AN INTERVIEW WITH MYSTERY AND ROMANCE AUTHOR RHONDA BLACKHURST

Cozy mystery, romantic suspense and Hallmark-style contemporary women’s fiction author Rhonda Blackhurst enjoys hiding behind her computer screen, where she can unashamedly enjoy her addictions of dark chocolate and coffee. Learn more about her and her books at her website.

When did you realize you wanted to write novels? 

I knew I wanted to write before I could write—literally. At four years old, I scribbled with crayon on the knotty pine walls of our home. My parents weren’t impressed! I started out writing poetry but discovered novels were my true love.

 

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication? 

In 2010, I heard about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and participated for the first time. That’s when publication popped into my head. In 2012, I published my first novel, The Inheritance. From there, I was hooked.

 

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?

When I set out for publication, I made a pros and cons list for both trad and indie. The only pro on the trad side was validation, so I chose indie. Validation from my readers was more important. Ten years later, the idea of trad publishing wiggled its way into my head, so I tried it. Inn the Spirit of Murder and Inn the Dead of Winterhave been picked up by The Wild Rose Press.

 

Where do you write? 

I focus best in my home offices in Colorado and Arizona. I’ve placed window film on the windows in CO. It lets the light in, but also keeps my attention in. My desk in AZ faces the window where I see citrus and palm trees, quail, and even a frequent coyote. If my mind gets “squirrely,” I pull the shade.

 

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind? 

Silence, nature sounds, or music without lyrics.

 

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life?

I retired from the Adams County District Attorney’s Office two years ago, where I handled some off-the-wall weird cases; some were too good from which to not pull threads. When I hear a reader say, “There’s no way that could happen,” I know that yes, it can and it does.

 

Describe your process for naming your character? 

I take care when naming characters. In my latest series, the main character is Andie Rose Kaczmarek. The surname is Polish for innkeeper, of which she is both.

 

Real settings or fictional towns? 

All three series (including the duology) are set in fictional towns loosely based on real ones. I use the real names of close-by larger cities.

 

If you could have written any book (one that someone else has already written) which one would it be? Why? 

Where the Crawdads Sing. It’s absolutely brilliant!

 

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours? 

Raising my boys. There is so much I would do differently as I’ve learned more. That said, they’ve grown into fine young men I couldn’t possibly be prouder of. 

 

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?

Coffee, dark chocolate, and a box of books. (A box is considered one thing, yes?) 😊

 

City girl/guy or country girl/guy? 

As a kid, it was always my dream to be a reporter in New York City. Now I’m 100% a country girl!

 

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books?

Inn the Spirit of Murder was released July 24, 2024. Book two, Inn the Dead of Winter, is well on its way once I hit the final okay button, zipping it off to production. Book three, Inn Hallowed Ground, is well underway. I’m also plotting a standalone mystery from multiple points of view and am included in a mystery merge short story anthology, hopefully to be released by the end of this year.

 

Inn the Spirit of Murder

A Spirit Lake Mystery, Book 1

Six-year-sober life coach and skeptic, Andie Rose Kaczmarek, and her red retriever emotional support animal, Aspen, become the new owners of the surmised haunted Spirit Lake Inn in Minnesota. When Andie Rose finds a body in the inn's kitchen, she fears it will be the death of what's most important-the stellar reputation of the inn her grandparents, Grandpop and Honey, built. Aware of the risk of stress in sobriety, she gets an AA sponsor-feisty, spirited Sister Alice who, 30 years ago, traded in one habit for another. 

 

Andie Rose falls prey to a new, potentially more dangerous addiction—solving the murder. But in typical Sister Alice fashion, she transforms the danger of solving a murder into a spirited good time. Will Andie Rose flip from skeptic to believer?

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR LORIE LEWIS HAM

Photo by Lorie Lewis Ham

Today we sit down for a chat with mystery author Lorie Lewis Ham. Learn more about her and her books at her website where you’ll also find links to social media. 

When did you realize you wanted to write novels? 

I started making up short stories as soon as I could put sentences together. My first song and poem were published when I was thirteen. I’ve gone on to publish many articles, short stories, and poems throughout the years, as well as write for a local newspaper, and publish seven mystery novels.

