MYSTERY AUTHOR HEATHER AMES ON LIFE UPSTAGING ART

 

Image by Robin Olson from Pixabay

Heather Ames writes two mystery series (one with a paranormal twist,) standalone suspense, romantic suspense, and short contemporary romances. When she’s not writing, she’s traveling the world or dreaming up new adventures. She’s lived in five countries, seven states, hitchhiked around Europe, lived in a 6^th floor walk-up in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower and worked as a bartender in Madrid. During a long career in healthcare, she has seen more dead and/or mangled bodies than the average person and carried pepper spray for safety when going to treat patients in the barrios of L.A., All these experiences enrich her novels. Learn more about her and her books at her website.

A Moment of Reflection

Serendipity is a strange and frequently bizarre journey into unknown territory. Sometimes it can be called karma. Other times, just plain annoying. But it’s always one of those sudden, out-of-the-blue experiences that makes anyone, even the most cynical among us, take a moment to wonder why and how it happened.

 

I had one of those moments this week. I’d worked on a blog post I thought was almost ready to roll when life lobbed one of those curve balls that, if written into a novel, would be dismissed as plot manipulation. 

 

More than ten years ago, the transmission on my vehicle started experiencing problems. First it was one thing, which was fixed, but only a couple of weeks later, a bigger problem developed. My car went into the service department and ended up staying there two weeks. During that time, I was put into a rental at no cost while a decision was made about whether the repair would be covered by the manufacturer. While I wondered whether an extremely expensive repair was going to make me purchase a replacement, I found I really liked the rental vehicle. I also found that particular model was out of my price range, even one that had been previously owned. Luckily, the repair was covered, and when I did trade in that car, it was for one within my budget, not my fanciful daydreaming.

 

Jump ahead to two weeks ago. The vehicle I now owned suddenly stopped talking to me. When I took it in for that issue and a routine servicing, I received bad news…the cost of replacing the part was not only prohibitive, but another big-ticket problem was also discovered. I opted to fix the major oil leak, but not the silence. I figured I could always tune into a radio station on my phone, and I was assured the lack of verbal communication from the car wasn’t a safety issue. 

 

But less than a week later, a warning message notified me that my transmission had failed. This time, there was no coverage to bail me out. With two big outstanding repairs, I realized I was going to have to find a replacement. While still in shock, I searched online, then tramped around a big used car lot with a hundred choices. But yesterday the dealership called. A newer version of the vehicle I had driven for two weeks all that time ago and really liked had just been traded in. It was within my price range, and it’s now in my driveway.

If I had written this story into a plotline, I know I’d have seen raised eyebrows, even eye rolls, and heard this was too much of a coincidence. Although all books in my Ghost Shop series have magical elements, I’m sure I’d have been told this particular subplot’s outcome could only have occurred as the result of using a spell or waving a wand. Detractors would tell me to rewrite the story, leaving serendipity by the wayside.

 

Sometimes, life not only imitates art, life upstages it. Those strange little unexpected, quirky moments that whisper to us from the ethers need to be acknowledged. This was one of those moments. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has experienced a momentary chill, or a moment of déjà vu. But writing one into a book? Maybe not.

 

Tapped by Fate

A Ghost Shop Mystery, Book 1

 

A reluctant psychic inherits a spooky metaphysical shop in Salem, Oregon and teams up with a retired detective who suspects his daughter’s drowning was no accident. Dark forces lead Sunny Kingston to rely not only on her new partner, Ash Haines, but her enigmatic, fortune-telling assistant, a gargoyle more animal than mineral, and a questionably human winery owner in search of redemption. Vincente Valderos has a hint of sulphur about him and a proposition that’s difficult for Sunny and Ash to ignore. But it comes with a bigger price tag than either of them may be willing to pay.

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR CJ SHANE

Today we sit down for a chat with author C.J. Shane who writes both private investigator and cozy mysteries. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

When did you realize you wanted to write novels?

I’m a former newspaper reporter and freelance writer for magazines – all nonfiction. I’ve also written and published several nonfiction books. I became curious about writing fiction when I learned about indie publishing. I didn’t want to go through a traditional publisher for a long list of reasons. My first mystery was published late in 2017.

 

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

About a year to get the first book, Desert Jade, written and published.

 

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

Indie all the way.

 

Where do you write?

In Tucson, Arizona.

 

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

I almost always listen to jazz. For writing, I prefer jazz pianists like Keith Jarrett.

 

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

That’s an interesting question. I never, ever make any of my characters to be like a real person, either a well-known person or someone I know personally. Nor do I tell stories from my life. I do hear stories from all sorts of people about something that happened to them, and I will incorporate some parts of their stories into my plots.

 

Describe your process for naming your character?

I try to find names that are well-enough known and easily pronounced, but not really super common. For example, the main protagonist in Take Four is named Logan.

 

Real settings or fictional towns?

Always real settings. My Letty Valdez series is set in Tucson and in other parts of southern Arizona, including the Tohono O’odham reservation. The Cat Miranda series is set in Bisbee, Arizona, on the Arizona-Sonora border. The new series, Iron Horse, is set in a neighborhood in Tucson.

 

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

Any book by Ursula K. Le Guin, especially her science fiction books. Favorites are The Left Hand of Darknessand The Dispossessed. She was a brilliant, insightful writer. Logan in Take Four named his cat after the protagonist in The Dispossessed, Shevek.

 

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

People who only think about themselves and getting what they want for themselves, no matter the effects on others.

 

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

Water, food, and a dog.

 

What was the worst job you’ve ever held?

Working in a sawmill. I lasted one day.

 

Ocean or mountains? 

Desert!

 

City girl/guy or country girl/guy? 

Country, for sure.

 

What’s on the horizon for you? 

I’m an artist as well as a writer. So I’ll be painting and writing tomorrow and every day until it’s time to go over the Rainbow Bridge. 

 

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

 

Readers may be interested to know that I’m committed in my works to:

1) telling tales that provide a fun and entertaining read. One of my readers thanked me for helping her get through a hard time with her family because she had my stories to read before she went to sleep.

 

2) creating fictional characters that are not always present in fiction and who overcome various obstacles, including solving a mystery. Examples are Letty Valdez, a Mexican American/Native American private investigator and Army veteran, and Cat Miranda, an art galleriest who is bi-cultural, lives on the border and (spoiler) falls in love with an Englishman.

 

In my new Iron Horse Mysteries, I decided to play around with the conventions of cozy mysteries. The protagonist in a cozy mystery is usually a woman and an amateur sleuth. I made my protagonist a man, a fairly young man who is a single parent and father of a five-year-old boy. Logan is my amateur sleuth. As in any cozy, he calls upon a group of friends in his community to help him solve mysteries. At the same time, he does his best to be a good father to a charming handful of a boy named Charlie. Logan is also trying to figure out why he blushes every time he looks at Zoey Corban. (spoiler: Logan really likes Zoey and Zoey really likes Logan.)

 

I should mention that my mysteries typically have a romantic subplot, but the mystery always comes first.

 

Take Four

An Iron Horse Mystery, Book 1

 

Logan Reid, resident of Tucson’s Iron Horse neighborhood, joins forces with visiting Canadian Gwilym Havard to stop assaults on jazz pianist Nina Perry and her band members, all of whom have become targets of a gun-toting killer. The heat rises when the shooter goes after each band member, and when Gwilym and Nina discover they have a growing attraction for each other. This cozy mystery that includes a real love of jazz is a fast, page-turning and captivating read. Take Four is a stand-alone story and #1 in the Iron Horse Mystery series. And let’s not forget five-year-old Charlie who really, really likes ice cream.

 

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