTERY AUTHOR DIANNE ASCROFT ON HOW A DRY CANADIAN TOWN INSPIRED A COZY MYSTERY SERIES

Annette Public Library in Toronto where amateur sleuth Lois Stone works

Dianne Ascroft, author of the Century Cottage Cozy Mystery series and the World War II series The Yankee Years, is a Canadian who has settled in rural Northern Ireland, with her husband and an assortment of strong-willed animals. She is fascinated by the history of the places where she has lived, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys walks in the countryside and evenings in front of a roaring fire. Learn more about Dianne and her books at her website. 

Didn’t Prohibition End Almost a Century Ago?

I’m Dianne Ascroft and I write the Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries. In the books middle-aged widow Lois Stone has moved from the big city of Toronto to Fenwater, a small Canadian town, and is trying to adjust to life on her own. Out of Options is the prequel novella to the series. 

In A Timeless Celebration, the first book in the series, I referred to events in Lois’s life in the city that prompted her to move to a small town. After I released the novel, I decided I needed to write the prequel so readers could see what exactly happened in Toronto to upend Lois’s life, causing her to move to the town where the rest of the series is set. 

In Out of Options it’s 1983 and in West Toronto Junction, a unique district in Toronto where the story is set, the law that prohibits the sale of alcohol has been fiercely upheld most of the twentieth century. In fact, this law wouldn’t be revoked until the beginning of the twenty-first century. I grew up and spent my early adult years in another Toronto neighbourhood not far from this district and I’ve always been fascinated by the profound effect prohibition had on West Toronto Junction. 

Since the unusual history of West Toronto Junction intrigues me, I wanted to set the story there so I could explore the tensions that might arise in a community divided over whether to continue to uphold their ‘dry’ status or not. Although you might think that prohibition would just be a non-issue toward the end of the twentieth century, it was anything but in West Toronto Junction, and that made for an interesting platform to build a story on.

In many places throughout North America laws banning alcohol were strictly enforced during the 1920s and the decade was known as the prohibition era. In the province of Ontario, where Out of Options is set, the provincial prohibition law was revoked in 1927. So why was West Toronto Junction still dry in 1983? That’s because Canadian law allows each municipality in the country the right to ban the sale of alcohol if the majority of the residents of the area vote to do so. West Toronto Junction voted to go dry in 1904 and it still was in 1983.  

So what’s life like in a dry area in 1983? Well, there is no gazing into your loved one’s eyes over the rim of a glass of wine during an intimate restaurant dinner, men aren’t standing in front of the television screen in their neighbourhood bar cheering on their favourite sports team, and you don’t stop at the shop on your way home from work to pick up a few beers for your backyard barbecue. Meanwhile a few bus or subway stops away, in the next neighbourhood, there’s no ban on the sale of alcohol. West Toronto Junction is a tiny time warp in the midst of a modern metropolis.

The ban on the sale of alcohol doesn’t concern Lois Stone though. She’s busy at her job in the local library each day and goes home each night to her bungalow and her two calico cats. But there’s lots of other people in the neighbourhood who have very strong views on the subject. Restaurant owners want to be able to sell alcohol on their premises to increase business. And other business owners believe that trade will improve for everyone if the ban is lifted. On the opposing side, the temperance movement, which continually fights to uphold the ban, fears that without prohibition the community might sink back into the type of society that existed before the ban on alcohol was enacted in 1904: streets rife with violent crime, poverty, domestic abuse, general drunkenness and disorder. 

While Lois is aware of the struggle between the two opposing camps in the area and their fierce antagonism toward each other, the issue doesn’t really impact on her until one weekend everything changes and she has to face the issue head on. What happens next will change her life forever.

Before joining Lois in Fenwater for the rest of the series, I hope readers will enjoy discovering Lois’s life in Toronto in the pages of Out of Options as much as I enjoyed writing about it.  

Out of Option

A Century Cottage Cozy Mystery Prequel 

Middle-aged widow Lois is settling into life on her own in her neighbourhood and in the library where she works, and she is just about coping with her fear of strangers after her husband was mugged and died in the park at the end of their street. But her quiet existence is rocked when her friend and fellow local historical society researcher, Beth, arranges to meet her to reveal an exciting and shocking discovery she has made about the history of prohibition in West Toronto Junction, the last dry area in Toronto, and then goes missing before she can share her secret with Lois. There isn’t any proof that Beth is missing so the police won’t actively search for her. Only Lois and Beth’s niece Amy are convinced that Beth’s disappearance is very out of character, and they are worried about her. Where has Beth gone? Is she in danger? And, if she is, who might want to harm her and why? Lois knows she must find the answers to these questions fast if she wants to help and protect her friend. 

Out of Option

A Century Cottage Cozy Mystery Prequel

Middle-aged widow Lois is settling into life on her own in her neighbourhood and in the library where she works, and she is just about coping with her fear of strangers after her husband was mugged and died in the park at the end of their street. But her quiet existence is rocked when her friend and fellow local historical society researcher, Beth, arranges to meet her to reveal an exciting and shocking discovery she has made about the history of prohibition in West Toronto Junction, the last dry area in Toronto, and then goes missing before she can share her secret with Lois. There isn’t any proof that Beth is missing so the police won’t actively search for her. Only Lois and Beth’s niece Amy are convinced that Beth’s disappearance is very out of character, and they are worried about her. Where has Beth gone? Is she in danger? And, if she is, who might want to harm her and why? Lois knows she must find the answers to these questions fast if she wants to help and protect her friend. 

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