 

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication?

My first mystery novel was published in 2000.

 

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author? 

My first four books were published by a small press, the rest I have published myself though my Kings River Life Magazine. 

 

Where do you write? 

Mostly at the dining room table these days. 

 

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?

I used to listen to Frank Sinatra but these days I prefer silence—or as much as you can have with a house full of pets.

 

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular? 

With the first series, a lot. With the new one not as much of the plots, but many of the characters are at least loosely based on someone I know in the Tower District. I do share a lot of interests with my main character.

 

Describe your process for naming your character? 

I honestly don’t have a process. Some have come from gravestones, street signs, and most just from playing around with names until something fits. 

 

Real settings or fictional towns? 

My current series is set in a slightly fictionalized version of the Tower District in Fresno, CA (the arts district there)

 

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has? 

Not sure if this qualifies, but my main character knows how to use a sword.

 

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours? 

That is tough because the choices I’ve made have made me who I am and given me the life I have now, so offhand I am not sure. Maybe insisting that my father let me buy the ’57 Chevy Bel Aire convertible that was for sale across the street for only $1000.

 

What’s your biggest pet peeve? 

People not doing their research—as example, people on podcasts not making sure they have their facts or pronunciations correct, and people contacting me about a guest post or interview who obviously have never listened to our podcast or read Kings River Life.

 

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves? 

Sherlock Holmes Collection, my pets, and a way to watch my favorite TV shows (this is assuming we are talking about objects not people). 

 

What was the worst job you’ve ever held? 

Waitress when I was pregnant.

 

Who’s your all-time favorite literary character (any genre)? Why?

Sherlock Holmes He’s quirky and smart, interesting, and loyal to those he cares about (Watson). Uses his brain, not his brawn. 

 

Ocean or mountains? 

Ocean

 

City girl/guy or country girl/guy? 

City

 

What’s on the horizon for you? 

Continuing to write more books in the Tower District Mystery series, babysitting the new grandbaby, and hopefully some travel.

 

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books? 

If you like quirky places, theatre, and unique pets, be sure to check out the Tower District Mysteries. 

 

I recommend reading my books in order. Even though the mysteries stand on their own there is character development you miss out on and a through story that will hopefully be resolved in book 3. The first book in this series is One of Us.

 

One of You

A Tower District Mystery, Book 2

 

With her life on the California Coast behind her, Roxi Carlucci is beginning to feel at home in the Tower District—the cultural oasis of Fresno, CA—where she now lives with her cousin P.I. Stephen Carlucci, her pet rat Merlin, a Pit Bull named Watson, and a black cat named Dan. She has a new entertainment podcast, works as a part-time P.I., and is helping local bookstore owner Clark Halliwell put on the first-ever Tower Halloween Mysteryfest! The brutal summer heat is gone and has been replaced by the dense tule fog—perfect for Halloween!

 

She just wishes everyone would stop calling her the “Jessica Fletcher” of the Tower District simply because she found a dead body when she first arrived. But when one of the Mysteryfest authors is found dead, she fears she jinxed herself! The Carlucci’s are hired to find the killer before they strike again. Will Mysteryfest turn into a murder fest? How is the local gossip website back, and what does it know about the death of Roxi’s parents? 

 

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AUTHOR JODE MILLMAN WRITES LEGAL THRILLERS INSPIRED BY TRUE CRIMES

Jodé Millman is the multi-award-winning author of the Queen City Crimes true-crime inspired mystery series. She’s an attorney, a reviewer for Booktrib.com, and creator of The Writer’s Law School. Jodé lives with her family in the Hudson Valley, where she is at work on her next legal thriller. Find out more about Jodé and her books at her website. 

When Murder Comes Knocking!

As a crime fiction writer, it is not very often that the gnarled hand of murder comes knocking at my front door. I don’t mean a fictional murder. I mean a real, true crime murder.

 

Wait. No, I wasn’t the intended victim... but please let me explain.

 

Before I became a crime fiction writer, I was a family law attorney. My law practice was in New York’s Hudson Valley, an idyllic region of horse farms, robber baron mansions, and a bustling river with a very dark underbelly. In 1985, my business partner and I purchased a building for our law offices, which had been abandoned and in foreclosure for many years. During the vacancy period, the porch of our brick Tudor-style building had become a gathering spot for “the ladies of the evening.” Apparently, the women found it convenient to ply their trade across the street in an isolated parking structure.

 

Unfortunately, the ladies viewed our porch as their own office and created problems for us by soliciting our clients on the way into our office. Naturally, this was embarrassing, and they were quite persistent despite our requests to “move along, please.” My partner and I constantly called the police for help, but to no avail. Gradually, one-by-one the ladies vanished. We were relieved, believing the police had prevailed. However, one day, the headlines of our local newspaper revealed the more grisly truth.

 

To our shock, a serial killer named Kendall Francois had been arrested in connection with the disappearances of eight prostitutes in the City of Poughkeepsie. He had been soliciting these women from our front steps, had taken them to his home, and no one heard from them again. His killings had occurred over a two-year period, and ultimately, the judge found him guilty of seven counts of murder. Francois was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

 

As a crime fiction writer, true crime stories like this one are manna from heaven. My front office steps served as the actual scene of the crime and formed the basis for my multi-award-winning sophomore mystery, “Hooker Avenue.”

 

In my novel, my protagonists, attorney Jessie Martin and her estranged best friend, Detective Ebony Jones, are on the hunt of a series of missing prostitutes after a severely battered woman escapes from the clutches of a deranged John. The police have not investigated the disappearances because they have occurred throughout the Hudson Valley and there appears to be no connection between the cases. As a result, the cases have grown arctic cold. Only the unreliable witness, the surviving prostitute, can lead my heroines to solve the mystery of the missing women and seek justice against the man who brutally injured her.

 

Detective Jones, haunted by the memories of her own missing aunt, and Jessie, who seeks professional redemption, find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Ebony seeks to solve the crime, and Jessie seeks to protect her client, the survivor. The two childhood friends face a balancing act of conflicting professions, which creates an insurmountable tension in their personal relationship.

 

I am proud that Hooker Avenue was a Finalist for the RWA/KOD Daphne DuMaurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, a Finalist for the Silver Falchion Award, and a winner of the Best Police Procedural Clue Award. And it is part of the Clue Award winning The Queen City Crimes series.

 

Local crimes with which I possess a connection similarly inspired the two other novels comprising the Queen City Crimes series. The Midnight Call was inspired by my high school history teacher who murdered a student, and an internationally renown drowning on the Hudson River inspired The Empty Kayak. Each true Hudson Valley crime has formed the basis for mysteries emphasizing how tragedy affects the survivors in a small community. Further, how friendship can be tested by our dedication to our professions.

 

So, for me, when crime comes knocking at my door, I always answer.

 

Hooker Avenue

A Queen City Crime Novel, Book 3

 

Being a Good Samaritan can be deadly.

 

Single mom and attorney Jessie Martin learns that lesson the hard way.

  

During a violent spring thunderstorm, Jessie discovers an unconscious woman lying in a roadside ditch and dials 911 for help. Little does she know her compassion will propel her on a collision course with her estranged best friend, Detective Ebony Jones...and one of the most shocking mysteries in the Hudson Valley. 

 

The badly beaten victim, Lissie Sexton, is a prostitute who claims she’s escaped from the clutches of a killer. She’s also a client of Jessie’s new boss, and former nemesis, Jeremy Kaplan, and fearing for Lissie’s life, he hides her away from everyone. 

 

Ebony is investigating a series of cold cases, and the missing women’s profiles bear a striking resemblance to Lissie’s. She’s willing to stake her career on the hunch that the battered sex worker is the key to solving the serial crimes. However, Jessie is the major obstacle to her investigation—she won’t give up Lissie’s location.

 

Jessie’s in a bind. She wants to help Ebony, but she can’t compromise her client, her boss, or her legal ethics.

 

To catch the killer, can Jessie and Ebony put aside their past? Can they persuade Lissie to identify her assailant before he strikes again on Hooker Avenue?

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INTERVIEW WITH DETECTIVE KATIE SCOTT FROM AUTHOR JENNIFER CHASE'S THRILLER SERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Detective Katie Scott from author Jennifer Chase’s Detective Katie Scott Thriller Series.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings?

I had a simple and quiet life where not much of anything ever happened. I liked my life, but my author sure knows how to turn up the thrills.

 

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself?

Even though I suffer from PTSD, I have the courage and perseverance to push ahead out of my comfort zone to catch killers.

 

What do you like least about yourself?

I carry a lot of baggage. I keep to myself about many things and I would like to be able to talk to my closest friends more.

 

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?

Well, there have been a few things. But the one that stands out was when the bad guy locked me and my partner in a cargo container. I don't have to tell you how scary that was.

 

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about?

No, we rarely argue. Sometimes I question whether or not I should do something, but other than that we're fine.

 

What is your greatest fear?

No being able to save a victim and not being able to work another cold case.

 

What makes you happy?

It's having my good friends and my uncle to be there for me if I need it. And my military K9 Cisco always makes me happy, especially after a bad day.

 

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?

Hmm. That's a tough one. I would have to say that my parents weren't killed in a car accident when I was a teenager. I would love to have more time with my parents especially after being in the Army and joining the police department.

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?

Most of the co-characters are pretty cool. It's the bad guys and serial killers that really bug me—to the point of anger. I get tunnel vision and I will eventually catch them.

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why?

It would be fun to trade places with Denise, my friend and co-worker; she's such a kind and wonderful person. She works as the supervisor in the records division at the sheriff's department. I love spending time with her because her temperament is opposite of mine.

 

Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog?

I respect my author. She always plans such exciting cases for me, but I remind her frequently that she needs to take some time off to relax. You can find her at her website.

 

What's next for you?

I'm not sure, but there are more cases for me to solve. My author keeps things quiet until I have to jump into action. There is another book in the series coming up soon.

The Fragile Ones

A Detective Katie Scott Thriller, Book 5

 

When the bodies of eleven and twelve-year-old sisters, Tessa and Megan, are found at the bottom of a ravine—dressed in matching pastel summer outfits, their small bodies broken from the fall—Detective Katie Scott is called to one of the most shocking and heartbreaking crime scenes of her career.

 

Carefully picking through the fragile remains, Katie makes the first of many disturbing discoveries: the girls were not biological sisters. The youngest, Megan, is a DNA match to a kidnapping case years before. The tiny number burnt into her skin the mark of a terrifying killer intent on keeping count of his collection.

 

Her PTSD from the army triggered, Katie is left reeling as she maps other missing children in the local area.Has this twisted soul found a way to stay nearby his victims? Could he be watching now as Katie hits one dead end after another? 

 

A wild storm building, matching a fiber found during the autopsy to a nearby boatyard is the break Katie needs. But when another girl goes missing, just as lightning strikes and the power goes out, Katie only has her instincts, her team and her service dog to rely on. As time runs out for Katie to finds the stolen child alive, who will become the next number on this monster’s deadly list?

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--A LOOK INTO THE WORLD OF THE GYPSY TRAVELLERS WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR SASSCER HILL

Multi-award winning author Sasscer Hill was involved in horse racing as an amateur jockey and racehorse breeder for most of her life. She sets her novels against a background of big money, gambling, and horse racing. Her latest book, a standalone mystery-thriller based on the con artists known as Irish American Travelers, is a departure from that world but not from horses. Learn more about Sasscer and her books at her website.

I’d like to tell you a little about the strange culture of the American gypsies known as Irish American Travellers.

My new novel, Travels of Quinn, a dark-cozy mystery, is based loosely on the largest clan of these people in the US, located only thirty-five minutes from my house. Some might remember a reality show called “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.” It was filmed in the town, Murphy Village, South Carolina. 

The culture of the Travellers is strange, to say the least. Children are taken out of school no later than seventh or eighth grade. Girls stay at home and are locked into marriage contracts, often when only five years old. Locally, we've seen little girls with diamond engagement rings, and they are always dressed to kill. Full makeup, and "big hair" with teasing, mousse and extensions, and sometimes even wigs. These people are extremely insular, sticking to themselves, and avoiding outsiders as a way of preserving their culture. 

Like grifters, the men and boys travel out of state, during warm weather, running home improvement swindles. Many Travellers speak a secret language, a mixture of Gaelic and English called “Cant”– useful when pulling off a scam. But many people who know them say most Travellers are honest hard-working people. 

Researching this story, I met with law enforcement officials including the head of the county detention center and a criminal defense attorney who represents Travellers. I met with the county prosecutor, and the judge for the second Judicial Circuit in South Carolina, who has presided over their cases. I was so fascinated by these people, I wanted to drive into Murphy Village and see if the stories about their McMansions and the trailers they often continue to live in were true.

People told me, “Don’t go there, it’s dangerous. They will run you out. You could even get hurt!”

 But we all know writers are crazy, so off I went with my iPhone video camera and my husband at the wheel. Murphy Village, called “Tinkers Town” in my novel, had one way in with cross streets ending in cul-de-sacs or dead ends that forced us to make awkward K turns to get out. That made me feel vulnerable, except no one bothered us. 

As promised, there were McMansions, trailers, and numerous statues of Catholic saints in the yards outside. A number of huge front doors had orange stickers on them. We couldn’t imagine what those were for. We drove slowly through the village for at least twenty minutes shooting video, and no one cared. The place was dead quiet, and I decided the people who’d uttered dire warnings didn’t know what they were talking about.

Imagine my shock the next morning when the newspaper announced that the day we’d been there, twenty-two people in Murphy Village had been arrested on fraud and racketeering charges. No wonder nobody bothered us! We just got lucky. Oh, and those orange stickers? They were forfeiture notices. The feds were confiscating these people’s homes.

Imagine if you will, the story of Quinn O’Neill, a nineteen-year-old woman who was born into this culture. Imagine she wants out, but she’s torn with indecision. Her parents signed her into a marriage contract to a young criminal she doesn’t love. But does she really want to leave everything she knows and be ostracized by her family? Is there a way she can escape?

Travels of Quinn

Born an Irish American gypsy Traveller, Quinn’s father and step-family raise her to be a con artist. Can she escape a dreaded marriage contract and a life of crime?

Jailed for theft, Quinn pays restitution by working on a horse farm. Unfamiliar with horses, her love for them surprises her. They make her hope for a better world.

Until the farm’s owner is brutally murdered and Quinn is the prime suspect.

On the run, Quinn uses every scam and con she knows to save herself. Can she find the real killer before she’s imprisoned for life or murdered because she knows too much?

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR INSPIRATION FROM GLORY WADE

Glory Wade, writes crime fiction and romance. Her debut novel, Diamonds of Fury, the first book in her Dead Husbands Never Looked So Good series, released July 5. Her other publishing credits include short stories and articles. Learn more about Glory and her books at her website.

Thank you for the opportunity to share what has inspired me. I hope that it will help some of your readers, or at least be of interest.

Newspaper and magazine articles are great sources. The Dead Husbands Never Looked So Good series was conceived from an article in Jewelers Circular Keystone magazine in the 90s. I was fascinated, if not slightly abhorred, by the idea of converting a loved one’s cremains into diamonds. Incredulity begat curiosity, which led to ordering a kit from the company in the article, and the long gestation began from short story to a series of three novels. The working title was Ashes to Diamonds, Dust to Dust, then finalized to what you now see.

My annual visit to Canada always provides fodder for settings, characters, and events. The tattered curtains in my protagonist’s childhood home date back to sighting a solitary trailer off a lonely highway in the Muskoka area. This small mobile home also morphed into an abandoned Airstream for my purposes. Long ago, on a day trip in British Columbia, my friend and I found a boulder in a stream back in the woods. That memory expanded into a scene that never took place, but developed when I put fingers to keyboard.  

Characters are a culmination of unusual people and eccentricities I see going about my daily life—at restaurants, casinos, stores, on the street, on television. The wheels of my creative side creak to life, building momentum until the bones of a character are transferred to the written page for future fleshing out. Being a bit old school, I always carry paper and several pens in my purse to jot down the gems that come to me, for cutting and polishing into diamonds of creativity (ideally brilliant ones).

Conversations, overheard or with a friend, can set off a mental ding. I mull it over, twist and mold its DNA to fit an appropriate scene or a specific character. The zygote resulting from imagination and the actual event can create an interesting scenario.

The nuisances, joys, and catastrophes of life are a constant seedbed for breathing life into my writing. It is difficult to focus on capturing the latter at the time, but the emotions can be relived and recorded after the crisis is past.

Writing prompts stimulate creativity in many people. A Writers Digest contest prompt resulted in a short story I wrote, that was published in an anthology.

In my experience, word choice is rarely addressed in the context of inspiration. Like many authors, I enjoy reading a variety of genres. Some books reveal wonderful verbiage. I note the phrase/clause/concept and “chew on” how I can massage it for my writing.

In parting, I want to add that all of our senses, including touch and smell, can inspire us, and will make our creative endeavors vibrate with life.

Happy writing!

Diamonds of Fury

Dead Husbands Never Looked So Good, Book 1

Lila Phyllips, a back-seat beer baby, has glittering aspirations to rise from her trailer trash beginning to a fairy tale life of true love and wealth—and lots of diamonds.

Kicked out by her embittered mother and abandoned by her boyfriend, 14-year old Lila goes to live with her aunt. She blossoms from a frightened teen into a woman, savvy in business, but conniving when necessary.

After not-so-sparkling experiences with the opposite sex, she opens her heart to Dale Anderson, and reveals her secrets—except one. He vows to love her forever, no matter what. When her perfect life is shattered by betrayal and death, she is torn between her fractured love for Dale and her desperate need for retribution, Lila must decide— 

Will Dale be her diamond in the rough?

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR JEANNETTE DE BEAUVOIR

Although Jeannette de Beauvoir grew up in Angers, France, her American mother kept the home well-stocked with Golden Age mystery novels, and everything that has happened since can probably be traced back to reading them at a very young age. She writes historical and mystery fiction (often combining the two.) Learn more about Jeannette and her books at her website. 

Poutine… With a Side Order of Murder!

“Poutine,” says Martine LeDuc, PR director for the city of Montréal, “is Québec’s unique contribution to the hardening of the world’s arteries: crisp French fries, mixed with cheese curds and smothered in chicken gravy. It’s horrible. It’s heavenly.”

Martine doesn’t exist in real life—she’s the protagonist of my novels Asylum and Deadly Jewels, in which she’s very busy solving murders that aren’t exactly part of her job description—but poutine very much does exist, and she’s absolutely right on both counts: it’s not the world’s healthiest food, but it’s certainly one of the most wonderful.

Remember if you will that poutine originated in Québec, a province known for long, very cold winters, and you’ll immediately see the appeal. Coming in off the snowy street to a warm café, and having a steaming bowl of something hot, filled with carbs, and delicious set in front off you… yes: that’s heavenly.

(In fact, many people believe that it originated in the 1950s in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, where a great deal of the action in Deadly Jewels takes place, and where Martine and her detective friend share another memorable meal of fish and chips.)

In fact, it’s fair to say that Martine pretty much eats her way through the mysteries she solves. Whether it’s herding her stepchildren away from fast food (but giving in when it comes to St. Hubert rotisserie chicken), enjoying her husband Ivan’s signature dish of Hungarian stew, meeting a friend over red meat in a hotel steakhouse, piling up pancakes at Chez Cora, hanging out at Schwartz’s for the smoked meat, or entertaining possible suspects over elaborate dinners at l’Orignal with fresh high-end game, fish, and oysters, Martine is always on the lookout for something to get her through the day.

She loves to eat, and she lives in the right place: Montréal has more than enough choices to keep her happy. Martine happily eats her way from quartier to quartier. And when you visit Montréal, you will, too: it’s the best French food outside of France (some would say even better); be sure to try the Breton crêperies, and eat pasta in Little Italy, smoked meats at Schwartz’s, amazing Vietnamese noodle soups in Chinatown—there’s something here for every taste. And Martine says that Montréal’s bagels (at St. Viateur rather than Fairmount) are better than New York’s!

But in both Asylum and Deadly Jewels, Martine comes back to poutine. Feeling down? Have some poutine. Feeling great? Have some poutine. There just doesn’t seem to be a time when it’s not appropriate. And there are wide variants on the theme as well, as Wikipedia points out: “Some restaurants offer poutine with such toppings as sausage, chicken, bacon, or Montreal-style smoked meat. Some poutineries even boast dozens of variations of poutine. More upscale poutine with three-pepper sauce, merguez sausage, foie gras or even caviar and truffle can be found, a pre-Millennium trend that is credited to David MacMillan of Joe Beef and Globe restaurants fame.”

Whatever your take on it, try some poutine next time you’re in Montréal… or if you can’t wait, Martine’s added her own recipe for it below. Bon appétit!

Poutine

Ingredients:

1 quart vegetable oil for frying

1 (10.25 ounce) can chicken gravy

5 medium potatoes, cut into fries

2 cups cheese curds

Heat oil in a deep fryer or deep heavy skillet to 365 degrees F. While the oil is heating, begin to warm the gravy.

Place the fries into the hot oil, and cook until light brown, about 5 minutes. Make the fries in batches if necessary to allow them room to move a little in the oil. Remove to a paper towel lined plate to drain.

Place the fries on a serving platter, and sprinkle the cheese over them. Ladle gravy over the fries and cheese, and serve immediately.

Deadly Jewels

When Martine LeDuc, publicity director for the city of Montréal, is summoned into the mayor's office, she's pleasantly surprised to find the city is due for a PR coup: a doctoral researcher at McGill University claims to have found proof that the British crown jewels were stored in Montréal during WWII.

Martine is thrilled to be part of the excavation project, until it turns out that the dig's discoveries include the skeleton of a man with diamonds in his ribcage and a hole in his skull. Is this decades-old murder leading her too far into the dangerous world of Canada’s neo-Nazi networks, or is there something going on that makes the jewels themselves deadly? Is history ever really completely buried?

With pressing personal issues crowding into her professional life, Martine needs to solve not only the puzzle of the jewels, but some more recent crimes―including another murder, a kidnapping, and the operation of an ancient cult in Montréal―and do it before the past reaches out to silence her for good.

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EDISTO BEACH, THE PERFECT GETAWAY...FOR MURDER WITH AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK

C. Hope Clark adores her South Carolina home on the lake, but sometimes it takes a beach to bring characters to life in her head. Hope is the author of The Carolina Slade Mysteries as well as the Edisto Island Mysteries. Her latest release is Edisto Jinx. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website.

Edisto Beach – the Perfect Getaway . . .  for Murder

The perfect getaway . . . we all dream about it. The place where nature soothes us like a balm, and nothing is allowed into our senses but peace and calm. Where we can write great thoughts because nothing else stands in their way.

To most of us, that means the presence of water.

The Edisto Island Mystery Series is set on exquisite and secluded Edisto Island. Located on the very edge of South Carolina, down long, long Highway 174 that crosses a huge bridge then a smaller one across the marsh, Edisto Beach faces the Atlantic Ocean with five miles of beach. Steeped in history, from the extinct Edistow Indians to the Civil War, this jingle-like area welcomes visitors, but does not welcome development. To get away, you rent someone’s house, and every single one of them is within three short, walkable blocks to the waves on one side, or the jaw-dropping beauty of the marsh. No franchises. No fast food. No pollution of urban light. Just breezes and a low, sliding roar of waves curling over the sand.

Callie Jean Morgan was a Boston detective until she finally nabbed a criminal she’d pursued for five years, and then his family killed her husband. Desperate for revenge, she ruins her career, and in an effort to salvage her son’s emotional health, she returned to South Carolina. Her parents give her the keys to the family’s vacation home on Edisto Beach. Reluctantly she retreats to the house with all its calming memories, the childhood mentor next door, the healing ebb and flow of the sea.

What a perfect setup. A horribly broken woman hoping to find herself at a setting everyone views as a generic panacea to anyone with ills to cure. Then the day she sets foot into that Eden, her childhood mentor is murdered right under her nose. She is yanked back into a world of crime, against her best judgment, risking her fragile sanity, only to also face a world of beachcombers who don’t believe crime happens at the beach.

People who vacation at Edisto Beach always return. Most wish they lived there. Many scan the blocks for real estate signs, seeking that special deal, hoping to actually buy a piece of this treasure where they can one day retire. I own a small piece on one of those blocks. This is where I go to sigh and settle, think and weave stories. It’s the consummate setting for a character whose arc takes her from lows to highs and back down again, in story after story, book after book, as she learns to fight to make her life perfect, instead of expecting the setting to do it for her.

Edisto Jinx

Is it a flesh and blood killer—or restless spirits?

According to Sophie the yoga mistress, beautiful Edisto Beach becomes a hotbed of troublemaking spirits every August. But when a visitor dies mysteriously during a beachhouse party, former big-city detective Callie Morgan and Edisto Beach police chief Mike Seabrook hunt for motives and suspects among the living. With tourists filling the beaches and local business owners anxious to squelch rumors of a murderer on the loose, Callie will need all the help she can get—especially once the killer’s attention turns toward her.

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FASHION WITH TESSA - GUEST AUTHOR TRISS STEIN

Triss Stein’s first job, as a librarian in a dozen sharply different Brooklyn communities, inspired this new series about neighborhoods and history.  Her small-town youth and urban adult years give her the perfect insider/outsider perspective. But wait! Isn’t today supposed to be a fashion post? Well, keep reading to learn what writing a murder mystery has to do with sewing. Learn more about Triss at her website. -- AP

I am not a crafty person. I’ve kindly been invited by Anastasia (so to speak) to visit her blog anyway, but in fact, I am perhaps a black hole for craft ability.   My admiration for people who have those clever hands plus a good eye is endless.

I used to sew, and could make real clothes, but  looking back, I don’t think I was very good at it.  I realize now I was too impatient to take care of the little details along the way that add up to a professional looking garment. Plus, I don’t think I had the designer’s  eye. Sometimes the combination of fabric  and style really worked. (I have fond memories of a ribbed cotton orange and yellow caftan with black braid. Well, what can I say? It was the 60’s) A lot of times my work came out a little …odd. 

I never uncovered a hidden flair for drawing or painting or pottery or quilting.  I just don’t have those clever hands. In fact, I am not even a very good typist.

It’s pretty pathetic. My mother knitted, and my dad could build or fix anything. He spent World War II fixing airplanes!  Three of my four grandparents had worked in the garment industry and could sew with expertise, no pattern needed.

What I do now is go to craft fairs for a fun weekend outing. I admire other people’s work, buy distinctive  gifts for weddings, anniversaries and new babies and sometimes jewelry for myself. I am a sucker for beautiful textiles – that’s the sewing background, perhaps – and have a large collection of scarves.  Oh, yes, and we are running out of shelf space for the hand made pottery.

But wait.  I AM a craft person, because I write.  My materials are my words instead of that hand-painted silk.  My tools are my ideas, my imagination, my research. Also my word processing program.  I am old enough to remember when cut and paste meant getting out the scissors and Elmer’s. Typing skills or not, word processing is a miracle.

I do a lot of rewriting  and for me, it often feels like carpentry or furniture building. I find the story by writing it, and there’s never much of a blueprint. It’s more like a sketch on a napkin. The process is similar to building a house by starting with the bathroom tiles and the curtains. Then, I have to go back and pour that foundation, get the framework up, make sure the wiring connects.  In the mystery game, we call it creating complex characters, building suspense, planting false leads, using subplots to misdirect the reader.

And all the time, I am putting to work the lessons I ignored when I learned to sew.  Baste first. Press the seams open as I go. Measure the hem length all around. Reinforce the collars and cuffs.  Only I do it with words instead of fabric and my hands are on the keyboard instead of the cutting table and the sewing machine.

In Brooklyn Bones, a crime of the past comes much too close to home. Helping with renovation, Erica Donato’s teen-age daughter Chris finds a skeleton behind a wall in their crumbling Park Slope home. Erica – young widow, over-age history Ph.D candidate, mother of a teen, product of blue-collar Brooklyn – and Chris are both drawn into the mystery when they learn this was an unknown teen-age girl, hidden there within living memory. It’s dangerous research; there are people who know the whole story and will stop at nothing to make sure it stays buried forever. 

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